Ok, do you have to do these things all by yourself, or would it count if you do it as a team? For example, I can de-ack a town using rockets all by myself. But to kill a VH with rockets by myself would require three trips in my P-38.
As Popeye, who flies as "Kong" in The 47 Ronin noted, it was/is a "flight vs flight" competition.
While the main theme is simply to "have fun", it is also a good tool for squadron commanders to use
to help aid in developing comraderie and basic leadership principles within a squad.
Many of the items on the card can be accomplished by a single pilot; others require a team effort.
As well, a good number can be accomplished on the same sortie. For example, on the first sortie,
"Gold Flight" racked up -7- of the objectives, which I personally thought guaranteed that
flight victory. That however, was not the case.
With about 15 minutes remaining "Red Flight" was declared the winner, with a final "score" of 25-14.
When the first one was run 6 months ago, both flights used our standard vox channel. Brevity
went out the window, and laughter, hooting, howling, taunting, and lots of purposeful "disinformation"
played out. This time, we had each flight on a separate vox channel. This made it less distracting,
but a bit less fun than having everyone on the same vox channel. So, in future, we'll revert back
to the original "everybody on squad vox" system.
"PINGO" is just one of the things I'm using to try and keep things interesting and fun within
the 47 Ronin. Another is "The Emperor's Challenge".
http://www.the-47-ronin.org/The-Emperors-Challenge/Emperors-Challenge-May2016.htmThe First Emperor's Challenge was "get one kill in -every- fighter in Aces High over the course
of a two month period.
Why two months? Because everybody in the squad doesn't spend countless hours in Aces High
and I wanted it achieveable by the vast majority of my pile-its. It was a rousing success
and the guys had a lot of fun with it. As well, it got a lot of 'em out of their "comfort
zone" and they developed a decent "feel" for various fighters in the game beyond
what they perhaps usually fly.
The Second Emperor's Challenge was to get -50- kills while piloting Japanese fighters.
The kills had to be "air to air". ie: bombing/strafing GVs did not count. That also
was a lot of fun. That particular challenge was initially to be accomplished over the course
of a single tour. However, one of my guys got tied up with some "real world" issues,
and asked for a one-week extension. So, I extended it to a five week period for the
entire squad as that seemed only fair.
Given the dynamics of the Late War Arena, there are basically very few "options"
a squadron CO has to engage in group themed "missions". At its core it is
comprised of "furballing" and "capturing a field/base/port". (In general, I stay
away from "strat runs" as I find them too lengthy, often requiring a length of
6-8 sectors to get to the target, which pretty much places it squarely in the "boring"
category.) This being the case, it's good to break things up with "something different";
which is where "PINGO" and "The Emperor's Challenge come into play.
We also utilize "campaign ribbons" within the squadron.
http://www.the-47-ronin.org/Ribbons-page/UntitledFrameset-10.htmThese were extant long before the Aces High "achievements", but work similarly in that "goals"
are provided and pilots are free to try and "achieve" them or not. Some are
easy, others are not. The standards for each are such that all pilots within
the squadron are capable of earning a number of them.
Some are based on "tour" stats:
http://www.the-47-ronin.org/tours-of-duty/UntitledFrameset-5.htmwhile others are based on sorties flown over the course of the previous week:
http://www.the-47-ronin.org/weekly-divine-winds/weekly-divine-winds-main.htm The "bottom line" is to have fun and to try and keep things interesting for each and
every pilot who is actively flying. I don't always succeed in that goal, but as CO,
I give it my best shot.
Regards, Odd
