Better Wear and Tear

[stark sphinx]

Game allows restoring everything to pristine condition with very little work, but realistically you can not restore a wire indefinitely, eventually it will break. You can not restore a door to perfect state by adding a worn out motor. There is no preventive maintenance.

Suggestion:

1. Make components' state count. Make that brand new motor matter over picking up and using most damaged ones first as repair material.

2. Make some forms of maintenance require resources even for non-damaged machinery. Ex: mechanical and pneumatic devices wear down slower when well oiled and need regular oiling.

3. Add some kind of age/fatigue/wear stat that limits maximum durability. It detracts from maximum durability, slowly goes down with damage and maintenance, but maintenance slows decrease down. If player wants to restore an old wall section to newer condition, player will have to intentionally trigger component replacement.

4. Preventive maintenance. Vents and RCS wear down slower if you clean them and ensure they are properly fastened. Electronic devices have less issues if you reboot them often (and more issues if they lose power unexpectedly).

5. Percussive maintenance. Instead of having a binary working/not working state, please consider more states and gradual transitions between states.

[misty current]

for nr 1, I like the idea.

My 2 cents: currently, when repairing with components you always arrive at the same slightly repaired state, and still need to restore it to full condition.
Make the component state influence how well repaired the part becomes, influencing how much time you'll need to spend to restore it fully.

[crimson socket]

For metals, well, I study metals - it depends on the metal, and the form of the metal. The metal objects in this game also have such an absurdly high rate of wear that realism is out the window before we even get to one. I've little opinion on mechanical components, but you can absolutely repair many metal objects, such as, for example, a boat hull or other only semi-structural steel, to effectively new condition with a proper TIG welder, the right rod, and some grinding. In fact, one can readily reinforce it with the same tools.

[stark sphinx]

such as, for example, a boat hull or other only semi-structural steel
True. You can restore a boat's hull. But spaceship hull rarely is just a metal plate. If you look at IIS's module, it's multiple insulation types, Kevlar, ceramics (nextel), and support structure. Primary structure material is aluminum, and generally that is a lot harder to restore than steel. There are only so many times Kevlar and ceramics can take hits without getting permanently compromised. Walls in this game contain multiple materials so they must have layers or composites (I'm surprised developers didn't double down on that, like 'this hull is the lightest but insulation and penetration protection are non existent. This one have excellent penetration resistance for it's low mass, but far harder to maintain').

[crimson socket]

Aluminum, with the proper tools and/or in a low oxygen environment, is generally quite easy to restore; oftentimes, welders who consider it difficult do so because they're effectively treating it like steel, which is a recipe for naught but woe. Also, is there a place where it states the hulls are ceramic and/or kevlar?

[copper canopy]

Maybe then we need 3 states or repair:

1. green, which shows fully working but needs that maintenance to buff to 100% otherwise works perfectly.

2. Orange, its started to make funny sounds, not work at good efficiency, has leaks etc. Needs actual repair with the little bits to bring it to green state.

3. Red, is not working but still can be repaired using both bits and parts. May also need specialised tools for more complex items such as freaking nuclear reactors, nav station, etc.

4. Black, is proper busted and isn't going to work again. This is the "well, it was a thruster but now it's a twisted pipe with a big hole in it".

Then add in the parts used to repair only fix up partly if they are not in food condition already.

I always thought the game worked better if you had to make decisions on what junk to take and what to leave behind as not worth the effort of fixing. Game right now, everything is good in a couple of minutes.

[misty current]

there's kevlar in the hull yes, you need it for repair and get it from deconstructing hull pieces

[stark sphinx]

You are sometimes restoring walls in pure oxygen environment.
Welding in vacuum would have it's own challenges (unless situation permits some form of cold-welding), after job is done heat has no where to go sans into metal itself which, as I understand it, exasperates some of the problems you get in comparison to welding aluminum in atmosphere.
Not Kevlar, but there is carbon fiber in otranaught's hulls.

[misty current]

ah yea sorry

[stark sphinx]

The metal objects in this game also have such an absurdly high rate of wear
And an absurdly high speed of restoration. Sadly in 'restoration speed and wear' part of the game realism isn't even worth considering, But I think both are too fast even from gameplay perspective. Slower wear, construction and restoration of hulls would make those hulls actually valuable instead of everyone making their own.

[crimson socket]

Quite frankly, pure oxygen environments should be disallowed by the game in general; they are absurdly dangerous. That said, depending on the welding system, you're effectively directing a stream of gas - something like argon, for example - over the electrode and weld area. The one I have most commonly used is TIG, or tungsten intert gas, though there are others. This is critical in aluminum welding, and failure to do so by those used to welding iron alloys is one of the reasons it's considered "hard", though TIG of the sort used with aluminum is also used with iron alloys. This allows the welded area to avoid rapid oxidation. The easier area in which to weld - by far - based on experience would be the aluminum in vacuum. If you are sloppy, you will run into issues regarding thermal transfer, yes, but aluminum is actually fairly commonly worked in vaccuum for welds where particular characteristics are needed; my experience is with scientific equipment, but I believe that it is also used, for example, in aerospace.

Alternative systems include things like laser welding - commonly used only on very small materials - which would likewise need a shielding gas or vacuum. Pure aluminum powder, as well as titanium powder, incidentally, may be so readily welded by lasers in a vacuum that one may have a system involving this powder, targeted lasers, and thereby directly print metal; such systems are used in the aerospace industry, though I believe only for prototyping at this time due to quality control.

[crimson socket]

Your arguments effectively hinge on granularity and "realism", E.G., that it's unrealistic to restore an object to full "health" from a damaged state; ergo, if we are removing realism from the equation, why bother?

[stark sphinx]

I meant specifically 'realism' for wear/restoration speed. Because if it gets 'realistic', wear will stop entirely from player's perspective.
But how restoration and wear function is another topic entirely. In this case realism doesn't detract from gameplay but instead adds variety and depth.

[stark sphinx]

stream of gas - something like argon
In such case it would count as a use of resources. Gas in this case isn't infinite. And without that you can do only a patch job that will fail fast. Besides that welding requires skills.

[crimson socket]

Or, simply use the surrounding vacuum. Or nitrogen, which is in the game. Having done welding of these materials, it's not nearly so hard as you seem to think.

[crimson socket]

In effect, what you're asking for is realism when you want it, but realism not to be used to counter your arguments - thus, it's not worth debating, as the terms of debate are uneven. I hope you enjoy your thread.

[stark sphinx]

What I ask for is not exactly realism, but variety, depth. Realism is just a good source of ideas.
May be my example with hull was not the best due to lack of knowledge, but generally from realism perspective you can not just restore things to 'brand new', not without use of extra resources, skills or replacement parts.

[stark sphinx]

I agree that there are not enough states, but feels like having just 4 distinct states is still too limiting. "I though this pump is in working condition, but turns out electronics is dead" And one man's trash is another man's treasure. If your skills are not enough to restore something, someone with skills can, so there probably should be a gradual transition.

This is the "well, it was a thruster but now it's a twisted pipe with a big hole in it"
That can be interesting, if instead of an unrecognizable scrap pile you have something you can still strip for hopefully functional parts

[copper canopy]

One reason pure O2 is allowed is because Apollo missions were pure O2 to save on weight.

[copper canopy]

I think a game like this needs to be abstracted enough so there's not an overwhelming complexity to repairs.
If they did that, then you'd want items to be composed of a mix of mechanical, electrical, fusion, computing, structure elements that you can easily see wear of each. But I think it might be too much UI to deal with.

[misty current]

don't forget, the game needs to remain fun first znd foremost as well

[stark sphinx]

I think a game like this needs to be abstracted enough so there's not an overwhelming complexity to repairs.
Agree, but complexity of state is not complexity of repairs. At least not directly.

Example: Your character Joe is skilled with electrical systems and decent with a welder. Battery's tooltip says "Will need parts, Joe is confident in his ability to repair this" as long as said battery is not completely wrecked. You selected a mildly damaged crate "Joe thinks he should be able to restore this, but might need some parts", select a punctured cryo pump "Unless it is better than it looks, this is beyond your crew's skill".

[stark sphinx]

And once character gets near, Battery: "Will need 3 parts, Joe is confident in his ability to repair this"; Crate: "Minor damage. Joe is confident he can to restore this"; Pump: "This is beyond your crew's skill to diagnose and repair"

But that's just an example, since game is so far salvaging focused, UI can also be something like Zomboid's car and clothes repair without fearing for complexity.