Hands-On Usage
set_air_oob is primarily used to assign a dedicated air force order of battle file to a specific country within a mod. It is commonly employed when adding new historical starts, replacing default air force compositions, or allocating initial air units to custom nations. For example, when creating an enhanced French air force for a mod with a 1936 start date, you would add the following to that nation's history file:
# history/countries/FRA - France.txt
set_air_oob = "FRA_1936_Air_Enhanced"
The corresponding OOB file should be placed in the history/units/ directory, with the filename matching the string exactly.
Synergy
[set_air_oob](/wiki/effect/set_air_oob) and [division_template](/wiki/effect/division_template): Air force OOB files typically require accompanying equipment and template definitions. Both work in concert within the same nation's history file to ensure a complete starting composition.
[has_deployed_air_force_size](/wiki/trigger/has_deployed_air_force_size): This trigger can be used in events or decisions to verify whether air force size meets requirements, serving as a validation step after set_air_oob replaces the composition.
[create_equipment_variant](/wiki/effect/create_equipment_variant): Preemptively create corresponding equipment variants for aircraft types appearing in the new OOB to prevent errors when the OOB loads and cannot find the specified variant.
[add_equipment_to_stockpile](/wiki/effect/add_equipment_to_stockpile): Simultaneously add aircraft equipment to the nation's stockpile as the OOB file loads, ensuring the new air units have sufficient equipment available.
Common Pitfalls
- File path or filename mismatch: The string value for
set_air_oob must exactly match the .txt filename (without extension) in the history/units/ directory, including case sensitivity. Even a single extra space or incorrect case will cause the game to silently skip the OOB file, resulting in a country with no air units at game start and no error message, making this extremely difficult to diagnose.
- Using within dynamic effects outside history files: This command is designed exclusively for the history file loading phase before game start. If placed in the effect block of an event, national focus, or decision, the game will not dynamically generate new air units at runtime, and the effect will be completely ignored.