Some thoughts on Item Quality and Maintenance

[SpaceDorf]

We all know that Good Quality Items usually have a longer lifespan than bad quality ones.

I don't know if this is included ingame or not, but it should. Either by giving higher quality Items more HP or by reducing the rate in which they loose HP.

And I know it is a game, but in real life weapons do not fall apart in months or even a few years.
The rifle which was issued to me, when I did my voluntary service in the german army was older than me.
And we all know the stories of inherited swords and guns ..
With proper maintenance good quality equipment should survive through a whole game ..

In fact my suspension of disbelief is really strained with the modern "throw away" approach
Rimworld uses for gear.
To truly embrace the Western and Survival feeling the game wants to convey it needs to switch from
mass production for sales to maintenance, modification and and keeping things going.

How many sci-fi stories and episodes are there about the grand massproduction of stuff ?
How many sci-fi stories, sub-stories and tropes are there about the engineer who saves the day, duct tape, the fastes junk freighter in the galaxy and the junk the hero inherited ?

This said I want to scrath the topic of Item Quality.

How many Masterworks did the real Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphaello and Donatello produce to become renown through history ?
How many Legendary Weapons are there World Wide ? ( or per gaming world if you wish )

They Number of those Items should be drastically reduced throughout the game.
Sure a Lvl 20 Crafter should be able to produce superior items without breaking asweat, some
of them being excellent.
But beyond that .. Masterwork and Legendary should have a very low chance to come into existence. And if you try to force it, it should be by the cost of additional time and ressources .. there will be a loss until you have the perfect flawless parts down .. compare it to the progression of meals. You can have food with base ingredients but a lavish meal comes at a loss of ingredients.

[keylocke]

in games like gnomoria.

a weapon that managed to kill a ton of enemies, eventually achieves a legendary status.

i also agree with having weapons and armor repair/maintenance.

as for "legendary" status. i think that people and equipment can acquire "legends", which is similar to art.

ie : some furniture created by master builders/artists can occasionally have "art" that increases it's effectiveness/value. the same can be said for pawns and equipment that achieves "legendary" status.

[SpaceDorf]

good points which fit the story-telling aspect of the game.

[OFWG]

And I know it is a game, but in real life weapons do not fall apart in months or even a few years.
The rifle which was issued to me, when I did my voluntary service in the german army was older than me.

You're right of course, but to be fair that rifle had probably been gone through a few times to replace small parts, maybe even a barrel change or two depending on caliber and how much it's been used. In my mind that's what the durability loss represents.

[SpaceDorf]

Right, and this is what I also meant with Maintenance ..
Cleaning, Realigning, exchanging small parts.

[Limdood]

And I know it is a game, but in real life weapons do not fall apart in months or even a few years.
The rifle which was issued to me, when I did my voluntary service in the german army was older than me.

I dunno, leave said rifle in the mud and rain for a week and see how usable it is.

Also, oddly, in regards to the OP, high quality apparel actually lasts LESS time than low, since damage that apparel stops is transferred to the apparel item, higher quality apparel blocks more, hence it absorbs more, and higher quality apparel doesn't have more hp than a lower quality version of the same item.

You're right of course, but to be fair that rifle had probably been gone through a few times to replace small parts, maybe even a barrel change or two depending on caliber and how much it's been used. In my mind that's what the durability loss represents.

[SpaceDorf]

I never said you should leave your weapons lying in the mud ..

Right there .. the thing that high quality items get desrtoyed faster than low quality items because they absorb more damage .. thats one of the things that should change somehow ..

[Nuss]

Better quality items should indeed deteriorate at a slower pace and the weapon should be completely dropped, unless they lie around in the open. Its enough for them to be damaged in combat.

Repairing is a must have. As a downside, each time you fix your gear, it loses quality, so you need to choose carefully whether you want to do this on 50%, 25% or 10%. And it may cost resources.

[Aerial]

Better quality items should indeed deteriorate at a slower pace and the weapon should be completely dropped, unless they lie around in the open. Its enough for them to be damaged in combat.

I think the degradation due to being unroofed is a good mechanic to simulate leaving your rifle out in the mud and rain.  It will, in fact, degrade.

Repairing is a must have. As a downside, each time you fix your gear, it loses quality, so you need to choose carefully whether you want to do this on 50%, 25% or 10%. And it may cost resources.

Not everything loses quality when it's repaired.  That rifle that gets passed down through the generations may actually be a better weapon now than it was when it was first manufactured.  I think the skill of the repairer and the quality of the repair parts should determine whether the quality goes down or up.  But I totally agree it should cost resources.

[Brutetal]

Interesting and good idea
I think quality should affect primarily the HP count AND the damage the item takes. Too lazy to do the math now, but it should be in a way, that the next higher quality lasts longer if it takes the same amount of dmg as the lower one.
Legendary items could have special effects which are randomly generated. Like a legendary charge rifle which gets a 10% chance to do double the damage (and other things, a bit like Borderlands maybe?). Would really feel like "woah. A legendary!".
Also maintenance... Maybe up to 50% degradation is reparable with resources. When it's under that gate, the item loses one quality level with repair. Would need some micromanaging but this way you couldn't hold on that super awesome charge rifle forever.

This would also be a chance to add a new skill/job - maintenance. The job could very well depend on the crafting skill, but would need to be set separated. It wouldn't end well if maintenance jobs were in the crafting job integrated, because your best crafter suddenly decides to maintain a gun and your second best decides to craft that power armour/whatnot.

At least that's I think.

[PetWolverine]

Repairing items should be a thing, and it should depend on crafting skill. It would be a job at a workbench, same as crafting a new weapon, so you could specify a minimum/maximum skill level for it and which types of items to repair. Each workbench would be able to repair the same types of items it can craft. If there's a chance to reduce the quality when repairing, it should be like the chance to fail at construction, and drop to zero as the pawn's skill increases.

I don't think weapons currently degrade unless left on the ground unroofed. Clothes and armor do, and the rate should really depend on quality, as others have noted. Weapons degrading due to use would be infuriating without the ability to repair them.

Regarding the initial quality of an item, I think there should be personality traits that change the width of the bell curve so an "experimenter" would have a higher chance of producing legendaries but also a higher chance of producing awful items, while someone who is "staid" would predictably churn out poor, then normal, then good, etc. items as their skill increased - and might almost never produce legendaries even at max skill. Then, maybe the base curve could be tightened, and legendaries would be hard to get without an experimenter.

[Project 06]

Its a interesting concept to have to, or be able to maintain weaponry in the game. However I think the main reason for quickly degrading weapons is to prevent a colony from obtaining a full arsenal of firearms too quickly. I like the idea of just one or two guns being prized for their rarity and power over primitive weapons, which seems to be lacking a bit. A good raid defense against modern enemies and you will be well equipped.

[SpaceDorf]

Its a interesting concept to have to, or be able to maintain weaponry in the game. However I think the main reason for quickly degrading weapons is to prevent a colony from obtaining a full arsenal of firearms too quickly. I like the idea of just one or two guns being prized for their rarity and power over primitive weapons, which seems to be lacking a bit. A good raid defense against modern enemies and you will be well equipped.

A solution I liked came with Fallout 3, you need other similiar Weapons to maintain and repair a weapon. Strip it for spare parts so to say.
This keeps the number of Weapons down and even the number of items to sell.
Nothing can be repaired beyond the skill of the crafter .. or the available parts

[Aerial]

Its a interesting concept to have to, or be able to maintain weaponry in the game. However I think the main reason for quickly degrading weapons is to prevent a colony from obtaining a full arsenal of firearms too quickly. I like the idea of just one or two guns being prized for their rarity and power over primitive weapons, which seems to be lacking a bit. A good raid defense against modern enemies and you will be well equipped.

I think a better way to balance this issue would be to get rid of the degradation but make low quality weapons jam and/or misfire frequently, sometimes injuring the pawn holding it (or his friends nearby).  Yeah, it's kind of harsh, but that's the real life risk with low-quality weapons.  You wouldn't use them unless you were desperate, but they would be a source of raw materials you could use to start making your own weapons, or perhaps a place to start skilling up a repair skill if such were implemented.

[eadras]

+1 for this thread.  This one of the areas I'm hoping to see fleshed out in future updates