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General Tips: The most important thing when first playing Heroes of the Pacific is to actually complete the training missions. There are five training missions, and they take you through all of the skills you’ll need during the game: Learning to Fly, Advanced Flight and Combat, Wingman Training, Dive-Bombing Training, and Torpedo Training. It’s much easier to learn each of these skills in the calm of the training missions than under enemy fire during a real mission. Basic Flying There are a few general rules for basic flight in Heroes of the Pacific: Dogfighting Once you can actually fly your plane comfortably, you need to be able to dogfight. Dogfighting can be divided into a few discrete techniques: Shooting, Manoeuvring, and Strategy. Shooting is relatively self-explanatory; it’s the process of putting the lead into the other guy’s plane. The keys to effective shooting are the range of your guns and to lead your target properly, Heroes of the Pacific makes both of these easy. The target distance indicator at the bottom right corner of the screen shows the distance to your currently highlighted enemy target. Generally, your guns are effective to about 1000-1200 metres (3000-3500ft). Once your enemy is within this range, your bullets should be able to hit him or her. The next thing to do is to lead your target. Because your bullets take time to travel the distance to your target, that plane probably isn’t going to be in the same position anymore if you don’t lead them correctly. The key here is to shoot where your target is going to be, rather than where he or she is already at. Again Heroes makes this easy by changing the colour of your target reticule when you’re correctly leading your target. So when you see that crosshair turn red, it’s time to start firing! Now that you can actually shoot your enemies, you need to know the best techniques for engaging them. Most of the planes that you’ll be dogfighting in Heroes have guns that face straight forward, so they are most vulnerable to attack from behind. However, most engagements start with a head-to-head charge, where both planes can fire on each other. This is okay if you have much stronger guns than your opponent, be if you’re evenly matched or if you are weaker, then this type of attack should be avoided. Therefore, instead of engaging enemy fighters directly from the front, try flying to one side of them, and then turn in to attack when they’re about 45° in front of you. Using this technique, you can attack the enemy plane from the side, and then ease in behind it as it passes. When flying a US fighter against a Japanese fighter, you’ll sometimes find yourself in a tight turnfight. If you’re lucky neither of you will be able to get onto the other’s tail. If you’re unlucky, the Japanese fighter will be more manoeuvrable and it’ll slowly come around behind you. In these situations the best strategy is to break from the engagement and ‘extend away’ to put some distance between you and the enemy, then turn around and re-engage. In these uneven fights you need to use your plane’s strengths against the enemy’s weaknesses. If you’re in a US fighter, your strengths will be armor and speed. The Japanese fighters generally have stronger guns and are more manoeuvrable. Targeting and Controls Heroes of the Pacific provides you with a set of player controls designed to help you to locate and eliminate your enemies. The first thing you’ll notice is that Heroes automatically targets Mission Objectives for you. These Mission Objectives are always indicated by a yellow arrow. Shoot down a plane with a Mission Objective marker (the yellow indicator) and the next objective is automatically targeted for you. Heroes of the Pacific also has controls that allow you to target the closest Mission Objective, and the Closest Plane. Both of these functions are useful for finding targets that aren’t in your field of view (i.e. a plane that’s on you tail, or has just flown past in front of you). The next player control function to get proficient with is Weapon Zoom. This function allows you to more accurately aim at distant targets. The default setting for Weapon Zoom is a toggle on/off, so pressing the button once zooms in, pressing it again returns to your normal zoom. When playing on the PS2, I find that Weapon Zoom works better when set to Hold Down, instead of Toggle On/Off (this doesn’t apply to the Xbox, where the button layout is different). With it set to Hold Down, you can basically press R1 and R2 at the same time, so you zoom in as you fire. The last important thing about the Weapon Zoom function is to remember to turn it off again when your enemy gets close! The final player control function that you may want to learn is Look To Target. This button, when pressed, moves the camera so that you can see your enemy’s position in relation to your plane. This situational awareness is important when your target is behind you and you need to decide how to manoeuvre to get back behind him or her. Some players can actually play the game with this camera function activated all the time, which is pretty impressive… Advanced Dogfighting - Energy Fighting The technique of energy fighting applies in Heroes of the Pacific as it does in real life. The key principle of this technique is the science of potential energy, and the ability to convert height into speed. When energy fighting correctly, you should constantly trade the potential energy of your height for kinetic energy of speed, and then speed back for height. In practical terms, this means that you should approach your enemy from a position of height (with as much speed as possible), and then dive down at him or her to attack. After your attack you should immediately climb again, converting your accumulated speed back into height. Weapons and Ammo The primary and secondary weapons use a temperature gauge to represent their ability to fire. Hold down the fire button too long and the weapon will overheat, becoming progressively less powerful. The heat accumulation of your weapons is affected by the difficulty level, so on easy you can fire for ages, but on Ace, your weapons heat up much more quickly. Each of the planes in Heroes has its authentic weapon load-out from the war, so their strengths and weaknesses are as they were during the war. The main weapons on these planes were: The basic difference between machineguns and cannon is that machinegun bullets are solid metal, whereas the cannon shells are filled with explosive materials. This means that the machinegun bullets become less damaging as they slow down at long range, but the cannon shells retain their explosive damage, even at extreme range. On paper, the larger calibre weapons (like the big 47mm cannon) sound like the most powerful weapons in the game. However, you need to look at damage per second to see the true effectiveness of the weapons (because it takes into account the weapon’s fire rate as well). The damage per second values for the planes in Heroes of the Pacific range from just over one hundred for the base Warhawk all the way up to more than one thousand for the most powerful planes. The planes that combine the best damage per second with good armor and manoeuvrability include: These are the planes that you want to use in online dogfights… Checkpoints If you’re in a mission and you’re low on health, don’t give up. If you reach a Checkpoint, and then subsequently die, you’ll be restarted at the Checkpoint with at least 50% health. This is a nice little earner, and ensures you can always complete a mission from the Checkpoint. Attacking Ships Perhaps the hardest types of enemy units to attack in Heroes are the ships and carriers. These things are floating islands, bristling with guns and covered in thick armor plating. The trick to attacking ships is to use the right plane for the job. Generally, torpedo-bombers are better against carriers, and dive-bombers are better against battleships and cruisers. You can also use fighters to attack ships, but their GP bombs do less than half the damage that a special-purpose dive-bomb can inflict. The one advantage of using a fighter, or the upgraded Dauntless dive-bomber, is that they have rockets. Rockets are especially useful for individually knocking out small zones on the ships (such as the bridge), and they can usually be fitted to planes along with bombs. With this rocket/bomb combination (set up in the Workshop), you can use rockets as you approach the ship, and then switch to bombs as you pass it, maximising your use of explosive ordnance. Mission Progress Depending on your skill level (and patience) you should be able to find a difficulty level where you can comfortably play through Campaign mode in Heroes. But even the best players sometimes get stuck sometimes, so if you do find yourself having trouble completing a mission, try playing it on a lower difficulty level or even with a different plane. There’s no penalty for doing this and you can change your difficulty level back for the next mission. The important thing is to get through the missions in the first place, not to kill yourself against a mission that’s too hard on a higher difficulty level. Difficulty Levels The four difficulty levels in Heroes of the Pacific affect more than just how hard the game is to play. When you complete missions, the number of Upgrade Points that you earn is dependent on the difficulty level. So if you complete a mission on Rookie, you only get 1 Upgrade Point, but completing the same mission on Ace earns a whooping 6 Upgrade Points! Secondary Objectives Every Campaign mission in Heroes has at least one, and sometimes two, Secondary Objectives. These objectives are usually time or situation dependent; for example Secondary Objective at Pearl Harbor asks you to intercept a formation of torpedo-bombers before they can launch their torpedos. Secondary Objectives are worth completing because they earn you an extra Upgrade Point. If you’re having trouble completing these on the higher difficulty levels, then you can drop back to Rookie or Pilot for the Secondary Objective. Complete them all, and you’ve earned yourself an extra thirty or so Upgrade Points. Upgraded Planes By now you’re probable wondering what to do with all these Upgrade Points. The answer’s simple: SPEND THEM! Almost all of the planes in Heroes can be upgraded to better and badder versions. The base versions of planes that you unlock as you progress through the missions are the proverbial tip of the iceberg, representing just a third of the total number of planes in the game. The rest of the planes are there to be purchased, for the right price. If you’re playing through the Campaign mode the first time, you’ll want to spend most of your upgrade points on the core set of US fighters, and the primary US torpedo-bomber and dive-bomber. These planes are: Warhawk, Wildcat, Corsair, Lightning, Hellcat, Bearcat, Avenger, and Dauntless. The most cost-effective upgrades are for the planes that you’ll be using for the most missions; Corsair, Lightning, and Hellcat. Each of these planes is used in at least four missions. The best technique for maximising your Upgrade Points is to complete the first missions of the game on the highest difficulty possible without spending any of your points. If you can use this technique to get through Pearl Harbor and Wake Island on Pilot difficulty, by the time you get to Marshall Islands (and unlock the Corsair), you’ll have at least 8 upgrade points. If you completed just one Secondary Objective, you’ll have enough Upgrade Points to upgrade the Corsair F4U-1 to the F4U-1D and then to the F4U-4, which has a cool paintjob and rockets! The final trick is to take this plane into Mission Mode and re-complete the Pearl Harbor and Wake Island missions on Ace with this powerful plane. Before you know it, you’ll be swimming in Upgrade Points, and you may even be able to upgrade each new plane as you are awarded it… Page 1 |
