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Posted: May 18 2003
by Empier4552
Hey just curious I re-read an article earlier of F-16s crashing more often than other planes during routine patrols/training missions. It brought to mind the question that will there be any spontaenous penalties based on formulas or something that will cause Units to breakdown during play on thier own and not due to Friendly fire or enemy fire?

Posted: May 18 2003
by Balthagor
We haven't gotten into any issues like that. Units do have a maintenance cost but that is based on the initial value, not their service record.

Posted: May 18 2003
by Slash78
Actually you should have it based on reliablity and not initial cost. I know vehicles like the M2/M3 Bradley and AAVP7A1 or very hard to maintain, also the F-14 is a nightmare. I understand that alot of Russian equipment is alot easier to maintain. Also, things like the AH-1 Corbra and A-10 might be older, but they are fairly easy to maintain. I know i haven't give the best examples but cheap to buy doesn't always mean easy to maintain and expensive to buy doesn't always mean hard to maintain. And then that are things like the Harrier, easy to maintain, but it crashes alot because its hard to fly.

Posted: May 19 2003
by 3iff
One way to deal with this is to incorporate potential losses due to accidents in the mainenance costs. Perhaps you already do have that factored in.

Also, but perhaps trickier to implement, as the unit type gets older (ie after a year or 2 years after being invented) its maintenance costs reduce, perhaps 1-4% per year (on what it cost the previous year). This takes account of men becoming more familiar with the equipment, easier to use and repair, better training. Where the unit was cutting edge technology (expensive), now 2+ years later, it's being superceded by better stuff.

Posted: May 19 2003
by Slash78
Actually its just the opposite. When equipment is brand new, it's brand new. It doesn't brake down as much and the maintenance people try hard to keep it that way. After about 5 years it starts to wear down. After 10 years equipment needs to be rebuilt about every 5 years. As for being replace in 2+ years, it's more like 10 to 25 years.

Posted: May 20 2003
by 3iff
Is it just the opposite? I thought that much new equipment was likely to break down/fail because it is new (and relatively untested). This means expensive modifications. As the item ages and problems are corrected, maintenance costs would reduce as people become more used to the machines. This assumes that a reliable supply of spare parts is available.

Eventually the items become obsolete and are scrapped (or sold to some unsuspecting sucker).

Posted: May 20 2003
by Mewshkin
This is an area that this game doesn't need to make complicated, IMO. It would be nice to have a 'maintainability' variable for each unit, that might give an economically straitened region another choice to make, but if it needs to be sacrificed for simplicity's sake, no biggie.

Besides, its always been my understanding that companies were usually awarded maintenance + spares contracts at the outset, priced to take account of all the factors people have mentioned. So the cost of maintenance paid to contractors should be fairly constant. Don't know a thing about the military personnel side of it though. I spose if you need twice as many mechanics to service a new tank as the old model, it'll be pretty damned expensive!
Sorry for rambling,
M

Posted: May 20 2003
by Balthagor
I'm going to wait on this one till our programmer can go over it with me. His call on if it's worth implimenting another variable...

Posted: May 21 2003
by 3iff
The whole idea of suggesting this is that it would happen in the background. It would be somewhat automated meaning that the programmers wouldn't have complicated procedures to code.

The players would have nothing to worry about either. When buying/building military units, the concern is how well they perform, not how much maintenance do they need.

If it's too messy, then don't worry about it. Certainly not worth a long argument, delaying the game! I don't like making things more complex just for the sake of it...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: 3iff on 2003-05-21 00:36 ]</font>