Mission Durations

[seabat]

I understand that AH 2 will allow/require players to experience the complete aspect of wartime missions, from briefings, to flight to target, attack, and return to base.  

Would the time from start to finish of these missions be similar to the mission durations in a scenario?  I was just wondering what kinda of time commitment will be necessary for the player to continue with his/her career.

[Saurdaukar]

Good question.  Gotta find a mix between the hardcore "I wanna spend 4 hours in a briefing" types and the wuusy "I only have 10 minutes to fly" types.  

I imagine that mission time will be dependant on mission importance to a degree.  A fighter sweep for example is pretty self explanitory - where as a 1,000 buff raid might take a little time to "plan."

[Midnight]

I would hope that the "I only have 10 minutes to fly" crowd will keep themselves in the MA. If I am working on keeping a certain persona "alive" in the theator, I don't want to have to rely on someone that showed up 2 seconds before mission launch expecting to fly to glory in 10 minutes.

My hope is there will be many missions of varying durations and complexities. Something like

1. Short Missions (Launch every 30 minutes)
    A. Offensive - Fly to target X, JaBo, come home.
    B. Offensive - Search and Destroy (find and kill enemy planes in patrol area)
    C. Defensive - Combat Air Patrol - defend this target from suspected attacks.

2. Medium Missions (Launch 1 per hour)
    A. Offensive - Fly medium bombers to target X. Bomb and Come Home. Escort fighters included.
    B. Recon - FLy this partol route.. report findings

3. Long Missions (Launch 1 every 2 hours)
    A. Offensive - Fly heavy bombers to target X (enemy HQ or City). Bomb and come home. Escort fighters included.

Some missions should be short and sweet, while some should be long and have many potential complications. This should give all pilots a chance to experience ToD on the level that they can participate.