Upgrading planes

[Nats]

Is there a way to upgrade planes? As Italy I have a load of old planes and I want to upgrade them to new fighters.

Also where is the close support plane type in research? I can only find various airframes and none of them are close support types?

Finding this game pretty confusing regarding production and logistics, trying to meet shortfalls in planes and getting the old ones upgraded.

If I cant upgrade can I scrap and get the materials back?

[[IFC]Mjollnir]

So...where to start...
Of course you can upgrade the old planes, but most of the time, if you get/research a better airframe, you want to use that.
For the upgrading: just like when you design a new plane, you can redesign/upgrade older planes. If you can't see them in the designer "window", you might have to tick the "show outdated models", because they're so old that they don't show up anymore.

As for your close air support question: the type of plane you get is depending on the weapons you put on that design, If you put cannons and machine guns on it, you get a fighter, torpedoes give you a naval/torpedo bomber and close support weapon like bomb racks give you a close support plane. Or a medium bomber, when equipped with fighter weapons gives you something like the Bf 110, an escort/anti bomber fighter.
You could mix-and-match, planes like the Focke-Wulf 190's, for example, we're multirole fighters that could also do close air support, but for starters you should stick to some basics designs.

When you scrap the planes, you don't get the materials back, only the manpower

[mk11]

You may want to consider disabling the By Blood Alone DLC to simplify aircraft models. That way you can get the hang of other features first. The same applies to various other DLC.

[Nats]

Ah yes so that makes sense.

In other games you can convert say an old version of a outdated plane into a the latest version. I take it in this game you can only decommission them. Which I suppose makes sense in the real world. If you build a plane you cannot change it into something else. You either send it off the frontline to lesser important duties or you scrap it entirely.

So what can I do with all my old planes then? Is scrapping them all you can do?

[CaptainSpacetime]

Originally posted by Nats:

Ah yes so that makes sense.

In other games you can convert say an old version of a outdated plane into a the latest version. I take it in this game you can only decommission them. Which I suppose makes sense in the real world. If you build a plane you cannot change it into something else. You either send it off the frontline to lesser important duties or you scrap it entirely.

So what can I do with all my old planes then? Is scrapping them all you can do?

You can upgrade the weapons/engine and any of the parts. But no you can't upgrade the chassis because it's the equivalent of just building a new plane.

Old planes just use them, if you're making new planes then over time from attrition you'll just lose all those old ones naturally.

Or throw them all on the market.

[Nats]

Originally posted by CaptainSpacetime:

over time from attrition you'll just lose all those old ones naturally.

Or throw them all on the market.

Thank you !