I noticed while scanning our website reports that not many people have looked at the mission information before flying. Either a lot of people do not play the game or they play it like Ms. Pacman. YAP takes a little information to enjoy fully.

So I am going post a Before Action Report and a During Action Report. The After Action Report is up in that section.

I chose the mission from the MSN 1120 announcement: 670427 Song Cau Smugglers. A guy at Burbank Airport and I were talking. He said he flew Scooters out of Chu Lai and that's where a couple of stories came from.

Let's say you select this mission to fly. Then the next thing you need to do is go to YAP's website and log in.

Then select the mission set. In this case, 1120.

Then scroll down to the mission. There are 3 tabs: Briefing, Target Area and Mission Map.



You click on Briefing. When it opens, you might want to Right Click and save it to your desktop.



So it says that you are flying an A-4F for VMA 223 from Chu Lai. You have rockets and snakeyes and are going to meet Dallas FAC at the target area. You are flying as #2 and Lead will meet you at the runway. Some history. Some tips about how to do a turning rejoin easier. Picture of the squadron patch. Okay. Enough. Let's click on Target Area:



Google Earth. That's the real place where the boats and men were spotted on the beach. Let's see if it looks that way in the game...roughly. Now tilt it some and spin it around to the way we are coming in. Some hills around the area. Airport so their will be traffic.

Now let's look at a map from that time. Okay. Got it. Let's go fly.

After I select the mission, I can check the Planning Map. It shows our programmed route of flight. The more you know about where you are, the less confusion...



Just like the briefing said. We are going to go south down the coast to a place on the beach. Okay, exit to the Preflight Screen. Info there also:



Weights, speeds, blah blah...there it is at the bottom. Special controls for this particular airplane. I don't need to refuel but I do need to let in some air. 5 will open and close the canopy on the A-4F.

That takes care of BEFORE. How about DURING?

Any time you want, you can ALT-P for Pause. Then ALT-TAB and you are temporarily out of the game. And there...right on your desktop like I suggested...is your briefing:



It's a lot to do but we didn't want to create a First Person Shooter named MiG Killer (That's what I have set for Instant Action, by the way.) And we didn't want to do a Fantasy Roll Playing game called What If the Israeli Air Force Fought The Hittite Air Force in 2000 BC? (Would they wear G-togas?) We wanted to let people relive a story.

If you go through the steps (not all of them and not every time) we think you will focus on the mission and make the Leap of Faith required to enjoy YAP to the fullest.

Now go up to the AAR's and see if I managed to get there and back without embarrassing myself.

BTW, I love this mission. It is a very realistic likeness of a routine strike. Uncanny how TK's engine makes it different every time. I have no idea why Lead doesn't get very interested. Maybe he has a rat bite from living at Chu Lai.

Perhaps it's that old Marine Corps training, but you told us this was the way to do it correctly from the beginning and that's the way I have been doing it. Sometimes it really pays to listen to the Ops guys no matter how far you think they sometimes have their heads up their butts. Simply kicking the tires, lighting the fires and going about blowing things up is enjoyable, but then that what Strikefighters Project 2 is for. Hooot! Let's go rain some death and destruction on the bad guys.

John,

I'm glad you posted this up.

Being the "anal retentive pilot" type. This is one of my favorite parts of the "new" YAP! This is incredible! Being able to gather this much info before you launch makes this heads and shoulders above what we're used to (at least from TK and gang). I LOVE the GoogleEarth ability....brilliant.

Thanks again,

BBall

Ahhhh, blimey, the briefings.......this is where I'm going wrong [I'd forgot all about them].....yes I really was flying on waypoints alone & hoping for the best.

btw.....some of the text is a little hard to read on some of them.

Ant,

The brief opens in a new window (XP). Place your cursor on the lower right corner of the brief and you can expand the pic. Or save it to wherever and open it with say windows picture viewer and you can enlarge it.

Tried that Mike, the actual briefing wont enlarge [I'm at 1680x1050 res] & when I enlarge it in photoshop, well, its better but not the ideal solution, most of them are fine, but some [eg Tet Offensive Hue ] are pretty poor, the font just does not seem to be the same on all of them.

Good jobs guys, I'm loving it!

It's not. I have 3 versions of Courier and only one works right. I just cannot remember which one it is.