A Path Beyond Repair tool vs. wrench

[gammae102]

So this is an extremely minor issue that won't affect gameplay at all and is mostly about aesthetics, but I'm going to bring it up anyway.  I was showing a friend of mine APB who had never played it or Renegade before and when telling him about how the technicians and engineers work, I started thinking that the repair tool is kinda ridiculous.  Engineers already have the golden wrench, so I was thinking it would be really easy to replace the repair tool with a non-golden wrench.  Now, I do realize that swinging a wrench at a MCT to repair a building doesn't really make that much more sense than pressing buttons a a flip phone, but I do think it would be a little more intuitive to new players. I also think it might  drive home the point to new players who have played Renegade before that repair tool doesn't work the same as in Renegade (although this is admittedly hardly an issue anymore).  Plus it is more RAlistic, as in Red Alert you repair buildings by clicking the wrench icon and then clicking on the building.  And also the repair tool doesn't really fit in the the time period, since Red Alert is supposed to take place in the '50s and a repair tool is some pretty advanced technology. The only downsides I can think of are that this may cause some confusion with the mechanic wrench vs. the technician wrench, and also nostalgia for the repair tool and 56K sound effects. So what do you think. Should we keep the repair tool as it is or replace it with a wrench?

[Pushwall]

How would making it a wrench communicate any better to new players that it's used for buildings and not vehicles? If anything that seems like it'd make it more likely that people would try repairing vehicles with it. I suppose I could update the HUD icon to say "Structural Repair Tool" instead of just "Repair Tool".

Longbows also don't fit in the '50s and let's not get into the equipment that still doesn't exist in 2017.

And to be quite honest, yes, I am pretty nostalgic for the repair tool and 56K sound effects.

[gammae102]

I guess maybe doesn't explain it much better.  I just felt dumb explaining to my friend who hadn't played the game before.  "This is a repair tool. It repairs stuff while sounding like a dial-up modem."

[FRAYDO]

If one were to ditch the dial-up modem sounds, what would you suggest be used in place of that sound for a more modern feel?

[NodGuy]

I replaced the obnoxious dial-up sound with the Renegade repair sound. Unfortunately you only hear the sound for a second but at least the dial-up sound is gone and I only hear the beeping sound when the buttons are pressed.

[Mojoman]

I like the idea of calling it a structural repair tool.

Side note: Please rename all AI technicians 'Bob the Builder' and have them scream 'CAN WE FIX IT' while repairing.

[JigglyJie]

Personally, I'd prefer the repair tools in Reborn, they just looked and functioned better, in my opinion. Can't remember if it was the same for Renegade but yeah... I just kinda dislike the dial-up thing. It was also neat at how engineer tools repaired somewhat better but I suppose that was warranted considering the lack of a wrench.

[OWA]

Secret confession time...

Spoiler

I love the dial up sound.

 

[Nodlied]

10 minutes ago, OWA said:

Secret confession time...

  Hide contents

I love the dial up sound.

 

+1

[devilslayersbane]

What about instead of a flip phone, change it to the 1980's motorola dynaTAC (of course, a small LCD with something along the lines of "Automated structural repair v1.1" would be nice to have so it's not an exact copy). Of course, there's modeling, texturing, rigging and animating, though I'm sure with the correct placement the existing animation could be used.

However, as far as how the repair tool works, I always imagined that the buildings in APB had an automated repair system that needed the ConYard to self activate, due to the individual buildings not having self repair AI (essentially, the ConYard acts as a mainframe controlling all auto-repairs); however, due to using a somewhat flawed parallel connection, it is slower than the wireless repair tool which would would initiate the protocols inside the structure itself (thus giving the technician his name). Finally, of course the engineer can use the automated repair, but his wrench acts a representation of his toolkit to repair buildings. A similar principal takes effect at the service depot, where the auto repairs are actually directed by the vehicles interfacing with the SD much like the repair tool but using the SD's specialized vehicle tools and repair systems.

[Raptor29aa]

On 8/19/2017 at 0:58 PM, Nodlied said:

+1

+2 just wanting to hear the sound "you got mail"

[Ice]

On 8/20/2017 at 2:52 AM, devilslayersbane said:

What about instead of a flip phone, change it to the 1980's motorola dynaTAC (of course, a small LCD with something along the lines of "Automated structural repair v1.1" would be nice to have so it's not an exact copy). Of course, there's modeling, texturing, rigging and animating, though I'm sure with the correct placement the existing animation could be used.

However, as far as how the repair tool works, I always imagined that the buildings in APB had an automated repair system that needed the ConYard to self activate, due to the individual buildings not having self repair AI (essentially, the ConYard acts as a mainframe controlling all auto-repairs); however, due to using a somewhat flawed parallel connection, it is slower than the wireless repair tool which would would initiate the protocols inside the structure itself (thus giving the technician his name). Finally, of course the engineer can use the automated repair, but his wrench acts a representation of his toolkit to repair buildings. A similar principal takes effect at the service depot, where the auto repairs are actually directed by the vehicles interfacing with the SD much like the repair tool but using the SD's specialized vehicle tools and repair systems.

Aesthetically speaking, I'm all for replacing the Repair Tool model with something more vintage-looking, most likely an old-fashioned analogue multi-meter rather than the digital flip-phone style device we currently have. Although to be fair even I'm pretty nostalgic for the dial-up sounds.

As for how repair tools (and most things really) even work, the way I've always seen it is that it's simply a representation, not meant to be taken literally; In my interpretation, there's no "auto-repair system" or anything far-fetched like that, and the ConYard basically acts as a warehouse and shipping point which houses the necessary materials and construction equipment to build structures and maintain/repair them as-needed (this is represented by the ConYard auto-repairing buildings in-game). On a similar note, the War Factory is simply a warehouse and workshop where vehicle parts are shipped to and then assembled on-site, or used to refurbish existing vehicles, and this is how vehicles are "produced" at the Factory.

In the case of the Repair Tool, it's simply a diagnostic tool to help Technicians quickly find damaged parts of a building so that they can initiate the necessary repair work as soon as possible. Same goes for the Golden Wrench, Mechanic's Wrench, and Service Depot. They're all just simplified representations of the complex repair/maintenance procedures that would actually be taking place.