maybe a more "forced" tiering of the game, for plane/ground combat vs air losses in terms of balance : Losses need to be acceptable, at almost any stage of the game (minor caveats?) but especially the start of the game. It really depends what the the devs want the final playthrough of this game to look like. I understand not wanting to give us too much money too easily, but I think overall the income of the xenonauts needs to be bolstered (particularly through sales of UFO hulks, as it doesnt seem like they manage to strip much material off those humongous UFO's to do much with.) this can also be done via getting money from allied countries collecting the fighter debris or rewarding 2/3 points per enemy fighter shot down, the same value as an alien ground target, both are equally noteworthy to the involved nations, or split that bonus between an equivalent one time fee and a 1 point relations boost, as the ally salvages what remains, the point of this is to make it "acceptable" to lose a fighter at least every few dogfights, without setting you back. for players on easy this could be reduced risk reduced reward, and the opposite for higher difficulties