@qsend *ide
Helle Dogfighting

Idea Credit: Sky Pirate Ezekyal

The following is a mockup of how air combat would look in feel.
https://pastebin.com/c43Ee4sX

This link is the meat of the idea, explaining the reasoning behind the stats and commands.
https://pastebin.com/R6isN5Cb

This is how I would suggest it be implemented. Broken down over time and tested on a generic clone of a mosquito:

1. A combat speed property on mosquitos, simple property which changes toward a cruising speed of 5 while idling, descending and travelling. Using the existing pilot checks.

2. A dive command which dramatically descends and adds to combat speed based on how far you dive.

3. A climb command that spends combat speed to dramatically gain altitude. If speed drops to 0 it call on the existing downward spiral to simulate an engine stall.

4. Balance top combat speed by giving an upper limit to aircraft after which they take damage and lose a huge chunk of control.

5. Make a weapon mod that gives mosquitos a damage/accuracy value. With a fairly low damage range.

6. Implement an aim command which rolls combat speed and pilot skill against another aircraft to attempt to shoot it, only working within a certain alt difference. Rolling for damage on success.

7. Change the existing evasive maneuver command to cost combat speed and have a duration-long increase to avoiding being aimed on.

8. Implement 'dive to' and 'climb to' so an aircraft can level themself with an enemy more simply.

9. Begin work on a damaged_combat_parts property which will be used as a list to contain status effects for planes. Such as damaged wing or tail.

10. Being implementing these properties into the damage and aim rolls, brainstorm new status effects.