You've recently bought Falcon MC and have been playing it on your Mac in its full 16 color splendor. After a brief interlude to take care of such petty things like personal hygiene, jobs, food and family, you return to your Mac, start Falcon MC and commence a campaign. The first mission is simple: take out the T-80 tanks before they take you out.
Your F-16 rockets down the runway and claws its way into the sky, hauling enough high explosive to make any pyromaniac shiver. After a brief flight at 10,000 feet, you spot your targets, three T-80s advancing in a wedge. Rolling inverted, you dive on them, as described in the Falcon MC manual and lock onto the lead tank with an AGM-65B Maverick. The missile leaps of the rail and accelerates towards the hapless target. At the same time your threat indicator warns you of an impending missile launch. Forgetting about the Maverick (which is continuing on its merry way), you pull 9 Gs as you search for the incoming SA-7. This time you are lucky, and spot the missile in time to evade it.
Climbing above the SAM-7's service ceiling, you prepare to attack the tanks yet again. "Groundhog" never confirmed the results of your first attack so you suspect that the Maverick missed. Just as you spot the tanks and prepare to perform another attack, the AWACS controller warns you that bandits are inbound. Just as you turn to locate the incoming MiG-29s, your TWI lights up, warning of multiple radar guided missile launches. You scan the sky frantically for the incoming missiles and spot them a millisecond before the combined explosions of two warheads blow you and your F-16 into an expanding cloud of debris.
Does this scenario sound familiar? Wondering how you can complete a full campaign or more with one pilot and not get blown out of the sky? Curious about what weapons ought to be used when? Well, read on and take some notes.
Combining Missions. Falcon MC revolves around a campaign of twelve linked missions. The outcome of the campaign depends on the successful completion of all twelve missions. Fortunately, the manual describes one possible way to complete all the missions and finish the campaign. Unfortunately this doesn't really take the enemy forces' rebuilding capacity into account. Most targets can be repaired in a matter of days with possible dire consequences to your campaign efforts. All is not lost, though, because there is no rule that states that you must fly all twelve missions in the order they are listed in, nor is it stated that you have to fly all twelve missions to complete the campaign. It is possible to combine missions through intelligent planning to reduce the amount of time you need to spend in hostile airspace and to reduce the amount of time necessary to defeat the enemy forces.
Some missions are prime candidates for being combined. These are listed below:
1). Rolling Thunder & Duck Shoot. Why just take out the tanks when you
can also take out the next wave of tanks while they are still on the
vulnerable landing craft? After making one pass at the tanks, you have
plenty of time to strafe the shore-bound landing craft and then return to
defeat the remaining tanks. Following this strategy then gives you a 2-3
day window where no tanks will threaten your airbase. Still, it would be
nice to expand this window.
 
2). So you then combine Route 66 and Dragon's Jaw. Since you have to fly
along the road to take out the truck convoy, why not take along an extra
Maverick and take the bridge out? Not only will the current convoy of
supply laden trucks be permanently delayed, but with the bridge out, you
gain another few days where you can concentrate on other targets.
 
3). Similarly, you might consider combining Iron Snake and Dragon's Tail.
Why? Well, taking the train out is a good thing, since it will prevent
landing craft from launching more assaults on your base. The enemy
appears to have an endless supply of trains, though, so they'll keep
coming unless you put a kink in the tracks. The easiest section to kink
(and the only one, since Falcon MC won't let you use the Durandals to ruin
train tracks) is the rail bridge. All that is required is that after strafing
the train, you drop either a pair of Mk-84s or a GBU-12 on the bridge.
This will stop rail traffic for a while, and you can fly past the destroyed
bridge on subsequent missions and look at the train waiting for its repair
(or you can blow it away).
 
4). The final logical combination is Hornet's Nest and Fireball. To reach
the fuel tanks in Fireball you have to fly past the airfield so why not
drop a few Durandals on the way over? The fuel depot can be torched
using the 20 mm cannon or Mavericks, with the cannon costing less in
terms of drag and weight.
 
If you follow the plan above, you only require three more missions to complete a campaign. Decommission the power plant, destroy the factory and blow away the arsenal and you are done. You might notice that I have not mentioned the Wild Weasel missions. The reason for this is that they waste valuable time. Sure, you can fly them to collect the ribbon, but you can also hit SAM sites and other targets enroute to and from your primary targets. This is where the next aspect of successfully completing a campaign, the mission planning, comes into play. Look for Part Two of Falcon MC Campaign Strategies next month in the March issue of Inside Mac Games. Until then, watch your six! :->
