Maintenance upon demmand

[Damocles Edge]

I have been recently trying to upgrade my cobra mk2 x to a salamander (I'm using Staer9's shipset).
I basically want to try different ships that I haven't flown before and want to avoid the cobra mk3 (as it's way too good for the money and I've spent an awful long time piloting them already).
Anyhow I have been trying in vain for quite some time to find a salamander (even though the game tried to tempt me with a cob mk3 with NAE for only 280k), whilst this is going on my ship has been flagged as requiring maintenance for quite a long time, but I am trying to have the maintenance overhaul done immediately before buying a salamander (If I ever find one in the TL9 + systems that I scour) so as to get maximum for my trade in.
Might it be an idea to be able to buy a maintenance overhaul at anytime and not just when things are in danger of failing?
At present my overhaul cost has been creeping up and up and I eventually gave in (Murphys law that I find a salamander shortly after bottling out).
I think maintenance charges should increase when delayed but I also believe that there should be a minimum maintenance cost which should be quite sizeable even though the benefit would be negligible, after all in RL a garage that was asked to service a car which had recently been serviced already wouldn't turn your money away (on the contrary they may even pocket a profit from service consumables which are not in need of change at all).

[Disembodied]

That sounds like a sensible idea to me. "Maintenance overhaul" could be a permanent line of the F3 screen, turning orange when it becomes urgent. We might need some additional text to stop new players getting confused and thinking they have to cough up for maintenance after every trip, though … Maybe the default text could read something like

Maintenance overhaul (not required)

changing to

Maintenance overhaul (recommended)

and perhaps ultimately

Maintenance overhaul (urgent)

[Nite Owl]

This idea gets a yea vote from me. Spent quite a bit of time a while back implementing a custom gauge into my HUD of choice so as to keep track of my ship's Maintenance Level. Having the choice as to when to have my ship maintained as opposed to having it show up only when it proves to be most costly would be a good thing. The cost really does not matter to me as a lack of credits is not a problem at this point but more options in this particular area would be most welcome just for general game play reasons.

[phkb]

Here's my take on this. I give you (drumroll please) MaintenanceTuneUp.oxz.

Actually, it's not that exciting. Basically, it provides the facility for pilots to further tune up their ships, getting closer to brand-new performance. A tune up will only be offered at the same stations a maintenance overhaul is offered, and similar rules will apply (that is, you'll get a better tune up at higher tech level systems).

To use it, you just purchase the "Maintenance Tune Up", the same way you do an overhaul. If the overhaul is due, you won't see the tune up. Once you've tuned up your ship, you won't see the option again until your service level changes or you dock at a higher TL system from where you last purchased a tune up.

This is more of a conversation starter at this point, so don't feel free to pitch in your comments.

[Edit to remove totally embarrassing face-palm error]

[Damocles Edge]

Cheers phkb
Sounds like an excellent idea, would I be correct in saying that this will work in conjunction with smugglers to enable the same options at non Galcop locations for those of us that have smuggling holds?

I'll download, give this a try out and...

erm....

err.....

This is more of a conversation starter at this point, so don't feel free to pitch in your comments.

....disappear in a vicious cycle of logic

[phkb]

.disappear in a vicious cycle of logic

So... it didn't work? Hmm. I'll have another look.

[Disembodied]

So... it didn't work? Hmm. I'll have another look.

I think Damocles Edge might be referring to your earlier statement:

so don't feel free to pitch in your comments

[phkb]

Wait, what?!

Oh, no....

I'm so embarrassed...

Corrected. Ahem. Moving on.

[Damocles Edge]

No worries phkb - made me chuckle whilst confusing me at the same time (it doesn't take much).
And please don't be embarrassed with yourself (I've got dibs on that market )

I downloaded the oxz but sadly didn't get any proper time to put it properly to test (I will aim to address that shortly).
What I did quickly look at after loading up a saved game with the oxz in use was that maintenance overhaul was showing available but the tune up option was not. The save game position in question was one that had recently had a maintenance overhaul (of course without this oxz being present).

I will try travelling to another system and buying the maintenance overhaul to see if the tune up option presents itself after running said overhaul with the oxz in operation.

And remember.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

[Damocles Edge]

Okay travelled to a new system - check
Purchased maintenance overhaul @ 1400 cr - check
Following this maintenance overhaul no longer appears, but neither does tune up option.

I can send Latest.log if you think this may help?

Thanks again for all your help phkb (and for your wicked, baffling sense of humour )

[phkb]

Version 0.2 now available. MaintenanceTuneUp.oxz

I've fixed a couple of small issues, but I've also included some debug statements to help in determining whether the problem is the code not working.

The tune up should never be available if the overhaul is. It should only appear once an overhaul has been done, but not necessarily every time. It will depend on how good the overhaul was (ie what the serviceLevel of your ship is after the overhaul), and the tech level of the station you're docked at. If you like, I can detail the exact rules, but it's all about number ranges and I figured it would be TL;DR for most.

Anyway, the debug messages in this new version should help in me being able to say whether a tune up should have appeared or not.

and for your wicked, baffling sense of humour

Sometimes it's baffling to me, too!

[Damocles Edge]

Thanks phkb.
With the new version in place I can confirm that I was getting maintenance overhaul option at a TL7 system, this was purchased (1200 credits as I had asset stripped my ship a bit) and I then travelled onto a neighbouring TL14 planet where I was able to purchase the maintenance tune up for 1000 credits.
In short seems to be working fine as far as I can see.

Apologies also - I would have done this last night only I was finally able to source a Salamander from the TL14 system (YAY!!!!).
I used an old save from a couple of days ago in order test out the new version of this oxz.

Many thanks again to you sir

[Nite Owl]

phkb:

Could you post a simple (or even not so simple) bit of script that would allow a purchased Maintenance Tune Up to send a Maintenance Email from your Email System OXZ. Had a look at it myself but my script-fu is weak in this area, never have done any work wherein one JavaScript had to call on the resources of another JavaScript to accomplish a goal. Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

[phkb]

Could you post a simple (or even not so simple) bit of script that would allow a purchased Maintenance Tune Up to send a Maintenance Email from your Email System OXZ.

Do you mean a regular maintenance email, similar to the email that is already sent by the Email System OXZ when you do a maintenance overhaul, or a brand new email?

[Nite Owl]

The same one that is already sent when you do a Maintenance Overhaul would be fine. The two (overhaul and tune up) do basically the same thing so there is no need to come up with a whole new piece of script and descriptors just for the tune up. Is there a way to get the tune up script to call the needed bits from the email script? Fairly certain that there have been examples of such cross scripting before but cannot work out how to do it on my own from scratch. Thanks again for your assistance.