I built a fighter base (PDC) on an inhospitable planet, and made sure there was plenty of crew berths and engineers, and also some fuel and some maintenance supply. Unfortunately this is not enough to keep my pilots happy, as my current fighters have an expected deployment time of 4 days, so they get homesick pretty fast. They recover if I return them, though (fortunately, Earth is within flying range).
When I got tired of micro-managing them every so often, I just parked them on Earth. Here they sit, with high morale, but now their systems are beginning to break down, due to maintenance failure. I am told by the game that there is insufficient maintenance supply available, but that is not true, I have 50.000t lying around. So I fly them back to their mother-base, where they only get a maintenance check because I ignore their complaints and refuse to move them out before the maintenance checks are done.
This is sub-optimal. Adding to the problem is that the broken-down sensor didn't get a repair during checkup. Now, I cannot just abandon the base and station my fighters elsewhere, because all other ships and structures capable of housing them are filled up already. And if I leave them at their base, the pilots will just go nuts. So I am doomed to microing them until I get another hangar built somewhere. And hope that there will not be any engine breakdowns.
This leads to a few questions:
1a. Is it at all feasible to have a self-contained fighter base (ie. no micro needed) in uninhabitable surroundings, for example on an asteroid?
1b. If I build an orbital habitat and place it in orbit around my fighter base, would the pilots stop complaining?
2. Can fighters only get maintenance checks inside ground bases and/or mother-ships equipped with hangars or boat bays?
3. Will fighters always break down over time, if not stored in a hangar/boat bay?
4. If a fighter component breaks down due to no maintenance, where do I get it repaired? The shipyard seems not to take them.
5. Can fighters be refitted to new models? How?
Thanks.