I asked myself a very important question just now: “Why do all of my ships look second-hand?”
Then I thought: wouldn’t it be super cool to be able to scrub down your ships to make them all look pretty and new and shiny!! And it makes sense that taking care of your ships would make them perform better than dirty, battle-scarred ships that probably have a reactor leak.
So with this I suggest that “Ship Maintenence” becomes a factor of battle.
There would be multiple parts of a ship that could get damaged, so there would be multiple things that you need to fix!
Each part of the ship would have different states of disrepair that require different levels of focus to fix.
Cockpit/Bridge : “Arguably the most important part of any space-fairing vessel. While comfort and style are always top-priority, it is also nice to be able to breathe.”
Perfect: +15% radar range, -0.5s lock-on time, and every 15 seconds all negative effects are cleared.
Good: +7% radar range and -0.25s lock-on time.
Stock: No stat change.
Cracked: -5% radar range and +0.25s lock-on time.
Damaged: -10% radar range, +0.5s lock-on time, your ship loses control when hull durability falls below 33%.
Destroyed: Cannot battle with this ship until it is repaired.
Engines : “I am speed. I am velocity. I am a huge pain in the ass when I stop working.”
Perfect: +15% max speed, -10% afterburner energy draw and +10% maneuvering speed.
Good: +10% max speed, -5% afterburner energy draw and +5% maneuvering speed.
Stock: No stat change.
Cracked: -7% max speed, +5% afterburner energy draw, and -10% maneuvering speed.
Damaged: -10% max speed, +10% afterburner energy draw, and 500pts/s thermal damage per second with afterburners.
Destroyed: Cannot battle with this ship until it is repaired.
Weapons : “I have this problem with my gun; it hits what I aim it at. Too bad my aim isn’t that great.”
Perfect: +10% damage, +10% max range, +5% RoF, and 1% chance for critical shots to bypass the shields.
Good: +5% damage, +3% max range, +2% RoF.
Stock: No stat change.
Cracked: -7% damage, -5% RoF.
Damaged: -10% damage, -7% RoF, would-be critical hits detonate before firing, damaging you.
Destroyed: Weapons are exchanged for drone thermal blasters while in battle until repaired.
Hull : “As a former astro-mechanic, I can tell you for a fact that the insides of any given spaceship are not, I repeat, NOT bullet-proof.”
Perfect: +25pts resistance for all hull damage and a 1% chance to deflect any damage.
Good: +18pts resistance for all hull damage.
Stock: No stat change.
Cracked: -10pts resistance for all hull damage.
Damaged: -20pts resistance for all hull damage and critical hull hits have a 1% chance to multiply damage by 1000%.
Destroyed: Cannot battle with this ship until it is repaired.
Capacitor : “Of all the things that could break in a spaceship, the reactor is probably the last thing that I’d want to have break around me or my station.”
Perfect: +20% energy capacity, +15% energy regeneration speed, multipurpose modules take no energy to use.
Good: +10% energy capacity, +8% energy regeneration speed.
Stock: No stat change.
Cracked: -7% energy capacity, -3% energy regeneration speed.
Damaged: -12% energy capacity, -6% energy regeneration speed, ship leaks radiation and deals 300 thermal damage to itself and everything within 250m every second.
Destroyed: -25% energy capacity, -50% energy regeneration speed, ship has 1% chance of detonating in a massive nuclear explosion upon any critical hull hit.
Shield generator : “As much as I love looking at pretty space rocks, I’d rather they not get too close to the glass.”
Perfect: +25pts resistance for all shield damage and a 1% chance to deflect any stacked damage in the form of a 1 second pulsed laser aimed at the crosshairs.
Good: +18pts resistance for all shield damage.
Stock: No stat change.
Cracked: -10pts resistance for all shield damage.
Damaged: -20pts resistance for all shield damage and shield gets 25% smaller and exposes some of the hull.
Destroyed: The ship has no shield until repaired.
So I’d bet now you’re asking “so how do we fix these things?” And the answer may surprise you: not credits! All you need is some good old fashioned elbow-grease. And by elbow grease I mean for the maintenence drone that you control in the hangar to fix your ships. You can fly it around your ship to polish up the hull and cockpit, tune and repair body items and electronics, and repair damaged weaponry! You might even find a battle trophy here and there that you might want to keep. Or sell. Who knows.
And yes as with all manual things you can probably pay for someone else to take care of your ships, but when it comes to my lovely shiny beauties, it’s all me.
For hull problems, you’d need to either fill in gashes with liquid metal, buff out scratches, or simply re-apply a coat of paint.
For capacitor problems, you’ll be replacing components, soldering wires back together, realigning conduits, or just putting back a missing bolt or two.
For shield problems, you’ll be doing about the same stuff as with the capacitor. Maybe some new parts here, a mended wire there, or just pushing a modulator back in to position.
For engine problems, you’ll be getting good at working pipes and gas tanks. Make sure that you connect all the correct conduits together or you could potentially cause more problems than before!
For cockpit problems, it could be as simple as wiping some blood off the glass, or replacing major control components.
And for weapons, it’s usually just fixing up scrapes and bumps and making sure that the ammo and power get where they need to be.