Matrix Games Forums

What exactly is the deal with aircraft with the loadout "Maintenance (unavailable)"?

Is there any way to activate them? Or are they in the scenario for decoration only?

They are indeed for sort of decoration, to show the full number that would be stationed somewhere but prevent the (unfortunate) unrealism of them all working at the same time (if only!)

I am still hoping that in future we will be able to set a ready time to it that upon expiration puts them into reserve available status but not yet.

I wouldn't call it exactly "decoration". It's a representation of the typical situation in an airbase. You have a number of aircraft that you cannot use, but they are there nevertheless, and they take up space and resources. The fact that you cannot use them doesn't make them invisible. Not having them at all would make your entire airbase's resources available to the e.g. 10 usable aircraft. Which of the two is more realistic?

Plus they make great targets [:D]

I like scrubbing a airbase clean of aircraft with clusterbombs

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

I wouldn't call it exactly "decoration". It's a representation of the typical situation in an airbase. You have a number of aircraft that you cannot use, but they are there nevertheless, and they take up space and resources. The fact that you cannot use them doesn't make them invisible. Not having them at all would make your entire airbase's resources available to the e.g. 10 usable aircraft. Which of the two is more realistic?

Point taken.

Still, in the future I would like to see a possibility for making these aircraft combat-ready.

Maybe at some point, each airbase would have a certain number of ground crew - perhaps proportional to the number of barracks buildings or something on the base - that limit the number of aircraft which can be readied at the same time. And whenever fewer aircraft are being readied than the ground crew could handle, they work at getting the aircraft in maintenance ready for action, i.e. switch them to Reserve status.

If they are not going to be available for a scenario then how about a button to hide them. It is a pain searching through long lists of aircraft at a busy base to find something useful when half the buttons drop down to show aircraft that are under maintenance. For those that want "full realism" they can look through the lists.

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

Still, in the future I would like to see a possibility for making these aircraft combat-ready.

Existing request updated.

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

Maybe at some point, each airbase would have a certain number of ground crew - perhaps proportional to the number of barracks buildings or something on the base - that limit the number of aircraft which can be readied at the same time. And whenever fewer aircraft are being readied than the ground crew could handle, they work at getting the aircraft in maintenance ready for action, i.e. switch them to Reserve status.

Existing request updated.

+1 on being an awesome idea for the larger scenarios ^^^^^
It is another thing though, I think, that would SEVERELY drain cpu resources. To have ground crews would require them, if used realistically, to almost be the same as units in many ways, and I do not mean a "ground crew unit" but rather it would become "each person of the ground crew as a unit that may be targeted" or, at the very least, different sizes of "ground crew" so that larger airbases could withstand more "casualties" than smaller, etc. It really would open up a lot of complicated things if done "right" and if done "wrong" to avoid those complicated issues, it would be much worse than the solution now.
Currently at least we can go into the editor and MAKE the aircraft available if we so choose.

While requests on this are being made, here's mine

Maintenance status aircraft with 0 seconds left become (instead of 0 seconds): indefinitely
Maintenance status aircraft that have a time to ready assigned in the editor start counting down at scenario start and when they hit 1 second to go they change to a Reserve available status and the player can start loading out.

This will mean existing scenarios don't get broken (cause their current 0 seconds doesn't make them all available but makes them out indefinitely) and allows the flexibility to have aircraft becoming available.

My other request would be that aircraft that are loading up something at scenario start with a time till ready that is longer than the loadout normally needs, keep that long ready time even if the user changes the load out or reloads the same one, make sense? Of course if he chooses a longer load out the time goes up. Not a huge priority though but would be a nice touch.

ORIGINAL: Jakob Wedman

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

Still, in the future I would like to see a possibility for making these aircraft combat-ready.

Existing request updated.

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

Maybe at some point, each airbase would have a certain number of ground crew - perhaps proportional to the number of barracks buildings or something on the base - that limit the number of aircraft which can be readied at the same time. And whenever fewer aircraft are being readied than the ground crew could handle, they work at getting the aircraft in maintenance ready for action, i.e. switch them to Reserve status.

Existing request updated.

Or how about a realism option - "aircraft in maintenance can/cannot be activated", i.e. given loadouts other than Maintenance?

In H3 DBeditor i made all aircraft an maintenance of three loudouts, CAT-A "infield repair" 8th hours ready time, CAT-B "in repair/maintance" 18 hours ready time and
CAT-C "heavy rep/maintance" 36 hour ready time. it is possible, but it is some work for the Devs. .....please give us an DBeditor.....please....ill pay for it....please...

One thing I'd recommend is voting for "Refine ready-times" in this thread tm.asp?m=3437496

Its what I voted for [:D]

ORIGINAL: Baloogan

Plus they make great targets [:D]

I like scrubbing a airbase clean of aircraft with clusterbombs

Oh, yes. You know what happens to your score when you lose points for losing a ship and you lose points for losing an aircraft...and then someone sinks your aircraft carrier?

ORIGINAL: deepdive

please give us an DBeditor.....please....ill pay for it....please...

As much as I hate to say this, I think it's best that there is not a public database editor for Command. Look what happened to Harpoon and the Harpoon community because of the "database wars."

The ready times can be set by the scenario author...not sure if it reverts back to the 6hr time if the loadout is changed by the player though. But maybe this issue should be directed to the scenario writers instead of the sim.

I like the idea of ac in maintenance/unavailable, seems realistic. I also like the idea of the 8hr, 18hr, 36hr times but again I think the scenario author can do this now. Am I wrong?

The only issue with that is if the player wants he can just rearm to a different reload and it goes to the time associated with that load, which may be much less.

The db editor of Harpoon was the ONLY reason that I stayed supporting it as long as I did...and most people around me as well. The database wars caused me to leave the "community" but they did not stop me from financially supporting the game. Lack of a db editor, would have had me give up on Harpoon long, long ago. The databases put together by these devs, USING the database editor, when they created db2k, was a very large part of the "gravitational pull" of Harpoon for me, and many family members and friends who became interested in the game.
It is my sincere hope that a database editor is (at some point) a part of this as well. There are few things to myself, and those like me, that are more interesting than exploring the "what if" and while the scenario editor here allows some of that, other parts of it are not possible in scenario editor, and I personally feel awful bothering the devs to add something into a database that I may be the only person to use lol.
I should also add that the db edit ability of H3 is the only reason it still is on my hard drive, as it does allow that.

ORIGINAL: Mgellis

ORIGINAL: deepdive

please give us an DBeditor.....please....ill pay for it....please...

As much as I hate to say this, I think it's best that there is not a public database editor for Command. Look what happened to Harpoon and the Harpoon community because of the "database wars."

Aircraft in Maintenance gives the game more realism, not every thing is working all the time, you just need to deal with it. once the f-35 comes online maybe more should be made unavailable
because major problem wont be able to be fixed at sea.

This has nothing to do with the simulation....if you dont like how some aircraft are in maintenance in a particular scenario, you can do a couple things:

1. send an email to the scenario author expressing your displeasure or
2. open the scenario in the scenario editor and edit the aircraft yourself from "maintenance" to "ready"

The simulation should not be altered whatsoever when it comes to this.

Just my two cents.

I agree. This is one of the more easily solved "issues" for the most part as anyone can simply edit their loadouts and ready times in the editor.