A heavily-armed Spore creation kept airborne by flapping batwings, gumption and derring-do.
In Spore’s Civilization phase, players will need to balance form and function when designing air, sea and land vehicles. Each vehicle design is a compromise between durability, firepower and speed with final vehicle stats determined by the parts chosen. For instance, additional wings would improve speed at the expense of firepower and durability.
Players have a limited budget for parts and are further limited by a Complexity Meter which limits the number of parts used (presumably to prevent problems with overall game performance). Oddly, however, parts have no impact whatsoever on the final manufacturing cost of the vehicle.
I chose to play as a warmonger on my first Spore run and I found myself stymied because my airforce was being consistently bested. Anton Fokker, I am not. I then switched to the design above. Though it was cumbersome, it could dish it out as well as take it, and my air campaign proved more successful with it.