[TwoCables]

I vaguely recall having wingmen stuck in place because their engines were down and them jumping out when I did. I could just be making that up in my head.

I remember playing some campaign once. One mission involved a large-ish battle and after it I had a few wingmen left, but one was so hammered down that his engines, comms and some other systems were destroyed. When I tried to order the ships to leave, he didn't. He just kept floating there. I called the support ship in and hoped it would go and fix the figher. But no. Of course he couldn't use comms to call for support because he didn't have working comms. In the end  I had to leave him there and continue with the campaign. Sad, man. 

I vaguely recall having wingmen stuck in place because their engines were down and them jumping out when I did. I could just be making that up in my head.

I remember playing some campaign once. One mission involved a large-ish battle and after it I had a few wingmen left, but one was so hammered down that his engines, comms and some other systems were destroyed. When I tried to order the ships to leave, he didn't. He just kept floating there. I called the support ship in and hoped it would go and fix the figher. But no. Of course he couldn't use comms to call for support because he didn't have working comms. In the end  I had to leave him there and continue with the campaign. Sad, man. 

Yeah, that always bummed me out a bit too when it happened.  You'd think that the support ship pilot would know enough to go after the entirely-disabled fighter sitting there, instead of saying WELP GUESS WE'RE DONE HERE.

Speaking as though this is real life, it seems to me that they are simply unauthorized to do anything unless they are specifically ordered to by someone who's above them in rank (which is pretty much everyone). Even flying around and avoiding getting killed is a direct and standing order from Command. I mean, think about it.

It's kind of like being a Grunt: you can't do certain things even though you KNOW you should. Instead, you have no choice but to follow orders to the very best of your ability, not doing anything new unless you're specifically ordered to. That's life at (or near) the bottom of the Totem Pole: you have no authorization to think for yourself. So, unless Support receives a direct order from Command to repair and rearm someone's ship whose comms are down, they can't do it - even if it's very obvious to the Support pilot that it's badly needed or else that pilot will die. After all, Grunts are expendable.

[karajorma]

There is a setting in AI profiles table that allows navigation subsystem to prevent a ship from jumping out.

This one, to be precise.

I'm guessing here but I suspect when Goober fixed the bug I mentioned earlier, he turned it into a feature.

[Droid803]

A summary then:

Weapons:
Primary/Secondary weapons jam(damaged)/cannot fire(destroyed)
Turrets fire with reduced accuracy

Sensors:
Radar/targeting is scrambled(damaged)/disabled(destroyed) (player)
*Prevents aspect-lock secondaries from acquiring lock(?); can't fire lock-required bombs <- this happens for the player, for obvious reasons, unknown if the AI is affected, or if turrets are affected

Comms:
Messages scrambled (damaged)/Not received(player)
Can't send messages (builtin messages or FREDded mission messages. If priority of message is set to high, another ship with the same persona (or command, if no such ship exists) will send the message instead.
*Can't receive orders(?)

Navigation:
Does nothing (FREDding hook)
With AI Profiles setting: prevents jumping out

Reactor:
Does nothing (FREDding hook)

Engines:
Stops ship from moving
Shuts of engine glow/engine wash
Prevents from jumping out
Marked as "disabled"

Not sure about the *'d ones, but would be good addition via AI profiles settings, IMO.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Speaking as though this is real life, it seems to me that they are simply unauthorized to do anything unless they are specifically ordered to by someone who's above them in rank (which is pretty much everyone). Even flying around and avoiding getting killed is a direct and standing order from Command. I mean, think about it.

I would think that realistically, the support ship grunt would at least request permission to rearm & repair the crippled ship.

[TwoCables]

Speaking as though this is real life, it seems to me that they are simply unauthorized to do anything unless they are specifically ordered to by someone who's above them in rank (which is pretty much everyone). Even flying around and avoiding getting killed is a direct and standing order from Command. I mean, think about it.

I would think that realistically, the support ship grunt would at least request permission to rearm & repair the crippled ship.

The only way they would receive permission is if that ship were important enough for it, but then if the ship were that important, then Command would simply issue an order to the Support Ship pilot to rearm and repair the ship anyway since the pilot isn't responding to Comms (actually, they would probably send another Support ship so that the existing Support ship can still rearm and repair others who might need it). Since we're talking about 'just another Grunt' here, it doesn't matter because they are expendable. I think what I'm trying to say is, it would be "an unnecessary risk".

I'll go even further with this: it's not the Support Ship pilot's job to be proactively taking care of everyone in the field of engagement. In other words, they aren't authorized to be proactive; they are only authorized to be reactive. Another way to put it is, they aren't authorized to have a mind of their own. So, they aren't even authorized to ask for permission to rearm or repair any ship, regardless of the circumstances.

[Trivial Psychic]

In other words, they're the same as the Vasudan support ship in FS1... unmanned and completely AI-controlled.

[jr2]

Any way to add "repair my target" to the comms menu? That would scratch one of my and I'm guessing many other's long standing itches with the game.

[Kie99]

Nah, their buddies call it in for them.  You?  You're Alpha One.  See, they're all jealous.  Hotshot can't call for help?  Serves him right, let's see how good he does without support to patch him up. 

I have this feeling that the player can still call in a support ship with comms down by using the shortcut (CTRL-R?) instead of the comms menu.

That works, but you can use the Comms menu to call in a support ship anyway, you just can't send any other messages.