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[bowman]

Currently, as far as I know, the only way to view Peak Performance Time remaining on one of your ships is to transfer command to it and read the display on the side. This is, obviously, fairly annoying to do for such a simple piece of information. It would be fairly useful and simple if it showed the remaining PPT when you selected a ship on the map view somewhere on the ship's UI display. Maybe a new bar, above Flux? Or shift Flux/Hull up and put "Peak Performance : [x seconds]".

I'd like this information to be readily visible because it matters quite a lot when I want to retreat a ship early so that it doesn't run down on CR getting off the map, particularly if it is either slow or I've pushed up to the enemy deploy zone. Admittedly the cause of me wanting this is a current battle with Nexerelin where I'm fighting two Diable Avionics expedition fleets involving some 15 capital ships. I had to retreat and re-deploy to refresh PPT but I didn't realize how long the retreat was going to take and now I've got very low CR values and thus want to ensure the CR doesn't end up dropping into malfunction range before I give them retreat orders.

Alternative idea: A variation of the Retreat order (maybe just Full Retreat does this?) where both PPT and CR stop decaying because the ship is entirely in "escape" mode and the order cannot be rescinded.

[Alex]

Hmm, let me make a note about retreating ships not losing PPT - that sounds like a good idea. Will think about the other stuff, too; not sure when/if I'll get to it, but, yeah, showing PPT somewhere would be good, too.

[goduranus]

If it's still firing back as it retreats, it probably should still tick down else it might be subject to abuse or boring micro.

[Alex]

Wasn't thinking about that, but yeah, that's a valid point.

[SapphireSage]

If retreating ships get far enough away that they're no longer in sensor range of size equivalent enemy ships they should stop ticking down in PPT anyway right? So, PPT should stop ticking down for most ships during retreat after getting far enough away assuming the player owns enough of the map space right?

I can see the issue with this being that carriers will still be sending out fighters during retreat though so they'll likely lose PPT/CR during their entire way out anyway though, unless retreat order forces them to regroup all fighters until exit.

[Alex]

Yeah... one of my TODO items is actually to give the initial PPT warning say 30 seconds before it runs out, hopefully making the whole issue less relevant - i.e. the warning would be in time to retreat stuff without starting to lose CR, or at least as much of it. Right now it comes too late so there's kind of a "sunken cost" feeling to it.

[SCC]

Automatic Orders mod, while it has a different aim, handles this pretty well: it kicks off at 10% PPT, making slower ships retreat earlier.

[Alex]

Good to know that works well, thank you! I do wonder how that handles say SO frigates - 30 seconds may be too much, but 10% might be too little. Although, 30 seconds seems like it could also serve as a "hear alarm, way 15 seconds-ish, order retreat"... 10% seems good for larger ships; though - maybe using the larger of the two values would work well.

[bobucles]

I notice that all ships list their CR value as part of their main stat display. This information is not very important, because CR doesn't change until a ship's PPT runs out. CR only really becomes useful as a "decaying performance time" when PPT is exhausted. It might be better to replace the "CR: __% " label with a "PPT: __" label, and only switch to a direly highlighted CR label when PPT runs out.

That way the more important combat number is directly in front of the player at all times.

[Goumindong]

CR is just as important though because low CR ships still have the same PPT. However if the bar was still there it could easily represent CR while ppt was put explicitly in the text

[bobucles]

CR is just as important though because low CR ships still have the same PPT.

Wouldn't that make CR less important? If the PPT behavior is the same either way, then CR isn't providing any vital information to the player.

CR has secondary importance to know if a ship is generically good or bad for this battle. PPT - at least the way I first experienced it - is essentially the remaining time until your ship starts to self destruct. I think the latter is much more vital information than the former, at least until it switches over to CR being the actual doom clock. But the only way that you can know when the doom clock starts ticking is by knowing the PPT.

[intrinsic_parity]

CR is just as important though because low CR ships still have the same PPT.

Wouldn't that make CR less important? If the PPT behavior is the same either way, then CR isn't providing any vital information to the player.

CR has secondary importance to know if a ship is generically good or bad for this battle. PPT - at least the way I first experienced it - is essentially the remaining time until your ship starts to self destruct. I think the latter is much more vital information than the former, at least until it switches over to CR being the actual doom clock. But the only way that you can know when the doom clock starts ticking is by knowing the PPT.

CR is what actually causes your ship to have malfunction. A low CR ship will still have malfunctions regardless of ppt. Also when your ppt runs out, your ship still has some time before its combat performance is impacted, so CR is what is directly telling you how your ship is performing and how expensive it will be to restore. PPT is secondary information that tells you when CR decay begins but it doesn't directly tell you anything about the performance of you ship. CR is the more important of the two, but it would definitely be nicer to know ppt as well.

[bobucles]

CR is also information that you know and choose before going into battle. It doesn't guide any changes in player actions as long as PPT is on the field. But let me illustrate:
- Your ship enters battle with 50% CR.
- Some time later in battle, your ship now has 50% CR.
Will you consider a change in tactics? Probably not. If your ship enters battle with 20% CR you're probably panicking right away, just the same as when it's still 20% later in the battle. Aside from a having a very generic grasp of "it's good/it's bad", you don't really need to know a ship's CR.

Now consider the same ship, except its main display shows PPT.
- Your ship enters the battle with 180 PPT.
- Some time later, your ship now has 20 PPT.
Will you consider a change in tactics? It might be time to consider withdrawing the ship. A ship with very low PPT has very clear problems incoming, and your choices will change compared to a ship with lots of PPT in reserve. Having a clear indicator of a ship's PPT turns out to be very important.

Now consider the current scenario, which is what players typically experience:
- Your ship enters the battle with 50% CR.
- Some time later, your ship has 20% CR.
Will you consider a change in tactics? Chances are, profanity has already been spilled. The information that you needed came too late, and the ship is already in serious trouble. You probably didn't even know it happened at all, because CR rating is a static number until some arbitrary point in battle, after PPT is exhausted. Will players spend all battle staring at a number that doesn't change? Probably not. The information isn't there, and when it is there the player was already trained to not pay attention in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, there are times that CR is important. But the main stats on a ship should be the most important stats. Knowing if a ship is thumbsup/thumbsdown is handy, but the exact CR is not more important than clearly knowing PPT. At least, CR isn't important until it becomes your ship's remaining time.

[intrinsic_parity]

The CR tells you how likely you are to have malfunctions which is the main piece of information for whether or not it's safe to keep a ship in battle. PPT doesn't tell you that. They are both important, but CR is giving you direct information about the state of your ship, and ppt is giving you information about how the state of your ships will change in the near future.

You can leave your ship in the battle for quite a while after ppt expires and it will not lose much effectiveness until CR drops sufficiently to cause malfunctions. This matters more if you start from very high CR which you can get from skills. If you start at 100% CR (which is possible with stacked skills on officers or the player), you might not want to retreat the ship until ~30-40% CR if you really need it to win the battle (keeping you paragon/astral in the battle vs a station with lots of escorts or something like that). I've done this many times, it's not hypothetical. In the current game there are very few critical battles where you don't mind expending your supplies to get more combat time, so this is less relevant but I imagine in the future, there may be many more important/difficult battles.

If you are trying to save supplies, you would want to know when ppt is low so you can retreat before CR starts ticking. If you are trying to maximize the combat output of your fleet, you want to know CR so you can retreat the ship as it starts to lose combat effectiveness.

[bobucles]

If you are trying to maximize the combat output of your fleet, you want to know CR so you can retreat the ship as it starts to lose combat effectiveness.

You're essentially using CR an extension of a ship's PPT. The CR is being used as a timer, tracking until the ship is no longer fit to stay in battle. That doesn't contradict what I'm saying, and does seem to be in support of it.

Outside of the "doom clock" situation, are you really concerned about a ship's exact CR as long as it's some value higher than "currently falling apart"? There are minor bonuses and penalties to enjoy, but there is no dire situation until a ship's CR goes into the red, which typically doesn't happen until after PPT is exhausted.