Flying Combat

Heroes may fly using advantages (Flight, Telekinesis, etc.), magic spells, antigravity belts, and so forth. A few special rules apply to combat while airborne.

Aerial Movement

If the ceiling is high enough, fliers can move over other fighters! Humans normally fly in a horizontal position (so that they can watch the ground and see where they’re going); treat them as two-hex figures when using the Tactical Combat rules.

Changing Height:
Vertical movement costs the same as horizontal movement. Moving a yard vertically and a yard horizontally simultaneously (diagonal movement at 45°) costs the same as 1.5 horizontal yards.

Steps and Retreats:
Use your basic air Move to calculate the distance you can step or retreat during combat (see Step, p. 368); flyers are often fast enough to step 2+ yards. If a flyer retreats as part of an active defense, he can specify that he is doing so vertically.

Flying Fast:
See High-Speed Movement (p. 394). A diving flyer can accelerate faster: add +10 to basic air Move and double top airspeed on any turn spent diving and doing nothing else (a Move maneuver).

Cannot Hover:
If you are flying under your own power using Flight with the Cannot Hover, Controlled Gliding, or Gliding limitation, you must take a Move or Move and Attack maneuver and move at least 1/4 your top airspeed each turn, or you’ll stall and start to fall. You might also stall if you lose control during high-speed movement (p. 394) and suffer sudden deceleration that pushes you below 1/4 your top airspeed. You may recover from a stall by turning your fall into a dive and regaining speed. Roll vs. DX-4 each turn to do so.

Flight Ceiling
On Earth, an unprotected human has trouble breathing past 6,000’, and needs an oxygen mask or an advantage such as Doesn’t Breathe past 20,000’; see Atmospheric Pressure (p. 429). On worlds with greater air pressure, higher flight is possible. On worlds with little atmosphere, the reverse is true. If you use wings to fly, you can’t fly in a trace atmosphere or a vacuum.

Aerial Attack and Defense

There is no penalty to attack or defense rolls in flight. Flyers are normally no less stable than fighters on the ground.

Attack:
When flyers attack foes on the ground, use the Combat at Different Levels rules (p. 402). Weapon reach becomes very important! Don’t worry about the relative height of two battling flyers – as long as they’re close enough to engage at all.

Defense:
When a flyer retreats, he can retreat out of the plane of an attack – not merely away from his attacker. If a flyer can hover, and has enough space to move one step up or down, he gets +1 over and above the usual retreating bonus when he retreats. To perform an Acrobatic Dodge (p. 375), use Aerobatics skill.