Approach Areas

[Krasny]

i have played this many times now, and i can't see any point in splitting up my hornets into two or more approach areas in the initial setup

indeed i can see two disadvantages:

1. more enemy units can shoot at you
2. hornets in the same area can share the benefits of one of the countermeasures pods

now i'm sure a veteran game designer like dan would not include more than one AA if there weren't advantages as well, so please could someone illuminate me

thanks guys

PS: could the board game version of this game be turned into a non-solo game?

[blastpop]

I have played 3 short campaigns now and have not split them up upon setup either.

Then again I have yet to loose a plane!

[Erik Rutins]

The main advantage I've found is when dealing with multiple bandits. By spreading out your approach, you can get more of them in Range 1 (Sidewinder) on the first turn and wipe them out rather than dealing with them piecemeal. The same can apply to SAM defenses, depending on how they are set up, but I do generally prefer the single-sector approach when I'm mainly dealing with a ground threat.

[jureidinim]

Splitting forces i think would be more useful in the tougher campaigns and difficulty.
I had one mission last night in the Syria 2000 which from the initial setup looked good for an ingress from the west. The only problem was the Gadfly SAM which was in the south with it's Range of 1 but ore importantly, it only had to get 2+ roll to be a threat to my aircraft! I split my forces and started one pilot in the south approach area specifically to take that SAM site out so the others could get in safely. Good plan.. which backfired.. my pilot missed the Gadfly - the Gadfly targetted him and shot him down. I pressed on with the attack and the gadfly damaged two other planes.

Yes.. sucky rolling [:D] but if it worked my main strike would have reached the target in much better shape.

The Syria series of missions seem to have more SAM/AAA sites ringing the target and you may find it better to split your forces to penetrate the defenses.

Also remember that after you place your Hornets, there is a random chance that the sam site locations can change, or extra SAM sites can appear which Intel missed. If for example you bunched them all up to come in high in one area with high delivery bombs because the ingess was guarded by low level SAMs, and the random chance came up to add two HIGH level attack SAMs in the approach area you are facing.. then your mission just got really difficult.

The original game didn't have a two player variant (that im aware of). But really, the only thing a second player could do would be to move the MIGs and make target selection choices for them.

[Dan Verssen]

We used to play the board game with 2 or more players with co-op play. It should work for the computer game as well if 2 people are at the computer.
 
At the start of a campaign you take turns selecting pilots. For each mission you discuss which pilots will fly the mission. You then each have complete control over your own pilot's arming and tactical actions during the mission.
 
This makes it a fun team game.

[Southpaw Samurai]

I generally use one direction with the following exceptions:

1) As in jureidinim's case, if I see a potential troublesome target that doesn't work for my main approach and I have a (hopefully) fast guy who might be able to take it out without deviating more planes off the main target, I'll throw him (and maybe a wingman) from that direction.

2) Assuming I can afford to have my main strike section carry some ATA to protect themselves, having a small, dedicated ATA team sweep in from another direction helps cut down the fighter coverage over the site, as Erik has point out. You can sometimes have complete air superiority after the first turn sometimes with a split group. It works really well when the sweep team is flying high over mostly low altitude AA... otherwise your groups will be doing twice as much dodging...

There should almost be some bonus to the anti-aircraft crews if every plane is approaching from the same direction (although it'd be hard to give a bonus without tipping the scales too much in their favor). That would give incentive to come at targets from multiple directions and have the AA crews constantly rotating around to find their next target.

[NefariousKoel]

I almost always place my anti-air pilots in a corner placement box and my strikers in one of the cardinal directions so my fast pilots have a better chance of being able to use their AIM-9s on a MiG-25 or -29 before they can fire.  Of course, I take the risk of having more fire coming at them from -23s and possibly SAMs but it's better they take out those nastier MiGs  quicker than having them fire on my bomb-loaded strikers and having more of a chance to damage or shoot them down.

Can't complete a mission if you've jettisoned a good portion of your AtG ordnance. [:-]

I sometimes put my SEAD there too if I need to take out a particular SAM nuisance that'll cause problems in the future.  I almost always move them all into the same approach area together on the first move, though.

It's interesting to see everyone's play style.[:)]