Air forces engines rebalance

[Clux]

TLDR: Jet, turbo jet and VTOL engines aren't worth using at all since instead of being an upgrade, their stats are a downgrade overall, and having thopthers doesn't help in the mix.

While I believe than air forces could get some work (mostly with the model design screen), I think than the biggest issue its than Thopthers have the supremacy and several engine types are simply not worth using at all, so I'll first show pictures and proof of why they're bad and then some suggestions to fix it or make it more balanced.

Engine Power.png (79.98 KiB) Viewed 1060 times

Efficiency.png (66.44 KiB) Viewed 1060 times

Weight.png (76.04 KiB) Viewed 1060 times

Power-Weight Ratio.png (98.13 KiB) Viewed 1060 times

As you can see, most "upgrades" are pretty straightforward and "reasonable", and they come with their own trade offs, I'll list some examples:

* When upgrading from propeller to turboprop, you get slightly more engine power, but you get a lot more engine efficiency (thus making the fuel last longer and extending the range) and you stay at the same weight. THis is a great upgrade and comes only as a rare metal costs (instead of metal, which its very much needed for early-mid game)

* When upgrading from turboprop to jet you increase by a lot the engine power, but the engine efficiency drops off (I think this is good since it portraits the first gen jets) while the weight increases by several magnitudes of order (I think its too steep, it simply lowers your power/weight ratio too much severely reducing the range and speed). Thus you will be better sticking to turboprop, why would you increase the IP costs (while also adding machinery parts) if the overall stats are worse?

* When upgrading from jet to turbojet you double the engine power while also improving the engine efficiency, weight stays the same so you drastically increase the power/weight ratio increasing the range and speed by significant amounts. However, its engine/weight ratio its still worse than turboprop, so there is no reason to upgrade.

* When "upgrading" from turbojet to VTOL engines, the engine power stays the same, but the engine efficiency becomes even worse than regular jets (???, why, they should be more advanced, not backwards), while the weight its duplicated (basically making it not an option, its too heavy, they making helicopters a good option, when they really aren't for this late in the game).

While I think than "VTOL" aircraft are great on their own (Since you won't need to upgrade air bases), their engine stats make them unusable, since they are too heavy and their engine efficiency its pretty bad there is no point in using them. By the point in the game than you unlock them they should be an obvious option and a general upgrade, not a downgrade in most aspects, as such I think than they should not have worse engine efficiency than turbo jet, nor have their weight increased, instead they should have a rare metals cost (right now they only cost IP and machinery parts).

Jet and turbojet engines weight its simply too much, Jet engines alone should have an power/weight ratio between propellers and turboprop, while turbojets should have a better power/weight ratio than turboprops, otherwise there is no point in using them at all, they're more expensive (costing more IP and adding machinery parts to the mix) and their engine efficiency its the same and the power/weight ratio its way worse.

Thopthers are also too OP right now, they're a no brainer use, so while we could nerf their engine stats, I consider than they should stay as an late game option, therefore in order to nerf them they should be unlocked after getting both helicopter and VTOL techs, while also adding high tech parts to the cost (1 per engine level).

I don't have an opinion about rocket engines since I believe than they're in an awkward place in SE, they should be short ranged and very fast, but that severely limits their usability in game, you would be better making more regular fighters instead of investing into them, so I don't know what changes could be made to make them more appealing (increasing the range should not be an option, otherwise they would be too OP, unless we're talking about planets with high Gs and low mbar pressure).

In the future I would also like to make a suggestion about overhauling aircraft weapons, but that will be for another time since Vic its wrapping up in order to prepare to release the expansion and this rebalance shouldn't take too much time and I believe would greatly fit into the update (as most players complain about the overall status of air forces)

[Soar_Slitherine]

Jet and turbojet engines weight its simply too much, Jet engines alone should have an power/weight ratio between propellers and turboprop, while turbojets should have a better power/weight ratio than turboprops, otherwise there is no point in using them at all, they're more expensive (costing more IP and adding machinery parts to the mix) and their engine efficiency its the same and the power/weight ratio its way worse.

Turboprop aircraft have a speed limit based on the speed of sound, while jet-type engines do not suffer this limitation, and should thus be able to reach higher dogfight scores. Although evaluating the practical impact this has on dogfight score would require in-game testing.

I haven't used VTOLs myself, but my understanding from community discussions is that they're strictly inferior to thopters because they're stuck with worse engines. Given that, and that in real life, thopters only exist as experimental aircraft with extremely limited capabilities while VTOLs are in actual operational military use, it is quite strange that VTOLs are buried deeper into the tech tree compared to thopters.

[Clux]

Turboprop aircraft have a speed limit based on the speed of sound, while jet-type engines do not suffer this limitation, and should thus be able to reach higher dogfight scores. Although evaluating the practical impact this has on dogfight score would require in-game testing.

I haven't used VTOLs myself, but my understanding from community discussions is that they're strictly inferior to thopters because they're stuck with worse engines. Given that, and that in real life, thopters only exist as experimental aircraft with extremely limited capabilities while VTOLs are in actual operational military use, it is quite strange that VTOLs are buried deeper into the tech tree compared to thopters.

Sadly when you're making aircraft all that matters its range and not speed, as most of the time by the time you have turboprop (let alone jets) you're already researching or have the missiles tech, and they're extremely deadly against any aircraft, thus agility doesn't make a big impact (Also since jet engines are too heavy, they aren't fast either since you have to increase the wing size and the fuel tanks, making the aircraft heavier, slower and less maneuverable)

[Don_Kiyote]

Turboprop aircraft have a speed limit based on the speed of sound...

Sadly when you're making aircraft all that matters its range and not speed

Not quite, Clux. Nice graphs though.

But i see your point. The engine powers don't progress in a way that is always useful to game-play. IMO, the basic reason for this is that Dogfighting is nowhere near as important to the game as it could and should be.

But there is still more to be done under the hood, or cowling, about designing Aircraft in the procedural atmospheres of SE. Soar mentions the speed of sound, for instance, but that would change with the composition and and density of the atmosphere on your particular planet.

A quick google gives me the physics:

speed of sound_a.jpg (7.81 KiB) Viewed 1016 times

...where c is speed of sound, K is a coefficient of stiffness(?), and that lower symbol (gamma?) is density of the medium.

Another factor is that a turbo-charged engine of any type performs much better in lower air densities at higher altitudes. This technology of re-directing exhaust under pressure back in to the combustion chamber, rather than using the sometimes dangerously thin outside atmosphere, was a big part of WW2 air power. Considering these factors and the fact that a portion of the game tech is fiction, there really are so many moving parts to modelling the tech of the air game.

Modelling aircraft dynamics in speculative atmospheres, or vacuumes even, is crudely working in SE now, and it is fully playbable, but there could be so much more to it, agreed, especially if the Airforce tech tree were brought to bear on these Physics problems, with like a flourine combustion cycle or something.

Some other points: There seem to be inconsistencies in the range calculations, a hard limit of 33 hexes, and Air OHQs do not as much as they should. There is no RDN, a readiness recovery bonus roll, for Air Units in command range.

But about the man issue of this thread, a big part of the what Clux is noticing is because actual interception and dogfighting for superiority is so very rare, alas, in my experience. The AI is a little better now than it was, but I have yet to face an AI Air Force head-to-head, despite focusing my entire game on exploring air power and air bridges.

Presumably when a real dogfight does happen, a supersonic aircraft will trash a sub-sonic aircraft hands down, and to some extent the perceived imbalance Clux is reporting will make more sense.

In the mean time, it should be acceptable that turbo-props are the most efficient and reliable way to power an aircraft in the standardised fluid dynamics of game, as they are in our world of today.

I dont suppose that helps at all. Its just that Ive been thinking about this too.

[Elver]

The limiting factor on turboprop vs. jets that I see in-game isn't mentioned here, which is groundspeed. The extra engine weight means you'll end up with ruinous fuel consumption, but the higher thrust lets you brute-force a whole lot more fuel airborne. In some planets' gravity and atmosphere, the hard range limits make that irrelevant, but I've definitely had games where even highly-refined turboprops can't match the range of crappy non-turbo jets, let alone turbojets.

Re: dogfighting, I've had a fair number of games where it was relevant, but generally only briefly. The most recent time I ran into AI airpower, the AI had strong (thopter) interceptors that neatly scrapped my attack helicos and jet bombers... but adding an escort wing of jet fighters returned the favor and they didn't contest air superiority after I shot down that (briefly very effective) wing.

[Soar_Slitherine]

Soar mentions the speed of sound, for instance, but that would change with the composition and and density of the atmosphere on your particular planet.

Yes, and the effect of air density on the speed of sound is already accounted for in the game's aerodynamics model. Off the top of my head, I've seen the maximum speed of turboprops vary at least within roughly 300 km/h to 900 km/h based on atmospheric conditions.

EDIT:

Sadly when you're making aircraft all that matters its range and not speed, as most of the time by the time you have turboprop (let alone jets) you're already researching or have the missiles tech, and they're extremely deadly against any aircraft, thus agility doesn't make a big impact (Also since jet engines are too heavy, they aren't fast either since you have to increase the wing size and the fuel tanks, making the aircraft heavier, slower and less maneuverable)

It is true in the game that SAMs are extremely deadly against aircraft, and that ground-to-air defenses aren't affected by dogfight score (it is still relevant for air-to-air missiles). Notably, aircraft performance being irrelevant for ground-to-air results is very much not the case in real life. More speed allows for less time spent within the enemy's engagement envelope, missiles can potentially be evaded, and faster aircraft have a bigger margin of proximity to a SAM launcher where they are able to race a missile out of the launcher's maximum range, provided they are able to detect the missile or simply exit the threat area in a timely fashion.

[Don_Kiyote]

long ramble; some errors>>

tl;dr: Thanks for answering my question so well, Soar. I had no idea the aero model was so detailed. Everything below is me rambling trying to figure out how it works.

There does seem to be an issue with the game model, see below.

---

the effect of air density on the speed of sound is already accounted for in the game's aerodynamics model. Off the top of my head, I've seen the maximum speed of turboprops vary at least within roughly 300 km/h to 900 km/h based on atmospheric conditions.

Cool.

I have seen the aerodynamic stuff in the design log: wingload, turn score, erm some other stuff. I notice helicopters max out their dogfighting at about 32. I have gone hard in to turboprops, but I havent seen any significantly higher speed of sound. Again, not having checked, I believe the atmosphere is ".4", which is 400mb at sea level. At airplane heights, that would be what...? Lets say 2000m above sea level, Im going to guess were at .1bar. The speed of sound should be then> about 900km/hr, perhaps. Is that how it works?

Especially on a cold planet. The temperature could easily be -300c at that relatively modest altitude of 2000m. Or do I even understand this correctly? It rings a bell with my high school physics memory.

I cant get a turborprop above 500km/hr, so I was assuming that was some kind of a limit, like the speed of sound, so that my well-developed turbo-props on my .4 planet didnt perform substantially different from the ones here on earth. For instance, I believe the mosquito could cruise, or maybe dive, up to 430km/hr. And is/t the speed of sound at sea level 320km/hr. Okay I will google that...

1,235 km/h

Im really confused. Does the the speed of sound increase or decrease in a low density atmosphere? What is the speed of sound on Mars....

Mars' barely-there atmosphere is over 100 times thinner than that of Earth, so sound moves much more slowly through it, traveling at just 787 feet per second (240 m/s)(864km/hr), according to Science Alert.

864km/hr @ .01 Atm, 10mb.

Alright bear with me. I had it backwards. I thought the speed of sound would be much higher in lower density atmosphere, and I also wasnt clear about the speed of sound on earth.

Mainly, what Ive been working with in my game is range: trying to design aircraft with tremendous ranges. This part runs in to some of the inherent scaling problems in the game, but it plays very well. Still the how the range model and the engines interact seems to fall apart at more lets say attenuated levels of xeno-aviation. I'm not saying the magnitude of the scale offends my sense of realism; I can imagine a plane flying 16000km, even just to strafe a bunch of snakes three or four times. But the hex results stop tracking... my results jump from 25 to 33 hexes with only minor changes in equipment, and then wont change with either more power or efficiency. So for instace I cant get a 31-hex range aircraft with slightly bigger missiles. I cant get any other number of operational hexes out of my designs other than 33 or 25, and then below 25 it increments normally again.

At least I think that is what I'm seeing.

Anyways its already a very impressive sci-fi system. Imagine the radius of the propellers on those alien world fighters... and the combustion chambers. Its like the question of what artillery would be capable of in a very low, toxic atmosphere.

Thanks for answering my questions.

[DasTactic]

Very interesting thread.

I hadn't really thought much about it before but the game doesn't really model air supremacy at all or the benefits of air supremacy. For me, the only aspect that matters is range and the only real reason to use aircraft is to raise the recon before a ground attack goes in. So I rarely use them - even on planets that suit aircraft. Plus the aircraft designer is such a dark-art to try and use it basically is unusable.

I feel there should be some sort of zone benefit for air supremacy that uses the dog-fighting ability of aircraft. Perhaps the payoff is simply enhanced recon around the range of the aircraft. Zones could then also be used to intercept specific missions before they reach their targets. Aircraft that have full readiness are by default used to establish air supremacy zones.

The AI tends to build airfields and aircraft but rarely uses them.

As a bit of an aside - I also think airfields should be looked at. There should be at most 3 levels of airfields and they should only limit the amount of aircraft using the airfield (maybe total tonnage) rather than the types of aircraft. It is hardly worth building the higher level aircraft in the game.

[Don_Kiyote]

heya Das. I love your toob videos.

It is a pretty darn interesting subject, even just academically. What would an alien Airforce based on known terrestrial technology actually look like, mechanically speaking? And how would it work as an Airforce? It is topical, and not entirely theoretical, given that the first powered flight on another planet happened earlier this year.

Seriously, how big would the propellers of a long-range tactical bomber be on a .4 or .2 Atm / .5g world? I imagine something like a 4m span would be needed to scoop up enough particles to provide enough power to lift and propel a full sized military aircraft. So what would the entire plane look like, then?

As far as in game, you seem to have a poor opinion of the power of an Airforce. In my game, they are decisive and devastating, enabling total domination. Mosly just by tanking opposing RDN though, rather than outright casualties caused.

Would you like to see my game?

About AIr Superiority, what I hope will happen when i do finally get to see an interception and dogfight is that what you suggested about Air Superiority is in fact just about how the game works: Once an Air mission triggers an interception, all fighters* from either side for whome the interception hex is within their currently capable range will join in one big fight for the skies. Hopefully its a real fur-ball.

(*assuming they have been set to intercept in Unit Admin, and so forth)

Sadly, as this is likely to happen over the end-turn, I will almost certainly not be able to see it

[tdoggs99]

It is a fascinating thread.

Yes, turboprops are efficient. But raw engine power has a quality all its own.

Turbojets with a power of 5000 or 8000 x 4 engines make that 200% pie just bigger. Vtol can land and air bridge in a captured city dumping fuel and supply on still advancing troops and food for the liberated population.

Turbo Jets are easier to get the speed to get off the ground, which fouls my wing span evaluation all the time. The ground speed increase allows larger wings.

For scale resupply, 132% of 8kx4 engines and the ability to land without a runway vs 370% of 2k x 4 engines. The VTOL pushes ~ 42k of supplies vs. ~30k of turboprop. Once you start vtol efficiency, it will also scale proportionally.

I feel like most games are won by the time max throughput by air becomes an issue. It is also not that hard to get rail lines in.

I would speed up airfield construction. One turn for one lvl of airfield upgrade to use the game’s air elements.

[Soar_Slitherine]

But the hex results stop tracking... my results jump from 25 to 33 hexes with only minor changes in equipment, and then wont change with either more power or efficiency. So for instace I cant get a 31-hex range aircraft with slightly bigger missiles. I cant get any other number of operational hexes out of my designs other than 33 or 25, and then below 25 it increments normally again.

That's because the mechanic used to enforce aircraft range limitations is action point cost per hex, and the game doesn't do fractional action points, so the cost has to go from 5 AP/hex to 4 AP and then 3 AP at the high end of range.

I hadn't really thought much about it before but the game doesn't really model air supremacy at all or the benefits of air supremacy. For me, the only aspect that matters is range and the only real reason to use aircraft is to raise the recon before a ground attack goes in. So I rarely use them - even on planets that suit aircraft.

Besides recon and denying the enemy's ability to use aircraft, I know of 4 effective uses for aircraft:

1. Tank-busting. In the absence of effective air defense, they're free to score lots of hits without being hit back. Ones armed with air-to-ground rockets get to attack the weaker of the tanks' two hitpoint values. Aircraft are effective against other vehicles too, but tanks are historically the most heavily used in the metagame. I've done this in singleplayer.

2. Air-bridging onto enemy supply lines or unprotected assets/cities. Thopters are perfect for this as they don't need an airbase at the destination to airbridge, and have excellent range. If a ground unit lands on a supply line, that supply line is cut, even if the opponent easily kills that ground unit on their own turn. This can totally wreck an opponent's logistics, and it's cheaper to do it than to defend against it, due to the size of the area the defender needs to protect. I've had this done to me in multiplayer. The AI is not programmed to use air bridges.

3. Airborne and air-supplied combat operations. With higher investment, thopters can airlift a whole light armor brigade into the enemy's rear area, and keep it supplied with fuel and ammo. Being able to cut your opponent's supply lines while they can't cut yours is a huge advantage. I've done this in multiplayer.

4. Bombing assets. Depending on investment and what targets are reachable by bombers, this can vary from knocking out individual logistics assets to disrupt logistics, to razing the opponent's entire economic infrastructure. The latter is an expensive and logistics-intensive way to wage war, but consider what value you would assign to knocking out your opponent's main industry. I've done it in multiplayer. Use precision bombs for this (or rockets if you want to invest more to get a multi-role aircraft) rather than bombhatch bombs, the latter are terrible at it in comparison.

Proper use of SAMs by the opponent reduces the viability of all these tactics a lot due to their lethality against aircraft, though I think it's still worthwhile to at least present the threat of thopter airbridges to force them to buy SAMs even if you're not planning to do anything else with aircraft. The tactics can also be defended against with sufficient investment into fighters, although fighters are not as lethal as SAMs. Thopters are the most generally effective aircraft in all these roles due to excellent range and ability to quickly redeploy anywhere.

Plus the aircraft designer is such a dark-art to try and use it basically is unusable.

It is really bad. I think a lot of players largely disregard aircraft because getting good results from it is so laborious.

As a bit of an aside - I also think airfields should be looked at. There should be at most 3 levels of airfields and they should only limit the amount of aircraft using the airfield (maybe total tonnage) rather than the types of aircraft. It is hardly worth building the higher level aircraft in the game.

I would speed up airfield construction. One turn for one lvl of airfield upgrade to use the game’s air elements.

I think heavy aircraft would be mostly useless even if we didn't have thopters to fill the same role. 10 turns of airbase construction in a target hex before they're able to rebase or airbridge there is way too long.

[DeltaV112]

You're missing aerodynamic values which impact maximum speed in a complicated way that mostly boils down to more = better. It's 20 for props, 25 for turboprops, 50 for jet, 60 for turbojets, 40 for VTOL. This is also reduced by 20%/40%/60% for 2x/4x/6x engines.

[Don_Kiyote]

That makes sense, Soar.

<<another really long post>>

So nominal range in hexes is still determined by theoretical range in kilometers (alien-world kilometers). But determining a range in game hexes requires a whole number divisor. 100 divided by four is 25; by three is 33.

For example, I am seeing a number like 13,610km as the maximum theoretical range of my current in-game turboprop designs. So:

13,610km / (400km/hex) = 34.05hex

I should have a range of 34 hexes from this design. But I dont! I'm cheated. I only get 33 hexes. And woe unto me if I drop just a shaving below 13,200km in range, as then I will be rounded off to the tune of 9 hexes

Clearly aircraft should have 1000 airAP.

Also, although I seem to be in a minority, I have no complaints about the design menus, even for aircraft. You have to try a whole cluster of combinations manually before finalizing, which means going back and forth like 8-12 times if you really work it, yes. But everything you need to find the best design for a given, large, set of variables is there, and what's more, still leave you room to have a specific pet intention or role in mind for the proposed model design... its all there.

Plus, you get the little *asterisks and +crosses telling you what your previous and existing models were.

...

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...aerodynamic values which impact maximum speed in a complicated way that mostly boils down to more = better.

Yes that also makes sense: Engine type is factor in the Aerodynamics score.

Engine type would be a proxy for other types of improvements to aircraft which, as in the real world, improve aerodynamics. For instance, aluminum fuselage spars which can carry mechanical parts inside them. Turbo-powered aircraft like the Spitfire were generally more aerodynamic than their naturally aspirated predecessors, but not because there is anything inherently aerodynamic about a turbo combustion engine.

I suppose in reality, aerodynamic improvements were driven by engine design... As in, the history of Jet Interceptors after WW2 demonstrated that having an engine capable of propelling a plane to higher speed than ever before did not mean you could just build that plane and expect it to be controllable. Engineers had to first evolve; that is: synthesise through repeated testing and analysis, a much better understanding of aerodynamics and fluid dynamics. They didn't have it before, and they only invented the knowledge because they needed it for a specific purpose. Scientists in the pre-jet age didn't even know there was reason to have to know stuff like that, I'd say.

Knowledge is a kind of quirky in the history of Science. It really isn't linear.

...

---

It seems like some people are coming down hard on the Airfield regime, and I just want to say it doesn't seem so bad to me.

The Airfield regime, where airfield size limits aircraft size, is a major limitation to your Air Force. I end up planning my entire global settlement strategy around getting potentially larger settlements in to strategic positions, especially to support airfields within the operational ranges of "potential aggressors". To disable an enemy regime, I go for metal production, if I can.

So that is a working part of the game for me. Against an AI that almost doesn't do air, and on a planet where small planes can fly really far, this is good enough. On other worlds, the airfield regime can be a critical limitation. Only much larger airplanes will be able to have any kind of longer range. The early air force will be very difficult to use. In an earlier game, I had an air force with something like a 4- or 6- hex operational range. In cases like this, an Air Force will probably be stuck way behind the logistics bubble for most of the game, and they would learn how to play gin rummy.

...

---

Airbridges are a huge part of my game. But I have to use helicopters, always.

It seems to me that fixed wing, airfield-to-airfield would be almost impossible to use. But Soar seems to have done it. What I ended up wishing for was something like a logistics airfield, makeshift construction, combat engineers, no airbase points, no refuel, no ground logistics connection required...that sort of thing. I mean, a separate facility or hex characteristic linked to entrenchment and terrain type maybe, would be my suggestion. Anything so that fixed-wing airbridges were somehow possible to use, without having to capture a city and then be surrounded or something even more exotic.

That what I was looking for. In fact, one of those "Free Folk Settlement" events popped, and I rushed an early air force, with cargo in mind. Along the same lines, it might be cool enough if say those GR and Dissolution Wars hex-perks, or even free folk villages could be used as airbridge drop-off points.

(ps. how do you do quotes like that, Soar? I cant find it.)

[Soar_Slitherine]

It seems to me that fixed wing, airfield-to-airfield [airbridges] would be almost impossible to use. But Soar seems to have done it.

No, the only airbridge operations of significant scale I've done used thopters. Fixed wing airbridges can't really be used offensively, light aircraft can't carry much, and the defensive use of heavy aircraft airbridges requires planning too far in advance to mitigate a situation you want to avoid getting into in the first place.

If you already had a big airbase in a city in order to operate other fixed-wing aircraft, and that city got cut off, you could make some heavy transport aircraft to supply to defenders, I suppose. Sometimes you can use heavy aircraft to make an a more direct airbridge between two zones you control in place of a convoluted land logistics route, but it's rare to actually acquire such zones unless you already have the capability for airfield-free airbridging.

(ps. how do you do quotes like that, Soar? I cant find it.)

You mean having multiple quotes in each post? I've been clicking the quote button at the top right of a post to get the right poster, copy-pasting the portion I want to address over the full post within the quote block, and then copy-pasting the new quote block over to the actual post I'm editing in another tab. You can also copy-paste a block of text into the editor, highlight it, and then click the " button in the toolbar.

[Don_Kiyote]

Thanks. I was hoping there was a better way to do quotes.

[tdoggs99]

How does wingspan play into aircraft design?

I know if you increase the wing span it reduces the ground speed for take-off. I assume a more significant wingspan increases range to a certain point before the weight drops off. Has anybody figured out the graphs for ground speed/lift to the range of weight? It would make the trial and error click fest more accessible.

[Soar_Slitherine]

Increasing wingspan increases drag as well as adding weight. In terms of range, depending on the specifics, this may or may not be counteracted by the additional lift provided by the wings. As with engines and fuel tanks, picking the wingspan is a matter of finding the most suitably balanced option, but due to the complexity of the calculations, I can offer no general advice there.

[Don_Kiyote]

How does wingspan play into aircraft design?

Aside from range, it is also used to determine the turn score, using a wingload calculation, and thus the dogfighting score.

The wingload calculation is used presumably because attempting to turn too fast in a real airplane may cause your wings to rip off. So speed and atmospheric density are multiplied by the area of the wing, yielding a column of air and some specific measure of force in Newtons, I guess, but for out purposes used to yield a rough description of the theoretical maximum turn and represented as a 'turn score', a measure of the maneuverability of the aircraft.

That plus firepower would be enough for a dog-fighting score.

That's how I guess it works. The overall effect is an aircraft design trade-off between range and air-to-air superiority.

[Soar_Slitherine]

The wingload calculation is used presumably because attempting to turn too fast in a real airplane may cause your wings to rip off. So speed and atmospheric density are multiplied by the area of the wing, yielding a column of air and some specific measure of force in Newtons, I guess, but for out purposes used to yield a rough description of the theoretical maximum turn and represented as a 'turn score', a measure of the maneuverability of the aircraft.

No. Speaking of real life here, I don't actually know the specific mechanism that allows aircraft with better wingloading (mass divided by wing area) to turn faster, but it's related to the amount of lift, not to any risk of the wings ripping off. Lift is also important for other aspects of performance relevant to maneuverability, such as climb rate and stall speed. Wings can rip off when exceeding maximum safe speeds or G-force limits, but that's prevented by building the wings tougher, rather than bigger.

That plus firepower would be enough for a dog-fighting score.

That's how I guess it works. The overall effect is an aircraft design trade-off between range and air-to-air superiority.

In the game, bigger wings have both a negative effect on dogfight score by slowing the aircraft down and a positive effect by improving its wingloading. It does not seem clear which effect is going to win out in which case, so determining what the tradeoff is would require in-game testing.

[DeltaV112]

Yes that also makes sense: Engine type is factor in the Aerodynamics score.

Engine type would be a proxy for other types of improvements to aircraft which, as in the real world, improve aerodynamics. For instance, aluminum fuselage spars which can carry mechanical parts inside them. Turbo-powered aircraft like the Spitfire were generally more aerodynamic than their naturally aspirated predecessors, but not because there is anything inherently aerodynamic about a turbo combustion engine.

I suppose in reality, aerodynamic improvements were driven by engine design... As in, the history of Jet Interceptors after WW2 demonstrated that having an engine capable of propelling a plane to higher speed than ever before did not mean you could just build that plane and expect it to be controllable. Engineers had to first evolve; that is: synthesise through repeated testing and analysis, a much better understanding of aerodynamics and fluid dynamics. They didn't have it before, and they only invented the knowledge because they needed it for a specific purpose. Scientists in the pre-jet age didn't even know there was reason to have to know stuff like that, I'd say.

Knowledge is a kind of quirky in the history of Science. It really isn't linear.

Engines type is IRL an extremely major factor in aircraft maximum speed. As speed increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to accelerate the air to generate thrust. Propellors basically cease to function near Mach 1, supersonic flow doesn't function well with a propellor. For that matter it also doesn't function with turbomachinery, so turbine engines are limited by the requirement to have a supersonic-subsonic intake and have enough jet velocity to exceed the aircraft's own speed. This creates a practical limit of around Mach 3, typically due to air compression heating in the intake exceeding the thermal limits of the compressor or tubrine inlet.

No. Speaking of real life here, I don't actually know the specific mechanism that allows aircraft with better wingloading (mass divided by wing area) to turn faster, but it's related to the amount of lift, not to any risk of the wings ripping off. Lift is also important for other aspects of performance relevant to maneuverability, such as climb rate and stall speed. Wings can rip off when exceeding maximum safe speeds or G-force limits, but that's prevented by building the wings tougher, rather than bigger.

The effect here is induced drag. A larger wing generates the same lift at a lower angle of attack, and therefore generates less induced drag.