@kalethequick "There is real life reason behind things needing fuel, yes." This is not what I said, I said some things need more fueling and have less autonomy than others.
"But this is also a setting with teleportation and instantanious transfer of mass as a resource over distances of up to 114 KM." Other parts of game, yes. Considering the shortness of games, even if calculating the "speed variable" that is not same in game/real life, it is not essential to add this to all unit mouvements.
I never spoke about "massive overhaul". Original question was: "Why air units do still have fuel?" So I answered this question: It is more life-like, and adds some personnality to (air)game.
I spoke about reducing t3 planes fuel tanks. This is so subtle and small change, most people wont even notice. (Reducing slightly, not 50 times of course) It would have very minor influance on balance, but will add some extra depth and little micro to game.
I said nothing about AOE. But if you want me to say something, I would point out, that this would be a huge change. It would unbalance so much. You would need to rebalance all aircrafts against asf's, and then eventually all aa against planes, and eventually all other units against aa... You can try some miracle thing, like making asf 5 times more expensive. But this may be too expensive for transport/strat catching and too cheap for inti cleaning up, etc. It can be perfect against inties and unbalanced against aeon t2 fighters etc. It can be perfect against aeon t2 fighter, but ridiculously unbalanced against aa (same health but 5* more expensive) etc. Might need to add effective "formation", like in navy/land, to keep planes spread out. Old asf's would probably be better in beginning of t3, and some tasks, so might be better to keep them, and add second asf-fighter. Something like t1 land has tank and arty.
I have nothing against AOE fighters, just pointing out that, it is huge amount of work and lots of added complexity (multiple asf or microing small wings), on a game already quite complicated.