So, the briefing at the start gives you a general overview of what you need to do. Mission 4 is the attack on Newfield Island. Your primary targets are marked with red circles. In this case, two fleets on opposite sides of the island and some aircraft. These must be destroyed to complete the mission. There are other targets there that will improve your score, netting you a higher mission rank and more MRP.

Planes aren't always the threat. Ground forces can shoot down allies you need to protect or destroy friendly ground forces as well. Generally, if there is a big blue box around an ally, they must be protected. You first Escort mission is mission 5 where you have to protect friendly amphibious units from attacks that come from the air via strike fighters, attackers, helicopters and howitzers/artillery. Listen to the radio, move out to meet aggressors if you don't have to stay near escort targets, or stay with them if you can't leave them. they'll call out that they're being engaged by artillery, otherwise, assume it's the ground attack planes (F-2As and Su-34s) and helicopters (Mi-24s) and target those before fighters.

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

So, the briefing at the start gives you a general overview of what you need to do. Mission 4 is the attack on Newfield Island. Your primary targets are marked with red circles. In this cates, two fleets on opposite sides of the island and some aircraft. These must be destroyed to complete the mission. There are other targets there that will improve your score, netting you a higher mission rank and more MRP.

Planes aren't always the threat. Ground forces can shoot down allies you need to protect or destroy friendly ground forces as well. Generally, if there is a big blue box around an ally, they must be protected. You first Escort mision is mission 5 where you have to protect friendly amphibeous units from attacks that come from the air via strike fighters, attackers, helicopters and howitzers/artillery. Listen to the radio, move out to meet aggressors if you don't have to stay near escort targets, or stay with them if you can't leave them.

Thanks for your reply! I do try to pay attention to the breifing but I get confused because of the terms they use! I am new to flight based games so I only understand the cardinal points but then i get confused by attacking all the enemies in that direction and the mission usually fails. I am on the 5th mission now (the first night one) the one you mentioned, I keep crashing into stuff or i get carried away with not knowing what to attack as they usually mention the enenmy units by their names. If i attack the red targets on the radar and only focus on them would it work? i am playing on the easiest difficulty :p

Originally posted by Kanye West:

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

So, the briefing at the start gives you a general overview of what you need to do. Mission 4 is the attack on Newfield Island. Your primary targets are marked with red circles. In this cates, two fleets on opposite sides of the island and some aircraft. These must be destroyed to complete the mission. There are other targets there that will improve your score, netting you a higher mission rank and more MRP.

Planes aren't always the threat. Ground forces can shoot down allies you need to protect or destroy friendly ground forces as well. Generally, if there is a big blue box around an ally, they must be protected. You first Escort mision is mission 5 where you have to protect friendly amphibeous units from attacks that come from the air via strike fighters, attackers, helicopters and howitzers/artillery. Listen to the radio, move out to meet aggressors if you don't have to stay near escort targets, or stay with them if you can't leave them.

Thanks for your reply! I do try to pay attention to the breifing but I get confused because of the terms they use! I am new to flight based games so I only understand the cardinal points but then i get confused by attacking all the enemies in that direction and the mission usually fails. I am on the 5th mission now (the first night one) the one you mentioned, I keep crashing into stuff or i get carried away with not knowing what to attack as they usually mention the enenmy units by their names. If i attack the red targets on the radar and only focus on them would it work? i am playing on the easiest difficulty :p

So, Orange targets are higher value, point-wise than white ones. Not necessarilly the threat.

So, a quick cheatsheet

Ground Escort - Protect from attackers, strike fighters, bombers, helicopters, howitzers and rocket artillery;

F-2A, Mirage 2000, Su-25SM, Su-34, A-10, A-6E, F-15E, B-2, B-1, Tu-160, Tu-95 and Mi-24

Air Escort - Protect from fighters, interceptors and AA / SAM sites.

MiG-31B, MiG-29A, Su-47, Su-57, Mirage 2000, Typhoon, F/A-18

I'm sure there are others but these are the ones off the top of my head.

There are really only two things to be aware of:

First, mission-critical targets will have red outlines on your radar. For the most part, you'll win the mission once you take those out, so if you're having difficulty clearing a mission, try to avoid wasting time on non-critical targets (those are just indicated with white icons on the radar).

Mission-critical targets will also have red text reading "TGT" next to the HUD element outlining them.

Second, you need to pay attention to the radio chatter for context. That's how you'll know when objectives change, or when you need to focus more on defending allies than attacking enemies. There's one mission, for example, where you need to protect an allied plane from a variety of threats, including handheld rocket-launchers that will appear and disappear from your sensors -- so that's a case where if you're *only* looking at the HUD for objectives, and aren't paying attention to the radio chatter, you'll probably wind up straying too far away from the allied plane you're escorting to take out the other threats, leaving them vulnerable to the handheld missile launchers that don't reliably appear on sensors.

And when there are multiple critical targets on a given map, the radio chatter will generally provide you with the context you'll need to know which ones to prioritize. Like if they're talking about bombers dropping their payload on your allies, you should probably be focusing on shooting down those bombers, instead of taking out the enemy interceptors or tanks or whatever.

That's basically it. If you're having difficulty maneuvering, or dogfighting in general (and if you're not now, you will) you'll want to change the controls from "novice" to "expert" sooner rather than later. It takes some time to get used to the basic flight mechanics, but once you do, it'll quickly become ingrained in muscle memory and you won't really need to think about what you're doing.

thanks so much guys! i am gonna focus on the TGT stuff too. The radio comms told me that the north troops were getting attacked but i had just cleared that area before the comm came in, as noob its kind of confusing and overwhelming, i love it though!

Not gonna lie, the game does suffer from TMI on your screen. I don't blame you from getting confused. Latter missions are very cluttered with target markers.

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

Not gonna lie, the game does suffer from TMI on your screen. I don't blame you from getting confused. Latter missions are very cluttered with target markers.

heh yeah its very overwhelming at first as the game difficulty just spikes! but I am getting a hand of it now, thanks to the tips provided! I just cleared the mission

Awesome!

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

Awesome!

thanks again :D
and everyone else :)

I hope it doesnt sound rude, but did you read all the tutorial pop up text in mission 1? Radar, targets icons and so on? That cover your main question.
Red icons within a circle on your radar means priority targets. They also show in your HUD with a red TGT text close to them. Destroy them or the mission will fail.
Red icons means high value/agressive targets. They can become a problem if left alone.
White icons are low priority/secondary targets. Be careful, tho, since some of them can make some damage in your allies, specially in escort missions.

For the feeling of being overwhelmed, I believe it's part of gameplay design. You are "the ace", its your job to go against the odds. Bring the right plane and weapons, maximize your fllght to hit most targets possible in a single pass and pay attention to the radio and radar.

And dont feel ashamed to play on lower difficulty if you get stuck. Its your game.

Originally posted by Kanye West:

thanks so much guys! i am gonna focus on the TGT stuff too. The radio comms told me that the north troops were getting attacked but i had just cleared that area before the comm came in, as noob its kind of confusing and overwhelming, i love it though!

It could be they are being attacked by artillery targets further inland. For mission 5 when that call comes in focus on the land targets.

General order of priority (assuming you aren't point farming optional targets):
1. Targets marked TGT
2. Anything called out via radio. Often these are units attacking the units you are escorting. For example, in mission 5, these would be attacker aircraft like the F-2A, Su-25, and Su-34, and multirole aircraft like Mirage 2000. Also any ground target like howitzers or rocket launchers.
3. Darker red units on the minimap, as these are worth more points.

Originally posted by BobTank63:

Originally posted by Kanye West:

thanks so much guys! i am gonna focus on the TGT stuff too. The radio comms told me that the north troops were getting attacked but i had just cleared that area before the comm came in, as noob its kind of confusing and overwhelming, i love it though!

It could be they are being attacked by artillery targets further inland. For mission 5 when that call comes in focus on the land targets.

General order of priority (assuming you aren't point farming optional targets):
1. Targets marked TGT
2. Anything called out via radio. Often these are units attacking the units you are escorting. For example, in mission 5, these would be attacker aircraft like the F-2A, Su-25, and Su-34, and multirole aircraft like Mirage 2000. Also any ground target like howitzers or rocket launchers.
3. Darker red units on the minimap, as these are worth more points.

paying attention to the red markers makes it easier to know what they're on about thanks for all the tips