That could work, but only if you assume that the highly specific piece of equipment doesn't break, or is manufactured in-house. Generic box with replacement bulbs and some wires is how most companies manage their repairs, but once in a while they do have to call a plumber.
True, but the idea isn't to have a bunch of bulbs and wires sitting in a box. The idea is it's a general, broad term that includes a number of common components of all structures. Any good engineer knows that the fewer specialized parts you have, the easier and less costly it is to build or maintain something. If you're leaving the planet in a hurry your building plans are probably going to include a lot of the same parts between the buildings. Sure, external skins/shielding would probably be different between the structures but the reality is, in a situation like that most buildings would probably be basically the same on the outside with the difference being the internal layouts and function. Because it's a game each building is going to look different so that they can be easily identified by the player but in my humble opinion if I was going to design these buildings, sure, the colony would be extremely boring looking on the outside but function is far more important than form.
Anyway, point being, the thinking behind this is that every structure is basically made of the same stuff. Even the circuitry used would probably be standard builds (things like door control mechanisms, environmental controls, lighting, etc.) so basically just hot swap that stuff around. It's kind of how the robot spare parts was intended in OP1. Which leads me to:
Incidentally; how did robot spare parts work?
Robots had specialty functions but their parts were basically the same. Robot Spare Parts was a general, broad idea for whatever parts the robots needed -- wheels, gearing systems, servos, electronic controls, etc.
Fuel Cells were considered a different part -- not one I generally care for and our battery technology has improved a LOT since OP1 was developed (and continues to improve) so that concept is obsolete now. But I digress.
I've suggested the DIRT take on a bit more responsibility, and it could be redefined as a generic 'keeps the stockpiles of pipes and microwaves up'-kinda factory, with increased resource usage. Renaming it from the 'Disaster Instant Response Team' to the 'Disaster Information and Repair Team'?
I agree. I don't know if we need to maintain the original name but the idea for me was that the repair crews would housed here. Or at least the equipment to respond to maintenance issues and emergencies. My thinking is that the game starts off with one or two repair crews which can upkeep maintenance on one building per turn and repair a broken down structure in two turns.
But that's a different dynamic requiring a different topic.On the other hand, a factory producing stuff 'on demand' would work just as well. But maybe for realism and simplicity let it not actually produce stuff, but let it work as 'Maintenance and support'
I see this as the function of the maintenance structure. It would have limited manufacturing capabilities which would produce the specialty stuff required of buildings that the generic stuff won't fix. This structure could have a per-turn raw resource requirement that increases as the number of (functional, e.g., non-tube) structures in the colony increases.
EDIT: this would simplify building resource usage into a single value of 'maintenance required', yes?
That's the general idea. Maintenance required and then depending on the level of disrepair would require 1 to XX number of "Building Maintenance Supplies" or whatever. Don't know if I should cap that at say, 10 units, or have each structure define a max number of this before it goes into a broken down state (perhaps the max number of components broken before a breakdown would be calculated based on a building complexity constant/modifier + level of disrepair... I'll have to play with that one for awhile to get a good balance).
