I had a dream... about a shovel...

[MightyKeb]

I think a welding torch would be a great tool for repairing permahull. In fact, I think I'll post that in a new thread.

A squid...

[BlackenedPies]

It would either be overpowered or not useful. It wouldn't be viable with a gunner because you'd have to give up the buff hammer on the wrench buff engi. With three engi you could have the third bring wrench buff torch but that's a very specialized use that would make it extremely powerful. Being too specialized would create problems for crew failing to use it effectively.

I don't think there should be any type of perma hull repairing. It's inherently unbalanced between players and ships (useless on junker great on squid).

[Richard LeMoon]

Depends on if you are repairing a set number, or a percent of hull per second. That would flip it, making it most useful on Galleons, least on Squid. A fair medium would be to add n+(h*.01) per second, n being a flat number, and h being max permahull. Squids would gain the most out of n, while Galleons would gain the most out of (h*.01).

And again, buff hammer needs to stop adding damage. That would solve so many balance problems.

[BlackenedPies]

So repairing n hull points + 1% of hull per second? Hide and repair. It'll make games longer and only benefits 3 engi builds. Unless pilots start taking it and then it'll be serious.

Gun buffs should affect damage because it's balanced between the guns. Buffing attributes like arcs, traverse, jitter etc would make it unbalanced with some guns benefiting greatly and others not. The issue is that +20% means buffed regular does more dps than greased and a buff engi can always out damage a gunner. If it was +10% then a gunner could do more damage than an engi especially with stamina. I'm biased so I love the +20%.

[Helios.]

as for alternate buffing tools, i think this is a good idea, as the current buff isnt increasing the features of some fo the components as i would like, so i propose a second buff tool, incompatable with the first, for balance reasons that woudl increase:
hull: when buffed there woudl be some cooldown reduction so long as it is buffed
balloon and engines: component health
guns: reload speed

if you want to make it a shovel, by all means