"Best rules for handling fire support?" Topic

I'd like to collect rules sets (with a brief justification/selling) that are considered good for the way they handle fire support, off or on board artillery, orbital bombardment, magic spells, air strikes, etc.

A favorite of mine is Shockforce II. It treats off-board artillery fire as an attack generated/sighted from the observer. In effect, it is a matter of using him to attack, while describing that he is just pointing a laser and the attack comes from off-board.

Because it is sci-fi, the attack is instantaneous, with no delay. Some years ago, I worked with a friend who modified this for modern and added a function for delayed impact.

Like others, I dislike any "guess" weapons, and I dislike heavy randomization. Guessing is just a skill that can be developed, and therefore has nothing to do with tactics or strategy. Too much or too heavy of randomization takes the means of success out of the player's hands.

Guess range mechanics can die in a fire.

Other than that, I must admit, I tend to heavily dislike how most games handle this.

It's always a set of unique mechanics that aren't used anywhere else, take up a good chunk of the rule book and the fire won't land where you intended it anyways.

I actually think the Beamstrike/Shockforce option is the way to go as far as just getting on with the game.

Shockforce's style can feel like magic in a fantasy rules set, but actually I can't think of a simpler way to do it. I mean, in modern war, an observer views the target while some distant source sends the attack.

The only key is that a lesser trained or even untrained observer can use modern stuff with a radio available, whereas in a fantasy you wouldn't usually want just anybody to start lobbing fireballs after the wizard was removed.