Damaged Item Condensation on Pickup

[Locus]

Noticed this in this thread:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... maged+item

But wanted to post it so it isn't lost in a wall of text.

Suggestion:
It would be convenient for damaged wall items when picked up to add their total health and condense to one fully healed stack plus one item for the damaged remainder.

I believe I've seen construction bots handle repair packs this way.

Problems:
Players could micro game it as a repair mechanic, but a majority of players would benefit from easier deconstruction while keeping the base tidy

[LoSboccacc]

It would make too easy to repair stuff

What avout a middle ground? Divide in 8 health levels and round item down to the nearesth health level while picking them up

That would reduce stacks a lot while not being cheaty.

[ssilk]

I think 3 (repaired/full health, broken, a bit broken) is more than enough.

[ShadwDrgn]

Or you could just wait until you have repair drones flying around fixing crap and live with it in the early game where it doesn't matter as much. alternatively if it's THAT frustrating... i think a better fix would be an upgrade to the repair kit that can repair in an area making it less likely you'll be carrying around damaged stuff.

[Boogieman14]

I think 3 (repaired/full health, broken, a bit broken) is more than enough.

I would like this.

[sillyfly]

This may be a little controversial (I'm still not sure I like this idea myself ) but - how about not allowing to mine damaged items?
That way you can't have any damaged items in your inventory.

This makes a little sense - you wouldn't want to pick up a broken machine before fixing it, or maybe moving it while damaged could harm it even more?

Anyway, as I said - I'm not convinced if this is a good or really bad idea, but it could add an interesting mechanic to the game...

[LoSboccacc]

If you look at it as a mechanic what about these levels:

Sane remains sane
Damaged > 50% health become stacked as 25% health
Damaged <50% health is destroyed on pickup

[SHiRKiT]

Anything to adress this issue would be nice.

[necro]

I think 3 (repaired/full health, broken, a bit broken) is more than enough.

+1

[ssilk]

This may be a little controversial (I'm still not sure I like this idea myself ) but - how about not allowing to mine damaged items?
That way you can't have any damaged items in your inventory.

This makes a little sense - you wouldn't want to pick up a broken machine before fixing it, or maybe moving it while damaged could harm it even more?

Anyway, as I said - I'm not convinced if this is a good or really bad idea, but it could add an interesting mechanic to the game...

I think this is a good idea.
And I will add: If I have repair packs to repair an item, why shouldn't it be repaired, when I mine it? It takes then just a bit longer.
I mean: from gameplay view it makes not much sense to grep up broken things. There are some special situations, especially when seeing from story view, but, wtf, why should I carry broken walls or lasers, which you may have plenty? It brings the game not forward to pick them up, or beeing forced to always switch between two tools.

[bobingabout]

I'm torn between wanting it, and not.

The case of walls, pfft, cheap easilly disposable items, condensing into 1 wall with better health is definitely a good thing, I found it annoying that my drones would stop working, because I tried to deconstruct a damaged walls, and they filled every logistic chest with broken walls, and since the stacks were incomplete, kept trying to put more in the full chest.

in other cases though, such as a more expensive laser tower, the cost to build them far exceeds the repair cost in repair packs, condensing 2 damaged items into a single healthier one would feel like I've lost something.


As a little niggle about how it currently works... Damaged items CAN stack currently, but only if their health is identicle.

A wall has 250 health or something like that, which means you have a total of 250 different health levels for walls. This means that the chance of 2 damaged walls having the exact same health is very low, which means about 99% of the time(Depending how many you're holding) they're not ging to stack. When you start trying to carry 250 damaged walls (which isn't going to happen with so few inventory slots) you'll notice some starting to stack into each other.

one of the problems with drones is that they don't see a health 128 wall, they just see a wall, so will try and bring them all to the same chest, once that chest is full of damaged items will either just hang there trying to fill an already full chest (earlier versions), or start to fill another (later versions of the game added the ability to connsider a chest full if it has a single damaged item in a slot), not even trying to stack the potential compatability of damaged walls.

[lxl]

damaged items could stack and get either average health or minimum health.