In Combat Mission, coalition forces are tasked to clear five consecutive objectives to win and the insurgents must stop them at any cost. As objectives are cleared new areas of the map open up to reveal what coalition needs to do next. Watch the Team Health meter which represents coalition reinforcements. If it’s depleted before the current objective is cleared the match ends and coalition forces are stopped in their tracks.
This game mode is played on three maps with five objectives on each for the attackers to clear. Objectives are varying and tied to a story line, e.g. secure a downed chopper or eliminate a mortar station. Combat Mission is its own game mode playlist on the front screen.
RULES
In Combat Mission one team takes on the role of attackers and one team the role of defenders. After each round the teams assignments are switched, so players attack one round and defend one round. Fictionally the coalition soldiers are always the attackers and insurgents are always the defenders.
As the coalition moves through the map they are tasked with varying objectives that they need to clear to continue and ultimately win. There are two types of objective logic used to clear these. They are respectively an arm/disarm mechanic and a secure mechanic. The arm/disarm require attackers to arm an objective (with explosives or similar) and which the defenders can then disarm, forcing attackers to rearm. After a certain time an armed objective will trigger, making the game move on to the next objective in the chain. The secure objective tasks the attackers with staying within a certain area long enough to capture it. The more attackers in the radius the quicker it goes, but defenders in the area will counteract this making it slower. When captured the game moves on to the next objective.
The UI will clearly indicate what type of action is required, e.g. “Press and hold X to arm explosive” or “Stay within target for five seconds to secure area”. Arm objectives are mostly used to plant explosives while Secure forces the attackers to “own” an area for a certain amount of time by clearing it from enemies.
As mentioned, if the attackers manage to clear an objective the game continues to the next objective in line. This is linear and objectives must be taken in the predefined order. As the attackers clear objectives the gameplay area of the map moves, with areas being closed off and opened up.
The goal for the attackers is to clear all five objectives and the defenders must simply stop them. The attackers team have a predefined team health, or number of respawns and whenever a player is killed a little health is depleted. If the attacking team runs out of health before finishing the current leg of the objective chain they will lose the whole match. Whenever they manage to trigger, or clear, an objective, they gain some team health back.
If the Attackers, or coalition forces, manage to clear all objectives they have won the round. If the defenders, or insurgents, manage to stop them they have won.
COMBAT MISSION SPAWNING
Combat Mission uses an automatic spawn system that measures the playing field and uses a predetermined set of rules to find the best spot for a player to rejoin the battle. In other words, when a player spawns in he will just press one of two buttons. For insurgents, or defenders, this is always a predetermined point on the map. Coalition, or attackers, on the other hand, uses a more complex logic to keep them in play close to the objectives.
All soldiers on the coalition side are invisibly joined to four man units, or fire teams. These are in no way communicated to the player, but they are used to pick good places to spawn on. During the spawn process the player will see through a spawn camera what the situation looks like and whether spawning on a member is a good idea or not. If the system can’t find a valid player as a target it will default to spawn the player in his/her home base, which is simply a predetermined place on the map.
MAPS
Combat Mission uses its own custom maps which are larger than the maps of any other game mode and custom built for the flow and narrative.
