Repair Tips and Tricks

From Seed

If you're new to Seed or still learning the basics of repairing, try the First Day Guide or Gameplay Topics - Repairs.

This guide aims to collate the tips and tricks of the experienced repairer.

Warning: this guide does not necessarily include information to most recent beta patch. Please remove this warning if you update this guide to final patch.

Skills

Skills take time to train, so planning your skill training is important so that you can quickly acquire the more useful repair skills.

Repair skills can be separated into two groups: Specialist Skills and Trade-off Skills.

Specialist skills make you better at repairing a certain damage type by giving you a bonus to repair (5% per level) and giving you access to improved tool functions (e.g. Super Glue requires Engineering level 4). See the table below for the maximum Specialist skills required to use the best functions in the game as a guide to how far to train these skills.

Trade-Off skills provide trade-off abilities (see below), allowing you to increase one aspect of repair at the expense of another. Those aspects are:

• Cooldown - the time taken between repair cycles
• Repair Quality - unspecified as not implemented yet
• Item Charge - not implemented but tools will use a number of charges for each repair and will need to be recharged
• Item Stress - the amount of stress per repair cycle - if stress reaches maximum, the tool is damaged and will need repair
• Inspiration Drop - the chance of an Inspiration being gained from a repair job
• Salvage - unspecified as not implemented yet

Each Trade-off skill gives one ability for each skill level. The five abilities given by a single skill increase the same aspect and decrease different aspects. Basic level skills give a +25/-20% or +25%/-25% trade-off. Advanced level skills improve the trade-off to +50%/-10%.

As some aspects are not yet implemented in the beta, there is currently no advantage to increasing those aspects. So the skills Quality Assurance, Repair Technician, Resource Saving and Scrounging have no use for the moment and can be ignored in favour of other skills.

Trade-Off Abilities

As some aspects are not yet implemented in the beta, there is also currently no disadvantage to decreasing those aspects.

Therefore, with the right abilities you can improve Cooldown and Item Stress for "free" (i.e. decreasing Quality, Charge, Inspiration Drop or Salvage).

Once you have advanced skills, you can also select opposite trade-offs, so that the net effect is 40% (+50% - 10%) increase to both aspects.

Inspirations

Inspiration drops occur as you repair/produce/etc. They show up in your regular inventory, and can be traded to other players. They are used to decrease the time required to complete training for skills.

Equipment

To be the best repairer, you need the best tools.

Best Value for Money Tools with No Advanced Skills

Maximum Possible Repair Tools

For more detail on all tools in the game, see the List of Tools.

Miscellaneous Tips

Targeting Repair Jobs

Sometimes a repair job can be difficult to target. You click on the hatch, but no Target or Examine icons appear. Each job has a sweet spot to access these icons and some sweet spots can be hard to find.

The middle of the hatch generally works for wall hatches.

For floor hatches, if the middle of the hatch isn't working, click on or outside the short edges of the hatch (left or right), inside the white target frame. In my experience, the short edge closest to your character works more often.

Dual Tasking

You can use more than one function on the same tool at a time:

• Use Acid Spray and Biosponge on a Monocleaner to fix 10 Contamination per cycle
• Use Servo Wrench and Photovoltaic Cells on a Mechanized Wrench to fix Mechanical and Electrical at the same time
• Use Patch and Super Glue on a Monowrapper to fix 36 Structural per cycle!

However, using dual-tasking can be tricky. For it to work, you generally need to select both functions before the repair animation begins, although occasionally I have been able to start a second function after using one function for a few cycles.

One method that has worked for many players is to make sure all previous animations have stopped, then click the first and then second function in quick succession near the right hand edge of the cooldown gauge. If it has worked, then both gauges should start to "cooldown" simultaneously.

It may take a few tries to get the hang of it, so don't get put off if it doesn't work at first.

Complications

Complications may appear while working on a repair job. You can do some tricks to avoid their harmful effects:

• If a complication states that "you might get hurt" and you're unsure wether you can remove it in time, stop repairing and run some distance from the hatch. This way you can "leap out of harm's way", avoiding injuries.
• If a complication can cause the repair job to get worse, but doesn't involve a damage type that wasn't worked on yet, you may ignore it - most likely it will only affect "it's" damage type which can't get worse, thus having no harmful effect.