Matrix Games Forums

How does atmosphere and gravity affect aircraft design. Can you tell me about the best ratio for engine, wings, fuel and weight? I have no clue what I am doing when I design an aircraft. And are aircraft better then tank divisions?

Divide the Pressure (in bar) by the gravity. If the number is > 1, Aircraft are viable. Otherwise they are not and should be avoided.

For example:
200 mBar to 0.2g. 0.2 Bar / 0.2g = 1. Aircraft are viable.
350 mBar to 0.4. 0.35 Bar / 0.4g = 0.875. Aircraft are very much not viable.

Wings, Fuel, Engine, Weight:
We honestly do not know. The Manuals is stingy on information and all attempts to analyze this data have failed. I was actually the one that tried.
The best we got out of the effort is the fuel formula for vehicles.

Wings need to be large enough to carry the total weight. Items might be limited without enough "wingload".
The engine needs to be fast enough to the plane can lift off. Fuel is the biggest factor in range.

Aircraft vs Tanks
Those are incomparable. Aircraft work more like a realy long range artillery, that can always be shot. Planes also guzzle fuel and ammo like no other weapon type. So even with good aircraft, you will not get around having tanks.

I've seen this a few times now and it somehow never rung true for me. Sure, initially aircraft range suck (like 4-6) but with some research and Applied Science stuff i've never failed to get 25 and 33 range aircraft. The best always seem to be thopter designs.

I usually end up spending way more time on trying different combos, and eventually you'll get one that works.

Having a too big engine that guzzles to much fuel will reduce range - so biggest engine is never the best engine.
Wing size seems to allow bigger payloads and reduce required take off speed. So at the end of a proposed design, see how much extra air/ground-speed you have. You might be able to take smaller wings (or see that you need to increase the wings to meet the takeoff speed requirement). Just start out with a simnple design and light weapons, and see how far you can push it before you say its unviable.

Initially i go for helicopters when i can, because building airbases is for suckers (j'k ) and airplanes never really does it with the limited range. When thopters become available, i go for those. Typically i always only have anti-armour aircraft to help against the insane amount of tanks the AI sends. I've never had the AI build airplanes.. hoping one of them will this game .

Depends on what you mean by "better". If you mean "more effective for destroying the enemy" then the answer is "it depends on terrain, what you're fighting, your research and model quality". Aircraft can't take and hold territory like armour can, and it's probably more accurate to look at airforce missions like you would ranged attacks, like with artillery, rockets and missiles.

Aircraft are extremely effective once you get them going. On a planet with lower gravity and an earth-like atmosphere, even the very basic propeller engine bombers are well worth buying for the amount of damage they do, just watch their fuel consumption. The linear techs drastically improve the performance of aircraft.

Don't forget that it's faster and more visual to design in MNG (top left) - Blueprint.

does anyone know what is airspeed good for ? other than able to take off ?

The quicker the plane, the higher the dogfight score. This means a big engine, small wings and adjusting the fuel to get the operational range.

For bombers and cargo planes, adjusting the ground speed to closely match the takeoff speed to gain as much bombs/cargo possible to ferry over is ideal.

basicalz, except fighter speed is basicaly usless. unless there is in code situatition that if your plane is faster than enemy fighter then it will simply fly away from him.