C-Ship-Maintenance

New Maintenance Rules

In VB6 Aurora, the maintenance facilities of a population, aided by ships in orbit with maintenance modules, have a maximum maintenance capacity measured in tons. Any ship of that size or less can be maintained. Fighters cannot be maintained in this way and have to be stored in hangars.

In C# Aurora, maintenance facilities and modules are handled differently:

• 1) Each maintenance facility or maintenance module has a basic capacity of 1000 tons. A new tech line exists that can raise this capacity in increments, starting with 1200 capacity for 2000 RP. The 2000 ton capacity is at 16,000 RP and the max is 3600 tons at 120,000 RP.

• 2) Any location that contains a population with maintenance facilities or a ship with maintenance modules is known as a 'Maintenance Location'. This does not need to be in the same location as a population. A Maintenance Location consisting only of ships with maintenance modules could be in deep space.

• 3) The maintenance capacities of all populations and maintenance ships of the same race in the same Maintenance Location are added together to create a 'Total Maintenance Capacity'.

• 4) A Maintenance Location can fully maintain ships in its location if the total tonnage of those ships is equal to or less than the Total Maintenance Capacity. In other words, maintenance is now based on summing the tonnage of ships to be maintained, rather than supporting all ships under a set tonnage.

• 5) If the total tonnage of the ships to be maintained is greater than the Total Maintenance Capacity, each ship will be partially maintained. This is known as the 'Effective Maintenance Rate (EMR)'
  • For example, if the Total Maintenance Capacity is 80,000 tons and the total tonnage of the ships requiring maintenance is 100,000 tons, the EMR is 80%. Each ship will use 80% of the normal amount of MSP required for maintenance. Each's ship maintenance clock will advance at 20% of normal and their chance of system failure will be 20% of normal.

• 6) The maintenance capacity of maintenance facilities on a population is modified by the population's Manufacturing Efficiency (available worker / required workers), Radiation Production Modifier, Political Stability Modifier (based on unrest) and Political Status Production Modifier (Conquered / Subjugated, etc.). The capacity of both maintenance facilities and maintenance modules is modified by the racial Economic Production Modifier (amount of debt vs annual income).

• 7) Ships can enter overhaul in the same way as they do now, except they can also do this at a deep space Maintenance Location as well as at a population. Overhauls will proceed at a slower rate (and use fewer MSP) if the total tonnage of the ships being maintained exceeds the Total Maintenance Capacity. However, ships undergoing overhaul will not suffer maintenance failures in this situation.

• 8) Fighters can be maintained by Maintenance Locations and do not need to be stored in hangars (because now they use capacity whereas the VB6 rule was implemented to prevent unlimited fighters being maintained).

These new rules remove many of the maintenance restrictions on larger ships and make maintenance of FACs and fighters more realistic. They introduce the same economic factors to maintenance that exist for production. In addition, I believe this creates a more realistic environment where the required maintenance facilities / modules are tied to the absolute amount of ships to be maintained, rather than just their maximum size. Finally, maintenance can now be carried out away from population centres, making deep space bases a possibility. Date 07.12.2018

A military ship still has normal maintenance requirements while in a civilian hangar.

However, as you can maintain ships in deep space in C# Aurora it will be possible to build a large ship that could provide both commercial hangar space and maintenance, or combine ships with commercial hangars and ships with maintenance modules to provide a logistics hub. Date 19.07.2017

Maintenance Supply Points (MSP)

Use of Maintenance Supply Points (MSP)

• 1) MSP are used in a very similar way to VB6 Aurora. While a ship is being maintained, it requires total MSP per year equal to Class Cost / 4. A ship undergoing overhaul requires total MSP per year equal to Class Cost.

• 2) If the ship is being maintained in a situation where the total tonnage of the ships being maintained is greater than the Total Maintenance Capacity (EMR less than 100%), the MSP requirement will be reduced accordingly (see above).

• 3) The ship being maintained will use up MSP from any racial populations in the same location, in descending order of MSP stockpile. If no populations are available, or have no MSP, the maintained ship will use MSP from any Supply Ships in the same location, in descending order of available MSP. Finally, if no other option is available, the maintained ship will consume its own MSP. A ship can use a combination of the above to locate sufficient MSP.

• 4) If the ship cannot locate sufficient MSP to meet the requirements for maintenance, this also has an impact on the Effective Maintenance Rate (EMR) for that specific ship.
  • For example, assume a Maintenance Location with a capacity of 80,000 tons is maintaining 100,000 tons of shipping. The EMR for that Maintenance Location is 80%. A ship with a class cost of 1500 BP is being normally maintained and will require annual MSP equal to (Class Cost / 4) * EMR or (1500 / 4) * 80% = 300 MSP. If the ship can only locate 240 MSP, the EMR will be reduced by the proportion of available MSP to required MSP: (240 / 300) * 80% = 64%. The ship will now consume 240 MSP, the maintenance clock will be advanced at 36% of normal and the chance of system failure will be 36% of normal. (in reality the MSP numbers will be much smaller as during a single increment the ship is being maintained for only a small fraction of a year).

• 5) The order in which ships are checked for available MSP is based on Class Maintenance Priority, then by Overhaul vs. Normal Maintenance, then by highest maintenance clock.

• 6) The chance of system failure, whether away from a Maintenance Location or while being partially maintained, is reduced by the crew grade bonus (or increased for crews with a negative bonus) and the ship's Engineering bonus (50% of commander bonus and 100% of Chief Engineer bonus).

These new rules remove many of the maintenance restrictions on larger ships and make maintenance of FACs and fighters more realistic. They introduce the same economic factors to maintenance that exist for production. In addition, I believe this creates a more realistic environment where the required maintenance facilities / modules are tied to the absolute amount of ships to be maintained, rather than just their maximum size. Finally, maintenance can now be carried out away from population centres, making deep space bases a possibility. Date 07.12.2018

MSP use while Overcrowding

• 5. If the overcrowding modifier is greater than 1.5, life support may begin to suffer damage.
• 6. The percentage chance of failure in any construction phase is equal to Overcrowding Modifier * 100 * (Increment Length / Year Length). That translates to a 3.1% chance per construction phase if the ship is 50% overcrowded, an 8.6% chance at 150% overcrowded and a 34.2% chance at 400%.
• 7. If failure occurs, a crew quarters system will potentially be damaged. This can be prevented in the normal way by maintenance supplies. If no maintenance supplies are available, the crew quarters will be destroyed.

Date 15.07.2018

Maintenance Storage Bays

In C# Aurora, Maintenance Storage Bays are no longer a military system.

Date 22.02.2018

Maintenance Locations View

There is a new display option on the galactic map to highlight Maintenance Locations. They are displayed as a dashed blue circle.

Date 03.03.2018