Can't repair during a fight?

[DaLagga]

So can you just not repair when an enemy is nearby? Because my repair bots don't seem to do crap until the fight is actually over. They might repair a block or two during a battle, but don't really do much of anything. But the instant the fight is over, they all start repairing stuff. I even spawned a raft covered in repair tentacles next to my destroyer in the designer and they all sat there doing nothing...until the INSTANT that I despawned the enemy vehicles, at which point they immediately began repairing (and very rapidly I might add).

So is it a bug? Is repairing just broken for some reason for the player? Because I see enemies repairing without a problem (especially the twin guard). And yes, I do have repairs enabled - not that it should matter because that doesn't seem to have any effect on repair bots/tentacles.

[FiddyTrickPony]

Repair bots certainly do work during battles. (Repair bots self repair, tentacles repair other crafts only).

Perhaps your bots are repairing something out of sight during a battle? Or maybe you don't have enough to get the result you want. If there is a bug, I haven't heard of it before.

Another thing which I've wondered myself is the orientation of repair bot blocks. Do they need to have an opening they can fly out of? Or can they pass through other blocks? (Unsure, but I've always made sure they had room to fly just in case).

[DaLagga]

I have a ton of repair bots but they don't do much of anything during a battle. I had an enemy take out a turret so I built ~30 repair bots right infront of the turret and they didn't even spawn...until the fight was over and then they went hard at work. And I know tentacles only repair other craft which is why I spawned an army of them on a separate raft. But again, they don't do a single thing until the battle is over.

[FiddyTrickPony]

Personally, I've never seen that behaivour, so perhaps it is a bug. Or maybe something else I'm unaware of conflicting. Sorry I can't be of more help, but if you figure it out - I'd love to know.

Might be worth a quick Google search or check out the fromthedepths.com forums. Good luck!

[jcewazhere]

The bots and tentacles can only repair connected blocks. So for your turret only one or two bots could work on the turret at a time until more block connections become available. In other words only one bot could fix the turret base, then only one bot could work on the block connected to the turret base, then up to 5 bots could work on the blocks connected to that one, then lots more bots could work on the blocks connected there and so on increasing until all your bots/tentacles are engaged or the turret finishes repairing. In a shorter battle this could give the illusion that your bots are not repairing at their full capacity.

[Blaank]

You can check for sure by opening up vehicle info (default V) during battle and look at the block count. Turn off your own repair tentacles then watch the number during a fight. If it goes up at all, the bots are working in some capacity.

[Ark]

there is a timer that prevents repairing that gets set every time your vehicle is damaged

[DaLagga]

Originally posted by tmarks11:

there is a timer that prevents repairing that gets set every time your vehicle is damaged

Thank you! That must be what's happening. If so, it doesn't seem to be happening with enemy vehicles though which really needs to be fixed.

As a side note, this really makes lasers devastating because even with tons of smoke they're always going to be doing a tiny amount of damage which prevents repairs.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

You can make a sub vehicle that is docked with your main ship to repair it. The only time the sub vehicle seems to stop repairing is when it gets damaged itself which is much rarer then the main ship getting hit. Can't guarantee this will work for you, but at least test it out to see if it works because I haven't had to many problems with it. I have seen the sub vehicle conducting repairs while the main ship was being hammered by like 12 cannons.

[DaLagga]

Actually, I already tried that and it didn't work. It seems like no matter what, you can't repair while you're taking damage. Which means that if you're up against an enemy with a laser you simply can't repair because they're always going to be dealing tiny amounts of damage. Which, as I said, is a big problem because this mechanic doesn't appear to be applying to enemies. I can understand not allowing repair tentacles to work while taking damage because their repair rate is rather OP, but repair bots should work regardless.

[Eternal President Uncle Slam]

What is your mechanic level maybe that plays a factor in repair time. I did a test with my regular ship against a hypatos(like 10 rapid fire lasers) and any time a block broke my sub vehicle instantly heals the wound. I have a seat on the sub vehicle that I sit my character on to further improve its repair speed. My character has 246 in the mechanic perk so anything he is commanding is damn near invincible.

[DaLagga]

Like I said, vehicles don't seem to repair when they're taking damage. I've tried it multiple ways and repairs start up fine as soon as I'm no longer getting hit. It's like the repair system is just being disabled whenever you're getting hit.

[Blaank]

Mine repair when taking damage. I'm 90% sure on that.

[breakthrough]

Why is there not a bug report on http://www.fromthedepthsgame.com/forum/index.php ? The dev smites bugs like a vengenful god, but only if someone sends him a log file so he can find them.

[DaLagga]

I did some testing and rolled back to a previous version and can confirm with 100% certainty that in 1.796 you cannot repair while taking damage. I did some damage to my ship with a cannon and then fired on it with a laser constantly (which didn't do any actual damage because of smoke) and no repairs were undertaken while my ship was being fired upon. About 3 seconds after I stopped shooting, repairs began.

I tried the exact same thing in the previous version (1.793) and the issue wasn't present. Repairs continued even while I was being hit constantnly. So for whatever reason, it seems 1.796 introduced a bug where the player ship cannot be repaired while it is taking fire which means that any enemy laser weapon basically prevents repair work.

[mcqeulinferenzio]

I too was noticing something fishy going on but couldn’t pin what was happening. With multiple small craft in a formation their repair tentacles often just hung limply (in combat), I figured it might have been a graphical glitch but wasn’t sure, now that I did my own testing I can confirm you can’t repair under damage which kinda sucks. Especially light fast ships designed for self-repair over armor.