Engineer Repair Preferences

[MaxAstro]

It is possible to have a control node that makes engineers prefer to repair non-military ships?  I generally like to automate my empire wherever possible, and this generally means leaving my engies on FRD.  However, their tendency to get bogged down repairing any fleet I have stationed in a system is annoying - I would much rather they spend their time repairing my turrets, resource harvesters, force fields, etc, especially when I already have an MRS in the system.

[x4000]

Seems like a good idea to me for a control node, yeah.

[MaxAstro]

Glad to hear it. 

...Er, just noticed a slight typo - I meant have engineers prefer to not repair mobile-military ships.  Obviously I still want them running around repairing turrets.   ...But you probably guessed that from the context.  :p

[x4000]

Sure did.

[keith.lamothe]

Good idea

For 3.042:

-added new control node that "Makes engineers prefer to assist non-mobile-military ships so they don't get bogged down repairing your fleets."

[HellishFiend]

Cool, I will be using that one!

[keith.lamothe]

One thing that may prove problematic is that mobile military really become the *last* thing that the engineers take care of.  So if there's any kind of looping assistable build queue in the system those ships aren't going to get repaired by an engineer unless you move (not frd-move) the engineer pretty close to it so that everything higher priority is outside the working range.  We may want to change that, but it's one of those "well, what do you actually want this node to do?" things.

[MaxAstro]

That's actually fine by me - considering the rate engineers repair at, I'd honestly rather have them assisting my build queues. 

[Ozymandiaz]

How about a node that makes engineers avoid build queue helping unless you directly assign them to help build?

Or will it become too many nodes?

[MaxAstro]

...Actually, that node already exists, unless I am sadly mistaken. 

[Ozymandiaz]

...Actually, that node already exists, unless I am sadly mistaken. 

You might be right, in that case building both nodes should solve the "problem" then I guess

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I figured that node combo would work, but if y'all get a chance to test it after the prerelease comes out, please let me know if it works in a sensible/useful way.

Thanks,
Keith

[TheSilverHammer]

I like this idea, however I would prefer one exception.  Military ships with engine damage of first priority to fix.  They do not need to be fully repaired, just enough to get their engines to 100%.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, sounds doable, but what do others think?

[x4000]

I think that gets far too complicated too quickly, with it too difficult for the game to tell what players really want.  However, the actual core goal of the request makes a lot of sense to me.  I think it would be good to have a new form of specialized engine-repair-only engineer, or something like that.