User:SlyCooperFan1/Infinity Ace Seminar/Online Co-Op Missions

The real meat of Ace Combat Infinity is here, in Online Co-Op Missions. Eight players separate into two teams of four, and each player tries to destroy as many targets on the map as they can. They're fighting for their own personal score, the team score, and the overall mission score. It's crazy, fast-paced, and a lot of fun, so let's get started!

Three Ways
Did you know... there are three ways to get into the fray? Joining a quick match, searching for a room with specific parameters, and creating your own room. And you? It's all up to you on how you want to jump in.

Quick Match will search for the next available lobby and show you its information, allowing you to enter or decline. Search Room will allow you to search for rooms with certain criteria. Finally, Create Room will allow you to create your own room.

If creating your own room, you'll notice some of these settings:
 * Matching Rate - Your matching rate (a four-digit number larger than 1000 and at most 2000, shown on the right in a lobby) is technically your skill level. When setting the Matching Rate when creating a room, "Standard" is the most restrictive, allowing people close to your skill level to join the room. As the restriction gets wider, people with much higher and much lower skill levels than yours can join. If you set "No Restriction", players with any skill level can join.
 * Private Room - This allows you to set the room as private when creating it to invite your friends, ensure they get a spot, and then open the room to the public to fill up the remaining spots. Turning this off will make the room public as soon as it's created.
 * Room Policy - This is used to set the tone of the room and what the players in this room should expect. When players use the Search Room function, they can search for a specific policy to find the specific kind of gameplay experience they're looking for.

While in a lobby, you can go into the Hangar and check your Challenges just like in the Main Menu. Be warned that if you're accessing the PlayStation Store when the lobby countdown to sortie hits 0, you will be kicked out!

Also available in the lobby are pre-set chat messages to send into a chat box. All players can utilize this chat functionality. Additionally, if you have a microphone plugged into your PS3, you can use voice chat with other players. If you want to mute other peoples' voice chat, you can press the Triangle button in the lobby to mute all other players.

You can also modify your Instant Radio Messages in the Hangar, which are pre-set chat messages you can send while flying in the game. To navigate the list during gameplay, press the right directional button, and then use up and down to select a message. You can either press the right directional pad button once to send the message to all of your teammates, or hold down the button to send the message to all players on both teams.

Making the Donuts
In Infinity, there are two broad categories of enemy units: ground targets and air targets.

Ground targets include Surface-to-Air Missile launchers (SAMs), anti-aircraft (AA) guns, buildings, and ships. They are numerous and relatively easy to destroy due to their lack of mobility, but generally provide lower rewards than similarly-leveled air targets.

Air targets include helicopters, planes, cruise missiles, and UAVs. They are generally harder to destroy than ground targets, and are a little less common, but end up providing larger point totals per unit.

As a rule of thumb, if you are flying an aircraft that is more oriented towards ground attack, like an Attacker or a Multirole with an air-to-ground special weapon, it is a better idea to focus on ground targets. On the inverse, if you're flying a Fighter or a Multirole with an air-to-air special weapon, it is not advisable to spend too much time on ground targets, since you will have a harder time damaging them; you would want to focus on destroying air units instead. but rather focus on shooting down air units instead.

Additionally, you'll notice some interesting arrows next to the target indicators on your HUD. If there's a blue arrow pointing to a target, that means another ally on your team is also going for that target, and one of you might want to split off and engage a different one. If there's a white arrow pointing to a target, that means a player on the other team is going for the kill, and you need to act fast if you want it. If there's a red arrow pointing away from the target, that means it's firing on an ally on your team, and if you destroy it, you'll earn bonus points for both you and your teammate.

Point Value Tiers
All enemy targets in the game fall into three general tiers, depending on how many points they reward when destroyed. A target's tier is represented by the color of its blip on your radar.


 * Low Value: Denoted by a yellow blip on your radar map. These targets are the most numerous and the easiest to destroy, but consequently provide the lowest number of points in return. Generally you should not waste time hunting these, but rather engage them if they are directly in your path or are the only ones left. Targets in this tier yield anywhere from 100 to 999 points.
 * Moderate Value:  Denoted by an orange blip. These are generally a solid way to earn points, as they yield at least 1000 points per unit, but are balanced by being harder to find than yellow targets and just slightly more difficult to destroy.
 * High Value:  Denoted by a red blip. High value targets are also denoted by an red "SP" icon next to the target box on your HUD. High value targets are the most difficult to find and destroy, but they provide huge payouts if you destroy them, upwards of 2000 points per unit. If you get the chance to engage one of these, take it. However, make sure you're using the right aircraft; you won't be able to shoot down a high value air target using an Attacker, for example. Additionally, be quick, as other players in the match will be searching for these targets as well.

Enemy Units
That's it for all of the general information of Online Co-Op Missions. Now let's get into all of the different units you'll encounter. There are lots of different units, but these are the ones you'd want to pay attention to.

Air

 * MiG-29A / Rafale M / Typhoon / YF-23: All of these aircraft can outmaneuver and outpace a lot of the playable aircraft in the game, so proceed with caution when engaging them.
 * F-22/PAK FA: These are the toughest of the enemy fighters. They have the highest speed, the highest defense, and the highest mobility. They can dodge your missiles easily and will send you racing across the map. They're always marked as high value targets.
 * SR-71: The Blackbird has only been seen in Pipeline Destruction, if the emergency mission update is completed fast enough. It appears to the south of the map, at a very high altitude. If you've got a Fighter aircraft and you see a red blip on the southern edge of the radar after completing the emergency update, race to its position to shoot it down!

Ground

 * AA guns: One cannon hit from an AA gun on your plane won't shoot you down, but if you're flying too close to the ground where a lot of AA guns are placed, you may find yourself shot down in a few seconds. If you're flying too close to the ground, make sure to watch out for these little buggers or destroy them yourself.
 * Gunboats: Pretty much AA guns on water. Similarly, beware these if they're all in one group.
 * SAMs: The SAM launchers will fire a missile upon you or other players on the first chance they'll get. Your HUD will notify you if a missile is inbound. If you're fighting ground targets, SAMs aren't a high value target, but enough of them could give you a lot of points. Plus, it pays to defend your teammates if they're being fired on. If you're fighting air targets, make sure to keep an eye on any inbound missiles.
 * MSSL Boats: Just like gunboats, these are SAMs on water.
 * XSAMs: Joining us from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation, XSAMs are simply advanced versions of SAMs. They can fire a little farther, and their missiles can do a lot of damage. They're also moderate value targets - you may want to consider taking these down if they pop up, usually in the second half of a mission.
 * AD Tanks: Air defense tanks are AA guns and SAMs in one package. They are high value targets, so players will be gunning for these. Be very careful when flying close to them, because they can shoot you down quickly if you're not careful.
 * Hovercraft:  An air cushion landing craft. These carry two AA guns that you can't target, and fall into the moderate value tier. They can be easily destroyed compared to other moderate value targets, so it would be worth some time to hunt these down if they're on the map.
 * Corvette: Corvettes carry an AA gun that can't be targeted, and sometimes fire missiles. They are marked as moderate value, and are the easiest to sink of the large ships.
 * MSSL Hovercrafts: Hovercraft with a targetable SAM that you should destroy first before taking down the entire hovercraft to earn more points. They are high value targets and a little more notorious thanks to the SAM.
 * Landing ship: An amphibious landing ship equipped with a targetable "ship gun" that will engage you. Try to destroy the gun before sinking the ship for more points. These are high value targets.
 * Destroyer: Equipped with a SAM launcher, destroyers are worth slightly less than landing ships and are marked as a moderate value target, but the SAM launcher provides an extra target to engage.
 * AEGIS: Anti-aircraft cruisers equipped with twin VLS systems that fire XSAM type missiles... these are dangerous ships that should be engaged with caution. They are worth 4000 points for the ship itself, with the VLS systems giving more points.
 * Cruiser:  These have a massive number of secondary targets in addition to the ship itself.  The targets are: 2 Ship Guns, a SAM launcher, and a Radar.  Cruisers are extremely rare, and you should take every chance you get to engage one.
 * Aircraft Carrier: One of the rarest and largest of the ships. The carrier can take a massive amount of fire, but does not fire back that much. Regardless, it is a high value target, and should be engaged as soon as it is spotted.
 * Battle Cruiser:  The other massive flagship.  It is found on Aerospace Center Defense after the mission update, but does not always appear.  It is a high value target and is extremely dangerous to approach, carrying two VLS systems and a ship gun, in addition to being able to take a similar amount of punishment as an Aircraft Carrier.