The basic idea behind "Objective play" is that the premise of two naval platforms with orders to destroy each other (aka deathmatch) is flawed.

In an armed conflict, what happens is that one ship has orders to do one thing (e.g. enforce embargo) while the opposition has another order (escort cargo ships) that brings them into conflict, with shots exchanged.

It's perfectly possible for one side to have orders to destroy a particular ship/submarine that just did whatever, but said submarine then has no obligation to destroy those hunters - its primary objective then is to survive and escape. When there are no "third party" objectives (like cargo ships) around, disengaging is always reasonable for at least one party.

To approach this even semi-realistically, loss of ship is the absolute worst end condition for a player, a mission failure no more than second worst.

This group was started because Dangerous Water multiplayer at the time was almost exclusively deathmatch based, and left us feeling that something was missing. Not to mention the platform disparity - how is a submarine supposed to score a kill on an orion? A deathmatch between those two is useless.


This group is for those who want games with objectives.