Much like how ReconNZ's excellent pilot tracker excel sheet is a lot of fun to use to track your pilot's achievments in the game, I thought that it would be fun to track your aircraft as well and make a little game out of that.
So I made up some rules to follow with regard to keeping an eye on your aircraft. What I did was I generated a list of aircraft for my fictional 446 squadron, gave them all serial numbers and codes and assigned a starting condition to them. Now that I have a group of aircraft to work with, I follow these rules regarding aircraft condition:
Aircraft have six possible conditions: Operational/Good, Operational/Fair, Operational/Poor, Grounded/Parts, Grounded/Damage, Destroyed/Damage
Aircraft condition deteriorates normally as follows:
Operational/Good + 4 Flights = Operational/Fair + 4 Flights = Operational/Poor + 4 Flights = Grounded/Parts
IE.: An aircraft in Operational/Good condition will deteriorate normally to Grounded/Parts condition after 12 flights.
New aircraft are supplied as follows: Roll 1d10 each week. On a result of 1 (10% chance), 1d4 new aircraft are supplied to the squadron.
Parts are supplied to the squadron at the rate of 3d6 (3-18 ) parts per week. Part allocation is as per Squadron Leader.
Aircraft condition can be repaired at the following rate:
Grounded/Damage + 4 Parts = Grounded/Parts + 3 Parts = Operational/Poor + 2 Parts = Operational/Fair + 1 Part = Operational/Good
IE.: Grounded/Parts to Operational/Good requires 6 parts
Operational/Poor to Operational/Good requires 3 parts
Operational/Fair to Operational/Good requires 1 part
Grounded/Parts to Operational/Fair requires 5 parts
Grounded/Damage to Operational/Poor requires 7 parts
Grounded/Damage to Operational/Good requires 10 parts
Damage to aircraft will affect condition as follows:
- Taking combat damage during flight automatically reduces condition to Operational/Poor if the aircraft can be landed safely with 4 flights remaining before condition is Grounded/Parts.*
- An aircraft that is operational but has previously suffered unrepaired combat damage will automatically be reduced to Grounded/Parts if it suffers any combat damage in a subsequent flight.
- Taking combat damage that results in a ditched (but safe) landing automatically reduces condition to Grounded/Damage.*
- Suffering engine damage through combat or improper use automatically reduces condition to Grounded/Parts.
- A crash that results in explosion automatically reduces condition of aircraft to Destroyed/Damage.
- Suffering damage while being on the ground (strafed) that renders the aircraft inoperable reduces condition to Grounded/Damage.
- Suffering damage while being on the ground (strafed) that leaves the aircraft safely operable reduces condition to Operational/Poor with 4 flights remaining before condition is Grounded/Parts.
- Suffering damage while being on the ground (strafed) that kills the pilot reduces condition to Grounded/Damage
*Note: All landings must take place in friendly territory. Any landings in enemy territory or ditchings in water result in condition of Destroyed/Lost or Destroyed/Damage.
I might tweak the variables (4 flights down to 3 flights maybe per condition) to make it work better as I play with it more.
Just thought I'd share in case anyone else thought it was neat.
