The repair bot

Joshua · Post by **Joshua** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 5:43 pm

I'm just wondering, How does the repair bot work?
also, what are command centers?

JustLove · Post by **JustLove** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 4:26 am

I am not sure if I am right. It seems like there is a prob. of repair a single component each turn. This prob. depend on the number of repair bot. I usually put just 1 repair bot. So if my ship is badly damaged and I am lucky enough to escape the combat, I could just wait for a while until everything is repaired. (Note that at most 1 component can be repair each turn, so it's almost useless to put 5+ repair bot on a ship)

As for command center, it is something that you need in every ship. Whenever all your command center is destroyed, you die. (So it's worthwhile to put a couple command center in the ship you use, so it doesn't die too easily from the powerup plectron)

Post by **Sean OConnor** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 9:02 am

Joshua wrote:I'm just wondering, How does the repair bot work?

When End Turn is clicked on each repair bot in a ship stands a 1 in 10 chance of repairing something. I put a limit in that only a maximum of 4 repair bots can work each turn to stop people buying dozens of repair bots per ship!

Steve! · Post by **Steve!** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 6:07 pm

hmmmm how useful are repair bots anyway. Armour is cheaper and lighter and four times more effective at taking damage so to compensate, in theory, a repair bot would have to repair 4 things, this would take approximatly 40 turns!

On mass they are effective but also expensive and heavy, currently i cant decide if i should load the rear of my ships with 4 repair or 4 stealth, or a combination of both. At this level in the game stealth is less useful as I have sturdy rear armour and there are loads more baddies to spot me, but are the repair bots worth my while?

So any opinions? Are repair bots worth the cash and the weight?

Also, can repair bots repair civilians?

BoxZone_Author · Post by **BoxZone_Author** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 11:32 pm

Sean,

How about a 'Smart repairbot' perhaps more expensive that the standard one. This one would focus on repairing the things you most need. So if you had los all your right shields but still had 1/2 your left shields it would never repair a left shield until the right shields were at 50%. Also focusing on things you are down to none of (like missile launchers). I have been caught occasionally with no missile launcheres and baddly wanted one repaired so I could get back in the fight.

BZA

McLauren · Post by **McLauren** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 3:50 am

Yea it was funny my engines were crapped and I had no guns, and people were taking pot shots at me left and right, and what does the RB fix? The radars! LOL!

Old Man Johnson · Post by **Old Man Johnson** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:50 am

Wait, so there's no advantage to having more than 4 repair bots?

OrigamiGuy · Post by **OrigamiGuy** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:16 am

I'm a little confused too.

Sean O'Connor wrote:I put a limit in that only a maximum of 4 repair bots can work each turn...

That's a little ambiguous. It means one of two things:

Repair bots after the first four do absolutely nothing, no matter what the first four bots roll on their 1d10 chance to repair.
Every repair bot gets to roll a 1 out of 10, but only 4 things will get repaired per turn no matter how many get a "hit". (i.e. A ship has ten repair bots, and through some miracle of good fortune six of them get a good repair roll, only four items will get repaired.)

Which one is it? If it's option1, then no one should ever have more than 4 bots unless they want backup against damage or something. If it's option 2, then having tons of bots is still good, but there's a point of diminishing returns.

(Either way, I don't think it'll make much difference. The repair bots will still spend all four of their repair chances getting the radars back up, even though all the rear engines are gone and only one launcher is left and the ship is turning at 12 degrees per turn, and all the while they're snickering at us, hoping the ship explodes, killing their Evil Human Masters and giving them a chance to escape into space.)

Post by **Sean OConnor** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:12 am

It's:

1. Repair bots after the first four do absolutely nothing, no matter what the first four bots roll on their 1d10 chance to repair.

OrigamiGuy · Post by **OrigamiGuy** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:57 pm

Gotcha. I'll be sure to design ships accordingly.

Now, if they could just know WHAT to repair...

BoxZone_Author · Post by **BoxZone_Author** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 9:31 pm

Sean,

If only four repair bots do anything why not impose this restriction on your designs (as you do for missile launchers).

I supposed there is a slight advantage to having more than four in case you get some of them destroyed

Admiral Slim · Post by **Admiral Slim** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 2:44 am

I'm for more control over my repair bot. If I have a repair bot installed, I want to direct that bot to repair specific items on my ship, until that object is fixed or until I tell it to work on something else. I also want an estimate from the repair bot on how long it will take to fix different objects(important for tactical decisions). I like the repair bot, but in future versions it would be nice to have greater influence over it's operation.

BoxZone_Author · Post by **BoxZone_Author** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:15 pm

Sean,

I am highly confident that the '1 in 10 chance' of a repair bot repairing something does not apply to shields, only to 'components'. Are you willing to share the rule for repairing shields?

Also I have a suspicion that shield repair (even though much less frequent than 10% of the time per bot) may have a problem in that once all the right hand side shields are repaired, no other shields are repaired! Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

Fusion_power · Post by **Fusion_power** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:59 am

Shields are not repaired at all. Watch carefully and you will see that components inside the shields are repaired. The shields never are. Sean was afraid a ship that could repair its shields would be too invulnerable. His fix was to limit the repair bot to only inner components.

You should have seen a bug in one of the early betas. The repair bots would repair damaged engines but the ship would never speed back up. It was a minor bug where a variable had to be incremented to correspond to the number of engines in the ship. Of course, the current version ironed out almost all of the glitches!

What I sometimes wish the repair bots could do is generate more missiles!

What about it Sean, you game to consider that one?

Fusion

BoxZone_Author · Post by **BoxZone_Author** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:15 am

I'm sure I've seen the repair bot repair shields (only occasionally though). I'll watch very closely and report...

Sean O'Connor's Games

The repair bot

The repair bot

Re: The repair bot