Does your setting feature airborne combatants? Are they used in armies, and what role do they play? How do other forces counter them?
Only fantasy setting I've seen really tackle it is Fire Emblem, since Unicorn/Griffon/Dragon riders are units both you and the enemies get. They tend to be very squishy outside of high magic resistance, so weirdly enough their niche is being mage-killers. The main issue they have is that while they can go anywhere on the map, other units can't follow them meaning you tend to keep them in reserve since unless they are fucking jacked they can't kill enemies in one go and can easily be swarmed. Their big counter is naturally archers too, meaning your other units NEED to clear out any archers before you send fliers in. I'd also imagine that heavy emplacements, like Ballistae or Catapults (which are also sometimes units in Fire Emblem) could also serve as a counter. Though naturally you have an issue with aim. Now AA guns have two solutions for this. One is you shoot a LOT of bullets so you are more likely to hit something. I think this doesn't really feel in in line for fantasy. The second is air-burst munitions which I think could work. They're designed to blow up at a certain range expanding the radius of what you can hit with the weapon. Theoretically you could also use fliers to deal with fliers, getting into fantasy dog-fights. I assume the tactics there translate well (like attack with the sun behind you so that your enemy has to be blinded by the sun as they try to attack you).
>>93183758They show up in my scifi stuff all the time. Conventional aircraft are cheaper than space-faring craft, so they are popular for interception, as well as patrolling a planet. My current mecha campaign frequently references loitering drone aircraft to help maintain sensors and comms whenever the PCs leave the settled regions
>>93184301If you have a hyper-mobile but fragile unit vulnerable to interception their best use isnt to strike behind enemy lines, its to be the hammer against your anvil. Loitering around your own units keeps them out of range of massed AA and denies the enemy from charging your more vulnerable infantry because unless THEY can kill YOUR guy in one hit the air cavalry will charge in annihilate the agressing unit, then retreat back to the skies with near 100% combat strength ready to charge again. Or you can pair them up with their sol+luna mymidon child-wife/husband, system permitting
The setting I'm playing in is about using military jets and all the players are pilots, so they're pretty important. The setting was designed around using 1950s-1970s era fighter jets, so the background stuff is a flimsy excuse to get everyone flying sick fighter planes. I've been playing two parallel campaigns in it and it's been fun as hell, especially now that the rules are pretty much stable.The counters to air power are pretty straightforward: other planes and surface-to-air weapons. Early SAMs are treacherous if you can't pay attention, later SAMs are very scary, especially if you have no electronic warfare capabilities or Radar Warning. Surface guns are dangerous in volume if you fly low to the ground. Integrated air defense is kind of a puzzle for surface attackers where you need to determine a priority sequence of what to eliminate vs how much risk you can take vs how much time you have, both in fuel and exposure to enemy fire. It's taken a long time to develop but it's now very enjoyable.
>>93184954Well needing to keep them healed up also means keeping your healers nearby who have pretty limited range unless you get a high level staff, and those tend to have few charges that you need to save.
>>93186419System, if you please. Warbirds: Jet Age, or something else?
>>93183758 (OP)>Does your setting feature airborne combatants?yes I try to include them if t makes sense. Air power is a very powerful tool>Are they used in armiesair forces mostly, some navies too and a few armies.>what role do they play?attack, recon, interception, patrol, transport, surveillance, EW etc>How do other forces counter them?air defense and their own aircraft, mostly
>>93183758Exo-Forms don't require the pilot to physically be inside of it to pilot it instead acting as a surrogate body that the pilot casts their mind into thanks in part due to Veil-based technology. Some humaniod features are still necessary since the Human mind can't fully adapt to a fully non humanoid shape so aerial type Exo-Forms will have the arms and legs fold in unless needed.
>>93186419thud my beloved
>>93186482Homebrew game called Skies Far Beyond. I'll hopefully be self-publishing this year unless Osyprey wants to pick it up. I'll be submitting it to them soon, just finalizing the testing of some of the cornercase stuff and most advanced planes with more rules (F-111, EA-6A etc.).Sauce me on those planes in your pic please.>>93187538Luv 3rd gen, simple as
>>93183758Given I go for a not!Cold War setting where ICBMs don't exist, strategic bombers are still the number one way to deliver warheads and so the interceptors for those keep getting more and more thoroughbred, imagine the XB-70 got built, the XF-108 got built and the soviets counter by building super MiG-25s. Pictured here is the primary interceptor of one of the nations in the setting, three engines because it needs to fly three times the speed of sound, of course.
>>93190416no flagon that's not a bomber it's a fully loaded passenger jet!
>>93183758 (OP) (OP)>Does your setting feature airborne combatants?yes I try to include them if t makes sense. Air power is a very powerful tool>Are they used in armiesair forces mostly, some navies too and a few armies.>what role do they play?attack, recon, interception, patrol, transport, surveillance, EW etc>How do other forces counter them?air defense and their own aircraft, mostly>>93190416>Homebrew game called Skies Far Beyondis it a RPG or wargame? The time frame is the perfect middle ground between advanced tech and jank
>>93183758>Does your setting feature airborne combatants?Yes. The Roof of every lower Layer is populated by confederated tribes known under the name of Sky-Clans or Sky-People. They interact with the inhabitants of the Floor sections mostly through trading and piracy, and have a fleet of dirigibles that is currently better than the Colonial equivalent. Luckily, because of their peculiar choice of territory, they can't grow a very large population, and so their fleet isn't large enough to truly threaten any Underground Nations (or above ground, for that matter).
>>93194247Just do whatever GCI says. Don't think too much about it.>>93194280It's a roleplaying game. I agree on the timeline, it's a fascinating period in military hardware when things were highly experimental and advancing super fast. I call it a "Tactical Airborne Roleplaying System" as the subtitle, hopefully implying it does have a reasonable amount of crunch. Without it, you don't capture the feel I want from the era. The focus is on planes from 1950 to 1973, a hard cutoff to keep out the first wave of 4th gen American fighters. The most advanced planes are things like the F-111 and MiG-25. There's so many planes I wanted to include, but I forced myself to do only ten per "tier" of aircraft, so there's 40 player aircraft choices. It was agonizing to cut that list down and I had to axe some I love (Skyray!) to try and make the list as mechanically diverse and interesting as possible.It's an extremely niche game but hopefully other people who are interested with the early periods of military jet aviation also like it. The playtesters don't give a shit about aircraft but they've been enjoying it.
>>93190416>Sauce me on those planes in your pic pleaseJapanese artist on Twitter and Pixiv, does a lot of alt-history military world building. I'll see if I can find them againAlso, good luck with publishing. I'll keep an eye out for your game!
>>93184301>Fantasy Anti-air artillery that feels out of place1) Build ballista2) Place deep bucket in nook where bolt would usually go3) Affix bucket to the rope so it can't leave4) Fill bucket with tightly packed heavy arrows5) Fire ballista6) Bucket accelerates two dozen tiny spears instantly7) Bucket remains affixed to ballista, payload continues on8) ???9) Fantasy flechette canister round
>>93194768cool, I've played a fair bit of missile threat which is a miniature game (even made my own fantasy expansion for it), but I haven't touched any air combat RPGs
>>93196605Thanks. Those had me thinking of Crimson Skies.>>93197693I designed the advanced solo module for Missile Threat, so obviously I'm a fan of that game too. Originally my RPG was going to be fantasy-oriented with Wizardry System Operators and stuff but I decided to try to focus on the hardware more. You should keep developing that and send it to the developer of MT, he's very easy to reach.Skies Far Beyond is pretty different, it uses a side view instead of the usual top-down view to emphasize altitude, and has a focus on situational awareness as a currency. It's a little abstract at first but you get used to it quickly.
>Players send in a spinosaurus they fed a potion of growth towards a big city, it starts attacking the walls>Towers along the walls start shooting it with ballistae, they ride in on their flying mounts to disable them>Spino tears through the walls and into town>An iron golem is launched at it and they start to fight while the players divide their attention between flying reinforcements and the riflemen scattered about, firing up at them, in between trying to stop the iron golem from fucking up their dinosaur>Wizard hears the horns of more men coming and flies off and blasts the approaching column of soldiers before they can scatter>The scattered men dump a fusillade at him and his griffon is killed, he is very nearly killed by the fall and pinned beneath its body>The spino picks up the golem in its mouth and hurls it a few blocks while the rest of the party flies in to try and save the wizard, but are driven off by repeated volleys of musket fire before the spino is able to bear down and scatter the survivors>They grab the wizard and fly off while the Spino wrecks havoc
>>93198139That’s some fucking Ace Combat shit. What game?
