Feature: Cooperative Multiplayer - Practical
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Briefing
The briefing
needs no introduction from me: this is where the player learns
about the mission objectives, potential threats (whether surface
or land based), support units available, and any other information
that may be relevant to the mission (for example, divert airfields
etc.). Let's take some of these in turn.
- Mission objectives.
Let's get one thing straight right away the purpose
of any given mission isn't to shoot down or blow up as many
bad guys as possible. The purpose of the mission, and the
criteria by which the mission will stand or fall, is set
out in the mission objectives. By way of example,
let's assume that the mission objective is to protect, against
air threats, a flight of B-52s on their way to a target.
In our example, we'll assume that there either are no ground
based threats or to the extent that there are any
that there are other friendly forces taking care
of them prior to the arrival of the B-52s. Our job, in other
words, is purely to protect the B-52s from enemy aircraft
sent up to intercept. A few minutes into the flight, you're
informed by AWACs that group of enemy fighters are closing
on the B-52s' at two o'clock in other words, coming
at the bombers from their front right. You're leading a
group of four F-15s, and you immediately launch yourselves
towards what turn out to be four MiG-23s. Your group kills
one before the other three turn and flee. You feel the natural
temptation to pursue: but should you? These aircraft could
turn around at any time and continue their assault. Think
for a second before reading on, and make your decision.
Surely the answer here
has to be a resounding "no". Again, this goes
back to the mission objective which isn't to kill
as many enemy fighters as possible. Should your flight go
charging after the MiGs in our example, you may well find
that another enemy group approaches the B-52s from a different
direction and by now you're 70 miles away from the
B-52s and unable to respond in time. Sure, you might get
your four MiG-23s, but the two MiG-31s successfully shot
down all four B-52s. Your group has bagged two thirds of
the bad guys, but you've still lost. So... mission objective,
mission objective, mission objective. Keep it in mind, and
live by it in the game.
- Enemy threats. Here,
intelligence is important. You need to know what each platform
that you're likely to come up against is capable of doing.
It is only by knowing the limitations of each threat that
you will be able to react against and defeat it. For example,
are the SAMs facing you high or low level systems? Knowing
this can have an impact on the mission profile, since one
is hardly likely to fly NOE (nap of the earth) if the route
to the target is protected by low-level SAM systems and
mobile air defense platforms such as the ZSU-23-4. Likewise,
the likely direction and make-up of any air threat, such
as MiG-31s or SU-27s, is likely to dictate a ground attack
aircraft's route to the target snaking through valleys
will be much more important where air based threats are
on the prowl looking for you.
- Know your target area. Falcon
4 is great for this. F4 provides a feature whereby the player
can see a 3D make up of the target area and the surrounding
geographic features. This can be very useful when deciding
on routes to the target (if flying a ground attack mission)
or identifying routes that may be taken by opposing ground
attack aircraft (if flying an air-to-air mission). As we
mentioned above, "snaking" through valleys can
be a very good way of "losing" yourself in the
ground clutter and hiding yourself as much as possible from
the enemy's radar: so such features should always have close
attention paid to them.
- Listen to the others you're
flying with. The attitude on leadership seems to vary from
group to group. I've flown with some groups who have a very
rigid command structure where dissent and other opinions
aren't really tolerated. Likewise, I've flown with groups
where no command structure exists at all, and what you really
have is a collection of individuals doing their own thing,
only loosely working towards the same goals. The answer,
I believe, lies somewhere between the two. No one has the
monopoly on good ideas or good mission planning
and where possible it's useful to have a group debate on
tactics and the best way to achieve a mission result. The
political philosopher J. S. Mill once said that freedom
of speech is useful as it serves to promote the clash of
ideas and, through this, the emergence of the truth. Well,
I'm not sure there is any absolute truth in mission planning,
but there certainly are better ideas and worse ideas. Group
discussions hopefully help promote the former and weed out
the latter.
Another useful purpose
of such discussions at the briefing stage is team building.
By having an inclusive briefing, a team atmosphere can be
promoted whereby each member of the mission feels as though
they have contributed something useful to the mission. This
will hopefully pay dividends when it comes to working together
as a team throughout the mission. Team building and team
spirit is a theme which I will return to during the remainder
of the article.
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