Squadrons and Pilots

Squadrons and Pilots

Your air force is organized into squadrons, each a group of pilots flying a single aircraft type. Pilots gain experience, can be lost, and are replaced over time. This page covers how squadrons and pilots work, and the fork-specific wrinkles — most notably that a downed pilot you rescue can be spared at debrief.

Squadrons

A squadron is a pool of pilots flying one aircraft type with a defined set of roles. Each squadron has a fixed livery and operates from a shore base, a carrier, or both, depending on what the airframe supports.

• Predefined squadrons load from YAML files that set the squadron name, aircraft, roles, and pilot names. YAML squadrons can also carry custom radio presets (intra-flight channels and frequencies) for consistent multiplayer comms.
• Generated squadrons are created automatically with randomized names when an aircraft type has no predefined squadron for the faction.

Pilots

Each aircraft on a mission has one assigned pilot from its squadron.

• Experience. AI pilots start at a base skill level set in campaign settings and gain a skill increase roughly every four missions completed, climbing toward ace.
• Loss. A pilot can be killed when their aircraft is destroyed, which removes them from the squadron and requires a replacement.
• Replacements. Squadrons can optionally auto-recruit new pilots each turn, up to a limited rate, while below their maximum (default 24 pilots per squadron).
• Leave. You can send a pilot on leave to keep them from being auto-assigned to missions.

Player pilots

Players are treated as individual named pilots rather than as anonymous slots. By default a player pilot cannot be killed (the aircraft is still lost) — this is toggleable in the difficulty settings. The auto-planner offers preferences for whether players are assigned at all: never assign players, no preference, or prefer player pilots.

Fork difference: Combat SAR can spare an experienced pilot

This fork adds a Combat SAR flight type that makes a downed aviator worth flying for. When a human pilot ejects, they spawn on the ground with a beacon. If you recover them with the rescue helicopter and deliver them to any friendly field, the campaign spares the aviator at debrief — you still lose the jet, but the experienced pilot returns to the squadron instead of being counted as lost. The rescue closes the loop end to end: the delivery is what removes that pilot from the loss list. If no rescue is flown (or it fails), the loss applies as normal.

This is a meaningful change to pilot economy: a veteran crew you would otherwise have to replace from scratch can be brought home, so protecting and recovering downed players has real campaign value. See Combat SAR for how to fly it.

Fork content: named-livery squadrons in Red Tide

The fork's Germany – Red Tide campaign replaces generic, mismatched paint schemes with named historical units wearing matching liveries. Every squadron in that campaign is a real identity — GSFG and VVS regiments on the red side, 414th Joint Fighter Group units (VMF-29, Voodoo, the 414th TFS, JFG Hornets) on the blue side — so the air war no longer spawns aircraft in liveries that do not fit the unit flying them.

See also

• Combat SAR
• Unit Transfers
• Base Capture
• Mission Planning
• Fast Forward and Performance