Question re: pilot fatigue

[Brazil Banzai]

When selecting pilots to fly missions, does the game engine give more weight to pilots with lower fatigue, or is pilot selection at random within the group?

[Dino]

Pilot selection is done based on experience and fatigue...don't know the exact formula, but a highly experienced pilot is more likely to be selected over a low experience one even if his fatigue is higher.

Low experience pilots don't get much chance to fly missions in a unit that is comprised mostly of aces...unless the whole unit flies.

[saj42]

Thats my experience - if my recon squadrons are anything to go by.
2-3 pliots with 95+ Exp 150+ missions and 9-10 other pilots of 50ish Exp and <20 missions - [:(]

[m10bob]

IIRC fatigue is also represented by a decrease in bombing accuracy in regards to the length of the flight.

[Brazil Banzai]

I guess then I am wondering how my most experienced pilots will ever get a break? Does the whole squad have to go on rest at some point, in order to insure my aces are grounded for a day?

As a practical matter, does anyone remember this issue influencing a campaign in a materially negative way?

Thanks for the feedback.

[panda124c]

ORIGINAL: Brazil Banzai

I guess then I am wondering how my most experienced pilots will ever get a break? Does the whole squad have to go on rest at some point, in order to insure my aces are grounded for a day?

As a practical matter, does anyone remember this issue influencing a campaign in a materially negative way?

Thanks for the feedback.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to rotate the high experienced pilots out of a unit, to give the other guys a chance.[:D]

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Brazil Banzai

I guess then I am wondering how my most experienced pilots will ever get a break? Does the whole squad have to go on rest at some point, in order to insure my aces are grounded for a day?

As a practical matter, does anyone remember this issue influencing a campaign in a materially negative way?

Thanks for the feedback.

Put the entire unit on stand down to rest them, usually a couple of days will do.
More fatigued units will be effected in their accuracy in fighting/bombing.
I have seen the AI using units against me which had as little as "21" or so in that column, and there is still a chance they will hit something.

[Dino]

ORIGINAL: Brazil Banzai

I guess then I am wondering how my most experienced pilots will ever get a break? Does the whole squad have to go on rest at some point, in order to insure my aces are grounded for a day?

In the short run, the only way to rest the experienced pilots is to stand the unit down.

In the long run, you want to work up the experience of the rookies so that they become eligible for selection which in turn means that the aces will get a chance to rest. In other words, you have to make the rookies fly and you can do this if you make the whole unit fly. Once the experience span in the unit is more even, they will start to rotate.

The good news is that experience gain is inversely proportional to pilots' current experience, so rookies will benefit from a mission more than the aces, enabling them to eventually even out.

The bad news is that there are some prerequisites for making the whole unit fly. You need to have all your ACs in a ready state, which means you can't fly them every day. The pilots need to have high morale and low fatigue, which also means you can't fly them every day...in this case a good commander (with high inspiration) is very helpfull. And finally, you need an Air HQ within the range.

For recon units the solution is simpler...Just place the unit in the base from which a lot of bombing is conducted. AFAIK, recons normally fly only two sorties per turn (one AM, one PM), but if in the same base as bombers, they will fly additional sorties to accompany bombing missions. That will cause experienced pilots to eventually become fatigued enough to allow low exp pilots to fly...the more bombing runs over various targets in a single turn, the better.

[Brazil Banzai]

Great info thank you very much Dino and m10Bob!