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these are my work in progress rules for air combat manuvering, AKA "dogfighting". i intend to use these with my 'aces wild" series of pre-rifts aviation articles, and probably with a rifter article of the same name in the future, compiling the more interesting parts of the online articles.

i'm looking for some feedback and useful suggestions on these, before i start posting any articles. and yes, i'm working on refining the sometimes clunky writing...
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air to air combat can be broken down into essentually two elements. Beyond Visual Range (BVR) combat, and Combat Air Manuvering (Dogfighting). with the development of guided missiles in the 1960's, Air Combat manuvering was beleived to have been made obsolete, but the events of the Vietnam war and other conflicts proved that the dogfight still had a vital role in the aerial battlefeild. with the advent of stealth aircraft and advanced avionics at the start of the 21st century, proponents of both BVR and Dogfighting approaches found their positions strengthened. while the new technologies made BVR combat against less advanced aircraft devestating, they simultaniously rendered BVR combat against equally advanced aircraft extremely difficult.

BVR combat is easy to model in an RPG. there is little manuvering involved, just two or more aircraft seperated by dozens of miles, using their radar and other sensors to line up missile shots. this sort of aerial sniping merely requires the pilot to make a successful read sensor instruments roll to detect the enemy in the first place, and a successful weapons system skill roll prior to each shot. then it is merely a case of rolling to strike as normal. the biggest issue with BVR combat is missile velocity and range. some missiles (especially medium range and long range missiles) can take several melees to reach their target. with these the normal pattern of the attacker firing and the defender attempting to dodge or shoot down the incoming missile doesn't really apply. since during the melees the missile is in flight, it must remain locked onto the enemy, the best way to handle these situations is to roll to strike each melee the missile is in flight. the target can attempt to dodge each time, but the missile can lock back on the next melee (with nothing but the missiles onboard guidance bonus). if the re-lock on fails the next melee, the missile has lost the target entirely.

Air Combat manuvering is much more difficult to model however. attacker and defender are each manuvering to place each other in their sights, while attempting to prevent the other from doing so. they manuever in three dimensions, accellerating, braking, diving, climbing, and turning to exploit their aircrafts capabilities. there is no easy way to model this in detail, without resorting to miniatures on sticks and many involved charts and graphs. however, as the goal of all this manuvering is to line up or avoid attacks, dogfighting can be modelled simply with opposed rolls, subject to modifiers for pilot skill, aircraft capability, and situation.

dogfighting is merely a case of each player, in initiative order, choosing a target (which results in the battle becoming a number of smaller individual combats), at the start of each melee round. the target chosen must then choose their response. available options are evasion, in which the pilot attempts to escape the dogfight, counter-manuvering, in which the pilot tries to outmanuver the other and get into a firing position, and to declare nothing, allowing the pilot to focus on attacking another target at the risk of being shot down in the process. the participants roll a D20, and add their modifiers. which ever player has the higher result has managed to manuever into position to fire at their target. a natural twenty is an automatic success, but if both roll a natural twenty they cancel out, and the winner is determained by each players modifiers. a tie means neither player was able to get into position.

if there are uneven forces, with one side outnumbering the other, there will often be aircraft left with no targets. in such situations, the additional aircraft have a few different choices. they can pick a target already claimed, in which case both attacking aircraft suffer a -2 modifier due to the need to avoid interfering with each others manuevers. each aircraft rolls as normal, and compare their scores. if any of the attacking craft rolls lower than the target, that aircraft was unable to get in position. alternately, the extra aircraft can follow one of their freindly aircraft, sticking close and following their manuevers. this form of formation flying requires a successful piloting skill roll at -20%, but the following aircraft benefits from the manuvering roll result of the aircraft it is flying alongside. if that aircraft ends up with a clear shot at the enemy, the following aircraft will have a shot as well. this is a common approach for wingmen at the beginning of a dogfight. it is not possible to begin following an aircraft already locked into a fight with the enemy, since that aircraft is busy manuvering in potentially unpredictable ways. without having followed that aircraft from the start of it's duel, it is virtually impossilbe to stay in formation with it. lastly, the additional aircraft can stay out of the dogfight entirely, either circling the conflict or flying off.

once a player wins the opposed roll, he has a clear shot at the target. the target can't shoot back unless he has rear facing weapons or otherwise is able to fire to their rear. firing at the target requires a weapon systems skill roll and a to strike roll. unlike with BVR combat, a failed weapon systems skill roll will not prevent the shot, merely remove the to-strike bonus from onboard targeting systems and the weapon systems skill. it is possible to dogfight without the weapon systems skill, but the pilot will be unable to benefit from the to-strike bonus from the vehicles targeting systems. (it is worth noting that even aircraft from WW1 and WW2 would require a weapon systems skill roll. while these aircraft did not have the radar enhanced targeting systems of modern aircraft, nor the mechanical computing gunsights of early cold war aircraft, their pilots were trained in estimating trajectory, deflection, windage, and other factors that influenced air to air gunnery. with these early aircraft the weapon systems skill represents the ability of the pilot to calculate these factors in their head.) if the combat continues into another melee round, the dogfight continues. any aircraft that were have destroyed their targets or have escaped the dogfight through evasion can choose new opponents.





Calculating the modifiers for the pilots dogfighting rolls is fairly easy. the pilot skill modifier is the characters piloting skill for that vehicle divided by 15. thus Pilot Jet Fighter 60% gives a +4 modifier to dogfighting. if the pilot possesses the skill "Combat Flying" the character gains an additional +2, +1 if possessingthe skill Aerobatics (the less capable civilian equivilent.) more difficult however is the aircraft modifier, which represents the capabilities of the aircraft being piloted. even a highly skilled pilot can find dogfighting difficult in the wrong aircraft. the aircraft modifier depends on the design and features of the aircraft in question. it can be found by comparing the aircrafts details to the following criteria.


Main Body MDC: (round up) - The aerodynamic requirements of flight are contrary to the shaping and mass required to provide high levels of armor. heavily armored aircraft are thus more sluggish in manuvering than more lightly armored aircraft.
Tiny Aircraft (up to 15 ft on largest dimension) -1 for every 50 MDC over 100
Small Aircraft (up to 30 ft on largest dimension) -1 for every 50 MDC over 200
Medium Aircraft (up to 70 ft on largest dimension) -1 for every 50 MDC over 300
Large Aircraft (up to 140 ft on largest dimension) -1 automatically due to size and -1 for every 50 MDC over 400
Very Large Aircraft (over 140 ft on largest dimension) -2 automatically due to size and -1 for every 100 MDC over 500

Aircraft features: the following features provide bonuses or penalties as a result of their existance on the aircraft.
Robot/Powered Armor/jetpack -2
Flying Wing -1
Biplane +2
Forward Swept Wings +1
Variable sweep wings +2
Canard Wings +1
Vertical take off and landing (VTOL) capability +2
Short take off and landing (STOL) capability +1
Thrust Vectoring +1
Propellor Driven +1
Gravitic drive (no bonus, but can ignore penalties from size and MDC)

Speed Modifiers: The faster an aircraft travels, the less manueverable it becomes. as a result it is rare for dogfighting to occur at supersonic speeds.
Under 300mph +2
Under mach 1 (670mph) +1
Under mach 2 (1340mph) -1
under mach 3 (2010mph) -2
under mach 4 (2680mph) -3
under mach 5 (3350mph) -4
(and so on)

I don't know if the current HERO system rules have dogfighting, but their old Robot Warriors RPG had great rules for air combat that modeled the 3D positioning. Also, the SpyCraft chase system had aerial dogfight rules that were quite good.

i've been trying to avoid getting that detailed. while i understand the tactics quite well myself (i love combat flight sims), i have to assume most players and GM's wont. so the rules need to work independant of the user's skill at ACM.
and if you start plotting out positions and manuevers in 3D, it starts becoming more of a miniatures game than a role playing game.

opposed rolls with the GM deciding the descriptive outcome seems like a good approach.

though i'd suggest that both players and GM's looking ot use these rules research the different manuevers. the GM so he knows how to describe the action, and the players so they can get roleplay XP.

Well from what I can tell it seems simple enough to follow. To a degree these can be used for non-aircraft air combat too I woudl imagine.

glitterboy2098 wrote:these are my work in progress rules for air combat manuvering, AKA "dogfighting". i intend to use these with my 'aces wild" series of pre-rifts aviation articles, and probably with a rifter article of the same name in the future, compiling the more interesting parts of the online articles.

i'm looking for some feedback and useful suggestions on these, before i start posting any articles. and yes, i'm working on refining the sometimes clunky writing...
-------------

air to air combat can be broken down into essentually two elements. Beyond Visual Range (BVR) combat, and Combat Air Manuvering (Dogfighting). with the development of guided missiles in the 1960's, Air Combat manuvering was beleived to have been made obsolete, but the events of the Vietnam war and other conflicts proved that the dogfight still had a vital role in the aerial battlefeild. with the advent of stealth aircraft and advanced avionics at the start of the 21st century, proponents of both BVR and Dogfighting approaches found their positions strengthened. while the new technologies made BVR combat against less advanced aircraft devestating, they simultaniously rendered BVR combat against equally advanced aircraft extremely difficult.

BVR combat is easy to model in an RPG. there is little manuvering involved, just two or more aircraft seperated by dozens of miles, using their radar and other sensors to line up missile shots. this sort of aerial sniping merely requires the pilot to make a successful read sensor instruments roll to detect the enemy in the first place, and a successful weapons system skill roll prior to each shot. then it is merely a case of rolling to strike as normal. the biggest issue with BVR combat is missile velocity and range. some missiles (especially medium range and long range missiles) can take several melees to reach their target. with these the normal pattern of the attacker firing and the defender attempting to dodge or shoot down the incoming missile doesn't really apply. since during the melees the missile is in flight, it must remain locked onto the enemy, the best way to handle these situations is to roll to strike each melee the missile is in flight. the target can attempt to dodge each time, but the missile can lock back on the next melee (with nothing but the missiles onboard guidance bonus). if the re-lock on fails the next melee, the missile has lost the target entirely.

Air Combat manuvering is much more difficult to model however. attacker and defender are each manuvering to place each other in their sights, while attempting to prevent the other from doing so. they manuever in three dimensions, accellerating, braking, diving, climbing, and turning to exploit their aircrafts capabilities. there is no easy way to model this in detail, without resorting to miniatures on sticks and many involved charts and graphs. however, as the goal of all this manuvering is to line up or avoid attacks, dogfighting can be modelled simply with opposed rolls, subject to modifiers for pilot skill, aircraft capability, and situation.

dogfighting is merely a case of each player, in initiative order, choosing a target (which results in the battle becoming a number of smaller individual combats), at the start of each melee round. the target chosen must then choose their response. available options are evasion, in which the pilot attempts to escape the dogfight, counter-manuvering, in which the pilot tries to outmanuver the other and get into a firing position, and to declare nothing, allowing the pilot to focus on attacking another target at the risk of being shot down in the process. the participants roll a D20, and add their modifiers. which ever player has the higher result has managed to manuever into position to fire at their target. a natural twenty is an automatic success, but if both roll a natural twenty they cancel out, and the winner is determained by each players modifiers. a tie means neither player was able to get into position.

if there are uneven forces, with one side outnumbering the other, there will often be aircraft left with no targets. in such situations, the additional aircraft have a few different choices. they can pick a target already claimed, in which case both attacking aircraft suffer a -2 modifier due to the need to avoid interfering with each others manuevers. each aircraft rolls as normal, and compare their scores. if any of the attacking craft rolls lower than the target, that aircraft was unable to get in position. alternately, the extra aircraft can follow one of their freindly aircraft, sticking close and following their manuevers. this form of formation flying requires a successful piloting skill roll at -20%, but the following aircraft benefits from the manuvering roll result of the aircraft it is flying alongside. if that aircraft ends up with a clear shot at the enemy, the following aircraft will have a shot as well. this is a common approach for wingmen at the beginning of a dogfight. it is not possible to begin following an aircraft already locked into a fight with the enemy, since that aircraft is busy manuvering in potentially unpredictable ways. without having followed that aircraft from the start of it's duel, it is virtually impossilbe to stay in formation with it. lastly, the additional aircraft can stay out of the dogfight entirely, either circling the conflict or flying off.

once a player wins the opposed roll, he has a clear shot at the target. the target can't shoot back unless he has rear facing weapons or otherwise is able to fire to their rear. firing at the target requires a weapon systems skill roll and a to strike roll. unlike with BVR combat, a failed weapon systems skill roll will not prevent the shot, merely remove the to-strike bonus from onboard targeting systems and the weapon systems skill. it is possible to dogfight without the weapon systems skill, but the pilot will be unable to benefit from the to-strike bonus from the vehicles targeting systems. (it is worth noting that even aircraft from WW1 and WW2 would require a weapon systems skill roll. while these aircraft did not have the radar enhanced targeting systems of modern aircraft, nor the mechanical computing gunsights of early cold war aircraft, their pilots were trained in estimating trajectory, deflection, windage, and other factors that influenced air to air gunnery. with these early aircraft the weapon systems skill represents the ability of the pilot to calculate these factors in their head.) if the combat continues into another melee round, the dogfight continues. any aircraft that were have destroyed their targets or have escaped the dogfight through evasion can choose new opponents.





Calculating the modifiers for the pilots dogfighting rolls is fairly easy. the pilot skill modifier is the characters piloting skill for that vehicle divided by 15. thus Pilot Jet Fighter 60% gives a +4 modifier to dogfighting. if the pilot possesses the skill "Combat Flying" the character gains an additional +2, +1 if possessingthe skill Aerobatics (the less capable civilian equivilent.) more difficult however is the aircraft modifier, which represents the capabilities of the aircraft being piloted. even a highly skilled pilot can find dogfighting difficult in the wrong aircraft. the aircraft modifier depends on the design and features of the aircraft in question. it can be found by comparing the aircrafts details to the following criteria.


Main Body MDC: (round up) - The aerodynamic requirements of flight are contrary to the shaping and mass required to provide high levels of armor. heavily armored aircraft are thus more sluggish in manuvering than more lightly armored aircraft.
Tiny Aircraft (up to 15 ft on largest dimension) -1 for every 50 MDC over 100
Small Aircraft (up to 30 ft on largest dimension) -1 for every 50 MDC over 200
Medium Aircraft (up to 70 ft on largest dimension) -1 for every 50 MDC over 300
Large Aircraft (up to 140 ft on largest dimension) -1 automatically due to size and -1 for every 50 MDC over 400
Very Large Aircraft (over 140 ft on largest dimension) -2 automatically due to size and -1 for every 100 MDC over 500

Aircraft features: the following features provide bonuses or penalties as a result of their existance on the aircraft.
Robot/Powered Armor/jetpack -2
Flying Wing -1
Biplane +2
Forward Swept Wings +1
Variable sweep wings +2
Canard Wings +1
Vertical take off and landing (VTOL) capability +2
Short take off and landing (STOL) capability +1
Thrust Vectoring +1
Propellor Driven +1
Gravitic drive (no bonus, but can ignore penalties from size and MDC)

Speed Modifiers: The faster an aircraft travels, the less manueverable it becomes. as a result it is rare for dogfighting to occur at supersonic speeds.
Under 300mph +2
Under mach 1 (670mph) +1
Under mach 2 (1340mph) -1
under mach 3 (2010mph) -2
under mach 4 (2680mph) -3
under mach 5 (3350mph) -4
(and so on)

very nice can add this to my game systems !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are (90% sure) some Space dogfighting rules in the DB2:PW.

glitterboy2098 wrote:i've been trying to avoid getting that detailed. while i understand the tactics quite well myself (i love combat flight sims), i have to assume most players and GM's wont. so the rules need to work independant of the user's skill at ACM.
and if you start plotting out positions and manuevers in 3D, it starts becoming more of a miniatures game than a role playing game.

opposed rolls with the GM deciding the descriptive outcome seems like a good approach.

though i'd suggest that both players and GM's looking ot use these rules research the different manuevers. the GM so he knows how to describe the action, and the players so they can get roleplay XP.

Someone needs to come up with a new combat flight sim. Which one are you using now?

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:There are (90% sure) some Space dogfighting rules in the DB2:PW.

IIRC, Phase world has modifiers for big space ships shooting at little space ships and such, but no real dogfighting rules. i'll look them up tonight.

in any case space is a very different enviroment than the atmosphere.

jaymz wrote:Well from what I can tell it seems simple enough to follow. To a degree these can be used for non-aircraft air combat too I woudl imagine.

. sure. as it's written now, you'd just need to decide whether you want it to be compatable with these ( for example, if you have "airships" in the setting, you'd only want to have them compatible if you also have conventional aircraft...), and if those non-aircraft combattants get any kind of bonus for design features or abilities.

one aspect i've thought about is giving animals and people that fly a bonus equal to their P.P. dodge bonus.. so a mage using a flying spell or a flying creature like a dragon get a small bonus...
it's easier to work out the issues of aircraft and flying robots with something like this though, so i haven't really worked many numbers.

Someone needs to come up with a new combat flight sim. Which one are you using now?

growing up i played alot of Chuck yeager's air combat and F-19 stealth fighter. i've played newer ones in the decade since, but most are too much "simulation" and not enough "air combat" for me. if you have to memorize every little instrument panel, it really detracts from the experiance.
while writing this i played alot of ace combat 4 and 5, mainly because
a) i like them
b) they're what i got.

i still have my old instruction manuals for F-19 and chuck yeager, mainly as a referance for ACM manuvers. fun to read, and to marval at the really lousy graphics.

one of my reasons for using an opposed roll system, liek the old transient movement factor of TMNT and N&SS, was to allow people with no real knowledge of the manuevers to use the system. it takes practise to be able to decide which response to an enemies action is a good one, one of the reasons the US navy has Miramar and the TOP GUN program. to expect the average roleplaying game GM or player to have such abilities is a bit. much. of course, learning the actual methods is a great way to get roleplay XP.

If the dogfighting rules are not in RDB2: PW then they would be RDB 3.
What I remember is that they are near the 'fighter combat' skill bonus listings, and are just a few paragraphs.

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:If the dogfighting rules are not in RDB2: PW then they would be RDB 3.
What I remember is that they are near the 'fighter combat' skill bonus listings, and are just a few paragraphs.

odds are though that they're just extra bonuses to dodge and strike. i'll look that book up too.

these rules were an amalgam of the old TMF concept (the opposed rolls to determain the upper hand), and the rules in Rifter #5, which introduced the whole "bonus based on your piloting skill" aspect.

i just combined the idea, using the opposed rolls and the bonuses, and adding a way to determain vehicle specific bonuses and penalties to reflect the capabilities of the vehicle being used. (unlike the old TMF, which seems to have been fairly arbitrary..)

ok, i've read through the DB2 book..
the "dogfighting rules" presented are a single manuever called a "dogtail". performing a dogtail requires each player to roll a D20, add unspecified bonuses, and the winner's plane/ship is ends up flying really close to the opponent, giving sundry bonuses.

given how similar this is to my system above, i can probably work this in as a "special manuver". (since it describes the situation as being very close to the enemy, while my system is just looking for a favorable position in weapon range.)

MegaverseTraveller wrote:Looks pretty good IMHO, similar in some aspects to what I use.
You may want to include modifiers for "natural" flight maybe 3 or 4 class based on their maneuverability (I see fairies as maneuverable as dragonflies, a winged human less so, while I just don't see a flying dragon being as agile in the air as either).
You may also want to add modifiers for "brute" force flight systems (little to no wing area) such as sky cycles, jet packs and flying power armors such as SAMAS.

these are on the list of things to add. i just haven't gotten to them yet. i wanted to figure out the winged vehicle aspects first.

I use countermeasures as a modifier to the dodge of the pilot evading a missile (flares, chaff, ECM).

most of the cannon write ups use flares/chaff as a straight % to decoy them, and jamming is treated as a to hit penalty or a degredation of RSI skill %..

i agree with those approaches, more or less, so i didn't want to contradict existing material. something i try to avoid anyway.

I use a target number of > 4 for missile (not mini-missiles) for a to hit target number (not at lock on) for seeking missiles (they get only their own inherent bonuses) if they miss two consecutive to hits while seeking, they lost tracking of the target. I use a > 4 since the missile's essentially trying to execute a touch attack, direct attacks and lock on target numbers vary with range and other modifiers.

i just assume the canon numbers. i try to write these to be consistant with the books, letting others fit their houserules in. it's easier.

Rhomphaia wrote:I like this idea, Heaven knows the Palladium System has been ****-poor at this, in spite of a plethora of games that have fighter craft. I do have a couple of suggestions however.

palladium hasn't really had an aviation heavy setting yet. palladium's settings are more infantry oriented in general.

glitterboy2098 wrote:dogfighting is merely a case of each player, in initiative order, choosing a target (which results in the battle becoming a number of smaller individual combats), at the start of each melee round. the target chosen must then choose their response. available options are evasion, in which the pilot attempts to escape the dogfight, counter-manuvering, in which the pilot tries to outmanuver the other and get into a firing position, and to declare nothing, allowing the pilot to focus on attacking another target at the risk of being shot down in the process. the participants roll a D20, and add their modifiers. which ever player has the higher result has managed to manuever into position to fire at their target. a natural twenty is an automatic success, but if both roll a natural twenty they cancel out, and the winner is determained by each players modifiers. a tie means neither player was able to get into position.

I would feel that a pair of piloting rolls would work better for this, with each roll essentially being a melee "action" and the one who wins when jockeying for position gets the shot and his opponent gets to dodge. It doesn't add too much more complexity and makes the piloting skill important for a fighter pilot.

i prefer to leave piloting skill rolls for purely piloting stuff. dogfighting coould have been represented with a dedicated skill, but that would penalize all existing OCC's for not having them.

the TMF like approach seemed fitting to me. all you need is to be able to get into the air. the bonus for your piloting skill reflects your ability to turn your piloting into useful mauevers..in a simpler to use format.

if there are uneven forces, with one side outnumbering the other, there will often be aircraft left with no targets. in such situations, the additional aircraft have a few different choices. they can pick a target already claimed, in which case both attacking aircraft suffer a -2 modifier due to the need to avoid interfering with each others manuevers. each aircraft rolls as normal, and compare their scores. if any of the attacking craft rolls lower than the target, that aircraft was unable to get in position. alternately, the extra aircraft can follow one of their freindly aircraft, sticking close and following their manuevers. this form of formation flying requires a successful piloting skill roll at -20%, but the following aircraft benefits from the manuvering roll result of the aircraft it is flying alongside. if that aircraft ends up with a clear shot at the enemy, the following aircraft will have a shot as well. this is a common approach for wingmen at the beginning of a dogfight. it is not possible to begin following an aircraft already locked into a fight with the enemy, since that aircraft is busy manuvering in potentially unpredictable ways. without having followed that aircraft from the start of it's duel, it is virtually impossilbe to stay in formation with it. lastly, the additional aircraft can stay out of the dogfight entirely, either circling the conflict or flying off.

Another option an unoccupied craft has is "penning in" a target craft. Basically they are maneuvering to limit evasion and maneuvering options for the target craft, giving their buddy a better chance at a killing shot or helping prevent a target aircraft's escape while sacrificing their own ability to shoot effectively. A common example of this is to fly above the zone where two craft are tangled up to close off climbing to escape for the target craft while being in a position to dive down on them if they get the upper hand on the covering aircraft's buddy.[/quote]

honestly, i'll probably use the "dog tail" from DB2 for this. the penalties to dodge the target has would reflect this well.

thats an excellent point, and one i'll try to use as a framework when doing a final write up.

however, IMO it's really more of a 2 "range" system. you have short distance fighting (dogfighting), which ranges out to 5 miles (range on an SRM), and long distance fighting, which ranges 5 miles plus.

most "dogfights" in history have occured at distances of 5 miles or less (palladium grossly under-represents the range of fighter cannon..by about 2x. most 20mm's have effective ranges of almost a mile.)

the bit about evasive action is something i'll try to address..probably through adding a list of manuvers like the "tilt dodge". adding in an "evasive flying" option that adds a penalty to the weapons systems skill of the firer shouldn't be too hard. it's really something that applies mainly in dogfighting though. in BVR combat the range scale limits how effective small movements can be on messing up an enemies shot. (up close a single plane length moved can ruin a shot...farther out you'd have to move sizeable portions of a mile in the same time to get the same effect.) like i described above, BVR combat is dominated much more by sensors and countermeasures..though a good dodge bonus is helpful when those fail.

Rhomphaia wrote:The way air combat seems to me, especially modern air combat, seems to be more translated into a series of skill rolls instead of combat rolls. Now when you get into dogfighting, that is when rolls to strike, dodge, etc, take over. Longer ranges it seems more like it would see a predominance of skill rolls for gaining position, evading missiles, etc.

exactly. in BVR combat, how good your read sensory instruments, weapon system, and electronic countermeasures skill %'s are is as important if not more so than your to hit bonuses and dodge bonuses.
the RSI skill is the difference between suspecting an enemy is there and knowing he's there. the weapon system skill is the difference between "aim at that point in the sky and hop the missile locks on after firing" and "i have a lock and tone!". and the Electronic countermeasures skills can often do more to avoid being hit than just trying to dodge the shot. (especially important when volleys of missiles get involved..which can't be dodged by canon..)

If you need some good books for some of these maneuvers, the Macross II RPG and various older Robotech books have them.

got all of them. even the obscure ones. and N&SS and TMNT guide to the galaxy have real useful info too.

i hadn't planned on it, but i might work in a few "guidelines" about such things at some point. usually i've just working the range of bombs into the weapon entry for the vehicle. but those were mainly for non-gliding bombs. but those were never the high altitude effective ranges (mainly because finding out how far a plane can toss a bomb isn't a simple "this far', but dpends heavily on speed, altitude, angle of release, atmospheric conditions and timing.. there's a reason that prescision bomb sights include analog or digital computers. )
of course, if i include that i'd have to also include some guidelines for high altitude subsonic bombing with unguided munitions.
in general, low altitude bombing is pretty well covered by the default stats, IMO.

this is largely a backburner project for me, alongside the aircraft and missiles intended to go together with it. work in progress versions of some of the aircraft are already posted in the RIFTS forum. i work on it mainly when i need a break from working on my main project. sadly, being enrolled in masters level classes hasn't left as much time to do either at the moment (or work on my phase world fan material)