Air Wars type game.
to save time use the battle pirates base designer, you play on an island, as an island commander, you attack enemy planes, ships and bases. you have planes, bombers and helicopters.
the aircraft are not regenerating. when it is shot down the planes gone, what remains is the pilot and the experience. if for example they are shot down you can send a rescue helicopter to get them, however it can be shot down also, so for example you try and rescue a pilot over an enemy base you may lose both pilots.
The base commander can have many options, 1 have a bounty on the pilots head, if not returned are executed. meaning there gone/dead for good. just execute the pilots, or trade them for your own, or for tech/ aircraft.
would have an ammunition factory, instead of battle pirates where you get weapons for good on a ship, on the planes there 1 time use, put on, launch and watch the fireworks. when empty return to base.
whats nice is like battle pirates many levels of planes exist for the game. have propellers, (low end junk) have jet engines, rocket planes, a million types of engines, weapons, computer systems.
basically you are a mercenary, when you see airliners flying by, you can intercept them and do the easy shoot them down, or the more complicated make them fly back to base, can loot them and let them go, ransom them, or steal the plane, or steal and scrap the plane. so for example if the super sonic cargo plane goes by and you have propeller fighters, guess who wont be catching a cargo plane today.
the bigger and more advanced the plane the longer the build. in short you don't want to die, each plane has a range and fuel amount, so cant go to far from home without a tanker plane.
You start off with a munitions building (making dumb bombs, and machine gun rounds for fighters). more or less the instant build ammo's
also get a small runway, and 2-3 world war 2 style planes with propellers. all fighter bombers (very slow, small range, limited ordinance)
each plane is like a hull with a few exceptions, for example you need 2-4 engines that are the same in order to make a multi engine plane. cant toss 2-3 different types on a plane.
you get an air control tower, the more you upgrade it the more land and anti aircraft batteries you can make.
each squadron of planes has its own barracks, and parking area, the more you upgrade it the more pilots can be in that squadron. each building allows you to train the pilots in that building. for example if some die, you get new recruits. the landing field the more its upgraded the better of hangars it has. hangars are like a dock in battle pirates, but each squadron gets one, and needs to be upgraded. which is not to be confused with repairing, damaged aircraft go to a repair shop. many planes wont need to be repaired since if they are shot down they are just dead.
aircraft manufacturing facility what this does is make the planes, and research plane types (naval lab and shipyard)
have the propulsion lab (jet engine research, and builds them, so is a lab and manufacturing site.
the materials should be, aluminum, oil, and energy, can literally keep the battle pirates materials. just rename metal to aluminum but in theory just keep it metal.
when a aircraft captures an enemy plane (cargo plane, typically escorted) its taken back to the hangar of the squadron that took it. if its let go (for a ransom) the resources go to the main base. if its chopped up the squadron keeps the part in there hangar, or other parts, like if the plane was carrying advanced weapons or something., each parking area/ squadron hangar has a under ground bunker underneath they can store certain tons f materials under in equipment form, from ammo, to parts. and is safe from enemy bombing attacks.
the pilots rank and get bonuses, and need to be trained up. so they can fly more advanced plane types. the longer the training in each step the better they will do. for example if you fly a jet first thing the pilot flys, should be a 50% chance they crash land, losing the plane, and a 10-20% chance they kill themselves in an error. the more flight time, the lower them numbers go all the way to 0.
each pilot would gain skills based off the tasks they do, and get bonuses at random in there area. for example you have a bomber pilot, and they level up, you get a chance at bombing accuracy, (increases damage) could be fuel efficiency, can fly longer on a tank of fuel, or more accurate at firing at enemy fighters.
you would have aerial refuelers and support planes like planes with advanced radar. planes would fall under combat and non combat. if you attack an enemy, and you lose, your non combat planes will surrender and fly to be ransomed. where depending on the conditions may lose your planes and pilots, or just resources.
at first your range is very limited, you can only see 15-20 range (1.5-2 tiles) since you have no radar, the better the radar the more you can see.
base defense doesn't require airial refueler to extend range (may want a AWC or radar plane) so if you can have 10-20 planes a squadron, you may have 10 or more fighters for base defense. while a typical squadron may have 12 fighters, 2 refulers, 1 radar plane, and 5 bombers. so you can blow up shipping (orders from above) and are rewarded tech and resources for it, not necessarily from the wreck.
Sounds like fun l started playing around with a Unity 3d dev for mobile and got a 3d ww2 plane to fly, but thats about it, would like to see or help a team