Limits for units on air bases

[Curtis Cook]

In the Strategy Guide it suggests adding an extra unit of the same type to an air base, then setting it somehow so that the operational units will draw replacement planes from it, then it is prioritized to receive replacements from new contruction.

First, how does this work?

Second, does the 'reserve' air unit count against the size limitation of the air base?

Another suggestion made was to keep backup units on air bases, then activate them and deactivate units that get worn down in combat. Do these backup units count against the size limitation of the base?

Last, has anyone tried these ideas, and which one seems to work better?

 

[marxianTJ]

So an important thing to note right off the bat, is that the 'limit" on air fields is not hard and fast you could store 1,000 air units in the same air field if you wanted to. What that limit means, is that the air field will only *repair* that many units at a given time (midnight). So if you had a plane on reserve, in a level 2 air field, with 5 other damaged planes in it, 2 of the damaged planes would repair to some degree at midnight that night, while the other 4 would not repair.

In general it's easier just to use the "reserve" plane as a true reserve, that is, when one of your units gets banged up, swap it out for the fresh fully strengthed plane, and then send the damaged plane away to some base you aren't using to repair, as opposed to decreasing the strength of an undamaged formation to increase the strength of a damaged one.

The only scenario I could see the reserve mission being helpful is if one was completely out of manpower, and needed to cannibalize damaged units which could never be repaired to keep at least some formations in the air.

 

[Curtis Cook]

Well explained. Thank you.