Maintenance level

[Cody]

Where convenient, I like hitching a free ride and using handily-placed rock hermits to get across the chart.
Does hitching and/or using rock hermits lower the maintenance level faster than only using main stations?

Or are the cosmic dice playing tricks on me again?

[Nite Owl]

Do you have your H.U.D. set up to show your Service Level or are you only going by the frequency with which the Maintenance Overhaul option pops up on the F3 screen?

My H.U.D. of choice (a highly modified Coluber H.U.D. - no link as mine only somewhat resembles the original) is set up to show my ship's Service Level at almost all times. In flight the Service Level is shown on my Tweaked copy of the USEFUL M.F.D. When docked the Coluber H.U.D. has been Tweaked to show the Service Level on the lower left of most of the docking screens that correspond to the Xenon U.I. These two Tweaks let me know at a glance what my Service Level is at any given moment. When these two Tweaks are used in combination with phkb's MAINTENANCE TUNE UP a Maintenance Overhaul happens at my discretion instead of popping up by surprise.

If memory serves the Maintenance Overall option on the F3 screen pops up when your ship's Service Level nears 85%. Anything lower than 85% and your ship starts to get wonky with unintentional jumps into Interstellar Space, failing systems, and the like. Once my Service Level drops below 90% the hunt begins for a High Tech spot to get a Maintenance Overhaul as the higher the Tech Level of the shipyard doing the overhaul the longer it will last. This "lasting" also counts towards Cody's "Cosmic Dice" roll. A veteran traveler like Cody already knows all of this this information so it is included here for those just beginning their journeys across the Eight.

The exact causes of the depletion rate of your ship's Service Level is a bit of a mystery to me. Originally my thoughts were that only Witchspace Jumps caused such depletion with sojourns into Interstellar Space causing even more rapid deterioration. Having kept a watchful eye on the Service Level of my ship via the above Tweaks it appears that many things (and none of them obvious) contribute to a drop in Service Level including simply the passage of time. Unless another_commander or phkb or someone else with an intimate knowledge of the Core Code can look up and be willing to reveal (perhaps some things are better left a mystery) what exactly causes one's Service Level to drop then it is just a roll of the "Cosmic Dice". With the implementation of my Tweaks those rolls have been mitigated by a small fraction but only so far as the choice of when to do a Maintenance Overhaul is concerned. None of these Tweaks has changed the rate or the causes by which the Service Level drops.

[Cody]

Do you have your H.U.D. set up to show your Service Level...

Unforunately not. Reason being I don't have the skills to add it to my HUD in an acceptable way. The cosmic dice have been playing tricks on me for a long time now, but over the years I've formed the impression that certain things affect the service level more than others (as noted above).

In my line of work, knowing the service level is a necessity. I have to judge it by ship value when docked.

[Cholmondely]

I came across a post intimating that landing on a planet (Planet Fall .oxp) leads to greatly increased maintenance frequency.

[Cody]

That come as no surprise. By rights, the Adder should be an exception, as it's built for atmospheric flight.

[Nite Owl]

In all of the code snippets that follow anything that appears after an instance of // is not needed. It is included herein only for reference.

In the config folder of your H.U.D. OXZ create a script.js file if it does not already exist. If it does exist add something similar to the following with whatever amendments are needed to make it work with your H.U.D.

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this.startUp = function () 
{
	player.ship.hud =  this.name + "-dock.plist"; //Only needed if your HUD of choice has a separate -dock.plist.
	var h = worldScripts.hudselector; //Only needed if you have the H.U.D. Selector OXZ installed.
	if( h ) h.$HUDSelectorAddHUD("Coluber HUD CH01", this.name); //Only needed if you have the H.U.D. Selector OXZ installed. Coluber HUD CH01 would be the name of your H.U.D.
	var p = player.ship; //Allows for less typing in the following line.
	p.setCustomHUDDial("ColuberSL", (p.serviceLevel) +"%"); //This is the primary line you need. ColuberSL can be renamed to whatever you like.    
}

In the same file (script.js) add the following.

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this.shipDockedWithStation = function() 
{
	var p = player.ship; //Again allows for less typing in the following line.
	p.setCustomHUDDial("ColuberSL", (p.serviceLevel) +"%"); //Again ColuberSL can be whatever you like but must be the same as the previous entry.
}

In your hud.plist add the following. For additional references on the placement of text look HERE.

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{//SERVICE LEVEL - In Dock Only
		selector 		= "drawCustomText:";		
		data_source 		= "ColuberSL"; //Must match whatever is in the previous bits of code from the script.js file.
		alert_conditions 	= 1; //Only shows this text when your ship is docked.		
		height			=  14.0; //Text height, vary to fit your needs.
		width			=  14.0; //Text width, vary to fit your needs.
		x			= -319.0; //Change this to place the text either to the left or right. Negative number = Left. 
		y			= -166.0; //Change this to place the text either up or down. Negative number = Down.
},

[Cody]

Thanks Nite Owl - I'll have a go at that sometime, if I feel up to it.
Do I read it right - it only works when docked?

[Nite Owl]

In the third code snippet from my previous post there is the following parameter.

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alert_conditions = 1;

This parameter controls the ship conditions under which the text will appear as per THIS. Be advised that if you want the text to show up in different places under different conditions you will need to have more than one instance of the third code snippet from my previous post in your hud.plist. As an example the Coluber H.U.D. has two hud.plist's, one for docked conditions and one for flight conditions. If one wanted the Service Level text to appear in a different location under each alert condition then the alert_conditions parameter and the x and y parameters would be different in each entry. The text height and width parameters might also need to be altered to better suit the text's location. Scroll up to top of the page that is linked above as it contains much more information on how to manipulate your H.U.D. of choice than is available here.

Edit
Upon review the second code snippet in my previous post would not be needed if you are going to have the Service Level text appear in alert conditions other then when docked. The second snippet would only be needed if you are going to have Service Level text appear only when you are docked.