Rimworld is influenced by the typical modern western mindset: don't repair stuff, it's cheaper to make new things.
That may be true when you have cities and mass production in factories, and don't give a damn about environment, but it feels out of place in a struggling colony. Resources are limited. Repairing items is cheaper and uses less resources, as long as the item in question is not designed to be crap.
Here is a very good documentary about planned obsolescence thorough history. The longest-burning lightbulb in the world, printers programmed to stop working, ipods with irreplacable battery which doesn't last past 3 years, stockings sturdy enough to pull a car with, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfbbF3oxf-E
While I agree that repairing objects is a mechanic worth discussing, I can't help but disagree entirely with your reasons and the direction you're tackling it.
I'm more concerned with:
Does this make the game more or less interesting?
Does this increase or decrease the number of meaningful decisions a player can make?
How much does this effect the overall game balance?
There's currently a mod that allows you to mend apparel and weaponry - in its current incarnation it's entirely free to do so ( requires a tiny amount of manpower, no resources ) and it's quite obviously too easy to acquire a large hoard of high quality weapons and armour.
Now even if you were to increase the resource cost and manpower times to be equal to the completed product proportionate to the % of durability being restored this would still be a significant balance issue.
Every piece of newly acquired gear would effectively be permanent, every legendary crafted or dropped would exist indefinitely regardless of how many colonists you lost, that piece of gear would remain.
It's exactly the same problem Bionics have, they can't currently be harvested from corpses because if you could remove them from corpses they would be a permanent increase to colony efficiency. They would effectively make you value your colonists less and your equipment more.
Currently the equipment degradation system destabilizes colonies, you constantly need more input ( Silver for traders or raw resources for crafting ) to maintain your colony. Any repair system that doesn't cost more than the value of the object you're repairing mitigates the system and makes the game significantly easier. It's a real balance problem.
I'm pretty sure Tynan plan to make item repairable, but it seem like a feature that will require some work and balancing. That's definitely needed though.
I don't have problem with the idea of keeping the same equipments well maintained for years, this is how it should be on a world that is unable to build too sophisticated.
Also, we aren't supposed to ever want to lose a colonist, so I don't fear equipment becoming more important than them (and even then... many of our IRL infrastructure are worth more than human life)
Lastly, some tech from Glitterworld should reasonably stay outside our range to repair or build (Think AI-core)
three people crashed on a planet are not going to be able to create a 'sustainable' colony. Logically that requires a large polity, say a planet.. for gameplay, the punctured equilibrium as currently exposed is an excellent compromise.
plus.. mods. :)
My initial reaction was, huh? Repairing things in Rimworld requires no materials, only time, so it is far better to repair something than build a new one. Of course, the OP meant weapons and clothes, not buildings and furniture. I agree that a repair mechanism needs to be implemented, but it ought to include the requirement for new materials, Need to patch your legendary plasteel gladius. Well that will take some time AND plasteel. I do think it ought to be possible to do patchwork, so if you want to do it on the cheap with, say, wood, In that case it will definitely decrease it's legendary status, or maybe turn it into a legendary "patchwork" gladius instead.
Quote from: Darth Fool on April 17, 2015, 12:05:04 PMI do think it ought to be possible to do patchwork, so if you want to do it on the cheap with, say, wood, In that case it will definitely decrease it's legendary status
Having the quality drop with each repair might be fun feature =P
Quote from: Shinzy on April 17, 2015, 01:37:07 PM
Having the quality drop with each repair might be fun feature =P
I don't know about every repair, but having a chance that the quality will degrade, based on how damaged the item was would make sense. And if you scaled it, that would be more incentive for a player to keep their gear in good repair, rather than only repairing it occasionally.
Quote from: Telarin on April 17, 2015, 01:54:11 PM
Quote from: Shinzy on April 17, 2015, 01:37:07 PM
Having the quality drop with each repair might be fun feature =P
I don't know about every repair, but having a chance that the quality will degrade, based on how damaged the item was would make sense. And if you scaled it, that would be more incentive for a player to keep their gear in good repair, rather than only repairing it occasionally.
+1
Quote from: Telarin on April 17, 2015, 01:54:11 PM
Quote from: Shinzy on April 17, 2015, 01:37:07 PM
Having the quality drop with each repair might be fun feature =P
I don't know about every repair, but having a chance that the quality will degrade, based on how damaged the item was would make sense. And if you scaled it, that would be more incentive for a player to keep their gear in good repair, rather than only repairing it occasionally.
It should also have to do with the level of the colonist attempting to repair it.
Well ive always figured that with clothing, the durability means that its getting more and more threadbare and actually has more and more minor stitch repairs and such. But you can only fix a shirt so many times before the cloth is just too tattered. Might as well get a new 1.
As far as maintaining weapons. Bows you can replace the string, but once the staff starts to crack ans go bad, thats it. Swords CAN be reforged (melt it down, make new sword). And guns are usually kinda complex, with many small parts that your average colonist cant make.
Autoturrets destroy this argument though. I can justify mortars and shells though, cause what scrub hasn't built a cannon of some sort before. Its just a tube with a breech, and something to ignite some propellant.
I think it's more of an aspect of gameplay rather than an ideology, like Boboid says.
Reverse logistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_logistics) is just as exciting as regular logistics. Eg, most users don't find this too terribly exciting. Personally I think recycling/repurposing elements could be interesting, but new features like *LGIUENJ'il THE VOID GOD* would probably grab my attention more.
You could have repair consume resources.
I would generally be in favor of even wall repair consuming resources, but it would turn colony defense into a logistics nightmare. Situations where pawns are repairing a door from behind faster than it's being damaged are a little silly.
Recycling would certainly be an interesting aspect of long-running colony, and would need some higher level research.
Let's ask Tynan for a machine that reverse entropy... ;D