Jet Design is the most important part of a Jet Fighter, and Especially Interceptors.

A good design starts with ditching what you know about Jets. It will only hold you back.


Lets discuss a the typical Jet Engine; Its under-powered, slow, and will not work with what we are doing. The RPS will typically be regulated for Fuel Control and prevent overspeeding. However, you do not need a RPS PID controller.



Engines, contrary to popular belief, you can stack Combustion Chambers. This is an effective way to get more power. It causes higher power output to turbines, spinning the engine faster with less fuel, so in some cases can increase fuel economy, for the same power output at the same speed. This does diminish as the engine becomes longer. However, there is an issue; They blow up quickly.


In order to keep the RPS down below 200 (The detonation point of jets), you should use Duct Fans. They lower the RPS while also providing Thrust to the plane. This will in turn improve the Aircraft's speed, while keeping the maximum RPS down. In addition, you can Gear the fans to spin faster, which lowers engine RPS. This can be used to increase Fuel Economy at lower speeds, and if built right can cruise for hundreds of kilometers at a speed slightly slower than your enemies top speed.
To put it simply, RPS is generated by Turbines. The more Turbines, the more RPS. Exhaust needs Air Pressure to work better, and Turbines eat Air Pressure. Keep this in mind when building jet engines.


150-180m/s is the typical Jet Fighter speed, however your jets after this guide will be going over 200m/s.

NOTE: Please do not abuse this, this is meant to help people go faster, and build better jets. It can be abused and should not. Nobody likes a mach 50 jet that can only fly on Inf Fuel and Electric.

Simple Answer, is that the Air in Stormworks is soup. And it behaves like that as well. So when you build jets, you must keep the Sub-grids low, as the will provide more drag on Vehicles. Small sub-grids usually provide minimal drag, however it can affect some areas of Performance.



Weight blocks are critical part of making your jet faster, and the logic is this; Big Planes in Stormworks are heavy, and cannot be powered by 2 jets typically, so the Devs made the weight factor into the system, making heavier planes fly faster. The counter to this is more drag, so the speed can remain consistent. Therefore, Flying the same speed as your lonely Jet Fighter. But, if we decrease the Drag, and increase the weight and thrust, therefore increasing speed.

Typically, them more weight the better. It will improve speed drastically, and will make a huge difference. You can install them everywhere, but do leave a poor look on the plane, so keep as much covered as possible.


Of the types of wings of planes, Swing Wings and Fixed wings stand out. To clarify, Swing wings DO NOT INCREASE SPEED. The game engine calculates the Drag in the Workbench, so the wings when spawned in will be at their out stage in the game engine when calculating drag.

Swing wings do offer 2 distinct advantages; Cool factor and Maneuverability. By moving the COM, you can increase the turning radius. A more forward COM decreases Turn rate, whist a rearward COM is faster turning. If your jet does Flips uncontrollably, Check the Roll, Pitch, and Yaw Section.

See anything odd about this jet?

Trick is, it has no visible control surfaces. And that's because they are all internal. When making a jet perform better, in turning, you need to follow the concept of COM, COL, and COT.
(Center of Mass, Center of Lift, Center of Thrust).

The way you set up surfaces matter. My personal favorite is to use 1x1 fins, as they are small and have the highest lift to size ratio in the game. A lot of these for all types of control will significantly help. These mostly need higher sensitivity from the seat. If you are using bigger surfaces, make sure to clamp them to be less sensitive, as Stormworks physics doesn't like a fin at max angle, and will actively ignore the surfaces for whatever reason.

These factors can affect how the jet Turns, Rolls, and Flies. It will also control how it at high and low speeds. Lift is a big factor in how your jet performs at lower speeds, and will be useful to have Wing Surfaces inside the wing, so landing will be easier. These do slightly increase drag, but the benefits outweigh the consequences.


COM; This is determined by the in-game center of mass indicator. If its off the the left, it will drift to the left. If off to the right, it will drift right.

COT; Where the Thrust is, is the Center of thrust. Usually jets will have this at the rear, however it may be more forward with duct fans. This can affect the pitch and yaw of the aircraft, and could cause extreme flipping if too high.

COL; Center of lift is usually calculated by telling where the fins are in a jet.

All 3 affect stable performance. If one is off, the rest need to be overworked to provide stability and control.


Control over your jet is key, long range jets need to keep pilots active in combat, not trying keep it level in cruise.

This comes to 2 things; Stabilizers, and Trim.

To use trim, Hold Left Alt, then use WASD Left Right and Up Down to control trim, try to keep .1 or 0 values to keep aircraft roughly level while looking at the VSI.

For stabilizers, many workshop ones work well. The simplest and my favorite, is simply easy to set up

First, take a tilt sensor, and face it forward, left, and upwards. Output the Forward and left to a Function each. The functions formula is X*50 for pitch, and X*-50 for roll. Change these numbers to be higher or lower to improve control. output these into the ON position two Numerical Switchboxes, and wire up buttons to control if they are on or not. Take W/S and A/D into the OFF positions. Use an ADD to hook these up to the surfaces, with A being the output of the Switchboxes, and B being the output of the Seat to their respective control areas. In order to not pull 50g's when going inverted, take the output of the Top Tilt Sensor, output it into a Threshold gate with the number -.0001 and -1. Then, output the ON/OFF to the output of a new Numerical Switchbox, with off being the from the ADD, and ON being from the Function of Pitch inverted with a numerical Switchbox. This is to prevent the aircraft from flipping rapidly when inverted.

Ask in the comments if you need help with this

With all these tips, you would probably guess that fuel economy will be low, since we are putting these engines on the Red Line. You are correct. Therefore, we must maximize our fuel economy, all the while keeping range High. This is done by two things;

1: Using Micro controllers in the fuel tank. These will allow for the maximum amount of fuel per block, double that of the 1x1 wedge. They will seal on one face, and do not on the other 5. These can lag the game if they have logic in them, however usually they wont if they are logic free or are on a small build.

2: Gearing an engine can lower RPS while still providing power to the jet, prevent risk of stall. In all reality, you will not be traveling at max speed everywhere you go. This is not a viable option. So, you can increase the Fans RPS to provide more thrust than the engine, keeping the RPMs low. Now, you can cruise for long ranges and keep precious fuel in storage for extended dogfights.

Landing Gear is hard. Lets face it, it usually causes tons of issues. However, we can play into the strengths of Stormworks.


First off, you want to have the 3x3 wheels for everything. Ditch those coaster wheels, they look weird most of the time. You want to use the 3x3 wheels, as they are more adaptable for many uses, such as steering and braking.




First stop, capacitors. These things are gold. They allow you to have a 2 way delay, which allow to open and close doors in a delay/advance, so when you press the gear button, they pull up, then the door closes, and when you turn it off, the doors open. Charge it takes time to open it, and and the Output makes it instantly deloy and keep open for some time. Its very useful, use them, as well as door controllers, which make Landing gear a breeze.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2369927961

PP Tracking Radar, Absolutely Excellent, by PuiPuix.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2512555909&searchtext=radar

Modular Radar System, Incredible quality, by FN-20.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1766909974

Pack of Avionics by PenguinO, all absolutely incredible.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2015565502&searchtext=radio

Radio, by Acc Original. Awesome stuff.

In addition, look for Composite Reads and Writes and Door Controllers.