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Author Topic: Salvage & Recovery takes time  (Read 18891 times)

Morbo513

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #45 on: May 10, 2017, 03:56:15 PM »

I guess I would be happy if salvaging took time if there were hostile fleets or patrols around but not 'out in the wild'

I think the problem with making it situational is that it'd tip you off to nearby fleets even if you cant see them, something the transponder already does when turned off.
Yeah, this is the main issue with having that approach, it'd be the equivalent of "You cannot fast travel when enemies are nearby". Plus it's inconsistent with what happens as that time passes.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #46 on: May 10, 2017, 04:30:33 PM »

I mean that really depends on the radius that it detects enemies at. You currently (or at least in the update I have) cannot salvage while enemies are nearby, so the function is already kinda in the game. Obviously if it detected enemies way outside of your vision, that would be bad.

I just really want to avoid sitting in an empty system clicking and waiting for several minutes. It's just such a boring game mechanic in that sense. It might make some play styles more interesting, but it will also hurt other play styles noticeably. I think there is a middle ground somewhere, I'm trying to find it.

 
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TrashMan

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #47 on: May 16, 2017, 12:16:10 AM »

salvage is primarily a mechanic to make the early game easier. The game really needed that and it's doing its job well. 
In my opinion, it's doing that job too well. I love the "hobo phase" of any game (See: STALKER, Jagged Alliance, Fallout 1/2, even the Bethryos) that starts you out with *** nothing, more or less against the world, because it becomes extremely rewarding once you finally get out of it and gain some staying power in a fight, yet you still maintain your fragility. Right now, salvage trivialises this part of the game. I went from a Wolf and the salvage ship whose name I forget, to 18 Wolves, 2 Onslaughts, an Odyssey, a Mora, 2 Ventures, and a faction's worth of other salvaged cruisers, destroyers, frigates and utility vessels, and weapons, crew and supplies held in reserve in the space of five in-game years which, accounting for the distances you travel to outlying sectors, isn't very long. So even if this exceedingly powerful fleet of mine gets wiped out, I can come back with one that's hardly any less powerful. And for those ships, I didn't pay a penny; the cost of the crew, supplies, fuel and heavy machinery invested in gaining them is offset by salvaging irrecoverable derelicts and debris fields, and even further so by the huge payoffs of analysis missions and planetary surveys.
In the previous version, even with Nex and SS and other mods, you can spend double that time in the game using the same fleet you started off with and hitting a proverbial brick wall over and over, by scarcity of the good ships you want to spend your hard-earned cash on, and the fact you had to fight for every ship you gain without paying money.
 By all means, having it as an option would be nice since this seems to be pretty divisive (But probably wouldn't happen); if not, I can imagine Nexerelin adding this since it already does the same for mining, planetary invasions etc.

I can see a tweak here that might do the trick: - have ship restoration take time. Salvaging restores a ship to minimum working condition. CR won't increase beyond a minimal working amount, and hull can't be repaired above a certain percentage.
Such a ship has to be brought to a shipyard where you will pay for it's restoriation. It would take a few in-game weeks, during which it would be removed from your fleet.
Once completed, it would wait for you in the storage of the planet/shipyard.
 
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Morbo513

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #48 on: May 16, 2017, 04:24:04 AM »

I'm doing a different playthrough now with Dassault-Mikoyan and the Imperium installed. Corsica is a free ship factory with the constant fights between the Hegemony and Imperium, and I've only invested points in the one industry skill that increases the chance of recoverability this time around. There needs to be more difficulty to salvaging in general; a time delay doesn't completely solve the problem, but it would disincentivise me from sitting next to an ongoing battle and hoovering up all the derelicts that fell out. What I described in an earlier post would go a lot further towards doing so, ie fleets noticing when you're been hovering around like a vulture and taking issue with it (or, as previously mentioned, declaring any derelict within systems containing a market of theirs as their property). It could be played with a bit - you could intentionally pick up those fresh derelicts generated from a battle to turn them over to whichever fleet comes out on top, giving you a reputation bonus or financial reward. Some, depending on faction alignment or maybe even randomness could regard such an action as infringement on their property regardless of your intentions, damaging relations in addition to receipt of a demand to turn it over, which would be appropriate as default behaviour if AI fleets performed salvage themselves.


I can see a tweak here that might do the trick: - have ship restoration take time. Salvaging restores a ship to minimum working condition. CR won't increase beyond a minimal working amount, and hull can't be repaired above a certain percentage.
Such a ship has to be brought to a shipyard where you will pay for it's restoriation. It would take a few in-game weeks, during which it would be removed from your fleet.
Once completed, it would wait for you in the storage of the planet/shipyard.
 
I like this idea, I mentioned something similar when I was talking about salvage/recovery pre-0.8.
 
Quote
Recovery of any vessel, captured enemy or friendly, would necessitate the investment of heavy machinery and supplies to restore its basic functions, as well as time. If these are unavailable, they require a tug to tow them to a port that has the necessary facilities, or conversion of one of your operable ships into a tug with the Monofilament Cable hullmod, expending CR and supplies. If you don't have anything that can serve as a tug, it must be restored on the spot - this could be another utility for the construction rig, speeding up and possibly diminishing the costs of the process.

As you can see, it's more or less the same as what I've been suggesting here.
So combining it with your suggestion and my updated opinion, we now have three options for dealing with derelicts:
A) Bring its basic systems on line allowing it to travel under its own power (Burn speed penalty?), staying in near-wrecked condition until brought to a port. Requires a flat investment of supplies and heavy machinery (which is consumed), crew and fuel.
B) Use a tug and tow it in its current condition to a port for restoration - doesn't require fuel, crew, or supplies for maintenance, but obviously requires a tug per derelict.
C) Restore its basic functions, and facilitate the recovery process with the use of (a) construction rig(s), with salvage-gantry equipped ships able to stand in, but perform worse. This would incur a time delay, but would then restore it to useable condition (Still starting at low CR and hull strength) as part of your fleet on the spot. Would also require a flat investment of supplies and heavy machinery, less than A) as it'd also require crew and fuel along with the passive supply consumption from repairs and CR recovery.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 04:46:14 AM by Morbo513 »
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Toxcity

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #49 on: May 16, 2017, 06:13:53 AM »

I feel like those 3 bottom suggestions just raise the 'starting point' of when you can salvage. The mechanic was made so that the player has an easier time building their fleet.

Requiring a tug or salvage gantry could easily hurt a new player financially with their associated fuel costs. And requiring that you spend supplies and heavy machinery on recovering would do the same.

If I can ask, what is the end goal with these suggestions, because it just looks like it's making recovery hard for small fleets, and not really a problem for larger ones.
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Morbo513

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #50 on: May 16, 2017, 03:42:00 PM »

I feel like those 3 bottom suggestions just raise the 'starting point' of when you can salvage. The mechanic was made so that the player has an easier time building their fleet.

Requiring a tug or salvage gantry could easily hurt a new player financially with their associated fuel costs. And requiring that you spend supplies and heavy machinery on recovering would do the same.

If I can ask, what is the end goal with these suggestions, because it just looks like it's making recovery hard for small fleets, and not really a problem for larger ones.

The answer to that question depends on when it's asked. I actually started this suggestion off just with logic in mind - The operation wouldn't be instantaneous - then, the gameplay scenarios it'd create - "Oh cool, I found an Onslaught I can recover! Now I just have to hope that a pirate fleet doesn't discover me before I bring it online and get out of here"; which might well result in a battle over the derelict.

To go off on a tangent, such a battle would be pretty interesting, it wouldn't have to be an absolute victory or defeat - Let's say the derelict is in the battle map. Your construction rig would be deployed by default, and you have to defend it and the derelict while the recovery operation is underway - this provides a tangible and relevant point of interest/objective within the battlespace. Once the rig has done its job, the derelict can then retreat from the battle under its own power, and you could withdraw the rest of the forces at will (Then forcing you into a fighting retreat with a mothballed ship to babysit, should the enemy force retain enough strength to pursue*). You could also choose to hold the rig in reserve and go for that absolute victory, or deploy it mid-way through a battle once you feel it's safe enough.
If it's a salvage fleet you're in conflict with, they might directly contest the derelict themselves, bringing a tug or a con-rig to steal it from you, making these civilian ships that would otherwise be irrelevant another emergent objective. 
*This would also result in a soft limit of the types of derelicts you can get away with salvaging. If you've got the one rig and few supporting skills, and an otherwise shabby fleet, it's going to take longer to bring online, and your ability to protect it will be diminished, obviously scaling with the size/complexity of the derelict in question. Depending on the exact scenario, a player may be compelled to abandon the effort entirely**

Also note that I mentioned that ships with salvage gantries could serve the role of construction rigs, at an efficiency penalty of some sort - the game currently lets you start with one.


Now the only weak point of this is the question of how often those battles would happen; how often your fleet would be directly threatened while performing a recovery operation, out of the hundreds of ships you can be salvaging without seeing a single passing fleet, hostile or not. This would go a ways to resolving this and, back to your question, what I feel is the core issue with the salvage system - Recoverable derelicts are far too common and don't demand the risk or sacrifice of anything significant(**), compared to the reward of what are essentially brand new ships you'd have to otherwise earn money, and/or reputation, and/or suspicion to gain.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 03:51:51 PM by Morbo513 »
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nathanebht

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #51 on: June 21, 2017, 05:14:55 PM »

A) Bring its basic systems on line allowing it to travel under its own power (Burn speed penalty?), staying in near-wrecked condition until brought to a port. Requires a flat investment of supplies and heavy machinery (which is consumed), crew and fuel.
B) Use a tug and tow it in its current condition to a port for restoration - doesn't require fuel, crew, or supplies for maintenance, but obviously requires a tug per derelict.
C) Restore its basic functions, and facilitate the recovery process with the use of (a) construction rig(s), with salvage-gantry equipped ships able to stand in, but perform worse. This would incur a time delay, but would then restore it to useable condition (Still starting at low CR and hull strength) as part of your fleet on the spot. Would also require a flat investment of supplies and heavy machinery, less than A) as it'd also require crew and fuel along with the passive supply consumption from repairs and CR recovery.


Really like these 3 salvage path ideas Morbo.

The problem with the current salvage is that the salvaged ships sell for so much less than they should. Because its so easy, you can't have players earning big bucks with it. Problem is solved if salvaging is made more realistically costly and time consuming.

A 50% wrecked ship hull should be worth 40% of new replacement cost. Not the tiny sell price we have currently.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #52 on: June 21, 2017, 11:05:45 PM »

As you note, if a 50% wrecked ship hull is worth 40% of a new replacement cost, then every 3 ship kills is worth a new ship (plus extra for supplies/fuel).  That is a lot more wealth than you currently get from bounty fleets.  It also means if you're leaving ships behind, you're leaving a large sum of cash behind.

On the other hand, if as you suggest, recovery costs are equal to the remaining value in the ship (or more), then you can't do it early game or after a major setback, which is what I believe it was intended to help with.  Because then it costs too much. 

Similarly, the D-mod play style where you don't care about throw away ships goes away, because suddenly those ships actually are worth something, namely the investment in time and money, and can't be replaced trivially after battle.

Lastly, if you do have the resources to afford salvaging, might as well buy new.  Why spend 50% of the cost of a Hammerhead destroyer to get one with 4 D-mods, when you can buy a new one for merely twice that amount?
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FooF

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #53 on: June 22, 2017, 06:32:49 AM »

Now the only weak point of this is the question of how often those battles would happen; how often your fleet would be directly threatened while performing a recovery operation, out of the hundreds of ships you can be salvaging without seeing a single passing fleet, hostile or not. This would go a ways to resolving this and, back to your question, what I feel is the core issue with the salvage system - Recoverable derelicts are far too common and don't demand the risk or sacrifice of anything significant(**), compared to the reward of what are essentially brand new ships you'd have to otherwise earn money, and/or reputation, and/or suspicion to gain.

Yeah, this can't be overlooked. Why go to the trouble of coding an involved "protect" minigame that may only occur once every 100 salvage attempts? Overall, I'm not a big fan of slowing the game down in the name of 'realism,' and even if the slowdown created some opportunity to fight over salvage and derelicts, only within the core worlds are you going to find fleet densities large enough to contest you. To impose 2,3...8 second progress bars on every salvage or derelict, construction rig/tug mechanics, requiring to go to port for repairs, etc. basically makes every loot item outside of the core worlds tedious.

I think there's room to add some more flavor and variety to salvaging stuff but not at the expense of the vast majority of salvage encounters. I don't want to slow down the game for edge cases or add increased complexity simply because "you don't sacrifice enough to get the ship." I'm usually all for creating more meaningful choices but most of the ideas I've read in this thread don't add choice: it adds risk, and only in a minority of circumstances.
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nathanebht

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #54 on: June 22, 2017, 08:06:40 PM »

The problems with the current salvage gameplay.
1) Instant recovery of the ship.
2) Battle damage which killed a ship erases too cheaply.
3) Too many wrecks floating about.
4) Recovered D mod ships sell for too little.

Addressing #1 and #2. Ships which died in battle with major damage: exploded reactor core, warp drive damage, in-system drive damage. Need to be towed back to a port for repair. Costs a significant percentage of new ship cost to have it repaired. 20% for each? 3 major systems damaged and your paying 60% of the new cost to have them fixed.

Note that towing increases the salvage cost. No simple and cheap flagging a ship as mothballed and it magically tags along.

Addressing #3. Have the AI salvage ships. Ships that blew apart into pieces? Yeah, thats not going back together.

For #4, your D mods get expanded to include dead major systems. You pay percentages based on the as new cost for in port repairs which remove them.

2 major systems and 3 minor items need repaired. 20 + 20 + 5 + 5 +5. Total repair bill 55% of new. Long distance towing fuel and supply costs. This market will only pay me 90% of the as new cost as they need to make a profit. Hmm, I'm making about a 10% profit on that ship I found.

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TrashMan

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Re: Salvage & Recovery takes time
« Reply #55 on: June 25, 2017, 02:26:19 AM »

The answer to that question depends on when it's asked. I actually started this suggestion off just with logic in mind - The operation wouldn't be instantaneous - then, the gameplay scenarios it'd create - "Oh cool, I found an Onslaught I can recover! Now I just have to hope that a pirate fleet doesn't discover me before I bring it online and get out of here"; which might well result in a battle over the derelict.

To go off on a tangent, such a battle would be pretty interesting, it wouldn't have to be an absolute victory or defeat - Let's say the derelict is in the battle map. Your construction rig would be deployed by default, and you have to defend it and the derelict while the recovery operation is underway - this provides a tangible and relevant point of interest/objective within the battlespace. Once the rig has done its job, the derelict can then retreat from the battle under its own power, and you could withdraw the rest of the forces at will (Then forcing you into a fighting retreat with a mothballed ship to babysit, should the enemy force retain enough strength to pursue*). You could also choose to hold the rig in reserve and go for that absolute victory, or deploy it mid-way through a battle once you feel it's safe enough.
If it's a salvage fleet you're in conflict with, they might directly contest the derelict themselves, bringing a tug or a con-rig to steal it from you, making these civilian ships that would otherwise be irrelevant another emergent objective. 
*This would also result in a soft limit of the types of derelicts you can get away with salvaging. If you've got the one rig and few supporting skills, and an otherwise shabby fleet, it's going to take longer to bring online, and your ability to protect it will be diminished, obviously scaling with the size/complexity of the derelict in question. Depending on the exact scenario, a player may be compelled to abandon the effort entirely**

Also note that I mentioned that ships with salvage gantries could serve the role of construction rigs, at an efficiency penalty of some sort - the game currently lets you start with one.


Now the only weak point of this is the question of how often those battles would happen; how often your fleet would be directly threatened while performing a recovery operation, out of the hundreds of ships you can be salvaging without seeing a single passing fleet, hostile or not. This would go a ways to resolving this and, back to your question, what I feel is the core issue with the salvage system - Recoverable derelicts are far too common and don't demand the risk or sacrifice of anything significant(**), compared to the reward of what are essentially brand new ships you'd have to otherwise earn money, and/or reputation, and/or suspicion to gain.

I like this. I like his a lot.

Also, I think the faction that the derelict belongs to might no be too happy about you taking it.

I suggest implementing salvage fleets that a faction sends out after battles. That means that not all derelicts will be waiting for you forever and derelict recovery is more risky now. Not only are there going to be less of them, but you are in a race to get the best salvage you can. Needless to say, if you are detected by a Hegemony ship salvaging a Hegemony derelict without permission (something you might be able to get with good relations), it will incur a immidiate relations penalty and a fleet will be sent to chases you off and take over the derelict.
You can try to salvage with the transponder turned off - greater risk of *** off the faction, but greater gain.
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