AS PV: Aero Edition

[Alexander Knight]

An observation that might affect these discussions.  Once you move above the AS level (into SBF / ASC level), aerospace fighters gain a TMM.

[Thunder]

Can you give reference numbers for that Alexander?  My first pass found a reference on pg.227 strat ops saying TMM do not apply to aerospace elements.

[Alexander Knight]

It's in the unit conversion rules for scaling up to ACS (not ASC, my fault), in Interstellar Operations

[Tai Dai Cultist]

I'll chime back in a little.

TMM for fighters:  I'm not sure the increased granularity would be worth the complexity it brings.  Now, conceded, should AS ever introduce a Crimson Skies-like or X-Wing-like rules engine to cover dogfighting on a map with minis, sure it's a great idea.  But the Abstract system is very much not that, and again I'm just not sold that the extra bookkeeping (however slight) is worth the upsides Scotty illustrated.

How else to get fighters to pick Medium or Long range?: The proposed rule that I've now oft cited about not being able to contest a disengagement in a range band where you can't do damage is reason enough all by itself.  If the interceptor wants to keep a bomber off its target and doesn't want to suffer TN4s to be hit, it'll pick the longest range in which it can score damage.

I'll point to another rule equally simple that made a HUGE singular impact regarding interceptors.  Prior to that, you don't even dare shoot at an interceptor b/c you'd then be forever stuck in an engagement with it.   I'm very confident that forcing interceptors to pick short, medium, or long range to hold a target in place will encourage them to begin using medium and long ranges rather than short or extreme.

Larger point about M/L range not being picked very often by everyone else besides Interceptors: I'm not sure there's a problem to be fixed here, tbh.   First of all, there are a few circumstances as is where a non-interceptor will plausibly prefer M or L range.  Units with Autocannons, Gauss, and/or LRMs will normally have a higher Medium range damage value than Short.  So long as TMMs don't come into play, Medium range is still very hittable even at default skill 4.  (you need a 6, or an 8 in the atmosphere.  But for Aero theory crafting, I believe you SHOULD be presuming a space battle rather than an atmospheric duel).  I mentioned before that if you're tailing the target, you'd be better off picking medium range rather than short.  And if you've got a fighter that has long range damage value and the other does not, it's quite a workable choice to pick long range despite the TN penalty.  Add in range master SPAs and the whole "noone ever picks any range but short or extreme" is exposed as a fallacy.

Something else entirely:  nckestrel asked about large craft PVs. 
Consider the BattleSat.  It's basically nothing but an orbital capital laser.  For a paltry 17PV, you can add some ortillery.  Granted, they can only fire once every 6 turns due to the Space-ground level scaling differences, but still.  A once per game 8"aoe dealing 6 damage to every man, woman, and child caught within for 17PV?  I'd pay for that capability.

Now, while the design of the BattleSat is pretty much exactly what you'd want for ortillery support, apparently TPTB felt like the design's creation was a mistake and you never, ever, see them.  Even the JTP:Luthien simply pretended they never existed, and that's the one time and one place we SHOULD have seen them in action.  So they're very niche, and pushing the borderline of what's canonical/available.

I mentioned before about how PVs for DropShips and WarShips being pegged to their value in killing ASFs makes PV a poor system for building fleet action battles.  I won't go there quite yet, I'm just reminding the rules digesters that I see a problem there ;)  But I will go down into the atmosphere and consider DropShip PVs in a ground battle.

If you send an Avenger (SW era model) overhead on a ground attack run, you're getting a ground attacker with the fast dogfighter radar map speed (attack on round 2, then every other round thereafter) and bringing a DAM 4 attack from the nose, and because it's an aerodyne you get TWO more DAM 3 attacks as well.  The one Avenger is doing the job of 3 ASFs, at a cost of not being able to bring BOMBs to the table.  It's got a PV of 86 so that seems about on point for 3 SW era fighters.  It doesn't quite have the durability of 3 fighters (more like 2) so maybe there's wiggle room but my gut tells me it's pretty well valued as is.  (the lostech upgrade brings a 7 and two 5 DAM attacks for 106PV but is just as easily killed.. I'm not so sure that one's worth the PV but then again that's the price you pay for the "fancy, shiney, NEW!" factor, I suppose.  Or perhaps that's the grognard in me speaking...

Going towards a BIG ground attacker, look at the Taihou.  It's a literal monster at PV223, but for that hefty price you get 3 DAM9 attacks and a whopping 61 armor with a TH of 15 (lawn dart checks are the only way you will feasibly lose the thing).  Most devastatingly, you get its chunky SCAP attack at DAM24.  While the Taihou can't overfly the central zone every turn, it can drop its SCAP attack onto the battle every turn.  Yowsa.  That's a helluva artillery piece.  Even at 223 PV, I wonder if it's undervalued.  I could see taking a Taihou and a gaggle of cheapy infantry and such in a 400PV company and making the other guy have No Fun.  Maybe the SCAP as Artillery rules need a second look instead.   Or maybe it's fine as is... I've honestly never playtested a battle like that.

Going back to purely Aerospace concerns: Segueing from SCAP, I'd like to bring up MSL.  MSL attacks are to abstract combat what Bombs and Artillery are to ground battles.  (so long as we don't introduce TMMs) Interceptors are just as easily hit by MSL as everyone else.  But Interceptors can be a chore to deal with otherwise.  MSL those minxes and watch your troubles wash away.  Granted, that's a problem for SW era games, so maybe the abstract rules engine needs more of that, where "that" is attacks that don't care what your thrust bonus is.

[Scotty]

Adding fighter TMMs introduces a level of granularity to fight engagements... that is still an order of magnitude simpler than the ground game.  There is no actual maneuvering in the aero game, there are no discrete positions to keep track of.  You cannot (and I mean cannot) outmaneuver your opponent except by a single die roll.

There needs to be some kind of difference between light and heavy fighters that doesn't ultimately come down to "got lucky and is trailing the enemy."

[Tai Dai Cultist]

It's not that TMMs are a bad idea... I think there are better ideas for encouraging use of med/long range.

The rock/paper/scissors relationship of aero units to each other already*, imo, makes for a meaningful differentiation between units fighters that are big/slow, small/fast, and a hybrid between the two.


*=admittedly, that's assuming the no reach=no engagement rule comes in.

There needs to be some kind of difference between light and heavy fighters that doesn't ultimately come down to "got lucky and is trailing the enemy."

You know, I question that you can have an abstract system that doesn't boil tactics down to a die roll.  My instinct tells me that porting Squadrons in from ACS can come close to approximating tactics while remaining abstract... but that'd reasonably only apply to space battles.  Air support for ground battles just isn't likely to come in contigents large enough for gestalt squadrons.  (Although again, this comes back to potentially making 2 asf-sized gestalt units formed of leader and wingman)

[Scotty]

I think it should be both, because if you do the range restriction on continuing engagements, you tilt it very hard in favor of the heavy fighter.  Suddenly they can always respond at good numbers or not be contested at all, and they're already superior over the ground map.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Scotty, I have the greatest respect for your ability to work wonders with rules and I hope you don't take this personally but in this case I think you're simply focusing on the wrong kinds of details.

Worrying about an interceptor's ability to go toe to toe with an attack craft is, imo, exactly like worrying about a C3 spotter's ability to take down the target it put itself in short range of.  Yeah, plinking some damage is relevant but in the larger context by far the greater contribution that's going on is the C3 benefit for the rest of the network.

It's the same thing with Interceptors.  Their contribution to a battle, (their "damage") is in controlling the enemy's options.  In a space battle, their biggest threat isn't the 2 or so DAM they can do but plopping sector maps down underneath groups of your forces, rendering them unable to reinforce one another in a timely manner.  When it comes to bomb or anti-ship laden attack craft, their contribution is in reaching them before they reach their intended victim and delaying them from getting there.  If an interceptor delays the bomber and because of that the bomber doesn't reach the target in time to affect the battle, then the interceptor scored a mission kill on that bomber whether the interceptor died in the process or not.

And when it comes to dogfighting, interceptors still deal catch-22s to the other side that theorycrafting unrealistic 1 on 1 dogfights is ignoring.  When it comes to the furball where numerous fighters on both sides are tangled together, the interceptor shoots at the biggest, baddest, and slowest thing the enemy has.  And the enemy is screwed no matter what he does.  If he declares he's shooting back, the interceptor will just pick extreme range when it assuredly wins the control roll, effectively taking away the big baddie's shot entirely for the turn.  If the big baddie decides to hold his fire for a more tempting target, the interceptor is free to pick short range and do some anklebiting without risk of return fire.  If someone tries to be a wingman for that anklebite-ee, the interceptor obviously will always just be picking extreme range since it can't shoot back at anyone else.

In a proper dogfight as they occur in play*, an interceptor's potential TMM would usually be moot as it will probably only be actually shot at by another unit that has a comparable TMM anyway.  But adding penalties on top of those that already exist just serves to make more misses which are unfun and prolong the game.


*= this is a differentiation from an interception where the no range=no pin rule has been adopted, where the interceptee is shooting back and trying to kill its anklebiter so it can move on.

[Scotty]

Interceptors aren't designed to tie things up and more than likely die in the process, they're designed to be faster than their prey and use their speed to meet it before it gets to the target and destroy or divert it.  I take (professional) exception to the idea that they should be treated like ablative chaff for your ground forces/dropship/warship to distract heavy fighters for a turn or two.  A mid-range fighter with thrust 7-9 can currently accomplish the exact same thing by sticking to the edge for their first turn of maneuvers, but they're significantly more likely to survive return fire.  The interception even happens in the same zone (the inner ring).  What possible advantage does an interceptor have over a fast dogfighter of similar PV at that point?  It doesn't, and it loses the one role that it might have been good at in the first place.

Go ahead, name something that a fast dogfighter can't do that an interceptor can.  The answer previously was "reliably control the range", but if interceptors are suddenly locked into a bracket that they can do damage in, suddenly they can't actually control the range at all.  They can only control whether they die with a 50% chance of doing damage, or an 80% chance of doing damage on the one or two turns they get.  As long as a Cheetah and a Riever have exactly the same chance of hitting each other at all ranges, the Cheetah needs to be able to keep the range open.

C3 is a special case on the ground where there's a massive, quantifiable effect on the game state.  We cannot balance an entire class of units based on the potential that there might be an opportunity where they may not be the primary target.

Unrelated: I think there's a little bit of a mix-up in the order of operations for how fighters shoot at each other.  If the Interceptor's player lost initiative, they would be the ones declaring engagements first in the combat phase, and the heavy fighter would be able to declare whether it was shooting back after the range has already been determined and the Cheetah has fired.  The flip side of that is that it becomes trivially easy for the heavy fighter to avoid an engagement with the interceptor at all by simply not moving into the zone the interceptor moved to.  I'm genuinely not sure whether it's been clarified or not what order the whole engage->fire interaction happens, but if it happens the same way as it does on the ground side (and it should, in my opinion), then the scenario you outlined doesn't happen they way you outlined it at all.

EDIT: at the end of the day we can't balance units based on what they may be flying alongside and what that wingmate may end up doing.  This is something that Alpha Strike has handled very well on the ground: units are balanced by what's on the card, not what's on the table.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

We're pretty far apart on how the abstract combat system even works, so until we get some clarification I suppose we can't even get on the same page.

But I do want to clarify one thing:

Interceptors aren't designed to tie things up and more than likely die in the process, they're designed to be faster than their prey and use their speed to meet it before it gets to the target and destroy or divert it.  I take (professional) exception to the idea that they should be treated like ablative chaff for your ground forces/dropship/warship to distract heavy fighters for a turn or two.

I wasn't saying interceptors' jobs are to kamikaze the incoming heavy bombers and have their destruction justified by a couple rounds of delay.  I was saying that their job is to delay (and NOT necessarily destroy) incoming heavy bombers.  The whole bit about "if they die in the process" is was to illustrate that their delay job has a very viable impact on the game even if they don't shoot down the bomber.

So how can an interceptor delay (but not shoot down) a bomber without expecting to die in return?
Well, this goes back into not thinking 1 vs 1 in theorycrafting.  If 2 Cheetahs (at skill 4) are about the same PV as 1 Riever, then obviously that "should" be a fair match.  Whichever Cheetah the Riever is shooting at picks extreme range, and the other one picks short without fear of being shot back at.  At least one Cheetah is always close enough to contest the disengagement (assuming that becomes a rule) and they trade off roles round by round.  In a regular AS game, they only have to do this for 1 or 2 rounds before they can just get up and fly home, having prevented the Riever from even reaching the center zone until at minimum round 4 or 5, and having effectively taken it out of the game.

Regardless of whether the firing declarations are made before or after the control checks, the Cheetahs can still pick both long range and have odds in their favor that the Riever won't score 2 8's in 2 turns.

So, neither side shoots the other down in the span of a standard AS game.  Is that a draw, or is that in truth a victory for the interceptor side?  I say interceptors since their PV cancelled the opponent's PV from contributing to the ground battle.

Oh, I guess one more "one more thing":

EDIT: at the end of the day we can't balance units based on what they may be flying alongside and what that wingmate may end up doing.  This is something that Alpha Strike has handled very well on the ground: units are balanced by what's on the card, not what's on the table.

I disagree that the same assumptions for balance in ground AS carry over to abstract aerospace combat.  You can't balance what's on the aero unit card without considering what's going on in the rules.  Maybe a holistic approach is bad too, but I'd propose that it's less bad than an absolutist view.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Re: when do you say if you're shooting... before or after the control check?

I'm going to go ahead and post what's effectively a rules question here since I know Xotl and Nckestrel are watching the thread... and I'm sufficiently convinced that there's no ambiguity that it doesn't need to go in the official rules questions forum :]

Because an engagement automatically will force both units
to maneuver for advantage, if the defending unit in an air-toair
attack has not yet declared its own attack yet, it may decide
immediately whether it will return the attack, or save its action for
its own attack against a different target (such as another opposing
aerospace unit in the same zone, or an air-to-ground attack (if
the engagement happened in the Central Zone). If the defender
chooses not to return the attack when an engagement is initiated,
it cannot choose to engage its attacker later in the same turn.

I'm pretty sure it plays out exactly as I outlined (although, it's actually better to lose initiative than win once we get a furball going... that's a separate issue for the rules.. In rereading this rule I remembered it's only a house rule that we take turns declaring engagements back and forth in a furball)  My interceptor engages you, you have to decide now whether you want your unit to shoot back or save the option to shoot at someone else instead.  I should know whether you're shooting or not when we're resolving range.

Combine that with a high probability of dictating range and that equals a LOT of synergistic/fluid power that doesn't show up on the MUL card.

[Scotty]

Hm.  Honestly I really dislike that order of operations.  A decent amount of my position is predicated on the heavy fighter being able to pick which target to engage after the ranges have been decided; I think this is generally a preferable way to handle it.  Player choice is good (where it doesn't clutter the game), removing player choice is bad (where it doesn't streamline the game).  It feels, for a rough analogue, like forcing the Assault 'Mech on the ground to decide whether to shoot the Heavy in front of it or the Light that hasn't moved yet while it's still the movement phase.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Hm.  Honestly I really dislike that order of operations.  A decent amount of my position is predicated on the heavy fighter being able to pick which target to engage after the ranges have been decided; I think this is generally a preferable way to handle it.  Player choice is good (where it doesn't clutter the game), removing player choice is bad (where it doesn't streamline the game).  It feels, for a rough analogue, like forcing the Assault 'Mech on the ground to decide whether to shoot the Heavy in front of it or the Light that hasn't moved yet while it's still the movement phase.

As far as I'm concerned, add "Trade engagement declarations back and forth rather than init loser declares ALL his engagements before winner declares ANY" to my list of recommended rules changes.


As for the theorycrafting about the Cheetah vs Riever duel, I'd like to offer a rebuttal:

I’m going to put forth an analysis of my own in rebuttal to Scotty’s.  I feel his is flawed in premise for two reasons:  one, it is only a 1 on 1 dogfight and two, it has a very disparate skill matchup.   Skill 0 vs 4 can never be fair given the importance of Skill value in the abstract aerospace system… it’s literally the single most important stat on a card.  Thrust is an important, but distant, second.

So rather than 1 skill 0 F-13 Cheetah vs 1 Skill 4 F-700a Riever, I ask you to consider 4 Skill 4 F-13s vs 2 Skill 4 F-700as.  We’re looking at 100PV vs 92PV, so the Rievers are slightly disadvantaged but to keep things as apples-to-apples as possible we’ll just handwaive the deficit rather than give a Riever a skill boost.

I will also ask you to presume we’ve gone through the pre-dogfight movement turns and all 6 fighters are now in the same sector of the same map.  (easy enough for this premise to occur if the Rievers refuse to split up).  I will also be presuming the no reach=no pin rule is in effect.  I acknowledge nckestrel’s PSA that no such rule is currently in effect, but the entire purpose of this thread is to try to tune up the aero rules (with special emphasis on PV balancing) and since there’s been basically universal support FOR the no reach=no pin rule, presuming there’s to be any rules tuning at all this rule being in effect is imo a safe presumption to rest upon.

I’ll also be presuming an exoatmospheric battle, so no atmospheric penalty on control cheks (this is keeping in spirit with the way theorycrafting is done w/o terrain penalties for ground units)

In space, fighters simply have to pass an unmodified skill check to avoid being tailed and to apply the higher ratio of thrust to their outcome.  That’s 4+ on 2d6, which is ~92% probability.  Therefore, Cheetah A has about a 92% chance of a +6 to their 2d6 control check result, and a 8% chance of a +3 to their result instead.  Riever A has the same ~92% chance for a +2 to the 2d6 roll, and an ~8% chance of a flat roll instead.  There’s an ~84% probability that both pass their checks together, and the Cheetah has an effective +4 bonus to a 2d6 rolloff to win control of the engagement.  (That leaves a ~16% chance one or both fail their checks, with equal 50% chance of either one being a failing unit.)

So ~84% of the time, where both units pass their checks, control of the engagement goes to the winner of a 2d6 rolloff where the Interceptor is getting a net +4 bonus.  I’ll be honest, calculating the precise odds of winning  2d6 roll vs a 2d6 + 4 roll is beyond my meager math skills… but generally speaking the average values for the rolls will be 7 and 11 respectively.  Assuming the Interceptor does roll average, the Riever can only win ~3% of the engagement checks.

If I go with that number, that means the Interceptor has about a 92% chance to win 97% of the engagement checks.  Again, pardon or quibble with my math skills, but for now I’ll generalize that by saying the Cheetahs win very roughly ~90% of the engagement checks.
So, once the dogfighting begins the initiative loser declares all his engagements.  In a context like this one, the Rievers would be wise to just not declare any engagements, making the distinction between who wins moot.

So once the Cheetahs are decaring engagements, Cheetah A goes for Riever A.  Riever A chooses to shoot back (since it’s pointless to save the option to shoot, Cheetahs B-D are just as hard to hit).  90% probability that Cheetah A just picks extreme range and Riever A gets no shot at all this round.  Cheetah B declares for Riever B, and same as above.  Cheetahs C and D pile on, and free from return fire each have a 90% probability of getting to pick short range and score easy batches of 3 damage each to Riever A and/or B.

That’s presuming everything goes the Cheetahs’ way… while each individual thing probably will in aggregate there’s increasing chances of a surprise outcome.  There’s only a ~66% chance it actually plays out that way any given round, which works out pretty neatly to 1 turn in 3 one of the Rievers gets a lucky break and has the opportunity to womp some damage down on a Cheetah.

Odds are: after 3 rounds of dogfighting 1 Riever goes down but 1 Cheetah gets womped into forced withdrawal. (technically the Riever has a ~3% chance of missing when it finally gets to call Short range, but in a sample size of 1 opportunity I think we can say it hits)

I don’t think the Interceptors are really THAT overpowered vs Rievers (esp when you remember this example had the Cheetahs with a marginal PV advantage AND 2x the numbers) and they’re certainly far from hapless meat-for-the-beast if the no range=no pin rule comes into effect.  Additionally, remember that Riever A would only have taken enough damage to be shot down if Cheetah D focused on it, which would have meant Riever B escapes from being pinned and slips free.


Edit: I forgot to factor in the Rievers' FLK special, but honestly it wouldn't make a big difference.  The Cheetahs were surviving because the Rievers couldn't shoot at them at all, and FLK wouldn't have helped that.

[Scotty]

nckestrel has posited one potential rule in this thread.  The 'no damage = no pin' has not actually made an appearance from the horse's mouth, as it were.  Instead, he's been repeatedly mentioning 'no damage = can't declare that range', which is.... very different.

Our group has been running with the losing player declaring all engagements first, but also allowing the winner to declare his targets (or even additional engagements) after the losing player has resolved everything.  Essentially:

Player B lost initiative.  Player B declares all engagements -> resolves all engagements -> Player A either declares new engagements or accepts previous engagements (must accept previous engagement if it existed with a given fighter) -> Player A resolves all engagements.

Odds are pretty good that we'll keep doing that, because it cripples neither player in the initiative order, which the rules otherwise seem to do.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Well, I think we've found why our perspectives are so divergent... we've basically not been playing the same game :]

I can't imagine playing the game where the engagement control winner has to pick range w/o knowing whether it'll be shot at.  Honestly, I wouldn't want to bother imagining that game.   However I imagine you might have similar opinions about playing the way I do: the loser of an engagment control check might get his attack taken away completely.

I don't like your house rule in this particular case (as I said upthread I normally have the highest esteem for your ideas) but I empathize with your making it, as after all I change the same rule myself... just a different part of the rule.  You drop the "defender must declare immediately" and I change "initiative loser declares all engagements first".  We both see a problem there; we just went different ways to fix it.

However, I do feel that after having slept on the issue, I'm being objective (and not just simply favoring my own house rule) when I say that your house rule (engagement defender doesn't have to immediately declare intention to shoot) is the source of the problem you're wanting to fix by adding in fighter TMMs.   Honestly, I do feel that the simplest/least disturbance-to-the-rules fix for interceptors surviving in dogfights is to just not use your house rule about not having to declare intentions immediately.

[Scotty]

Even after sleeping on it, I think the RAW is... pretty terrible.  The idea that the defender, through no mistake or poor decision, can end up unable to actually even play the game is anathema to me.  In a game that lasts as few rounds as Alpha Strike, that goes double.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Even after sleeping on it, I think the RAW is... pretty terrible.  The idea that the defender, through no mistake or poor decision, can end up unable to actually even play the game is anathema to me.  In a game that lasts as few rounds as Alpha Strike, that goes double.

I'm not sure it's as bad as you're imagining.  Assuming RAW where the initiative loser declares everything first, there's two ways an initiative-winning defending unit can end up having his attack wasted:
1) you gambles your shot on a target that wins the roll who then decides it's in his favor to give up his attack to make you lose yours (a bad gamble for a Riever when it's a Cheetah engaging you.  You "played the game" in this case, you just played it badly)
2) In the event you withhold the option to shoot at that Cheetah, the only way you'll be denied any eligible targets at all when it comes around you your turn to declare is if every unit present declared an engagement on your unit and you declined to shoot at all of them.  In this case, sure you might have had one unit screwed out of any attack, but it's what you did afterall choose.  Plus, for this to even be a contingency, that means absolutely no other units alongside your Riever were even engaged.  You get to move them all on, or attack your own targets as you see fit.

(and of course the way I play, if you win intiative your Riever doesn't have to wait until I've declared all my engagements.  You could pick it as your first unit, and therefore the 2nd unit in the turn to declare an attack after my first)

As for the damage involved in losing your attack: in a space battle context, losing 1 round of attack is a smaller deal than in a "standard" AS game that revolves around a ground battle.  In a space battle, turns move MUCH faster and so they last many, many more turns.  Actually, once the furball(s) get going, entire turns of play get resolved in like 4-5 minutes (since there's little moving on the radar map, and no tactical maneuvering b/c it's an abstract system... it's just "who shoots at who, this turn!")

Anyway, I suppose having said that I'll try to respect our difference of opinion from here out.  If neither of us changes our minds, we can't really contribute together on balancing dogfighting... but can we agree to agree on other aspects of the game?

Back upthread a few posts, I brought up PVs for >ASF units.  My examples included 17PV for a battlesat, 86PV for a 3-strikes-per-ground-attack Avenger, and 223PV for a wrecking ball of a Taihou.   Without considering their air-to-air worth and only looking at what they do to ground targets... I think their PVs are just about fair.  The Taihou's SCAP strike absolutely obliterates everything it hits and it can do it every round, but I can't find anything in the AS rules saying the AoE is any larger than a standard 2".  So I'm not sure it's actually unfairly priced.

[Scotty]

Call me old fashioned, but I like it when initiative is an advantage (even though I always lose it). :P Being able to pick targets after seeing ranges involved certainly qualifies.

Short posts because I'm phone posting while out and about, or I'd address more of your post.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Call me old fashioned, but I like it when initiative is an advantage (even though I always lose it). :P Being able to pick targets after seeing ranges involved certainly qualifies.

What if initiative winner declared all engagements first, rather than loser?  That puts all the power the loser had into the winner's hand.  (I'd honestly support that rule change over my own house rule over the two players sharing the power)

[Scotty]

That puts it at odds with the rest of AS.  Fighters and ground units don't have separate combat phases, after all.

The reason I do my house rules the way I do is because it feels right, and it meshes with the ground game in such a way that there is no great difference between the two in tempo or execution.  Rather than having two different games that have a minor overlap in the central zone, it's one game that is played with a extra map.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

That puts it at odds with the rest of AS.  Fighters and ground units don't have separate combat phases, after all.

The reason I do my house rules the way I do is because it feels right, and it meshes with the ground game in such a way that there is no great difference between the two in tempo or execution.  Rather than having two different games that have a minor overlap in the central zone, it's one game that is played with a extra map.

I'm not sure that's an achievable goal, given the fundamental differences between the ground game and the aerospace game.  There's literally no (tactical) movement in the air... that means ranging HAS to fundamentally be handled in a different manner... I don't mean to give offense but it does seem like you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole.  Until such time aero battles get a map and move minis around (like Crimson Skies or X-Wing) they are necessarily two different games with a bit of overlap.

From my point of view, having to declare ranges blind is a huge problem as opposed to your view of it being "natural".  Foremost is the problem of relevance for the little guys (assuming no range=no engage becomes a rule).  The Cheetahs simply can't do their job if the Riever can just turn and shoot at whichever guy is at short range.  A house rule allowing the Riever to do so ends up necessitating MORE house rules to address the Cheetah's reduced relevancy.

The declaration of intent GIVES niches that help provide depth to the very abstract combat system.  What do interceptors do? They're board control units, which is a pretty remarkable accomplishment for a combat game w/o a board.  What do attack craft do, since their thrust gives them low probability of winning an engagement check?  Go after targets they CAN reliably beat: Transports and WarShips.  And ground targets!  What do dogfighters and fast dogfighters do?  Everything (just not as well as a specialist), but also keep interceptors honest since winning an engagement check against them is less of a sure thing than vs attack craft.  What do Fire Support units do? Shoot you when you want to play the run and hide ranging game.

That whole baked-in dynamic goes away if you remove the intention to shoot stage of an engagement.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Eureka!  I had a late shower today and in that shower, one of those ideas that only occur to you IN the shower occurred to me!

Scotty's mentioning parity with ground battles got something turning in my head.  It struck me that the nature of Zell/duelling is very similar to aerial dogfighting, both in fluff and in rules mechanic.  AND a universal "side initiative" is equally inappropriate to a series of binary engagements.  (Winning init and getting the upper hand in one duel/engagement is one thing... getting the upper hand in ALL duels/engagements because you won one roll is another thing entirely....)

Now, by RAW, duels are initiated by weapons attacks, which means the initiative loser is declaring all the duels in Zell.  I think there's fairly universal consensus that that's a horrible way to do it, and IIRC Xotl and/or nckestrel unofficially endorsed a house rule where duels are declared during the initiative phase in a back and forth manner (if neither of you did so, I apologize for putting words in your mouth.  I heard it from somewhere, and I truly think I remember it was one of you two).

So if Zell can* be divorced a BIT from universal side initiative, why not aerial engagements?  Obviously you can't declare engagements during the initiative phase since sector map moving is yet to come, but why not just do the same thing at a different phase... the beginning of the combat phase?  It implements the advantages of BOTH my and Scotty's way of doing engagements.  The Riever gets to shoot at what it wants to shoot at, and the Cheetahs still get to anklebite it (so long as they wait to declare until after the Riever declares).

*=again, I'm not 100% sure that's an actual thing or not

[jshdncn]

This is probably not the idea anyone wants to hear, but what if we do away with 'abstract'? Redesign the radar map to use hexes, all units then spend thrust to move and make facing changes(1 hex side per hex travelled) and create actual weapon ranges and firing arcs. Do away entirely with engagement rolls and bring actual maneuvering into the game.

[Xotl]

I'm afraid that would require a wholesale rewrite of the aero rules, jshdncn, and thus essentially a new edition.  It's beyond the scope of what we're looking for here.

Basically I'm looking for at most a few paragraphs of find-and-replace in the existing text.

[Scotty]

I'm going to cop TDC's idea from another thread a while back:

An aerospace unit can force the end of an engagement by accepting an attack of opportunity from at most one engaging fighter.  It's not guaranteed damage, but is instead treated as an attack at a range the attacker chooses, treated as if the fighter breaking off were being tailed.

I personally think this would work much better in addition to my TMM suggestion, but it should introduce player choice, keep interceptors strong, but keep them from being overpowered.  Take a hit (and a very good chance of a crit) to keep going.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

This is a spitball that I haven't thought through thoroughly, but I'll offer it anyway as another idea:

A variation on my wingman idea.  One of my biggest complaints with the abstract system is wingmen can't be a thing.

Let a fighter declare for its engagement that it's protecting a unit, rather than seeking out an enemy target.  If that protected target ends up engaged, both the target and the wingman roll control checks in that engagement.  Or add their thrust together for calculating a single engagement check roll, or something along those lines.  (probably needs to be a limit imposed on how many times the wingman can "jump into" an engagement per turn... I don't think a Wingman should be able to protect a leader against more than one attacker)

[Scotty]

I think that should be handled in the Companion.  Could be implemented as a bonus that you pick at the start of the turn for a bonus to the control roll (one roll, instead of two), damage (add half of the second fighter's damage, rounded down, to the attack; make one attack instead of two), or add a defensive bonus.

[GoldBishop]

Lots of valid points on both sides here.  I wish I had played in Classic to really get a feel for comparing ASF to Alpha, but right now, my only experience is with the (decisive) victories I made a year ago against my peers (whom have since banned ASF from our tables/events).  I'm hoping a shakedown/change will help lift the ban, but, in the meantime, here's where I would make compromises to some of the theories/house-rules I've read so far:

Pinning

Can't damage at a certain Range = cannot chose to engage at that range = No pinning
Currently, this falls into the "don't be a dick" chapter of Houserules; it only ever happened with our group once before we put a stop to it.   I'd be glad if it were made legit.

ASF with TMM

I've always thought that ASF deserved TMM - not because I want Interceptors to be that much harder to hit, but because a flat "+2" during Air-To-Ground attacks gets nullified if opponents carry FLK weaponry.

However, instead of a flat TMM based on thrust, I had considered using thrust to gain a bonus to defense.  Having already adopted the 1/3 ratio, consider that, for every 3 thrust spent by an ASF, it may gain +1 bonus to attacks made against it (either a "feint" or "evade" for naming conventions).
Whatever it comes to be called, this bonus should act very much like a Ground Unit using Jumping movement - a penalty to hit for gaining the bonus to defense.  Right now, 1:1 seems fine (+1 TMM : -1 attack) and I haven't figured out the details of modifying the engagement rules, so please consider this suggestion as a rough draft

While I think this will help with the Air-to-Air battles, I'm not sure it should be permitted to be used during Air-To-Ground attacks (as a Ground-to-Air defensive bonus)... but I'll elaborate on that in a minute or few.

Wingman (Air to Air only)

Wholeheartedly agree that my bombers need someone defending them.  The way it's been described, I cannot help but think of the "Shielding Movement" optional Advanced rule in the ASC (p.14).  And while Shielding Movement only applies to Ground-to-Ground attacks (with Air-To-Ground Attacks being resolved differently, ignoring the bonus), I felt that, with so many other units in the air at the same time, why can't there be some defensive positioning too?

Units dedicating themselves to being "wingmen" must pick a friendly unit to defend (two units cannot declare defending each other to receive reciprocal bonuses).  Ideally, Dogfighters defending bombers so that bombers can strike their intended targets without suffering the harassment from enemy dogfighters and interceptors... and other suitable examples are known.

"Wingmen" forfeit their turn in the Attack Declaration phase with either a "Delay" or "Hold" Attack action [pending an appropriate naming convention] for any unit that attempts to attack the unit they declare covering/shielding.

If any opponents declare an attack on their charge, they may make an immediate control roll to counter-attack (counter-engage?); otherwise, if no attempts are made, their turn goes by without making an attack.

The two methods of resolving Attack Phase are as follows:
1 )  All Forces at once.
 . . Upside: you get to interrupt attacks whether you win or lose initiative.
 . . Downside: you lose a potential attacker

2 ) Alternate between Forces
 . . Upside: Initiative Winners may declare Wingmen in response to opposing attacks; no wasted attackers
 . . Downside: Initiative Losers lose potential attackers.

Positioning a Wingman
Activated "Wingman" are tricky since its understood that - in the abstractness of Abstract Combat, - there's never going to be an "actual" position.  For the sake of the argument, it's assumed that a Wingman is deliberately attempting to come between an Attacker and his charge. (this replaces the "base to base contact" reference for Shielding Movement).

I understand a Control Roll needs to be made - by both attacker and defender - so lets assume the Wingman also makes a control roll, except to engage the Attacker.  (conditions pending)

Since the "Wingman" should be intervening/interposing between an attacker and it's charge, I feel that a Wingman has the ability to interfere with an Opponent - whether they force them into aborting their attacking (targeting the Wingman instead) or causing the Attacker to make an attack 1 range further away (push/press them out of optimal firing range/position).

Control Roll winners and losers detail should be handled by someone other than myself, (as I have little experience with Air-To-Air engagements).  I do feel that Wingmen should "never tail" a unit while it's defending another unless during a failed control roll... in which case, the "attacker" simply is put out of optimal position to conduct their attack run (pressed into a range they cannot engage in).

I do apologize that this thought isn't as complete as my others.  I just wanted to add my vote/nod towards having Wingmen as being part of an Advanced Rules set in the ASC.

Range Modifiers in Atmo (Air-to-Ground, Ground-to-Air targeting)

Currently, any ground unit within 30" of *any* point of the Flight path can target and shoot at the ASF (a derived value after  Medium Range being declared "within 12" ")  At nearly half the board length, I've found this value to be unacceptable for units that may be merely attempting to "pass through" especially engagements in the air above the Ground Map; the +2 for ASF isn't enough to protect a fighter/bomber from being shot down from multiple attackers.

I wouldn't mind ASF getting to choose a range above the board instead of flying NoE.  While I certainly don't want to have the extra bookkeeping of "inches above", perhaps a default value for Medium and Long might help?
Maybe Medium Range (Flight Path), up to 15" off the line being Long Range...
A Flight Path from Long Range then becomes the only range to attack the passing ASF

As with normal combat, Range penalties are reciprocal; the ASF deliberately puts itself at the range to strike, and must suffer the same bonuses to its defense in its attack.  The Thrust TMM (as I stated above) may also be factored into the Attack Rolls.

While I believe Strafes and Strikes should be penalized by Range, I don't feel bombs/ordinance should be (I kinda want to resolve them like Standard Artillery - with a Standard Penalty that equals Long Range).  Perhaps an additional "Drift" penalty based on each range increment (+1~+4) for bombing runs made at ranges other than Short. 
I'm really not sure how to address this without dissolving/omitting the Attack Type Table, but I personally don't see the point of Bombers having to "Bomb" at Short Range, or 180 meters (presuming 1" elevation = 30 meters).  They should be able to drop ordinance from a safe height and make Strike runs on their next pass (or more bombing runs if they didn't loose their entire payload on the first strike).

Apologies

Sorry for the long post.  You guys hit on all the things I'd love to see happen; its nice seeing my thoughts out loud from other posters/players.

[Thunder]

Ok, first compiling all ideas mentioned so far, mostly so I can keep track of them.   Will not be addressing most of them right now.  Be sure to mention if I missed one.

1.  Fighters gaining defensive bonus, besides dictating range.

2.  Engagement starts at extreme, engagement roll determines tailing only, thrust is used to modify range.

3.  Extreme range from adjacent zones.

4.  Must declare engagements at a range you can do damage in.

5.  Evasive movement

6.  Split fire for all units.

7.  If no shooting, disengagement is automatic.

8.  Wingman rules request

9. Iniative changes request

10. One shot artillery/airstrikes. 

11. Suggestion PV discount on larger fighters

12.  Remove Threshold hits

13. Tailed fighters still able to fire back with penalties

14. Golden BB's. (Naturual 12's to hit roll cause an automatic critical hit roll.  Aimed at making Warships more squishy.)

15.  Aerospace units get a free lucky stat to resist lawn dart checks.

16.  Fighters get TMM

17.  Fighters using medium and long range attacks during ground attacks.

18.  Banking during a ground attack.

19.  Somewhere in the engagement/range process use thrust to modify to hit numbers rather then modify the range roll.

20. Remove being pinned in place by an engagement.

21. Modify skill upgrade costs for fighters based on their thrust

22. fighter can Break off engagement at the cost of an opportunity attack against it.


Problems:
medium and long range are underutilized
a single roll determines too much of how air to air combat turns out.
Personal annoyance.  0 skill pilots are immune to tailing.

I'm going to propose ripping out the current set of rules for engagement control and determining range.

I propose that for the engagement control step, each fighter does a control roll, and add 1/2 or 1/4 of its thrust based on if the roll passes or fails.  This becomes the fighters engagement control value for the turn.

Fighters can then pick their targets.  The attackers Minimum Range is determined by the difference between the two fighters control values. (Target - Attacker)  1 or less is short, 2 is medium, 3 is long, 4 extreme.  Attacker may pick a longer range if desired. For a value of -5 or less, then the attacker may pick the range and is tailing.

Mutual range rule.  If Interceptor 1 declares it is engaging Fighter A at Medium range,  Fighter A can return fire at Medium range as well, regardless of the engagement control values.  That engagement is set at the range the attacker declares.

Wing man rule:  once an attack is declared forming an engagement, and the range determined. A unit that has not fired yet may either choose to start its own engagement or to support an engagement that has not yet been assisted at one range bracket farther out then that current engagement.

Thus if Fighter A is being Tailed at short range by Interceptor 1.  Fighter B may declare it is moving to support Fighter A and engage Interceptor 1 at Medium range.  Interceptor 2 Cares not and Tails Fighter A at short range as well.  Fighter C takes exception to this, and moves to support the Fighter A Interceptor 2 engagement at Medium range.   Or Fighter C could Assist the Fighter B Interceptor 1 engagement at Long range.   But Fighter C can not interfere with the Fighter A Interceptor 1 engagement Because Fighter B has already done so.


I have not done full scale number crunching on this proposal, but will point out that the maximum possible thrust fighter (30) with an elite pilot can still be theoretically shot at by a fighter with minimal thrust.  (2 roll + 15)  - (12 roll +1) = 4, extreme range.  So at least there is no completely impossible to hit loop holes in this proposal.   I also removed the elite pilot being impossible to tail situation.  It can happen, but it requires a poor roll on the elite pilots part,  and a High roll on the other pilots part.  I think rolling to succeed is better then rolling to not fail.  The elite pilot still tends to come out better thanks to not suffering 1/4 thrust values.


Other thoughts.
Keep your TMM's on the ground.   Though I suppose it would be nice if smaller faster things in the air were more dodgy,  Its not aerotech.  Part of the appeal of Alpha strike is that it still feels like battletech.  Giving fighters a TMM would break that connection to the core game.   Traditionally aerospace can use evasive movement, gaining a +3 defensive modifier in exchange for not being able to shoot.  (Well.. Dropships can still shoot, they just have terrible aim.)  On the ground attack side, An option from Strat ops was the "Advanced Anti-aircraft" rules.  In which fighters do receive a TMM equal to their velocity,  but the return fire is calculated against the closest point of the flight path.  The only problem with this is how to determine the average airspeed velocity of an.... Ok.  So Give slower fighters an additional +1 to hit modifier and faster (10+ thrust) a +2.  This should help even out some of the mismatch in Ground vs Air PV.  (And yes, I am suppressing what those values could be.  Alpha strike, its easier to hit your opponent so the game goes faster!)

The other rule suggested in Strat ops was the advanced atmospheric control rolls.  aka.  No Lawn dart check unless the fighter takes more damage then its threshold.  This also helps deal with the scenario where your 100 point uber fighter of doom is destroyed by a 5 point AC-2 truck

Ideas I like.
Opportunity attack to continue moving if engaged.

Banking.  I like the Idea, but I don't think its needed as a core rule change.  It would be a companion rule.

Golden BB's.  Also should be a companion advanced rule if anything.

If there is no shooting, disengagement is automatic.  (Because the small fast things should be given the choice to avoid coming close if they can and want.)

Ideas I disagree with.
Medium and Long range ground attacks.
I kind of like the Idea, but have to disagree with it on the grounds of it would break the translation of Battletech rules into alpha strike.   An air to ground attack has to be done from within 3 or 5 altitude levels.  That is worth 12-20 inches.  This is also the same 12 inches that is already included in the range to the flight path for any units not in the flight path.  At best, I think you could get away with an option to attack from Medium range, Strikes only, And anything not in the flight path subtracts 20 from the range.  But given that option, it would be a companion advanced rule.

[Grimvyn]

Our group has found some of the same problems listed here for Aerospace Combat.  The cheapie interceptors with a good pilot completely dominate everything except other interceptors with a good pilot.  We have also found the radar map extremely bland as there really is no point to maneuvering around it other than straight to the central zone in any game where ground units are involved.

A phrase or two changed may not be enough to fix what seems to be a rather broken and bland ruleset, but here's some ideas that may help the current rules:

If a unit engages another and wins the engagement, it may only choose a range for which it can apply damage.  Once a unit has chosen a range for an engagement, it may not choose the range for any other engagements that turn.
This would limit the seemingly OP nature of interceptors and incorporate a system that matches real dogfights that use wingmen to bait a target into range for you.  If your Cheetah just tailed a Stuka and is shooting him up at the close range, there is no reason your wingman wouldn't be able to close in on you while you do that.  And for the other part, if you can't actually shoot weapons at the Stuka you engaged, you didnt really engage him and he should be free from engagements to move on.


The PV for Th seems too much but not quite sure how to change.  An example is the Mechbuster (SRM).  Its Armor 2 + Th 1 = 4 PV total and a Mech with Armor 2 = 4 PV total.  In regards to simply just absorbing damage these two are clearly not equals since a 2 point attack could crit and kill the Mechbuster, but the Mech would be fine.


edit:  I almost forgot.  Altitude Bombing flights paths being considered short range if the bomber flies overhead makes no sense.  Its altitude bombing...  That needs to be changed to long range or not at all.