Matrix Games Forums

In WitP AE, what does it mean when expected repair days is displayed in red with a '#' after it? And why would a ship go from Days= (red)9# on one turn to Days=(white) '51' the next turn?

Just going on memory, but when the repair numbers are in red with a hashtag, it means a damaged ship is in readiness or stand-by mode. It can still sail in that condition, but it can't ever be completely repaired unless stood-down for the full job. The red number refers to the number of days until that ship repairs as much of the damage as can be repaired while it's still in a state of readiness. But until stood down in pier-side or dockyard repair some damage will always persist. When the numbers are white then that ship is fully in repair mode and if left alone will eventually repair all damage, but can't be sailed. Of course, you can put a damaged ship stood-down back in readiness mode, but there is always a delay of a few days in getting it out of drydock or whatever mode of repair it's in and you'll get the red damage numbers back. Or a red X stating that no more damage can be fixed while the ship is operational.

The # simply means the damage cannot be totally repaired in that mode or at that port. If the repair requires a drydock but none is available or it is too small for the ship, you cannot repair all the damage at the base (even with extra Naval Support). You can repair all the other damage and then send the ship to a port with a large enough drydock - a good idea if the ship could founder before getting to another port.
Sometimes there is a damaged device like radar or a main gun turret that needs to be repaired at a high level Port. Check the load cost of the item (in the Editor database) and compare with Port repair capacity. I think there is a chart showing this for each port size.
Also note that repair for these damaged devices on the ship is not available when the ship first gets to the port. The dock repair gurus must examine the damage and their verdict will show up the following turn.

If you open the ship repair manager it tell you at the bottom of the window what the symbols mean.