Over in another thread, Synner wrote:
"Particularly astral combat tends to be a one-on-one affair (or otherwise involves a magician calling on Spellcasting to level the field.) Furthermore the absence of maneuvers in astral combat make its much more linear and faster to resolve than other types of combat. In fact the only occasion I've encountered where astral combat extended beyond a couple of turns (and 15 minutes) was when a character tripped upon a patrol of hybrid form ants and a true form warrior ant."
At our table, astral combat tends to be a horde-on-horde affair, because any well-resourced mage has a maxed-out posse of bound spirits. Spirits of F4 and higher have an Astral Combat DP that's hard for a mage to match.
The absence of manuevers makes astral combat more linear. I find it also more dull. There's a bit of fluff difference between "you come across six ork gangers in leather jackets and combat boots, with switchblades and Saturday Night Specials" vs. "you come across six human guards in blue MCT uniforms with helmets, packing machine pistols and shockrods". You might use the same tactics against both, but the player's imagination can fill in some scenic detail.
Astral combat, by comparison, comes down to "Spirits A, B and C roll double their Force, target spirit D rolls double its Force to avoid the attack, spirits A B and C do (1/2 F) DV, spirit D rolls its Force to soak damage". Also, the 1:2 ratio of DV and soak pool make spirit-versus-spirit combat more a matter of attrition, rather than the "glass cannon" effects of physical-world combat.
I'd be interested in some Optional Powers for spirits that could apply to Astral combat... besides the Inherent Spell power, which makes Spirit of Man with Stunball/Stunbolt/Mana Static pretty much superior to any other kind of spirit in astral combat (unless countered with Magical Guard). I'd be interested in Spirits of Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Beast being something other than completely interchangable in the astral plane.
I'd also be interested in an Astral version of Full Defense.
I've got a decent visualization, I think, of combat between two Projecting characters. I'm a bit unclear on how to visualize combat between a Projecting character and a Dual-Natured (eg Perceiving) character. The former can zoom in and out, sidestep, etc. at super-high velocity; the latter cannot, because their astral form is tied to their meat body. How can the latter ever score a hit on the former?
I wrote my shaman PC with a F2 weapon focus shockstick (much cheaper in BP at chargen than it would be in Karma later), a rank in Astral Combat, and a specialization in Club focus, and figured that was a reasonable starting investment in astral combat. I also took Clubs and specialization Batons for physical-world combat, eg against targets with Counterspelling or when Parry is useful. That's 12 BP in Skills, 2 BP to bind the focus, and 4 BP of nuyen to buy the focus, total 18. It's viable, but there are more efficient investments of Karma/BP. And again, it's hard for that PC to land any blows on a spirit of F4 or higher, and high-level opposition is F5 or F6.
So... what works at your table?