[8-3] Automatically repairing aircraft

Learn how to use aircraft repair pads and light carriers in Total Annihilation to automatically heal your damaged planes, and understand the pros and cons of this feature during assaults.

Alright, let's talk about getting your planes back in fighting shape without you having to babysit them. In Total Annihilation, once you build either an Aircraft Repair Pad or a Light Carrier, your aircraft will automatically head to them for repairs when they get seriously damaged. It's a pretty neat system that lets them heal up and get back to what they were doing.

Now, this auto-repair feature is a bit of a double-edged sword, especially when you're in the middle of a big air assault. On one hand, it's super convenient to have your planes automatically seek out repairs. On the other hand, it means they'll break off from whatever they were attacking. If you've got a critical target, like a Bertha cannon that's currently shelling your base, it can be incredibly frustrating when your planes keep flying off to get fixed instead of finishing the job. Even if you try to re-assign them to a new target, they'll often just fly back, attack for a hot second, and then bail again for repairs.

It's worth noting that only planes that are actively attacking a target or are on patrol seem to utilize the repair bays. If you've just moved some planes to a specific location without giving them an order, they won't automatically go and repair themselves. They need to be engaged or on a patrol route to trigger the auto-repair behavior.

Here's a quirky detail: when a plane is on its way back to a repair pad, that pad is considered 'occupied' for repair purposes. This means other damaged aircraft won't use that pad until the first plane has finished its repair and moved on. So, if you have a bunch of planes coming back damaged, they might have to queue up!

I've messed around with this a bit, and it turns out that if you manually turn an Aircraft Repair Pad 'Off', your aircraft will stop returning to it for repairs. However, any planes that were already en route will still continue to their destination. It’s a good way to force them to stay in the fight if you absolutely need them to, but be mindful that they won't get fixed.

What if you've got some damaged planes sitting around, and you want them to repair themselves manually? If you set up a single-point Patrol route right where they are, those heavily damaged planes will actually take off and go get repaired. It's a handy trick if you want to get them back in action without having to micromanage their return trips.