*drags up an old topic*
I agree that fuel needs to be kept in; if aircraft had no limiting factor, you'd have a set of units that require a niche of units to defend against, and can move from your base to the oponent to strike and back in next to no time. Early bomber strikes are already a pain, without makingi t so they can stay there forever.
I do like the changes proposed to air-staging though. Energy tansmission is a great idea, and can even be justified within the current mechanics.
For example:
Every unit requires power to operate.
Land units require the least, in comparison to the weight; moving over land is easier.
Naval units require slightly more, pushing through water being a bit harder.
Aircraft require significantly more, as they need to stay aloft.
Now, all units have built-in power generators, allowing them to maintain their power consumption, thus negating the fact that they require power for all intents and purposes.
However, aircraft, requiring considerably more power, and needing to be lighter, have smaller generators than they need, thus requiring surplus power. Built in power storage accounts for the 'fuel meter'. While not flying, aircraft should slowly charge those capacitors from their built in generators, and when flying, they drain them.
Now, clearly there is some form of power transmission (and mass too...) as we can send engineers to the other side of the map and have them mass/energy from your storage, which is up to say 80km away.
We justify this with a requirement that a unit needs to be stationary for the power/mass transmission to work. (All mobile factories need to stop to build; the only exception to this rule I can think of is nuke subs, which can build their nukes while on the move).
Therefore, aircraft cannot recieve this power-transmision while on the move, so we have a short-range advanced power transmitter, allowing aircraft in it's radius to be able to 'refuel' quickly.
By reducing the fuel storage on aircraft, and enabling this instead, we can stop silly ammounts of aircraft crossing the entire map and wiping out a sizable force over the space of 10 minutes and still having fuel to return... And also get rid of the annoyance of patrolling aircraft having to land repeatedly to refuel, while badly damaged aircraft are forced to wait.
Naturally, the radius for the in-flight refuelling effect of air-staging platforms would need to be smaller than the radius it has currently. (Though, that radius is needed for aircraft to fly back to it automatically... So introduce this new effect with a seperate readius.)
