Dogfights and Danger Zones

[loafofcheese]

Stubby has authorised me to write a dogfighting supplement for the game, so let's get this off the deck.


Dogfighting action:
The Dogfighting action is the core of this supplement. at any point throughout a player's turn, they can choose one of their planes or star fighters and declare a dogfighting action. the enemy can either try to take them on with ground weapons, which automatically hit at heights above 5 inches, or send their own ace in. Air to air combat is handled by picking up the planes and swooshing them around the room.

The Danger Zone: the danger zone is an area on the table represented by a square 2* the length of the plane, centered on the plane's last position on the tabletop. it is assumed that this area is where all the crazy swooshing is occurring. At heights above 5 inches however, ground based anti air weapons automatically hit the plane. the ace is allowed to relocate the danger zone at any point during his turn, but only to a point previously contained in the danger zone.

The Ace:
The Ace is a combination of a Pilot/driver and a hero, however, they only gain heroic feats in dogfighting actions. Maneuvers like the wronski feint, the immelman turn, a barrel roll and closet homeschooling are to be performed as part of the swooshing, and count as a heroic feat for the turn. maneuvers can be used to aid in evasion, or for crazy dive bombing tactics. The Ace gets a D10 for his stunt driving rolls, so pull the craziest crap you can think of when you play. when two aces are in play, the one with the cooler stunts as decided with WISG rolls with a d10 gains an advantage in combat.

Anti Air weaponry:any weapon that can be angled to 90 degrees or has homing missiles can be considered an anti air gun, and is thus able to hit automatically when the enemy plane is 5 or more inches above the ground.
Bombing runs: if the attacking player attempts a bombing run. they are able to fly along above enemy forces inside the danger zone dropping bombs, however rolls for accuracy must still be made and if altitude is more than 12 inches then the bombs have a forward velocity over the next turn equal to the distance the plane has moved.

Wild weasel attacks: when in the danger zone, the ace may attempt a wild weasel run, fly at an enemy ground unit and attempt to destroy it with an explosive. remember that Anti air weaponry automatically hits at heights above 5 inches.

Any other ideas, give some constructive criticism!

Thank you to Blackdog and IVhorseman for assisting in the development of this.

[Theblackdog]

I like the Swooshing rule, but find it disappointing that you don't gain any sort of bonus from doing a barrel roll.

I've toyed with a few air combat related ideas, such as anti-air weapons that automatically hit anything above a certain height, forcing planes to fly at low altitude and dodge terrain.

[loafofcheese]

I like the Swooshing rule, but find it disappointing that you don't gain any sort of bonus from doing a barrel roll.

I've toyed with a few air combat related ideas, such as anti-air weapons that automatically hit anything above a certain height, forcing planes to fly at low altitude and dodge terrain.

Both are good ideas. that second one in particular could be useful for the wild weasel mission type.

[Vami IV]

I think I'm going to use this system for my shit.

[IVhorseman]

This is great, but why are you categorizing all the different plane types? I'd hate to see a system where I have to look up on a table to see what "class" of fighter I'm using and make sure that I've got the right number of pilots etc. etc. If you're using them just as creative starting points for others to think about however I think that's a pretty good call.

My best advice is less crunching, more swooshing. I think the idea of just picking up opposing ships and making plane sounds with your mouth is beautiful and severely underrated, and I think simpler is better.

Here's my thoughts on how it might work: By entering the Danger Zone.

When declaring a dog-fight, an Ace pilot (or even a regular pilot maybe?) designates a swath of area as the "danger zone" as their dogfighting action. This is where the swooshing is supposed to actually happen, even if you are just running around the house with a spaceship while doing your best Tom Cruise impression. Similar to a squad plate, the fighter is considered to be in all spaces of the danger zone simultaneously. The biggest difference is that the fighter's weapon range is determined from the edge of the danger zone, not the center. The danger zone extends up to as many inches away from the Ace's vehicle as it has move inches, and the pilot may now fire at any targets within it's newly calculated range.

Out along the edge
Is always where I burn to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity

Then you treat the zone as if the fighter has a response action against anything that enters. Whether a unit flies into the danger zone, or takes the highway to the danger zone, the fighter may choose to target it. Like all response actions however, the fighter pilot only gets one, and all other rules about who acts first still apply.

Note that I said that the danger zone can extend "up to" as many inches as the creation may have: this is because the aircraft is also assumed to be flying over 5" off the ground, and I really like TBD's suggestion about auto-hitting weapons above a certain height. If an AA gun can target the danger zone, it may automatically hit the craft by spending a full-round action.

Instead of making a new category of AA guns, I'd also rule that any weapon that could conceivably be pointed upwards could "count" as an AA gun as long as the platform also remains stationary for the turn.

Of course, what would a daring pilot be if these areas were just off-limits, or if squads of minifigs with Stingers suddenly appear? Remember that Pilot rules are way cooler now, so we can actually abuse the stunt driving dice to turn them into a dodging mechanic as long as the pilot spends their dogfighting action to fly defensively, doing barrel rolls and loops and shit. If a pilot elects to do this, auto-hit weapons must make regular attacks. Furthermore, all attacks made against the creation now have the pilot's maneuvering dice (minus the creation's size but never going below zero) added to the UR of their weapons.

The biggest point here is that you're supposed to basically just be swooshing this motherfucker around, and when other pilots enter the area to fight, you make maneuvering checks against one another to figure out who is doing cool rolls cooler, thus gaining the combat advantage. Treat them like WISG rolls, but rolling with the pilot's stunt dice (I guess an Ace would use a d10 here) against one another. Whoever rolls higher succeeds at getting behind the bogey and riding his tail or whatever, and you just declare the attacks as they come along. This should also work with fantasy style battles, with griffons and dragonfire instead of jets and missiles. Or griffons and missiles, I'm not here to judge.

Finally, a pilot can end the danger zone at any time on their turn, and relocate to any point previously contained within it.

These ideas are all half-baked, but I already like em a lot.

[loafofcheese]

You make some good points, maybe I was being a bit anoraky with the categorisation of plane types, might make some more refinements.

[loafofcheese]

I have updated and refined the system, incorporating ideas from both blackdog and IVhorseman.

[IVhorseman]

Great rules so far, but like all good ones this raises more questions for refinement.

I think 5" above the ground is a good ceiling for airborne, and I also think that 12" is a good ceiling for bombing altitude. But when a fighter pilot is in the danger zone, what is their altitude? Does the danger zone simply extend horizontially from their central position, or are they simply assumed to be in the most convenient location possible for targeting? My assumption under my initial pitch was the latter, which makes AA weaponry slightly more threatening/interesting. It also forces players to mark borders of their danger zones more carefully, excluding areas protected by missile batteries or whatever.

What would the Ace's stat card look like? Skill? Armor? In all honesty, a vanilla pilot would actually make a great fighter pilot already.

I also didn't bring up exactly what would "qualify" as a vehicle being able to get into a dogfight. For example, an F-16 can enter a dogfight while a B-2 bomber would have a much more difficult time. So much of this system is based off of the pilot's skill rather than vehicle stats. Your danger zone doesn't include speed as a factor, which I think is a better indicator of a threat-space than vehicle size for this reason. And as Maverick says, "I've got the need... the need for Speed!" Except speed is really just a metaphor for Iceman's cock in his mouth.

As OP as AA guns that hit without dice rolls are, I feel like a fighter needs a major advantage to compensate for entering the danger zone. That's why I offered up the suggestion of a free response attack on an opponent's turn, since I'm not sure if being able to target anything in that zone already packs enough oomph. As always, playtest.

[Theblackdog]

I'm immediately reminded of the Dogfight Mode system from Ace Combat Assault Horizon. Basically when you got behind an enemy plane, the gameplay changed from a full-range flight sim to a Starfox-esque minigame where your plane automatically followed the enemy while you aimed the guns and missiles at it. In both cases you're sacrificing some degree of tactical gameplay for cinematic awesomeness. You can see an example of how this works here.

I like IVhorseman's modifications to the rules; they do a good job of covering one-half of aerial combat, which is the swooshing around making airplane noises. I do have one question: what about enemy aircraft or other units that want to use conventional attacks on an airplane in the Danger Zone? Can they shoot *at* the Danger zone from outside it? Do they get some kind of advantage for actually entering the Danger Zone to dogfight with the enemy rather than taking pot shots? We can exploit the old rules for accuracy penalties based on movement for this. A plane in the Danger Zone is assumed to be maneuvering so erratically that shots from weapons outside it (or ground weapons inside it that aren't using the flak rule) are calculated as if the target is moving at full speed. (Alternately, we can say that enemies targeting an aircraft from outside its Danger Zone do not benefit from a target size bonus). If the plane is doing a barrel roll, that penalty is further increased. However, an airplane that enters the Danger Zone can engage the enemy fighter without any accuracy penalty for movement.

Note that this also gives us a potential nerf for autohit AA guns if needed. A gun using the flak rule can fire at an enemy plane in the Danger Zone without applying any accuracy penalties.

The other thing I'd like to see these rules capture is Dodging terrain. You see some of it in that video with the enemy pilot trying to fly between buildings.

Here are my rough ideas for this:

A pilot in the Danger Zone may end the Danger Zone and swoosh to a point below 5" in altitude, but must make a piloting skill roll in order to do so. On a failure, they crash wherever the opponent wants them to. This is extremely useful if you want to hit a target defended by flak - You can create a Danger Zone, do a barrel roll to avoid the initial fire, then collapse the danger zone and swoosh in at low altitude.

A pilot in an opponent's Danger Zone may perform a dogfighting action to "get down on the deck" and evade at low altitude. Again, they make a piloting skill roll and crash on a critical failure. However, in order to shoot them down, the opponent must first exceed their piloting skill roll as both planes swoosh past terrain. If the pursuing aircraft fails to do so, they are forced to climb back to altitude and open themselves up to an attack on the defending plane's next turn. Additionally, if the attacker makes the pursuit roll but misses their shots, the defender can treat the shots as landing anywhere within the attacker's Danger Zone.

I may playtest this for Halloween Hellhunt.

[Vami IV]

Also, all successful air feats must be/include a reference to Top Gun.

[Theblackdog]

Hot Shots is also applicable.

Another thing: We haven't clarified whether entering/exiting the Danger Zone requires an Action or not. If it does, that means that a pilot can't attack on the same turn as they enter the Danger zone, which would be a serious nerf to the Danger Zone ability.

[IVhorseman]

Haaeeeh, I played the first mission of that Ace Combat.

I do have one question: what about enemy aircraft or other units that want to use conventional attacks on an airplane in the Danger Zone? Can they shoot *at* the Danger zone from outside it?

Essentially, yes, which is why it's so dangerous. As far as I see it, even infantrymen with rifles should be able to make conventional attacks. Brikwars is all about maximizing awesomeness, and having your planes realistically flying several thousand feet above the battlefield is nowhere near as ballsy as flying just barely above the buildings while some old guy fires his pistol screaming. I didn't really come up with a good way to give an advantage to actually entering the danger zone to take down the pilot though.

We can exploit the old rules for accuracy penalties based on movement for this. A plane in the Danger Zone is assumed to be maneuvering so erratically that shots from weapons outside it (or ground weapons inside it that aren't using the flak rule) are calculated as if the target is moving at full speed. (Alternately, we can say that enemies targeting an aircraft from outside its Danger Zone do not benefit from a target size bonus). If the plane is doing a barrel roll, that penalty is further increased. However, an airplane that enters the Danger Zone can engage the enemy fighter without any accuracy penalty for movement.

All three of these ideas are fantastic. I like speed being used as the bonus instead of size bonuses being removed, since it punishes larger and slower craft that are trying to dogfight. Speed bonuses are rather clunky normally, but reserving them for situations like these and other kinds of stunt evasion could be a way to use them more sparingly and effectively.

Barrel rolling should be tied to the maneuvering die when calculating the bonus, but I'm not sure that adding it as a flat bonus is fair, even if they spend a full round action to do so.

Note that this also gives us a potential nerf for autohit AA guns if needed. A gun using the flak rule can fire at an enemy plane in the Danger Zone without applying any accuracy penalties.

That it does. Keep that in mind if you playtest, since I think doing so as a halloween hellhunt submission would be great!

The other thing I'd like to see these rules capture is Dodging terrain. You see some of it in that video with the enemy pilot trying to fly between buildings.

Here are my rough ideas for this:

A pilot in the Danger Zone may end the Danger Zone and swoosh to a point below 5" in altitude, but must make a piloting skill roll in order to do so. On a failure, they crash wherever the opponent wants them to. This is extremely useful if you want to hit a target defended by flak - You can create a Danger Zone, do a barrel roll to avoid the initial fire, then collapse the danger zone and swoosh in at low altitude.

A pilot in an opponent's Danger Zone may perform a dogfighting action to "get down on the deck" and evade at low altitude. Again, they make a piloting skill roll and crash on a critical failure. However, in order to shoot them down, the opponent must first exceed their piloting skill roll as both planes swoosh past terrain. If the pursuing aircraft fails to do so, they are forced to climb back to altitude and open themselves up to an attack on the defending plane's next turn. Additionally, if the attacker makes the pursuit roll but misses their shots, the defender can treat the shots as landing anywhere within the attacker's Danger Zone.

You've struck gold again, it makes the whole "wild weasel" situation a bit more interesting too. My ideas for dodging buildings and such remained as simple as just "well you just end the danger zone between some buildings or whatever," with the assumption that the creation is moving at full speed already. Normal maneuvering with thrusters and whatnot already allows you to determine if your pilot can actually navigate through buildings and canyons correctly, but your ideas introduce a much more flavorful element of risk.

We haven't clarified whether entering/exiting the Danger Zone requires an Action or not. If it does, that means that a pilot can't attack on the same turn as they enter the Danger zone, which would be a serious nerf to the Danger Zone ability.

I think creating one should count as an action, but not entering or exiting. It is a significant nerf, but it's in exchange for being assumed to constantly be in the most advantageous unflankable position possible.

[loafofcheese]

As far as I see it, even infantrymen with rifles should be able to make conventional attacks. Brikwars is all about maximizing awesomeness, and having your planes realistically flying several thousand feet above the battlefield is nowhere near as ballsy as flying just barely above the buildings while some old guy fires his pistol screaming. I didn't really come up with a good way to give an advantage to actually entering the danger zone to take down the pilot though.

Yeah, that probably works better, and we can pull crazier bullshit with riflemen shooting planes out of the sky with lucky crits.

We can exploit the old rules for accuracy penalties based on movement for this. A plane in the Danger Zone is assumed to be maneuvering so erratically that shots from weapons outside it (or ground weapons inside it that aren't using the flak rule) are calculated as if the target is moving at full speed. (Alternately, we can say that enemies targeting an aircraft from outside its Danger Zone do not benefit from a target size bonus). If the plane is doing a barrel roll, that penalty is further increased. However, an airplane that enters the Danger Zone can engage the enemy fighter without any accuracy penalty for movement.

All three of these ideas are fantastic. I like speed being used as the bonus instead of size bonuses being removed, since it punishes larger and slower craft that are trying to dogfight. Speed bonuses are rather clunky normally, but reserving them for situations like these and other kinds of stunt evasion could be a way to use them more sparingly and effectively.

So should the size of the danger zone be based off the plane's move stat then? and when damaged it gets smaller?

Barrel rolling should be tied to the maneuvering die when calculating the bonus, but I'm not sure that adding it as a flat bonus is fair, even if they spend a full round action to do so.

Make it a d4 maybe?

Note that this also gives us a potential nerf for autohit AA guns if needed. A gun using the flak rule can fire at an enemy plane in the Danger Zone without applying any accuracy penalties.

That it does. Keep that in mind if you playtest, since I think doing so as a halloween hellhunt submission would be great!

Please do play a hellhunt game of this, I'dd like to see some larger scale air battles, and my playtesting with my single fighter bomber is really not working well.

The other thing I'd like to see these rules capture is Dodging terrain. You see some of it in that video with the enemy pilot trying to fly between buildings.

Here are my rough ideas for this:

A pilot in the Danger Zone may end the Danger Zone and swoosh to a point below 5" in altitude, but must make a piloting skill roll in order to do so. On a failure, they crash wherever the opponent wants them to. This is extremely useful if you want to hit a target defended by flak - You can create a Danger Zone, do a barrel roll to avoid the initial fire, then collapse the danger zone and swoosh in at low altitude.

A pilot in an opponent's Danger Zone may perform a dogfighting action to "get down on the deck" and evade at low altitude. Again, they make a piloting skill roll and crash on a critical failure. However, in order to shoot them down, the opponent must first exceed their piloting skill roll as both planes swoosh past terrain. If the pursuing aircraft fails to do so, they are forced to climb back to altitude and open themselves up to an attack on the defending plane's next turn. Additionally, if the attacker makes the pursuit roll but misses their shots, the defender can treat the shots as landing anywhere within the attacker's Danger Zone.

You've struck gold again, it makes the whole "wild weasel" situation a bit more interesting too. My ideas for dodging buildings and such remained as simple as just "well you just end the danger zone between some buildings or whatever," with the assumption that the creation is moving at full speed already. Normal maneuvering with thrusters and whatnot already allows you to determine if your pilot can actually navigate through buildings and canyons correctly, but your ideas introduce a much more flavorful element of risk.

We haven't clarified whether entering/exiting the Danger Zone requires an Action or not. If it does, that means that a pilot can't attack on the same turn as they enter the Danger zone, which would be a serious nerf to the Danger Zone ability.

I think creating one should count as an action, but not entering or exiting. It is a significant nerf, but it's in exchange for being assumed to constantly be in the most advantageous unflankable position possible.

That last point is essential for this to function well, and makes this much more interesting.

[Theblackdog]

Thanks. On reflection, it would be best to simplify the low altitude rules to "Pilots in a Danger Zone (either their own or someone else's) need to make Stunt Driving rolls to fly at less than 5" altitude."

Another thing we should consider is what happens if a pilot tries to create a very small Danger Zone, one that's no larger than their ship. Is this a gamebreaker? I can think of a couple of immediate benefits: forward-firing weapons can now shoot in all directions, and the pilot gets a free Response Attack against anyone who creates a Danger Zone overlapping them. Is this a game-breaker, or is it only a moderate buff to the normal stunt driving rules?

[loafofcheese]

Thanks. On reflection, it would be best to simplify the low altitude rules to "Pilots in a Danger Zone (either their own or someone else's) need to make Stunt Driving rolls to fly at less than 5" altitude."

Another thing we should consider is what happens if a pilot tries to create a very small Danger Zone, one that's no larger than their ship. Is this a gamebreaker? I can think of a couple of immediate benefits: forward-firing weapons can now shoot in all directions, and the pilot gets a free Response Attack against anyone who creates a Danger Zone overlapping them. Is this a game-breaker, or is it only a moderate buff to the normal stunt driving rules?

The low altitude stunt roll usage works quite well from my brief playtesting of this. The Danger Zone Should be a minimum size proportional to the size of the plane, just so shenanigans like that don't happen, maybe enough room to turn a full circle using thrust.