1 HP = Still fine (not) / Damaged entities should not work reliably and not cause disasters

[EditorRUS]

Basically all things in game right now have two states: fine/doesn't exist. Health means absolutely nothing and really is just a delay before this piece of machinery is destroyed by aliens.
This should not be the case.

The idea is simple: add random side effects for different kind of things when they are sufficiently damaged. For extra fun they should also be potentially hazardous and lead to more destruction if ignored. To further boost the danger it is a good to make more things flammable.

List of examples:
Belts: random slowdowns.
Boilers: leak water (waste heat and fuel) when HP is not too low, otherwise they might explode and set things around it on fire leading to ultra-fun and also potentially damaging the power net. Might kill off some biters around it too. Over time it might degrade on its own if not taken care of eventually exploding.
Offshore pumps: decrease its pumping ability
Steam Engine: decrease efficiency, leak water, might explode, might actually start CONSUMING electricity rather than producing it
Inserters: random slowdowns, might stop working for some time if damaged enough
Assemblers: pure fun: they might waste resources by producing nothing, randomly increase their power consumption, explode, set things around on fire, degrade over time if damaged
Chests: None
Drills: slowdowns, might get stuck and waste electricity by doing nothing, or explode if damaged enough, degrade over time if damaged too much leading to an explosion
Turrets: lower rotation speed, random slowdowns or might explode for ultra-fun
And so on...

The "on fire" and "explode" parts are pretty important to make sure that disasters are spreadable and require imminent attention. Should player decide not to take action and they might face a really big problem that will require drastic measures.
This is especially true for turrets. If you don't repair your turrets in time, they will decrease their efficiency, which in turn means more turrets around are going to be damaged, which eventually might end up with an explosions which creates a huge chain reaction.

I really feel like repairing things is tedious and feels completely unnecessary because whether something is damaged or not doesn't matter.
Now, you might argue that it doesn't solve the problem, but I think this idea will make it meaningful and even necessary. If you don't repair your factory after an attack, it might escalate and you risk a lot. That's a punishment of sort for those who ignore repairing until they absolutely have to. Also, it makes early-mid game much more fun and enemies can overrun your factory much more easily since they don't need to destroy literally everything, but attack key points instead. If you don't pay enough attention to your defense, they might eventually be able to damage enough stuff to create a problem that would affect the entire factory rather than just forcing you to rebuild everything and put some more turrets to this area.

Also, you can eventually overcome this problem by setting up a roboport network to repair stuff for you.


TL;DR: Damaged machinery should work with less efficiency and malfunction and affect/damage nearby things to spread, leading to a failure of the entire system. If you damage just one boiler in a power generation block, it might eventually cause a critical failure of the entire power block if not prevented by turning it off or repairing in time.

[aRatNamedSammy]

personally, as so many ppl are careless, i could see that becoming funny.. to look at others getting problems because they just dont care.... BUT!
if agree if the health trouble start only under half life of entity (yellow).. and degraded itself very slowly when 1/4 life remain (red). hazardous situation start to happen at yellow(slowdown, leaks, on/off, ect), and worst thing at red, inculding explosion and fire.
my opinion
(still again, sry my bad english)

[Xeanoa]

It's been like that though in almost every game since the dawn of time.

Sure, there are games and models that try to do it differently, but in my opinion it should stay the way it is.

[AssaultRaven]

The visible health bars bother me so much that there is simply no time in any of my factories ever when a damaged item has continued to be damaged, nor is there any time when it would not be possible to immediately repair the item, even if only by replacement.

I don't think it would ever come up.

[deepdriller]

TVTropes calls this Critical Existence Failure. It's so common in games, it's considered an Acceptable Break from Reality.
I think of this idea like the offshore pump needing power: It's bothering quite some people, and it seems like a neat thing to have, but would it really add all that much to the game? Especially once the robot network is up, thing will be repaired immediately.

[Rseding91]

TL;DR: Damaged machinery should work with less efficiency and malfunction and affect/damage nearby things to spread, leading to a failure of the entire system. If you damage just one boiler in a power generation block, it might eventually cause a critical failure of the entire power block if not prevented by turning it off or repairing in time.

No, that wouldn't be fun even in the slightest. Additionally it would cause an extra drain on performance to do all those useless checks when virtually every machine sits at 100% health.

[Philip017]

i would have to agree that damaged machines blowing up and causing even more mayhem wouldn't be that much fun,

on the other hand slowdowns and occasionally producing nothing would be ok, but some way of know of knowing this is happening might be a good idea to implement as well, like the machine has a different sound when it's damaged and suffering slowdowns/producing nothing.