How would one go about running a modern air combat TTRPG, ala Ace Combat or something similar? Something that in terms of combat mechanics would include the following:>BVR air combat>dogfighting>altitude and speed mechanics>ground attackOr is the general concept of a turn-based air combat game too immersion-breaking for the fantasy of air combat? Maybe it’s just better served as more of a skirmish game rather than an RPG?
>>98810491Missile Threat
>>98810959Oh this looks sick
>>98810491The Few does everything except BVR. Its storygame as fuck but pretty good. You could likely figure out how to get missiles in there. No real problem with turn based air combat games though. >>98810959Nice map, where'd you get that from? I made a print out of some farmlands for Wings of Glory but it was not great resolution. That looks way better.
>>98810491Project Sidewinder
>>98811658>Nice map, where'd you get that from?I didn't. I just dug the image out of previous thread about this we had in spring.
>>98811763This looks promising. Anyone got the pdf?
I brainstormed an idea whilst I just S-ranked Wings of Theve, a "maneuver dice" system inspired by the energy maneuverability theory the burgers came up with to design planes like the F-15.Essentially, you need "energy" to perform "maneuvers", and you generate this energy by moving fast, meaning a faster plane has more "energy" to spend on "maneuvers". I improvised an idea with the Savage Worlds dice system in mind, where your choice of plane determines the dice size you roll. So something that sucks at turning fast like an A-10 gets to roll 1d4 whenever it does maneuvers to turn or dodge fire, but you can freely spend as much "energy" as you want on a maneuver so you can nova if you absolutely positively need to do a maneuver. Whereas something freakishly agile like, say, an F-22, gets to roll a 1d12 for that same maneuver because it's agile as hell.Additionally, planes have a stability rating, meaning this is how much energy they need to fly properly. So something like the A-10, which can fly with one wing, just needs one "energy" in the tank, where something with weird wings like say something with forward-swept wings needs several, maybe three.Turns are based on spending energy to move, turn, dodge, et cetera.
>>98810491>Or is the general concept of a turn-based air combat game too immersion-breaking for the fantasy of air combat?You can make it work, but you've got to cut out a lot of realism like with most things. Seeing as we're talking about Ace Combat that is evidently not an issue.
>>98810491I can tell you what I did.>bvrEach side has a BVR zone. Staying in your BVR zone instead of merging into Dogfight zone requires an easy pilot check. For that 70s feel, radars have look-down shoot-down ratings that can make acquiring a lock on a low altitude target easier.>dogfightingA pair of planes from one side engage a pair of enemy planes, and they can perform different actions in this engaged state. The planes relative positions are accounted for, so it might be Enemy 1 tailed by a PC tailed by Enemy 2 tailed by another PC wingman. You attack planes you are tailing>altitude and speedHaving an energy advantage make winning dogfights easier. Doing different maneuvers costs energy.>ground attackAttack using a ground attack skill. Flak density is a simple test taken every turn to beat or take a minor hit.
>>98813593>>98813636Thanks for the suggestions
>>98813335Interesting idea, but there should be some stealth mechanics involved because I feel like Russian planes would be OP since they're designed around dogfighting from ground up
>>98812292Ask in the pdf share thread
>>98811986Bummer. I'll look it up and check there though. Thanks.
>>98815224I have.
>>98814863Aye, but it would depend on, for example, what kind of weapon's being fired at it. A radar-guided weapon would suffer but a heatseeker or projectile wouldn't suffer, so it would probably be a malus to certain weapons' tracking as well as how difficult it is for a plane radar to track said plane.Perhaps something like what a guy above mentioned about BVR, and how western stealth planes are better at BVR whereas something Russian is better at conventional dogfighting. Really, it would depend on whether the system was there for semi-realistic plane warfare or if it's there to be Ace Combat.
>>98817015I'm wondering if it's possible to simulate the pilot not knowing when exactly is enemy missile launched. Maybe a BVR can happen between two players and a GM/DM as intermediary so the DM would tell the players when they actually notice the missile so they can respect the MAR while an actual dogfight would just be done directly between two players but then what is the purpose of the DM?
Modern air combat?>"I push the button"
>>98817473The fantasy of modern air combat.
>>98817473
im currently writing a naval autism rpg, the combat part as OP is listing is the easy part, since you are basically making a wargame/wargame lite. the actual issue for an air combat rpg (and in my case a ship combat one) would behaving the shooty parts merge welll with proper RP mechanics
>>98810491Unfortunately place RPGs tend to fall on abstract side of things.
>>98811658The map is from Deep Cut Studio. Image attachedMissile Threat also has the "mercenary Air campaign" and extended solo rules with a ton of pilot traits. Between those two you could easily knock up an RPG imo
>>98817473Bad bait aside. How do modern system deal with over the horizon combat?
>>98825551Most modern systems can barely handle on-foot combat at 300 meters, nevermind the complexities of aircraft BVR
I searched this up and tried to download it only to find I'd already downloaded it for last time someone asked this.I have no further useful input, but good luck.
>>98818932Sick thanks anon.
>>98810491>TTRPG, ala Ace CombatGundam unironically.
>>98825684>complexities of BVR>climb higher>go faster>NOOOTCHING!!! IM NOOOOOTCHINGGGG
>>98810959Respectfully disagree, leading to the main point of my post. Missile Threat has good mercenary mechanics, but I have something else in mind.For anyone interested, I have a complete physical edition of Air Power, with all the original stat cards from Air Superiority/Air Strike/Speed of Heat. I am looking for 4+ players for an asynchronous, PbP campaign which would be ran on discord.Air Power 2e (Air Superiority 4e) is hex-based, respects energy preservation, and the aircraft all have different manuever profiles. However, the technology caps at 1989, and the game system is very dense.Add me at natertatertot, I'll give you the rules pdf and a list of all available aircraft in the game. Hopefully I have enough people willing to learn the crunch for something really great.
>>98825684>>98817077Air Power also has very prevalent BVR mechanics. Where Missile Threat falls short is that it focuses on the "battle" where the aircraft come in and attempt to influence the area, and only have so much fuel left on station before being forcefully rotated out.It doesn't allow for interceptions or for a GM to make semi-realistic maps with air strips to deploy from to interdict other missions.
