I've been a bit obsessive with my Auto Field-Maintenance Unit (AFMU) usage ever since I got one. Every time a module takes even 1% damage, I stop to repair it. So far, it hasn't been a big deal since I've hardly ever run through a quarter of the AFMU's supplies before returning to a station.
Still, I'm left wondering how much of these repairs are actually worthwhile? Since, for the most part, my modules have never dropped below 90% health, I don't really know which ones really need to be kept in top shape for best performance or which ones I can leave for the starport mechanics to deal with.
Does damage affect the performance of modules, or is it just a "health meter" that shows you how close the module is to becoming inoperable?
If there is an incremental effect, how is this applied? Is it substantially different for each module? Are there certain modules that are glaring exceptions?
22 Answers
Damage does not affect the performance of modules.
It only determines the frequency of malfunctions. (e.g. an FSD at 75% will start to malfunction - the more damage it takes the more it will malfunction)
The only module that has an incremental effect AFAIK is the canopy, that only shows visual cracks.
Keep in mind that a malfunction does affect the module performance so you might want to repair a module as soon as it drops under 80% to prevent performance loss.
It's hard to find clear information on this, but I believe that at low health (<25%?) modules can randomly malfunction - they may stop working properly. For example, I've had my power distributor malfunction and randomly reassign my power. Once they hit 0% they just stop working entirely obviously.
When a module does malfunction sometimes you can just wait it out, but manually rebooting it via the Modules panel has always fixed it for me.
Unless you're exploring far from populated space or doing lots of combat and don't want to have to retreat to repair, you won't really need an AFMU much.
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