I propose overhauling the current fuel system for aircraft as it is too restrictive and can make-or-break some aircraft. For example heavy fighters like the Mosquito and Beaufighter suffer greatly from having fuel loads nearing an hour, when games are capped at 25 minutes and rarely exceed 20. Even single engine fighters like the P-47N have fuel loads exceeding 35 minutes. This severely limits their performance, and makes the aircraft much less fun to fly because of the poorer handling. Other aircraft, like the Meteor, are restricted to ether 6 minutes of fuel or 20, with no in-between, where 6 minutes is unviable and they are forced to fly on a high fuel load.
Implementing fuel as a slider would use a slider from 1 minute to maximum fuel, which allows the player to select the exact amount of fuel they want for that aircraft, and their choice would be saved for each individual aircraft for future matches.
Alternatively, allowing players to customise the fuel load presets for each aircraft (likely in battle before spawning rather than in settings) would be more intuitive for newer players as the current presets would be there by default but edit-able, still allowing players to make some fuel options that suit them and don’t restrict them to either very high or very small fuel loads.
I feel that the current fuel system is too restrictive and doesn’t allow a multitude of aircraft to be viable, reducing variety in matches, stopping players from being able to fly iconic aircraft to their fullest, and generally is frustrating. Overhauling it to allow the player to customise their fuel load would shine a new light on some more obscure vehicles, and make others more competitive.
This is desperately needed on heavier than normal fighters that do not get an airspawn (P-47N-15,D-22) and must carry a minimum fuel load that lasts longer than an air RB match can (25 minutes)
I have only ever once run out of fuel on any of my Spitfires, Hurricanes or Typhoons in Air Realistic when not including battle damage loss and I never take less than the minimum load. It was in the Spitfire 24, I spent virtually the entire game on WEP fighting jets. And tbh by the time Id glided it home I might as well have ditched it, as the map as so huge I only got half way back to the fight before it game over-ed. (Fortunately I was at high altitude when I noticed I had 5 seconds of fuel left so even the comically big map wasn’t an issue, with glide speeds over 300mph and landed with 2 second of fuel to spare)
We desperately need this, so many aircrafts have minimum fuels that are either too much or too few. I really wish I could just simply make all my prop aircrafts have 10-15mins of fuel, especially the heavier ones (my B7A2 Homare 23 would be such a beast if I could minimize its fuel). Sure, it may create some imbalance at first, but it would disappear after the first few BR changes. I would give a liver just for having that option. Yes, it may take away some realism, but I don’t think literally anyone would complain about that, especially if the presets would still remain as an option.
This is strongly needed in the game the presets are a pain to deal with when you know how much you are going to need but it doesn’t offer a fuel load that fits that.
As an il-2 player (the latest one) I can say that the fuel slider is one of the best things about the il-2, and it hurts that it is not in the wt, oh how much would the bombers gain if they could take 10 minutes of fuel, a few extra % to climb.
I don’t know how this would take away from the realism, in every simulator with planes you can set the amount of gasoline, even irl you don’t have any limits imposed, you refuel as much as you need on the mission and back, only in wt there is such a strange system that you can’t do that