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Need some indication ship is damaged while docked
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FoxFire Ayderan
#1 - 2013-06-14 06:08:34 UTC

I seem to have a habit of forgetting that my ship needs repair while docked.

While I may enter the hanger billowing smoke and fire, it disappears while I'm in space dock.

So, I frequently find that I've undocked and even warped away with my armour, or armour and hull both, damaged.

It would be great if there was still a visual indication that our ship was in need of repair. Perhaps the smoke and fire if our structure is damaged, and just a beat up appearance if our armour is damaged.

Or even just a blinking repair icon in the Station Services.
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#2 - 2013-06-14 06:12:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Alvatore DiMarco
Would you like the station to automatically repair the damage, automatically charge your wallet the repair fee, automatically reload your guns and drones and also pre-chew your food for you as well?

How much hand-holding do you require? If your ship is damaged and you have a habit of forgetting, then just make a habit of doing the repairs straightaway after docking. It's not an unreasonable sort of concept.
FoxFire Ayderan
#3 - 2013-06-14 06:24:26 UTC  |  Edited by: FoxFire Ayderan
Because 95% of the time I dock undamaged, why would I make it a habit of clicking the repair icon?

Also while I almost never Autopilot, let alone AFK Autopilot, I do frequently give the Dock command right before going AFK to take care of some Real Life concern. By the time I've returned I've forgotten that I'd been in a scuffle and need repair.

This falls under the categories of interface improvements, realism/immersion enhancements (particularly if visual damage is seen), and quality of life improvements.

Since these are things CCP does on a VERY relgular basis (every update actually), you must be absolutely besides yourself with frustration over all the 'hand holding' the game does. It's a wonder you haven't quit the game by now.

Or... do you have an ulterior motive for a fairly useless post against this idea? For instance there are some who troll suggestion forums poo-pooing ideas of others because they are desperately concerned about the developers working on the posted idea rather than on their own idea.
Gigan Amilupar
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2013-06-14 07:31:21 UTC
Seems too hand-holding to me. Honestly, if you don't know your ship is damaged when you dock, your not really keeping an eye on your ships health; which is a fatal mistake. I've personally forgotten to repair minor damage to armor before on some of my shield tanking ships, but I usually notice pretty quick followed by a "Oh damn, I need to be more aware of myself". The repair tab tells you how much damage you have taken, and the cost of the repair. You just have to know if your damaged or not. Doesn't seem like a thing worth wasting CCP's time over.
Caldari 5
D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F. S.A.S
Affirmative.
#5 - 2013-06-14 07:58:43 UTC
Whilst I do agree a blinking Repair icon sounds hand-holdy, I think that whatever current visual effects that you currently see in space, should also be applied in station.
Tchulen
Trumpets and Bookmarks
#6 - 2013-06-14 08:13:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Tchulen
Seriously, you're saying that rather than you learn to fix your ship when it's damaged you want CCP to change the game so you don't have to?

Whilst Alvatore DiMarco's answer was a bit on the flippant side he has got a point. It's a bit like saying you keep forgetting to set your alarm for work so your boss should change your job hours to accommodate the fact you're late sometimes. If you took responsibility for your inadequacy in the regard of forgetting to fix your ship rather than blaming the game for not telling you when it's damaged you, like I have, would learn to remember to fix it eventually. It's a learning feedback loop but it requires you to actively consider you've done something wrong to have any affect on you whatsoever. I see this a lot where I work; people who offload the blame for their mistakes rarely learn from them.

If you really can't learn to do it yourself this is probably not the game for you, considering the whole "adapt or die" meme. If you really can't learn to adapt you should probably try something a bit more fluffy.

That said, considering (I expect) how easy it would be to make the repair icon blink, I have no real issue with CCP doing this per se, what I do have a problem with is the inevitable feature creep if they were to bow to the pressure of "I can't be bothered to'/'remember to' do X" as this is just dumbing down the game. Part of the game is getting things right. If you don't, your opponent will have an advantage over you and that is how it should be.
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#7 - 2013-06-14 08:44:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Alvatore DiMarco
FoxFire Ayderan wrote:
Because 95% of the time I dock undamaged, why would I make it a habit of clicking the repair icon?
Not exactly what I was suggesting.

Quote:

Also while I almost never Autopilot, let alone AFK Autopilot, I do frequently give the Dock command right before going AFK to take care of some Real Life concern. By the time I've returned I've forgotten that I'd been in a scuffle and need repair.
This is where you should be conducting a pre-flight check. Guns? Check. Extra ammo? Check. Drones? Check. Ship integrity? Oh look, I'm at 2% hull. I'd better repair before I undock. As for myself, I can be a bit absentminded at times and so I may or may not check things twice just to be sure.

Quote:

This falls under the categories of interface improvements, realism/immersion enhancements (particularly if visual damage is seen), and quality of life improvements.
This falls under the category of dumbing down the game, hand-holding and suggesting that WoW has the right idea where overall game difficulty and consequences for one's decisions are concerned.

Quote:

Since these are things CCP does on a VERY relgular basis (every update actually), you must be absolutely besides yourself with frustration over all the 'hand holding' the game does. It's a wonder you haven't quit the game by now.
I am beside myself with frustration at a great many things sometimes, but rarely do they involve EVE. More typically it has to do with people who have seemingly offlined that big squishy lump of matter between their ears, especially when it seems to have been deliberate.

Quote:

Or... do you have an ulterior motive for a fairly useless post against this idea? For instance there are some who troll suggestion forums poo-pooing ideas of others because they are desperately concerned about the developers working on the posted idea rather than on their own idea.
Fortunately for myself, the other brave denizens of Features & Ideas and (possibly) CCP, I very rarely if ever make suggestions or present new ideas of my own. To be precise, I may have done so twice in the last six years. Rather, I prefer to tell other people in blunt and direct terms what I think of their ideas (be they good or bad), poke around on the test server seeing what happens if you press the proverbial big red button and ponder the most effective way to explain some of the more elusive bugs and strange things that I encounter.

People keep giving me likes for some of the most unexpected posts and I haven't been banned from anything yet, so I suppose I'm not doing too awful a job.
Goti fase
Faulcon de Lazy
#8 - 2013-06-14 09:29:29 UTC
Alvatore DiMarco wrote:
Would you like the station to automatically repair the damage, automatically charge your wallet the repair fee, automatically reload your guns and drones and also pre-chew your food for you as well?

How much hand-holding do you require? If your ship is damaged and you have a habit of forgetting, then just make a habit of doing the repairs straightaway after docking. It's not an unreasonable sort of concept.


From a visual point of view, it would be nice and add to the immersion if a docking damaged ship looked damaged while in dock. I wouldn't say that the blinky repair stuff button would be right though, that's going a tad too far.

Overall a +1/2 from me Blink
Zaknussem
Everybody Loves Donuts
#9 - 2013-06-14 11:31:54 UTC
If people haven't been noticing, EvE is changing to make the player more informed of the state of things in-game, why should the ship's possible damage while docked be kept hidden from him on purpose? Hands are being held (and led) quite firmly in EvE already, otherwise we wouldn't have the tutorials, just to name an example.

The OP has pointed out a "dark patch" that needs to be addressed somehow. Having in-space graphic attributes apply in-station is a good idea, but I think that the best (and fastest) solution would be to have a notice window pop up when you issue the "Undock" command to inform you that your ship is damaged, and whether you would still like to undock.
Samuel Woodbury
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2013-06-14 11:57:57 UTC
OH LOOK!!!! its a carbear \o/, poke it with a stick!
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#11 - 2013-06-14 14:18:09 UTC
It's similar to quite frequent idea for damage indicators for items and I see no reason against neither.

Additional graphics effects on the ship itself would also be nice, as long as there had been and option to turn it off, or at least to tone it down (I used to play on low to mid spec hardware).
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#12 - 2013-06-14 14:29:51 UTC
Maybe it could be on fire, with various drones frantically swarming it with fire extinguishers in an attempt to put it out...

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Jonas Sukarala
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#13 - 2013-06-14 14:32:28 UTC
it would be nice if the ship/armour/drones would be repaired automatically much like shields and cap get instead of having to pay for these to be fixed.. its like a armour/drone ship tax..

'Tech3 ships need to be put down, like a rabid dog drooling everywhere in the house, they are out of line' CCP Ytterbium Nerf missile range into place where is the TD missile change?  ..projectiles should use capacitor. ABC's should be T2 HABC and nerf web strength its still too high

Throktar
Deep Core Mining Inc.
#14 - 2013-06-14 16:41:55 UTC
I like the idea of the ship showing the same damage in the station as it does in space.

I think it would add to the immersion if they showed your Shield/Armor/Hull on the display console when you are looking at your ship in the captains quarters. I mean if you think about it, that is some important info that a pilot would want displayed on the computer. Since most vets do not use the CQ much, it would not be any new button to be in the way or a free hand out to stupid players.
FoxFire Ayderan
#15 - 2013-06-14 21:06:03 UTC
Tchulen wrote:


If you really can't learn to do it yourself this is probably not the game for you, considering the whole "adapt or die" meme. If you really can't learn to adapt you should probably try something a bit more fluffy.


Who's dying by not adapting? I said that it's not uncommon to forget to repair your ship prior to undocking. This generaly results in having to re-dock or if having warped away before noticing you are damaged, warping back to station. It's simply a matter of inconvienience and frustration that there was no indication/reminder that your ship is damaged prior to undocking.


Goti fase wrote:

From a visual point of view, it would be nice and add to the immersion if a docking damaged ship looked damaged while in dock. I wouldn't say that the blinky repair stuff button would be right though, that's going a tad too far.

Overall a +1/2 from me Blink

Appreciate the 1/2 thumbs up. P

But I certainly wouldn't say the, easier to implement than showing visual damage (which would be quite nice), blinking repair icon is a tad too far.

If we expect our ultra advanced space vehicles to give us blinky notifications that we have an incoming message about our corp CEO's upcoming birthday, I hardly think it's 'hand holding' for it to give us a blinky notification that our ship is suffering from damage.

In fact, I think even today in the horribly primative 21st century, aircraft provide all sorts of blinking lights to say there is a problem with the vehicle prior to taxiing away from the gate.

Zaknussem wrote:

The OP has pointed out a "dark patch" that needs to be addressed somehow. Having in-space graphic attributes apply in-station is a good idea, but I think that the best (and fastest) solution would be to have a notice window pop up when you issue the "Undock" command to inform you that your ship is damaged, and whether you would still like to undock.


This is also a good idea. A notice that you are undocking with a damaged ship would work as well. We have the ability to abort our undock, how often do you otherwise decide on the last few seconds that you need to abort your undock. A notice that our ship is damaged would give us a reason to use that abort button.

Samuel Woodbury wrote:
OH LOOK!!!! its a carbear \o/, poke it with a stick!

I PvP 'fearbears' on the suggestion forums (fearbears - those who enjoy picking on carebears, given that bullies are often quite fearful people), by suggesting ideas which make the fearbears cry. I *love* eating fearbear tears when they cry in the forums, particularly about changes that might make their bullying of carebears more difficult.

Throktar wrote:
I like the idea of the ship showing the same damage in the station as it does in space.

As many have remarked, the coolest solution would be showing the ship damage while docked. I would like that as well, but the alternatives might be easier to implement. If they wanted to really go all out, showing repair-bots and even human beings in jet-packs (which would help us grasp the size of our ships) doing the repairs would be quite sweet.
Tchulen
Trumpets and Bookmarks
#16 - 2013-06-15 10:41:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Tchulen
FoxFire Ayderan wrote:
I said that it's not uncommon to forget to repair your ship prior to undocking. This generaly results in having to re-dock or if having warped away before noticing you are damaged, warping back to station. It's simply a matter of inconvienience and frustration that there was no indication/reminder that your ship is damaged prior to undocking.
Yes there is. Prior to undocking you dock and just prior to docking you have very clear indication that your ship is damaged. If you can't remember that it is that is your own fault.

The fact that it's common for you to forget to repair your ship when damaged is a function of your inadequacy, not the game's. The fact that you (and others) forget to repair your (their) ship means that if someone else doesn't and you end up fighting they have an advantage due to your forgetfulness. I don't see why this should change. For those that learn, this isn't a necessary change and for those that don't they should learn to or suffer the consequences. You are again blaming the game for your ineptitude.

You also seem to have glossed over the fact that whilst I don't think this general trend of hand holding is good for the game as it removes a lot of the consequences of incompetence I did actually say I didn't have a specific problem with this change if taken as an isolated thing and not as a further step in trend progression. Do I take it from your response that you are an advocate for changing the game for the lowest common denominator?

I do think that having the ship display damage rather than the damage button blinking would be better although definitely more work for the devs but the problem I envisage is that once this is accepted and implemented we will inevitably get the "but that piece of handholding work was done so why can't I have (autopilot to zero/autorestarting PI extractors/etc.)" from people.

Once you start accepting and coding for idiocy and incompetence it's very difficult to stop. How do you say "he was incompetent and so we recoded the UI so he wasn't left behind but you're a bit more incompetent so we won't do anything for you". That's what happens in most MMO games and most MMO games end up being really rather rubbish. One of the main selling factors of EVE is that it isn't really for the idiots in society. You need to have a bit of smarts about you to be able to play the game effectively. I really hope it stays that way too. Just imagine EVE if it had all the whining fools that play warcraft. ergh.
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#17 - 2013-06-15 10:49:03 UTC
Someone give Tchulen a prize for winning EVE Game Design.

If we want to talk about having your ship show damage as a matter of immersion, then that's one thing. Having buttons start to blink because the player is assumed unable to pay attention to their ship and repair it when necessary is quite another. Much as in life, there's a certain amount of personal responsibility to be had even in a game; this is even more true when it's a game centered around choices and consequences like EVE.
Zaknussem
Everybody Loves Donuts
#18 - 2013-06-15 11:21:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Zaknussem
EDIT: Forum ate and abused my post.
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#19 - 2013-06-15 20:07:41 UTC
Sometimes I'm sick of this choices and consequences mantra...

The thing is, we always face choices and those chioces always bear consequences. Always. So what we're talking about is WHAT choices and WHAT consequences.

Got it off my chest and I can go back to discussion.

@Tchulen. You have a point but in my opinion you're mixing quite distinct concepts.

  • There is a matter of available information. Proposal here does not involve giving more information than can already be obtained.

  • There's a matter of presenting some already available information in more accessible way. This is, in my understanding, what this thread is about. The easier to comprehend presentation, or easier access to given information, can be regarded as dumbing down but IMO it's always a good thing. This game can easily cause information overload so anything which helps is welcome. Of course you have right to demand that everyone has to suffer what you had suffered and everyone else has right not to agree.

  • There's matter of simplifying game mechanics, reducing choices to be made or easing their consequences, and this is what you seem to be addressing. While, IMO again, in principle it's not always bad, I haven't got the impression that this is what OP suggested.

  • And bonus, there's also matter of simplifying execution of those choices (e.g. reducing number of clicks needed to perform given action). Again, can be regarded as dumbing down and again, this is what I'd regard a good thing.

Black Dranzer
#20 - 2013-06-15 20:14:21 UTC
Alvatore DiMarco wrote:
Would you like the station to automatically repair the damage, automatically charge your wallet the repair fee, automatically reload your guns and drones and also pre-chew your food for you as well?
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/8388/1281983301976.png


As for OP: Yes, there should probably be a blinking icon when your active ship (or its modules) are in need of repair.

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