After seeing The Martian I thought that repair system in OW is quite boring, so I invented a new one. Don't worry, it's not more complicated than the original. RAW say that time is the main factor when it comes to repairs. Repair takes a basic amount of time which is then modified by number of DoS or DoF by another time. So one dice roll and there you go, squad's techpriest is busy for next 4 hours while others are going to fight the chaos or xenos or mutants.

I say no to this concept. Instead of time make PARTS the main concern for repairman.

Here's how it works: You set the difficulty level of repair as number of parts that are needed to be replaced. DoS decrease number of parts required, DoF - increase it. Then you can leave it like this and say that they're just "parts" and place them somewhere so that repairman can get them. But this is just no fun. Instead you roll for a table of parts required number of times and voilla, these are the ones that he needs to get. But it's not everything. In the heat of the battle, when the tank suddenly lost one of it's engines and there are enemies shooting all the time, you can't really go to the warehaous for a new part. That's why you have to craft it or disassemble something to get it! And that's where being repair guy starts to be fun.

Soon I'll write down a table to randomly generate which parts need to be replaced and examples of how to obtain them.

EDIT: There it is, a table of broken parts*:

01-10 - Metal pipe . Sawn of gun barrel, lead pipe, regimental flagstaff

11-20 - Elastic belt . A towing line, glued suspenders or google or helmet strap

21-30 - Three small identical metal balls . The same that are used in many kinds of bearings or as a filament for frag grenades.

31-40 - Simple cloth . Piece of uniform, bandage, or even sock cut open

41-50 - Some kind of dissolvent . It might be a bit of alcohol of any kind, liquid promethium, or even omnissian sacred unguents

51-60 - A lens . Like those used in las weapons or sights.

61-70 - Specifically shaped light metal plate . It must be specifically shaped to fullfill a certain task: in a cylinder, a sheet, a cone, at GM's discretion

71-80 - Considerable amount of coolant . Like water, though it's in GM's discretion whether the amount of H2O that PC's are carying with them is enough. If there are no obvious water sources around, snow can be cooked with laser or it can be distilled from drinks and so on

81-90 - Piece of electronics . Machine spirit won't like this. You might have to open up it's guts and remove some vital parts to use somewhere else.

91-100 - Screen Matrix . Similar to previous result, requires "rearranging" some technology.

I'll be adding new entries when I come up with them. If you'd like to help me with it just write them down

What does the Character needs to do?

1. Make a repair test to determine how many and which parts will you need (Full Action).

2. Find those replacements. If they need to be removed you can make it with a multitool (Half Action, on success part doner still works, but is of Poor Quality) or you can just hack it off with Free Action, but part doner is no longer usable.

3. Come back to the broken thing and install improvised parts (Half Action to install any number of parts).

What can be repaired this way?

Vehicles

You'll be able to remove damage EFFECTS on vehicles, but not damage itself. Remember, these are makeshift repairs. Repair tests are all the same as for normal repairs. So here's what can you remove:

- the -10 and -20 penalty to Manouver Tests that comes with Heavy and Critical Damage (test the same as for repairing respective type of damage)

- penalty for Fire Damage

- Motive Systems Impaired and Crippled effects

- Reduced Armour effect

- Weapon/Turret Locked effect

- Weapon Disabled effect

On success vehicle loses the effect, but such replacements aren't permanent. When the encounter ends (due to escape or enemies being crushed), vehicle gains Ramshackle Trait. It can be replaced only by normal repair.

Gear

You can fix your gear with this as well. You need Trade(Armourer) skill for repair test. I's gonna work fine for an encounter, but gains Poor Quality after it.

Scripted machines set up by GM

Fixable with Tech-Use skill. No Quality changes here though.

EDIT:

Candidates for needed parts table:

- A battery or couple of batteries . A charge pack. What else do you need? They're always all over the place.

Sounds interesting!

A good example of how a rule should create more story hooks and not make the game less fun.

Yes, that's what I call "Instant quest generator". I'll come back to it soon, maybe someone has ideas for new parts?

Really great idea! Something to make it a bit more fun for the mechanic in the group!

I will try to think of parts we could add to this list as well. It would be fun if there is at least like 20-30 different outcomes with some outcomes which has lower chance to happen but are much harder to get, like 95-100 should be something really obscure while 01-05 could be something really common, does that sound like a good idea?