I'm thinking about a house rule that allows aerodynes in the Inner Ring of the Radar map to elect to not move. Rather than hovering, they're orbiting the conflict zone below and biding their time for an airstrike.
The problem as I see it with the rules as is (must move at least 1 zone per turn. period.) is an ASF in the inner ring must decide to make an attack run NOW or wait 2 more rounds for the opportunity. I.E. move from inner ring to sector A-F on turn X rather than moving into the Central Zone. On turn X+1 it can move back to The Inner ring. Then finally on turn X+2 it is eligible again to move to the Central Zone and make the ground attack.
With ASFs being as easily destroyed as they are by ground fire, it stands to reason that you should choose your moment to strike carefully. Yet, the rules don't reward carefully timing your airstrike for when C3 networks are cut by ECM or when units have distanced themselves from potential covering fire. The ASF in the inner ring has to attack NOW whether its tactically wise or not, or waiting two more rounds and hoping the choice is somewhat better. And given that ASFs (that are not interceptors) will only get to attack so rarely punishing a pause to allow better opportunities to develop by two rounds seems excessive.
From a fluffylore point of view, it stands to reason that a CAS mission can loiter in the inner ring in an orbit around the ground battle indefinitely (assuming it's not engaged by hostile air-to-air) and ready to come in on an attack run at any given moment. Being able to make an attack run 1 moment out of every 3 just doesn't strike me as How It Should Be. The Inner Ring, after all, is supposed to represent a nebulous airspace over and around the playing area that represents being quite close and able to come in and respond to an air-strike request immediately.
So, anyway I'll reiterate that yes I know that's not how the rules work. You can't just loiter you have to move zone to zone. The purpose of the thread is to talk about what would the impact on the game be if that WERE a rule? I presume the playtesters determined something didn't add up, or else it'd already be the rule. What would be the unintended consequences of allowing a unit in the inner zone (and only a unit in the inner zone) elect to orbit the central zone for an effective move of 0 that turn?
EDIT:
I forgot the OTHER reason it might make sense fighters should be allowed to loiter in the Inner Ring: For all the fighters that are not Interceptors, they can't camp the Inner Ring and make any would-be bombers fight their way past them in the event they beat them to the inner ring. As is, if a Dogfighter beats hostile aircraft to the Inner Ring, the dogfighter is then required to vacate the inner ring and let the bombers in un-challenged.
I suppose I can see that the middle and outer rings are not only representations of horizontal distance from the ground battle, but also vertical distance (aka altitude). There's a certain amount of appropriateness that since units in outer rings are at higher altitude they have a tactical advantage over those that are lower, and thus invalidating "camping" the inner ring as a tactic for forcing an engagement. So this is the flimsier rationale of the two for allowing a loiter move in the Inner Ring, I grant. But it's still an issue, I think. If air-to-air engagements with someone who doesn't want to be engaged are meant to only be feasible when the one who wants to avoid is made to move first, then there are issues with the initiative for air units. Because in order to force the other guy to move an air unit, you must first move an air unit. If you house-rule winning initiative so that the winner has the option to move first, you're still splitting up your dogfighters by moving one first. If you "interdict" the inner ring by jumping in first, the guy who wants to avoid will just move from A-F to A-F, and then be in a position to go into the center zone next turn uncontested, or at least fight a dogfight without having to also face the unit that forced the initiative.
