Your ship inevitably requires maintenance. While some adjustments and emergency fixes can be made in-flight, permanent repairs can only be carried out at Enceladus Prime station.
Note that you cannot launch if your ship is too damaged.
Causes and Effects of Damage
Your systems will become impaired in two ways:
- Wear (from usage) is the normal, expectable (and sometimes predictable) deterioration that equipment is exposed to when used as intended. Wear occurs slowly over time.
- Damage or destruction, in contrast, occur suddenly and due to irregular external factors – like collisions, combat or other perils.
Hazard Warnings
Occasionally, you may be contacted and warned about impending environmental hazards in your area, such as XASER burn paths or meteor showers. In either case, it is strongly recommended to vacate the area immediately, for example by astrogating to a location nearby.
Damage Types
There are various types of damage, with corresponding effects. Be familiar with these to be able to gauge risks and avoid (or deal with) the consequences.
- Thruster and weapon wear, to some degree, can be mitigated (or made worse) by tuning their respective output below (or above) default specifications.
- Impact damage is caused by collisions with asteroids, meteor strikes, or kinetic ammunition. It usually leads to misalignment of thrusters and weapons, or reactor leaks that make a ship lose propellant.
- Electromagnetic (EMP) damage is caused by microwave weapons. It will disrupt and eventually fry the on-board computer.
- Structural stress from excessive g-forces (e.g., spinning at high speed) can damage reactor rods.
Pre-flight Inspection
As per legal restrictions and safety regulations, Enceladus Prime docking authority will not give launch permission if essential key systems are in critical condition. This applies to:
- Main propulsion (engine)
- Reaction control system (thrusters)
- On-board computer
- Nuclear reactor
The relevant systems are marked with "OK" or "Fail" on the Repair screen, to indicate whether they meet the minimum operational conditions. They fail the pre-flight check if their integrity rating is below 70%.
(Note that integrity of weapons is at a captain's own discretion, but heavily recommended.)
In-flight Repairs
While in a dive, the Mechanic crew panel will show damageable equipment, as well as:
- what causes equipment to become damaged;
- what negative effects occur due to accumulated damage; and
- how much damage has been sustained so far.
Sliders allow you to allocate fixes to damaged systems, in order to minimize malfunctions (or focus on the lesser of two evils). The efficiency of these makeshift adjustments depends on the Jury-Rig skill of the mechanic aboard your ship, in reference to the historic naval term for improvised replacements.
Note that these adjustments are temporary. Emergency repairs can be crucial in making a safe return to Enceladus Prime, but they cannot supplant permanent repairs.
Dock Repairs
At Enceladus Prime, damaged equipment can be repaired or replaced. Replacing a component is usually (but not always) more expensive but takes less time, and restores the equipment to pristine, new condition. Repairing a component is usually less expensive but takes more time, and may require multiple repairs to restore a component to a desirable condition. The extent of repair possible depends on your mechanic's skill level.
- Each repair will fix half of the damage on the component. For example, if a railgun has 12% misalignment, 30% wear, and 2% warped barrel, a single repair will fix it to 6% misalignment, 15% wear, and 1% warped barrel.
- Having more than one mechanic decreases the amount of time required to perform repairs, but not the monetary cost. The time to perform each repair is affected by the mechanic multiplier:
(2 / (1 + num_mechanics)). Note that this multiplier is equal to 100% when you have one mechanic hired.
For example, a reactor repair that takes 2 days if you have one mechanic will take 4 days if you have no mechanic (multiplier = 200%), and will take 1 day if you have three mechanics (multiplier = 50%).
Insurance
Colloquially named after traditional risk management policies (and similar in effect), Jameson's Insurance is linked with the salvage industry, and works like a crowd-funded recycling/refurbishing business. Customers pay upfront in credits, and receive spare parts of twice the value when conducting repairs. For example, you invest 50k E$, and receive 100k E$ repair budget.
In regards to hardware, this effectively cuts repair cost in half. (Note this does not apply to crew costs. Your mechanics' wages are entirely separate business, unaffected by the insurance.)
Besides savings, it also has the benefit of a safety net; in that no matter how low you run on cash in hand, you will always be able to repair your ship. The insurance is generally regarded as "good deal" and wise investment among ship owners, and many welcome each opportunity to increase their account balance.