Deep space refuel and repair services?

[Mansen]

I've gotten to the point in my Shadows empire game where I'm spanning a quarter of a galaxy. My primary death fleet often takes serious damage, resulting in me having to either scrap a couple of cruisers, or drag them back to a shipyard very slowly.

I've tried queuing constructors (as well as picking one and manually sending them), but it still seems to take forever. Is there a faster alternative? I noticed the "fast repairs" tech that a few of the races get - does this bypass the need for resources and slowly auto-repairs the ship?

Is it possible to make a "Supply & Repair" kind of carrier vessel, that can perform deep space repairs? I'm thinking of cargo bays, docking bays and so forth? Basically a portable shipyard for emergency repairs to get the fleet hyperdrives back up and refueled for a trip back home to civilization.

[joeyeti]

There is a Resupply ship that can be constructed.

As to repair, there are advanced technologies, that result in components that can be added to ships (Repair bots or something).

Otherwise your good old shipyard is the only thing.

[Rtwfreak]

Nanobots.

[Bingeling]

You can build a star base with construction, and have it as a repair base. But don't expect it to get well supplied with materials, so repairs could take ages and a half. It could be worth a try, though. Build a mining one with construction yards (a couple), gas miners, and build at a fuel source. If you give it a commercial center freighters will pick up fuel too (which may be what you want, if not, don't add one).

If you got a repair starbase, make sure noone head there for retrofit. That could get ugly. And stupid civilians may decide to build there...

You can bring along a construction ship, but this one will also need materials, as far as I know. There are other way than queuing them, you can take manual control and make sure they do what you want 'just now'.

The best bet is to get repair bots, they are in the very lowest line of the energy and construction branch. But this is not a quick fix in early game.

Not fighting miles from home tend to be beneficial too. If you need to limp for repairs, it helps if the yard is remotely close, at least.

[ASHBERY76]

With the realistic economy it makes no sence to make deep space bases.

[Mansen]

Ah - I found them now. Repairbots (For some reason they aren't listed as components in the Galactopedia. I assume these are strictly personal repair modules? They won't affect other ships?

So I have to either put these on all combat ready ships and wait it out, or ensure a strong supply line (possibly with repair bases as Bingeling expanded on).

[Bingeling]

Mostly, yes. The strong line of supply bases could also prove to be worthless as more than refuel stops, and potentially a problem in trapping ships in stalled construction. I have not tried them in Shadows, though, and the private sector has changed.

Repair bots are very personal, yes. At least some default cruiser designs have 2, that can be useful to increase the chance of not all being damaged at the same time.

[Scrove]

Can you not just add the stuff to make the resupply ship repair the ships that dock to it? Or is the ship behavior not work properly if you do that?

[Sirian]

You will want to add at least 2 Repair Bots to any of your ship design, it won't repair faster but it guards against one being knocked out. Larger ships can have more Repair bots.

An interesting idea would be a fleet repair module, maybe very large and energy demanding so it would only make sense in resupply ships.

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: Sirian

You will want to add at least 2 Repair Bots to any of your ship design, it won't repair faster but it guards against one being knocked out. Larger ships can have more Repair bots.

An interesting idea would be a fleet repair module, maybe very large and energy demanding so it would only make sense in resupply ships.

I'd love to see that eventually.

Could be a combination of repairbots and fighter bays - make them small automated craft that can fly to damaged ships and latch themselves onto them for repairs.

[BigWolfChris]

When fighting well beyond friendly planets I tend to have a constructor build a high-defensive starbase in a nearby Caslon/Hydrogen Cloud or Gas Giant
This starbase would have enough defence to require a fleet to kill with enough weaponary to also take a couple of ships down if such a fleet ever attacks it
It will harvest the gas with enough cargo and docking bays to resupply your own fleets with ease, finally stick some construction bays and plants on in order to repair ships as needed

Expensive as hell, but when your in extended campaigns away from home, its better to only need to warp a sector than to warp half way across the galaxy

[Bingeling]

I prefer to stay with the AI designs, so no such base is available. If I am in a world where ships are damaged a lot, I may have "reserves" around, and use resupply ships for fuel.

The reserve can hang around the resupply ship for some extra protection.

You can for instance transfer all damaged ships to the reserve fleet, and give them (single ships) repair order. They will limp to repairs and head to leader once done. You can make the resupply ship reserve fleet leader, and the "finished ships" will always stay there unless doing something else (repairing, refueling). When ships are released for the fighting fleets, find new members among the reserve fleet ships sitting around the resupply ship.

You are running out of reserves? Just build some more, and add them to reserve fleet. Once done, they default to "go to leader". The only danger is if the construction yard lacks fuel, they will head of with no fuel and the trip will take ages and a half.

The "go to leader" default behavior is so lovely and infuriating depending on the situation. It makes defense fleets leave their objective if the leader take off after an attacker. But they also allows for beautiful behavior in repair and troop loading. Invasion fleet has a cruiser as leader (with no troop compartment). Want to load up troop and move to a new location? Just tell the fleet to "load troops", the transport take off in various directions. Then tell the leader to move to the new assembly point. They will make their way there after loading troops.

The same with doing small attacks in war if a major fleet blockades an invasion target. Just grab a couple of ships to kill that mine in the system next doors. When done, they will return. Just make sure you never send the leader away on special missions, that makes you look stupid when they are suddenly all in a wrong spot.