First time posting - Hello everyone.
So, I made an aerospace complex and happily produced a few needlejets I like to rename as Bombers.
Fuel 20/20.
Send out to a mission, destroy some of Miriam's ships - happy as can be.
They auto return to the nearest base - so far so good.
Next turn they are refueled to 10/20.
Next turn - 10/20
Next turn - 10/20
Not so happy anymore.
Disable automation - same thing.

Did someone encounter this in the GoG version so far?

Most people including myself would normally disable auto return to base because it is stupid, so we don't know about that issue?

Possibly try moving the plane 1 move outside the base and see if the fuel changes then?

Found the solution.

Fuel 20/20. Perform the desired action (destroying Miriam's ships is my preference).
After that action the fuel would be 10/20.
Return the unit manually to a base and end it's turn with "Skip action" [SPACE].
If I end it's turn with "Sleep" [L] - the next turn it wakes up at 10/20 fuel, but if end it with [SPACE] it is at 20/20.

I used to put it on "Sleep" so it can recover the damage taken - but now it has to be [SPACE] and next turn [L].

Yup, gotta get that one in my muscle memory.

Weird, (the fuel problem)

Anyway it is a shame needle jets have such a small window of use before helicopters come along with their multiple attacks per turn, brilliant brilliant brilliant!

Yeah, helis are the main force (if I get to them). But I usually slow down the research in options and on the highest difficulty I rarely get passed the needlejets techs.

Anyways, thanks for chipping in.

Sounds like you might not be making good use of probe teams and alien artifacts?

I like to save up all my alien artifacts and keep up in technology using probe teams. Then once i have searched the entire map and collected as many artifacts as possible, only then will i use them, all at once (allowing a turn here and there to collect on research bonuses) and boost way ahead of the AI in technology, they will never catch up.

Tip - ocean mind worms are the best for collecting ocean pods and keep a probe team or two on board for collecting shoreline pods or stealing technology where the opportunity arises.

You will probably already know that you can get ocean mind worms early on by capturing them. It seems to be the case that the more mind worms you have, the less likely it becomes to capture them. Also it can be fairly difficult at times to get a navy started, one step forward, two steps back kind of thing. You WILL need to save and reload, or i suppose you could simply tolerate very small mind worm transports and avoid all combat with them, then you won't have to reload.