[1.06.08] Airplane operational range

[Destragon]

This game was started on 1.05 beta 13, so I'm not sure if this is just caused by being an old game. Also dunno if this is some sort of intended hard maximum for the plane.

I was just designing a medium airplane with 2 engines and noticed that it has an operational range of 25, no matter if I give it an 18k, 25k, 40k, or 60k fuel tank. Then I noticed that the amount of kilometers actually increases with the fuel tank.

These two airplanes are the same design, except the left one has a 18k fuel tank and the right one a 60k fuel tank.
See that the 4991 km on the left divided by 200 get you almost exactly 25. Dividing the 6292 km on the right by 200 gives you more like 31 hexes.



When I designed the same plane as on the right of the previous picture, but give it a weaker engine, it will now suddenly say the correct amount of hexes, but only when the plane is not able to take off:

[Destragon]

Looking back on this, I think what's happening is that the game just doesn't allow any range over 25 EXCEPT 33.
I don't think I've ever seen any hex range between 25 and 33. Ranges go from 1 to 25 and then jump straight to 33.
Surely this is a bug?

Edit:
I just checked again what the last thing Vic said about range was, he said that the max is 40 hexes and that there would be diminishing returns after 12.
I just designed a plane that has an operational range of 8000 km, which should translate to 40 hexes, but it only had 33 hexes, too. So I guess the max right now is 33 and every value between 25 and 33 is impossible to get.

[Vic]

In fact the move cost for aircraft is expressed in AP... so at AP cost 4 = 25 hexes. At AP cost 3 =33 hex.

Bit crude, but sort of an engine limitation.

best wishes,
Vic

[Destragon]

Oh, so operational range can only be 33, 25, 20, 16, 14, 12, 11, etc? I'll add that to my aircraft guide.

Wouldn't it be better if higher range increased the max amount of AP an aircraft has, instead of reducing the AP cost of movement, or would that also be problematic?

[Vic]

I agree it is a bit rough and it could be improved, its to be frank however, not a priority right now You have no idea how many items are on my to-do lists!

[Destragon]

Haha, yeah, it's fine, thanks.
I actually keep a personal list of issues and possible things to improve in the game, so I probably have a bit of an idea of how large your to-do list is.