Aircraft differ in cargo slots and rated payload. Slots are a hard limit: an aircraft needs one free slot per crate. The rated payload is not enforced. Internally loaded crates add their real weight in DCS, so loading beyond the rating costs take-off, hover and climb performance instead of being refused. Slingload weight is handled through the cargo hook. Fuel, weapons, terrain and weather still affect whether the resulting aircraft is safe to fly.

• Spawn max payload in the Storage menu takes out only as many crates as stay within the rated payload.
• Spawn max free slots fills every free slot, even beyond the rating.

Some airframes also have Tycoon-specific roles. A UH-1H Food delivery gives the receiving Settlement a ten-minute Trust-recovery boost; later Huey deliveries refresh rather than stack that timer. The Flight Academy improves existing airframe perks. The Gazelle receives a wider and slightly longer-range A/N course during rumor searches.

The C-130J-30 is the only airplane that carries Tycoon cargo. It cannot land on a helipad, so it works cargo by distance instead:

Crates are placed behind the aircraft, clear of its wings. In practice the C-130 collects at a Source or Factory and unloads into an airfield's storage, where helicopters pick the cargo up for the last leg.

Heavy cargo reaches the rated payload before the last slot: 21 Industrial Parts crates already weigh 21,000 kg.

The Live Map or cargo menu is authoritative if a configured capacity differs from this reference.

• Complete Your First Flight
• Deliver Cargo
• Recover a Settlement
• Map a Rumor

• Cargo
• Airfields
• Trust
• A/N Direction Finding
• Institutions