[karajorma]

I was just wondering. What do you think the ratio of pilots to ships is? Alpha 1 seems to swap fighters all the time which suggests that the GTVA has a lot fewer pilots than ships (Would explain why a destroyer which can carry 150 fighters only ever manages to launch a wing or two to defend itself too! ) but that seems a rather odd way of doing it.

How do they do it in modern militaries (or for that matter old militaries).

[Unknown Target]

In modern militaries, at least in the US Navy IIRC, squadron leaders are assigned an aircraft, that they will always fly, unless it is down for maintenance. Otherwise, pilots fly what aircraft is available to them. It's either that or each pilot is assigned his own aircraft (I don't think that's right though).
The reason they did that in FS2 is cause, well...they were dumb

[BlackDove]

Because FS2 is real.

[Boomer]

The motivation for moving away from the traditional "pilot gets one ship" in FreeSpace, besides involving gameplay issues, could probably be considered to be an experience thing.  Not every ship is flying at the same time so why limit an experienced pilot?  In addition it allows for more flexibility in case a pilot is unavailable.  If all your bomber pilots are sick or wounded, you can still just have another pilot jump in and fly.

[TopAce]

I was wondering this, too.
Gameplay balance. Not all missions must have as many fighters as many there were at the Battle of Endor.

[Admiral LSD]

On ships with anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 officers and crew and between 1 and 6km long, you'd think there'd be a few moew than a couple of hundred fighters in them, lol.

[pyro-manic]

It's rather unrealistc to have a pilot that can fly any aircraft, because of the differences between types. If a pilot switches types, they have to go on an orientation course to get to know the aircraft before they can fly it well (if at all). So unless FS-era fighters and bombers all have a standard cockpit suite, then you'd have to have pilots trained for each type.

I think that FS squadrons have a pool of craft of different types, so that they can fly whatever's best depending on the mission. So a fighter squadron would have Myrmidons, Perseus and Herc 2s, a bomber squadron would have Artemis and Boanerges, and an assault squadron would have Herc 2s and Ares, as well as Artemis bombers. You'd also have "specialist" squadrons, that specialise with one type, and "elite" units may have a wider range available to them than standard.

Overall, I'd guess there would be something like a 3 - 1 ship/pilot ratio, though it would fluctuate somewhat.

One other thing to note is the specialised nature of vessels in FS. Fighters are only useful as fighters, bombers aren't much good at anything else, recon ships are useless in a fight, etc. That's very different from today's multi-role aircraft that can do pretty much anything (the Super Hornet and the Typhoon are excellent examples of this) if they are carrying the right weapons. It's more like the situation in the Second World War, with specialised types for each role.

[General Freak]

Maybe they have standardized their cockpits? In Star Wars, they learn to fly/drive all sorts of vehicles within 15 seconds. I know it's just a movie, but the Empire had a different and more organized system of making vehicles/pilots than the Alliance.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
It's rather unrealistc to have a pilot that can fly any aircraft, because of the differences between types. If a pilot switches types, they have to go on an orientation course to get to know the aircraft before they can fly it well (if at all). So unless FS-era fighters and bombers all have a standard cockpit suite, then you'd have to have pilots trained for each type.

Cockpits are so standardised that you can put a Terran in a Vasudan ship remember.

[NGTM-1R]

Well...

Counting replacement aircraft, a modern USAF tactical fighter squadron has eighteen planes. Doctrine is such that the most they will ever commit on a mission, except under very unusual circumstances, is twelve. As a rule of thumb, they will have between two and two-point-five times the number of pilots (and crew, if applicable) as they do aircraft. This is to get the most possible use out of the planes, so that if one pilot or crewmember is unable to fly for some reason (sick, injured, tired out by several days of continous combat ops, whatever) then they will have a replacement. The USN operates on a similar principal, though their ratio of pilots to aircraft is about one plane for one-point-five pilots/crew.

This is for fixed-wing aircraft. Helicopters generally operate with a one-to-one ratio of pilot/crew to aircraft.

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by karajorma


Cockpits are so standardised that you can put a Terran in a Vasudan ship remember.

They did have to modify the craft that you flew in FS2 to accomodate you. I just finished that part of the campaign and they expicitly say that in the first Command Briefing aboard the Psamtik. But I suppose the modifications can't be all that major since you still get to choose whichever ship you want to fly with.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by karajorma


Cockpits are so standardised that you can put a Terran in a Vasudan ship remember.

Check out the size of the Vasudan hands in the Lab cutscene. Those modificaions would almost certainly have to involve pulling out the entire control system and replacing it -  though I suppose it could be modular enough that that might not be so difficult...

[FireCrack]

The ships probably use common electronic control systems, and it's simply a matter of refiting these systems to diferent controls.

[Nuke]

planes are different. an f117 flys a hell of differently than an f22 in terms of handeling and performance. also different planes for different roles are employed with much varying tactics. as far as training goes its easyer and cheaper to train pilots to fly a single aircraft than it is to train them to fly them all.  its also far better a pilot has mastery of one plane than has general skills with all of them. anyone who playes realistic flightsims should know this. use the plane's good points to your advantage, while being aware of its weaknesses. if you keep changing planes how are you to keep on that ball.

[Fade Rathnik]

but an f117 has the same layout as the f15 so the learning curve there in minor. F22 is a way different animal because of what it can do however the modern glass cockpits you can make the controls the same but to minor functions different

[Eishtmo]

In FS1, I think the reason for the varying types of fightercraft is due to a pilot shortage.  After 14 years of constant warfare, keeping enough butts in the seats is probably getting very, very hard.

In FS2, they try to give the impression that one squad has only one type of fighter, which is why you change squads every few missions for gameplay reasons.  In FS2, it's probably just like the real military, but FS1 is a whole different animal.

[Akalabeth Angel]

That's one thing that always struck me as a little odd, I think it's mainly to give the player variety + increase re-playability. In my campaign the player will be limited to what craft they can fly, with a few exceptions here and there (increasing as the campaign goes along). It seems to make more sense to me than giving the player all kinds of options.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
That's one thing that always struck me as a little odd, I think it's mainly to give the player variety + increase re-playability. In my campaign the player will be limited to what craft they can fly, with a few exceptions here and there (increasing as the campaign goes along). It seems to make more sense to me than giving the player all kinds of options.

You don't have the option of almost every Terran fighter until you take command of the Blue Lions, and even then it is pretty late in the campaign.

It makes sense that the GTVA would have something like a 2:1 ratio of ships to pilots simply because of ship wear and tear. Plus if a fighter comes back damaged beyond repair, you have a fresh one waiting for you in the hanger bay.

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Eishtmo
In FS1, I think the reason for the varying types of fightercraft is due to a pilot shortage.  After 14 years of constant warfare, keeping enough butts in the seats is probably getting very, very hard.

In FS2, they try to give the impression that one squad has only one type of fighter, which is why you change squads every few missions for gameplay reasons.  In FS2, it's probably just like the real military, but FS1 is a whole different animal.

FS2 tries to give the impression that the squadrons were there in FS1: When you're first transferred to the 242nd Suicide Kings toward the end of the first act Lt. Cmdr. Cordova in his little spiel mentions how the Suicide Kings were formed around the time of and served in the capture of Lt. Alex McCarthy, a mission you fly in FS1. I'm pretty sure the leader of the 53rd Hammerheads mentions that that squadron was formed around the time of the Great War too.

[WMCoolmon]

Could be due to the economic situation following TGW. If you design and build a fighter, you create all sorts of jobs, from factory workers to design engineers, to the guys that sit in an office all day and press a button.

If you train pilots, on the other hand, you aren't creating anything that can really be 'purchased'.