Subset Games Forum

p.s. i also think if implemented it should only offer it at one setting when the crew gets to red health level (25-30% i think)... there shouldnt be any options to change this either.

A big part of the strategy of this game is the micromanagement of the crew and firing your weapons in the most efficient order and toggling on/off systems as needed, etc etc. It's all about micromanagement and automating crew running off to heal could be a serious problem and get you killed really.

Like someone above said, what if a breaching missile hits your cockpit, damaging the pilot and putting a breach in the room? If your threshhold to heal is set up, then instead of staying to repair that hull breach before the air runs out as he should, he'll run off to heal, letting the air rush out of the room and making it that much harder to repair next time because they'll be taking damage the entire time once the air is gone, plus with no active pilot EVERY attack will start hitting your ship because your dodge chance becomes 0%

I see what you were after in theory, but honestly it's just not something that should be implemented. If you want something to quickly heal up crew, grab a Heal Bomb and launch it into your own ship.

AJTilley wrote:automatic healing at jump, is in the same cateogory as automatic repair at jump when in a safe area. And I imagine the team will have the same opinion on it and that is that they wont offer it.

Ultimately part of the game is getting to the end of an event and thinking do i want to spend a tedious minute healing my crew and repairing a system or do i want to take a risk and jump into the next sector.. that is part of this game that they wont want to remove, so for that reason i find it unlikely it will be put in and i do believe it will take something away from the game.

I think good games do what they can to remove tedious actions by the player. The situation you're describing above has the problem that there is always 1 right answer -- stay and repair/heal before jumping. It's all up-side to do, so the choice your offering the player is essentially a tax on their time.

Personally I'm all for auto-repair and heal on jump, but it does raise one strange problem -- who gets the repair skill for doing the automated repairs?

Only way I would agree with this if there was a button beside their name where we can send them to the medbay and when they are fully healed they will run back to their room. This would be a improvement from needing to click them, click the med bay and then waiting for them to be done and send them back.

Chris Woods wrote:
I think good games do what they can to remove tedious actions by the player. The situation you're describing above has the problem that there is always 1 right answer -- stay and repair/heal before jumping. It's all up-side to do, so the choice your offering the player is essentially a tax on their time.

Not really... In an asteroid field with the stealth ship or any ship in a solar flare its technically better to jump thn to wait around and repair.

Gorlom wrote:

Chris Woods wrote:
I think good games do what they can to remove tedious actions by the player. The situation you're describing above has the problem that there is always 1 right answer -- stay and repair/heal before jumping. It's all up-side to do, so the choice your offering the player is essentially a tax on their time.

Not really... In an asteroid field with the stealth ship or any ship in a solar flare its technically better to jump thn to wait around and repair.

I believe the initial suggestion of heal-on-jump included saying 'if you're jumping from a safe place'. I'd agree that if you're in an asteroid field or solar flare area you shouldn't auto-heal/repair.

This is essentially like asking for autoaim in an FPS. You're finding a part of the game too troublesome/hard and want the game to play itself (a bit) for you.

In my opinion micro management like this *is* what this game is about. Maybe it's just not quite the game for you.

A conclusion I'm coming to for myself as it's too roguey whereas I wanted something more open ended and sandboxy. But that's just the game they want to make ..

Panimu wrote:This is essentially like asking for autoaim in an FPS. You're finding a part of the game too troublesome/hard and want the game to play itself (a bit) for you.

In my opinion micro management like this *is* what this game is about. Maybe it's just not quite the game for you.

A conclusion I'm coming to for myself as it's too roguey whereas I wanted something more open ended and sandboxy. But that's just the game they want to make ..

That's not really a valid comparison; aiming in an FPS is a tense situation with a lot of risk/reward going on. While aiming at someone you're open to enemy ire as opposed to hiding in cover, and getting good at aiming fast makes you into a better player.

When you're in a safe sector, on the other hand, there is no tension whatsoever. You can't be hurt in any way, so it just becomes a mechanical action of moving guys into rooms. There is one clearly best choice (repair and heal everyone) and it will work 100% of the time regardless of how good/bad of a player you are.

All games definitely end up with rough edges that tedious like this, but games strive to remove and automatic actions that require no skill and always produce the same result. The game already auto-finishes your FTL charge once you defeat an encounter (and in solar flare/asteroid fields you still have to wait for the charge), so I think the devs are acknowledging that there is no point in delaying you getting into another interesting encounter as soon as you're done. Having to conduct repairs/healing is just another delay until I get my next encounter that doesn't test my skill or have any associated risk.

A 'heal all' just feels wrong, but I can see the logic in it being just teh same as instant FTL.

The difference here might be if there was actually a penalty of some kind for time taken, egg the rebels catching up, quests timing out etc. Introduce a game 'clock' and a lot of cool things could be done with it. Jumps might take a time based on distance and encounters might play out in a 'real time' when not paused. That way another ship may jump in if you've sat around so long that the rebel fleet catches up with you!