Currently when one wants to repair, they have to
1. Click the repair tab
2. Select the single 'repair' object from the list
3. Click the repair button
This is annoying, especially since people are often trying to replenish their ship as quickly as possible to get back to what they were doing. So, since repairing is cheap and 1 unit of repair completely restores your hull, I propose that clicking on the repair tab immediately repairs your ship just the same as if you had done the 3 steps above. Besides the very minor confusion that a button looks like a tab, I don't see any reason not to do this.

That's the same point I was trying to raise two days ago. Why does the repair menu have a list with only one item on it? Will other ships have more compartments to repair? Or was it intended to list all your ships? It's kind of pointless having to click on the one item on the list every single time. A single "repair" button would be fine.

I believe (though I have no direct evidence) that it is intended to provide the flexibility to add repairs to components of your ship, should the devs decide to add that at some point. Otherwise, you could just make 'repair' a button on the buy screen.

If you will observe your damage display, you will see that the devs are keeping track of exactly what part of your ship was damaged. I can see no reason why they would do that if they didn't intend to do something with it at some point, and I can think of nothing to do with except 1) use it to determine what sort of graphical effect a damaged ship produces but that requires I think a little more bandwidth than I'd be willing to commit to the project or 2) use it to adjudicate what sort of 'critical hits' your ship might suffer.

Perhaps at some point there will be a chance your weapons will be 'smoked', and your engines and batteries damaged and made less efficient?

"So, since repairing is cheap and 1 unit of repair completely restores your hull, I propose that clicking on the repair tab immediately repairs your ship just the same as if you had done the 3 steps above."

At one time repairing cost money. Perhaps at some point it will again? Perhaps it will even cost different ammounts at different stations? I don't know.

I've always dreamed of the idea of seeing locational damage and watching various components of your ship fail when taking progressive damage. I hope that the damage indicator has more to it than just good looks. Maybe the repair screen can be similar to the one in Deus Ex, where you can choose to repair only some parts and save money... or click on the "repair all" button.

Arolte, i believe that is the dev's plans. In the future we can hope to expect where parts of our ships get damaged, not just the whole thing.

So in turn we can repair parts

It's likely that module ports will be in the repair menu.

"Through the use of a variety of "module ports", many different ships may be equipped in different ways."

"Most major changes made to a ship's configuration will make an externally visible change to the ship's appearance."

"Aside from the changes in appearance caused by the modular configuration of the ship's hardware (engines, weapons, etc), ships will also have a certain level of aesthetic user-configurability."

Go here for more info :

http://www.guildsoftware.com/ven.ships.and.addons.html

Is it really nessecary to repair two seconds quicker?