Observations on maintenance

[OlD MrD]

Some thoughts one equipment repair / maintenance. (Playing on Xbox as these seems to be quite a few disparagies between platforms)

First off I was excited to have a more in depth system in FS19.

In reality we basically just have the same system as FS17 but now I have to manually pay the maintance at the shop or workshop rather than getting charged a flat daily rate.

Yes rather than being tied to age/time of ownership it seems to now be tied to amount of hours use, and yes this is a welcome change.

But other than that it is just a manual version of the system we already had.


Things I’d like to see updated or changed

Maintance have more stages
- at the moment it seems kind of all or nothing, the kit works until you get to a certain % then drops off. I had at first thought the was a random event that your kit could just break but more play time just indecated this is how it always happens. I feel this should be a more of gradual fall in performance. Maby with a small % chance of complete failure.

Interactive failures
- make the failures more interesting than the kit just slows down. Eg let’s say a cutter gets hit by a stone on a harvester so that row now no longer cut leaving a gap in the harvesting, or a head on a sprayer is blocked/broken and that one stops spraying again leaving a gap in the coverage. A bent steering arm makes equipment pull to one side, a puncture looses traction, lights maybe fail, augers get blocked etc etc

Ware look
- This is also seemingly an under used/implemented feature. By the time your kit looks used it’s time to repair it so you don’t get to see the used looking kit. How about make it so the kit looks used at something like 60% then starts to degrade in performance at 30% ? And (as I have posted before) please split the repair & repaint so we can choose to just repair or repair & repaint and make look new.

Like I said I was looking forward to this feature and so far during play it’s not living up to the hype.
And agin I also understand this game is developed to some extent to allow moders to add features and my hope is that in the back ground the new maintance system gives more scope for this (including bringing these type of mods to console)

[livesea72]

I wish we could keep the worn look even after making repairs. How many farmers tractors look brand new after repairs much less after 30 hours of use?

[PrincessJessi84]

high quality spray paint livesea72

[Knottypine]

But other than that it is just a manual version of the system we already had.

Incorrect. In 17, we were in fact charged twice. A daily maintenance fee, AND we also had to pay for repairs manually. What did the daily maintenance fee do exactly when we still had to manually repair? And the daily maintenance fee applied even on equipment that wasn't used at all during the day.

So I think the repair system they have in 19 is a step up.

[NateS]

I think you're both partially correct about how the old system worked. In the base game, you were charged a daily fee at midnight for every piece of equipment regardless of use. Then the seasons mod, I believe, replaced that with the repair based on use but only for machines with engines???

Not sure if that's 100% correct, but at any rate, the new system is definitely an improvement.

[Skunkworks]

Wh not just have an option like we have for dirt to set via menu, so you can at least have an option to set wear fast, normal or slow?

[Rasping rabbit]

In season we paid to repair tractors, harvesters etc and were charged at midnight for the implements, headers etc. Agree though, this way is better, although I would like things to still look worn

[Elway358]

The wear(rust, etc) on my equipment never gets reset no matter how many times I've repaired them. It sounds like this isn't supposed to be happening? Ive never ever washed anything(literally not even bought a washer). Is that tied to the "wear" look?

[INSTG8R]

I'm quite happy with the system as far as cost, its probably the most reasonable expense in game right now but I do think that the performance losses from usage are a little to quick but as I said the cost of repairs are more than reasonable so I don't mind paying them

[OlD MrD]

I think the manual repair in FS17 was all the seasons mod, and yes for engines machines. I remember a incompatibility with the BigM mower as the mod saw it as a mower so you couldn’t repair it?!?
So in base game all we have right now it does feel like it is just a manual version of the daily charge.
Yes is it being based on use a step in the right direction absolutey
Is the ware on items a very good thing YES

Is it the “All new repair system” I feel was talked about in streams and QnA’s no I don’t think so.
Again would like to know if it at some point had more scope but time restraint for launch as with many other in game systems has cobbled it. And if there is a possibility it will be worked on ignoring bugs and times things degrade these are tweeks to an xml not changes to the system.

Maybe I was just exspecting more of a new repair system in a “Sim” game. A bit more like Forza for exsample where different things broken make the car handle differently or fail to change gear or the engine fails etc

Maybe I was hoping for to much, but as much as anything some more info would be good, I realise Giants are a bit busy right now, but in general there communication with us isn’t bad. So some news on what happened to some of these things would help almost as much as bug fixes & new features (such as the terrain tools coming soon)

And again I’m not a modder so I don’t know if the new system is more of a feature/api for modding and we will see new better things that way.

[OlD MrD]

I'm quite happy with the system as far as cost

Agree 100% the costing seem about right, even the breaking time might not be to far off.

Imagine a culitivator brakes off a coupe of spikes, this could happen after an hour or after 10 hours. And in the real world this would probably get fixed same or next day before completeimg the task. So almost from a role play angle the time scales may be about right.

The bigger problem I feel is that’s not what the game communicates it just says, the thing wore out after 2 hours of use. So now go repair it.

[OlD MrD]

The wear(rust, etc) on my equipment never gets reset

Interesting if you are getting different resualts? What platform ? And are you referring to dirt (which does stay after repair) or the actual paint scraping/ware (the shiny under metal showing through)v

[INSTG8R]

Yeah I do think the performance hits are a little quick we noticed our Harvester was losing speed with maybe 6 hours of runtime also our header was also causing the same performance issue until repaired. The costs I am fine with but the amount of time your equipment starts to show signs of needing repair is a little quick

[OlD MrD]

Wh not just have an option like we have for dirt to set via menu, so you can at least have an option to set wear fast, normal or slow?

Yes absolutely, I am pro choice, and understand there are people who want to have shiny equipment all the time. So I’d add

Wear speed (visual)
Off
Slow
Normal
Fast
Permanent y/n
- (with option to respary by garage visit)

Equipment wear
Slow
Normal
Fast
- (with current repair option only repairing)

[OlD MrD]

As an addition

I also feel the game needs a better GUI representation for the equipment “health” as the current bar that looks nice on the HUD speedo is awsome for the tractor but gives no indication on the health of attached tools/headers etc.
Maybe add a bar once kit is atteched? Or make the top left tractor and attached items change colour (also put it back down in the bottom right where is should be not hidden in the clouds lol)