Every mission needs goals to be completed. TIE Fighter knows three different kinds, which you can set in this tab. As we are still defining our flight groups, you can only set goals here that apply to a single flight group. If you want to know about goals that surpass a single group and apply to a group of flight groups, or a whole IFF code, or ship type, read about Global goals and IFF.

The tab where you can define the goals looks like this:

Primary goal

These are the goals that must be met to win the mission. In a typical mission, these will be the tasks that you are given by the Flight Officer. You have two drop down boxes available, one that defines how many of the flight group the goal applies to, and one that defines what the actual goal is. Here, too, a few words of caution:

1. Be very careful with creating a primary goal that says 100% of a flight group of starfighters must be destroyed. Many missions are agonizing because you spend 20 minutes shooting down enemy starfighters, and then one of them manages to limp off into hyperspace because your wingmen or capital ship didn't go for the kill. If you want all of one or two flight groups of starfighters destroyed, that's usually not a problem, but it will be a problem when we're talking about more flight groups, especially if each group has multiple waves. Better would be to set the primary goal then to 75%, so that an occasional escaper won't fail the mission, and save 100% for either secondary or bonus goals.
2. If you want a specific group to be disabled, captured or boarded, remember to have at least one flight group in your mission that can actually disable the target.

Secondary goal

These are the goals that advance your rank in the Secret Order. In a typical mission, these will be the tasks that you are given by the Cloaked Figure. They work the same as the primary goals. Secondary goals are optional: completing them gives extra reward, but you won't fail the mission if you don't complete them.

One interesting thing is, that the secondary goals change when only the Cloaked Figure shows up in the briefing. In that case, the secondary goals are no longer optional: you must complete them in order to win the mission. If any primary goals are defined in the mission, they are irrelevant, the player will need to complete the secondary goals to win.

Secret goal

At this point it is unknown what Secret Goals are.

Bonus goal

These are goals that are unknown to the player when he plays the mission, they do not show up in the goals list unless they have been completed. These are the goals that can make a mission challenging, especially because they are unknown. You never know what you need to do to complete them.

You can also assign points to a bonus goal being completed. You need to be careful here when you specify the number of points. You can specify any number, but when the number is between 6,400 and 12,800 the game will treat it as a negative number. So if you specify 10,000 points, completing the goal will mean the player is deducted 12,800 - 10,000 = 2,800 points from his score.

You can use this for good, by rewarding a player who performs well, and also for bad, by punishing a player. For instance, you could have a flight group arrive if your capital ship is destroyed. Then you can assign the flight group's arrival as a bonus goal, and award it with points. A player who allows his capital ship to be destroyed will now be punished by a point deduction from his score.