Best mission type for xp?

[iplaygames2]

My pilots are all in the 3-400 xp range, with one of them around 450. Just wondering which type of engagement (dogfight, escort, intercept) you guys find to give the best rewards, xp-wise?

I'm just no good escorting, always lose at least 1 bomber. I seem to do alright intercepting, depends on the other allied element (if they are decent, I do good!).

What do the vets think?

[Sixxkiller]

Escorts usually give the best rewards for experience, but you need to be in the top planes to do well in them. 3-400 experience you should still be doing dogfights. I usually start doing escorts with my new pilots at around 75-100 kills or so.

[Guest Mike]

Escorts pit you against lower level fighters - the "base level" for intercepting fighters is 2/3rds that of the escorts.

AI this varies a bit against the AI, so sometimes you will play against 2 pairs both of which are better than you (eek!!), other times against pairs that are pathetic.

You don't get many points for the former, you do for the later!

I escort from as soon as possible.

Early fighters are often not much use even agaisnt light bombers, and with careful planning you can get you a lot of points - the main thing is to defend the bombers so you need to stay clsoe and pick on whatever is the biggest threat to them.

Playnig intercept against other players is just plain evil if you have 2 ppl vs 1, since both interceptors can pick on the escorts and usually dispose of them fairly easily despite the points difference. If intercepting vs a player you should leave 1 pair of interceptors played by the AI.

[iplaygames2]

Well, call me old fashioned, but I think I have more fun playing versus the AI. At least until I get really comfortable with the game...and this is one of those games that has so many underlying aspects to pay attention to; I don't know when I'll EVER take my game online!

So Stalin, you think escorts are the way to go, huh? I'll have to give it a shot. I actually did pretty good intercepting on my last mission out...seems like when I escort I get crappy bombers that can't take care of themselves at all!

[Sixxkiller]

Well the AI can be fun but nothing compares to fighting humans online. Also you do not have to play others online, you can just fight the bots. The good thing is you can always see how you are doing compared to other pilots from the website.

[bartbert]

You can play against the AI with online games as well. The games are exactly the same as playing local, but you have the added advantage that all your missions are tracked on the leader board. Plus, if when you decide your're ready to play against human opponents, you'll have pilots built up and won't have to start from scratch (local pilots don't tranfer to online pilots).

[iplaygames2]

Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

Well the AI can be fun but nothing compares to fighting humans online. Also you do not have to play others online, you can just fight the bots. The good thing is you can always see how you are doing compared to other pilots from the website.

Really? How do you fight the AI online? Can I do a campaign without fighting a human? I may be goofy but I can't figure out how to do that...

[bartbert]

You can play both "regular" missions and campaign games against the AI.

To play a regular mission against the AI, log in and go to "Online/Single Mission/Create Online Game" menu item (or just hit Ctrl+C). This will bring up the same dialog you see when you start up a local game. Choose your pilot, aircraft and starting altitude the same way you normally would and then click the "Ok" button. After a few seconds, the game will start up and a small dialog will display showing your pilot. If you were playing against other humans, you would wait for others to join your game, but if you just want to play against the AI then you click the "Start" button and away you go.

Campaigns are a little more complicated to get started because you have to create the campaign and do your planning on the web site. Then you play out the missions for each campaign turn using the game.

Start by logging onto the web site and go to the menu item "Campaign/Create and Play a Campaign". You'll see a drop down list where you can pick which campaign you want to play (Battle of Britain, etc.). Then you pick which side you want to play (Axis or Allied) and whether you want to play against the AI or a human. Then click the "Create Campaign" button. This will add your campaign to the grid on that web page.

Now click on the "Select" link in the grid for the campaign you just created. This will take you to the detail page for that campaign. You'll see a map of region being fought over and a list of pilots that you can assign to patrol the various regions on the map. Assign pilots by picking a region from the drop down list on his row of the grid. Click the "Preview" button to display on the map where you have assigned pilots. When you are satisfied with your assignments, click the "Execute" button to lock it in.

The map will then show where you and the AI have assigned pilots. In each region where both of you assigned pilots, there will be a mission to fight out within the game. You can then start up the game, log in and go to the "Online/Campaign/Play a Campaign Mission" menu item. This will bring up a screen showing all of your ongoing missions. Click on the row you want to play and then click the "Ok" button to launch the next mission.

[iplaygames2]

Thanks, bart! I finally got some online pilots created and can track them on the leaders page. Not faring so well in the Battle of Britain, so I'm going to keep it to the single missions for now.

Tough to start over after I was flying Corsairs, but it's neat to fly British planes now. Still irks me about the graphic glitch where I can't see any stats on the Buffalo I plane dogfights.. oh well, I guess I'll be up in a new plane soon enough.