Like, as a random event?
Quote:
Suicide Junkie said:
Heroics shouldn't be routine, I think.
A big bonus randomly achieved every now and then would be better 
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This brings up something that I have been thinking of for a while. There are things that are treated as random events that shouldn't be. That is, the driver for some of the events are things that are under player control and so can and should be modeled if practical. Specifically, I think that component breakdowns should be based on the amount of maintenance you are spending.
I base this on my work, which involves analyzing US navy readiness and maintenance, among other things. Ship components break down all the time, constantly.
So, I would like to see maintenance be on a slider, the middle of which would be "100% funded", and then perhaps it would range from 50% funded to 150% funded.
Paying 100% would result in some level (call it X) breakdowns per turn (determined by some algorithm, with a random element)
If you took your maintenance budget down to less than 100%, then X would increase comensurately, according to some settings in the data files. On the flip side, if you increase your maintenance over 100% then X would decrease.
Therefore if you're in a tight spot, you could assume the risk of breakdowns in order to fund your entire fleet, if you're flush you can spend resources to ensure your ships are at a higher level of readiness.
Frankly, I'd actually like to take such a system further: Aircraft and vessel maintenance and lifecycles generally follow a bathtub curve, wherein after commissioning they have a period of time with many breakdowns (the "break in" period), then a longer period of time with a few breakdowns, and then, as they near the end of their service lives their breakdown rates increase greatly untile they undergo a major maintenance overhaul or something similar.
So, I would say that ships should have an age (tracked from when they were built) and their breakdown rates should vary depending on their age and the maintenance budget slider.
Also, I would like the maintenance budget to be on a non linear scale. There is only so much money/resources you can throw at the maintenance budgets but you'll always have some sort of breakdowns going on. So, perhaps do a logarithmic function of maintenance, or something else (I'm not a mathemetician) that results in a decreasing return to maintenance or an increasing breakdown rate as you reduce the maintenance budget...
I think I'll leave it at that for now...
thanks,
Alarik