So I have been working on this system that is fairly simple and I got most of everything hashed out.  It is a steam punk themed table top game which has a fairly easy system to roll for events (puzzles, breaking down barriers, and social actions such as bartering, charming people, seducing characters, etc etc) and for battling other characters/creatures.  Though I have been trying to wrap my head around how to do air battles.  And I think it would be fun to incorporate this idea into the game I have been working on since flying right now is just a quick way to travel from point a to point b.  I think I should start out with the mechanics of actual player to player battles and then talk about different stats for items and vehicles.

Players have to roll a d20 based on a stat called Pummel against another stat called Sway.  These stats are based on some basic character stats that are chosen at the beginning of the game.  Pummel is the average of Accuracy (how well a character aims and how well they judge distances), Brawn (The character's physical strength), and their Fleetness (the character's speed and how far they can run).  While Sway is based on Fleetness, Accuracy, and Stamina (The character's stamina, simple enough).  To know what a player needs to roll on a d20 (what they roll against in other words) a player takes the stat they are using, minus the stat they need to roll against and then add 14.  The player must roll that number or lower to have a successful action.  Also all stats only go up to 20 (1 being the worst and the hardest of situations while 20 is the best of stats and the easiest of situations.)  For example a character has a pummel of 12, their opponent has a sway of 17 then 12-17 is -5 then add 14 is 9, so the player controlling the character needs to roll a 9 or lower.  If the number figured turns out to be higher than 20 or lower than 1, it will either be seen as an automatic success or failure (respectively).

The amount of damage from successful hits is based on the stat Toughness which is also another stat based on the 8 original stats.  Toughness is the average of [b}Brawn[/b}, Stamina, and Accuracy. So if a character has a toughness of 13, then they do 13 points of damage.  There are other things with this battle system like characters getting exhausted, counter attacking, and using skills in battle, but I think that is a little unneeded right now.  Though feel free to ask about that anytime.

I do have stats for weapons and guns, they have about the same stats as all the other items.  All items have these stats: Weight (how heavy something is), Integrity (How well built something is and the item's health), Shield (how well this item would shield a character from damage), and damage (the damage this item can inflict on opponents).  Guns have an added stat which is Rate of Fire which is represented by #/#/#/#.  The first number is how many bullets/ammunition a gun can hold at once, the next number is the number of bullets it can shoot at once, the third number is for how many times in a turn the gun can shoot, and the last number is how many turns it takes to load.

In a player to player battle, if melee weapons are used, then the damage is added to the amount of damage the character can already inflict.  While guns are the damage of the gun plus the damage of the bullet.  Quickly, to see if guns are hitting their target a player must roll the stat Accuracy against Sway (unless it is a stationary or moving inanimate object then the distance or speed is rolled against).

Vehicles also have stats as well.  The first stat is Lift, which is represented by #/#.  The first number represents the maximum height a vehicle can fly, and the second number is how many turns it can achieve that height.  Also, this number represents how many turns the vehicle will take to land on the ground from the maximum height.  Lift is only for vehicles that fly.  The next stat is Acceleration, which is how fast linearly a vehicle can travel.  Once again it is represented by #/#, which the first number is the maximum speed and the second is in how many turns it can achieve that speed.  Like lift it be taken the other way, how many turns it takes to stop going at its' maximum speed.  The next number is the Hold, how much the vehicle can hold in its' trunks or cargo hold before it starts to slow down.  Integrity, which is just the same as items (the health of the vehicle in others words).  Capacity which is how many people could ride in this vehicle.  And finally [b}Maneuverability, which is how many turns it takes for the vehicle to turn 90 degrees.

Now, to do air battles, I know I could use both Lift ,Acceleration, and Maneuverability as a factor, but I am not too sure how.  Also, I can use the same gun system, but I don't know about using a character's Accuracy.  Maybe I should add another stat to the vehicles?  I could also make stats that are dependent on the stats like I did with the characters, though I am not sure what.  Maybe a stat like Steadiness could be a factor.  Feel free to put down your ideas!

The main question you need to ask yourself is how do you want your air battles to feel. If you want a slick fast paced method just make it nice simple and abstract. If you're looking for a more accounting intensive tactical affair than consider what types of things you want characters to focus on during the air battle and only answer rules for that. Only focus on setting elements that specifically add to the play experience.

Yeah, I should of specified what I wanted.  But I did actually figure out my problem the other day.

So, just to clarify I was trying to think of a slick easy way of making an air battle, much like the person to person battle system I described in the last post.  The person to person uses the stats Pummel of the character rolled against the Sway of the opponent.  This is like with any in life fights when you are trying to hit someone and they are always moving.  So I was thinking about dog fighting, and once again when two planes are at it they are not going to be stationary all the time and a lot of real air vehicles, with a few exceptions, need to keep moving or they lose their lift and fall out of the air.

It suddenly occurred to me that I already had the full range of motion for air covered in my stats.  I have the Lift stat which is for up and down, I have the Acceleration Stat which is forward and backwards, and then I have Maneuverability which is turning 90 degrees from left to right or side to side or up and down.  So I decided to take the average of these, and since Lift and Acceleration were already fractions, I decided to make Maneuverability into a improper fraction where 20 is the numerator and the denominator is the number of turns it takes.  The average of these (rounded off of course) turned into a stat called Nimbleness which represents the overall ease of a vehicle with performing tactical maneuvers.  Of course I could have done this stat in a easier way but I was bored.

Then I added two more stats which I didn't use any math formulas for.  The first one was Steadiness, to just portray how steady it is to shoot off or out of the vehicle.  This stat is a constantly changing variable which involves the weather or speed of the vehicle, etc etc.  The number I assigned the vehicle is the base number and it can either go up or down from that point.  The second one was Ram, which is how much damage it will to both itself and the other vehicle which is getting rammed.

Like Accuracy for the player battles, where a character uses that for shooting guns, Vehicles would use Steadiness.  Steadiness would be rolled against the opponent's vehicles Nimbleness.  It's pretty simple.  If they try to ram their vehicle into the opponent's vehicle then first the player would have to wait until the vehicle achieved top speed, and then roll their ram against the opponents nimbleness.

I guess how I got there wasn't easy, but at least the system is simple... well for me.

Lift and Acceleration were already fractions, I decided to make Maneuverability into a improper fraction where 20 is the numerator and the denominator is the number of turns it takes.