Useful AIR modules
Updated to 1.14, I have done a major rework of engine and weapon costs and balance and set up a few more rules to where what can be used. TAC’s can now use more weapons in the first slot for example and dive brakes only affect bomb locks(and rocket rails, thinking of moving them to tac-weapons too to prevent that). Check the changelog to see more in detail. Early planes should be cheaper and the system feels more flexible.
The way stats are set up in vanilla I feel really discourages the use of different modules and limits the amount of different effective designs that you can make. The opportunity cost for selecting something other than self sealing fuel tanks or armour is just too high. Thrust vs weight becomes a non-issue as soon as you unlock 1940 engines and there is no drawback to using jets vs 1944 piston engines so I did some balancing there too.
I’ve only tested compatibility with vanilla(all DLC) and Expert AI, but it should be fine with all mods that leave the airframes and air modules alone.
See the pictures for more exact stat changes but I will list the important ones below with some motivation. Overall I have tried to minimize maluses so that you pick modules based on their bonuses instead.
To help differentiate single and multi engine aircraft:
single engines recives a small agility buff
multi engines recives a small air defence and range buff
To give Jets and Rockets some differenciation from piston engines
Jet engines thrust reduced but given an agility buff to compensate
Rocket engines roughly halved cost, reduced thrust, reliability reduced, air attack/defence on all missions except interception and kamikaze reduced, buffed air attack/defence on interception. Increased speed.
All bombs/carried ordinance: reduced agility penalty
Bomb locks: Added naval patrol mission
Small bomb bay: weight reduced
Medium bomb bay: removed port strike mission(does not have naval attack)
Large bomb bay: strat attack reduced
recon cameras: adds some range and naval patrol mission
Armour plates and Self sealing fuel tanks: Both give the same air attack, armour reduces agility instead of range. Increased XP cost to 5. Removed the rubber cost of SSFT. Aircraft can now mount max one of each module.
Fuel tanks: Reduced weight of and removed air defence penalty, small decreased range increase to 40%
Non strategic materials: Increased weight, increased build cost reduction, removed penalty to air defence
Drop tanks: Flat range increase and reduced weight
Dive brakes: lowered cost, increased weight. Added bonus to Log strikes. Removed air defence buff and added naval strike targeting and air ground attack multiplier by the logic that they help make strikes more accurate.
Floats and flying boats: Added flat range, reduced rubber cost
Bomb sights: Change to a multiplier instead of a flat number – more bombs hit the target
Radio navigation: Increased night penalty reduction, removed bombing boost
Air-ground radar: removed bombing boost, reduced night penalty reduction
Air-air radar: added half bonus to air superiority mission
Turrets: Increased agility buffs to bombing mission and reduced speed reduction for dual turrets.
COMPATABILITY:
Its compatible with any mod that leaves the 00_plane_modules.txt and plane_airframes.txt files alone. Should be most mods that don’t add any new aircraft parts or airframes.
Required DLC:
These DLC should be installed in order to use this item.
Hearts of Iron IV: By Blood Alone
