This is inspired by Pundit's Build me an intarweb thread, as well as video games like Crimson Skies. Vehicular combat, especially with modern aircraft or space-opera starfighters, strikes me as a weak area of RPG's for the same reason "decking" usually is. The "Pilot/Rigger" player, much like the "hacker" (in badly designed or run games) can pretty much sleep through most of the session until their particular abilities are needed; then they hog the spotlight until they can return to their nap.

Overly-streamlining aerial combat doesn't seem right at all if much of the campaign is based around the characters' airborne craft (sky pirates, space force, fighter jocks, etc). Representing the 3rd dimension is also difficult for gamers fond of minis, although I've seen clever things done with legos.

My priority as GM is to keep all players involved as much as possible, so whether it's a hovercar chase (a la 5th Element...:banghead:) a pitched duel between gunships or a classic gargantuan space battle, nobody should feel left out.

Well... I don't know what to do about the pilot being left out of other adventures. But in bringing the rest of the party in, have you considered manned turrets or rules for boarding ships?

I dunno about computer users or technicians... I suppose problems could arise on the ship. Although maybe you could just make piloting and technical skill go hand-in-hand somehow.

That'd also give the "pilot" something to do outside of piloting now that I think of it...

Mmmm... where's Harrison Ford in his bucket-o-bolts when you need him?

The Battletech air combat game Aerotech might be worth looking at for managing air/space combat in a more tactical manner.  However, like 1st ed Battletech, it's a bit fiddly and doesn't play as quickly as I'd personally like in an RPG.

oDND did it back with Top Ballista, but I found the aerial combat rules so basic as to be pointless.

If you are going for a Crimson Skies type campaign setting then it's easy to keep everyone involved. They are all pilots or tailgunners. They might be pilot/ace or tailgunner/technician or pilot/filmstar but if they aren't a pilot or tailgunner then they are an NPC.

Then you just decide how much of the game is going to be about flying in planes and how much based on the ground. If it's mainly going to be flying you probably want more complex rules than if that is only intended to be a backdrop to the rest of the game.

I guess it depends on the era/tech level/etc of said vehicular combat, each requiring different ways of keeping all the players involved...vehicle type matters too, as the pilot character probably shouldn't be the only one with a craft - or the craft should be able to give the other PC's something to do, whether it be ECM, gunnery, damage control, sensors, targeting, bombing, etc.

Propellors vs. jet engines are a major dividing line in the history of flight, as the speed differences involved (along with the resulting airframes) are significant. With prop-planes, combat aircraft usually only allow a crew of 2 at the most (the 2nd being a gunner, requiring comparatively little skill). Of course, it might be amusing to let the party do something like use an entire Flying Fortress with all those turrets

With jet engines, weapons would seem to require more training involved to compensate for the extreme speeds - then again, so does flying the planes with all those damned instrument panels! Anyone using modern craft almost certainly need special training!

Futuristic stuff could go either way - air/spacecraft could become more complex or advances in human/machine interface could streamline operation immensely. For a game based of something like Serenity or the Millenium Falcon, there should always be some things the whole party can do. Don't let the party flyguy hog the spotlight in their X-Wing or whatever unless everyone else is manning turrets, issuing orders, etc!

I think that there are two things that have to be kept in mind to try to do aerial/vehicular combat well.

1. Find ways to get most, if not all, of the players involved in some way or another.  One of the might be the spaceship pilot, but another could be the gunner, a third could end up running the computers, a fourth doing desperate repairs when the ship takes damage.

2. I think one of the critical mistakes in vehicle combat is failing to capture the excitement that you see in books/movies etc.  One of the main ways most systems fail in this is by having a LOT of hits that don't do anything other than "you damage the armour",  or "you reduce the Hull points", and only criticals do actual damage to pieces.  In other words, I'm suggesting that you should have hit locations, and that most hits should actually hamper/damage systems of the vehicle in question; lighter hits do minor damage that can be repaired during the battle if you have someone free with the appropriate jury rigging skills. more serious damage ends up putting particular systems offline.
So a good spaceship combat system will have hit location charts, lots of damage effects, things catching fire, random ensigns being thrown 2d6 feet in random directions when their computer panel explodes for no conceivable reason, and engineers (preferrably Scottish or Wookie engineers) rushing to make quick repairs.

Its also important to avoid the potential for Total Party Kill, of course, so vehicles should end up taking a lot of damage to individual systems before any critical damage of the sort that could kill the entire party comes up, providing lots of opportunity for escape or surrender if things get rough.

RPGPundit

Don't forget enemies trying to board the ship, like in this scene from Starcrash (1979).  

http://www.badmovies.org/multimedia/movies6/starcrash1.mpg

Awesome!

Edit:

Can we decide what we are aiming for here something to simulate dogfights in a campaign where all the characters are pilots or gunners and thus it forms a major part of the Campaign (Crimson Skies like) or something to simulate space battles involving larger craft with multiple crew positions, but where it is only a minor part of the campaign (Star Wars, Traveller like).

Quote from: BagpussCan we decide what we are aiming for here something to simulate dogfights in a campaign where all the characters are pilots or gunners and thus it forms a major part of the Campaign (Crimson Skies like) or something to simulate space battles involving larger craft with multiple crew positions, but where it is only a minor part of the campaign (Star Wars, Traveller like).

In In Harm's Way:Aces in Spades, which is a WWI fighter pilot RPG, I'm working on air combat rules based on ACM theory, to give a real tactical feel to the air combat. This is a first case game - "all the characters are pilots or gunners."

In StarCluster and Cold Space/FTL Now, which are non-military SF games, the space combat rules are designed around everyone in the ship's crew havong a part to play. This is a second case game - "involving larger craft with multiple crew positions, but where it is only a minor part of the campaign."

All these games use the same basic mechanic system, but the focus is very different. The standard rules used in SC would be inappropriate for IHW:AiS - though they'd work pretty well for the crew of a B-24 Liberator or B-29 Superfortress in a WWII Bomber game.

-clash