Ideal Number of People: 5
Gametype: Custom Player Match, 15 Minute time.
Team Structure: 3 on 2
Plane Req's: Team of 3 (Team Alpha) all take the SU-25 Frogfoot, Team of 2 (Team Beta) both take FA-18E SuperHornet's. This is done because both of those planes fly at similar cruising speeds (no thrust or brakes), the Frogfoot carries 100 Joint strikes in a standard game and the F18 has the available TOP. (Target Overright Pod)
Setup: The basic setup has 3 designations, One Decoy, 3 Shooters and One Deflector. The Deflector is the only person who gains experience. At the start of the match all 5 players need to fly towards each other and get into position ASAP to maximize xp gain. Planes should be setup as follows with team designation in brackets.
Decoy (B) --- 1200 Meters --- 3 Shooters (A) --- 800 M --- Deflector (B)
This puts the total distance between decoy and deflector at approximately 2000 Meters. Once everyone is in position flying at NORMAL speeds, no thrust or brake, you begin.
Gameplay: Each person has an important job to play in this process, if anyone screws up it can severely limit xp gain. Each job is as follows:
Decoy: the decoys main job is to steer the group, using slow turns and good communication he needs to fly a large rectangular pattern around the map, turning soon enough to avoid the edges of the map using only the yaw function RB or LB. I prefer clockwise but it really doesn't matter.
Shooters: Fire as many missiles as humanly possible, once all 100 missiles are out crash and rejoin the group as quickly as possible and begin firing again.
Deflector: Deflector every missile fired at the decoy, letting the decoy die will severely slow down the process. Also don't die as that kills your streak and thus your xp gain.
Advanced tips and overview: So basically using this setup the distances outlined allow the deflector to deflect every Joint Strike missile fired without being in danger of getting hit himself. A good group of people can farm between 600,000 and 700,000 experience per match this way. Each person must do their job properly in order to max out the gain, the streak bonus is where all the experience comes from and if anyone dies it slows things down, the last 300 missiles or so are where all the real gain comes from so slowing down the front end really hurts total gain. A shooter should be able to put out a minimum of 200 Joint Strikes and personally I have been able to put out 300 plus missiles and still respawn with a new plane before time ran out. 3 solid shooters could empty 900 missiles and that makes for one h*** of a streak bonus.
For optimal death and rejoin by the shooters there are a couple things you can do, firstly stay approximately 2000 - 3000 meters altitude so you don't require much for altitude changes from spawn, and secondly a good organized team can change their flight path to swing through the middle of the map during shooter respawns, essentially "picking-up" the shooter, this cuts down on "down time" for the shooters as they do not have to chase down the group and increases efficiency.
Communication is KEY here, holding off on missiles for 10 seconds to fix a botched turn or a loss of appropriate distance saves way more time then getting lazy and shooting someone down. If any missile hits anyone for any reason all shooting should immediately cease to fix the problem, and on the off chance the decoy takes a missile or two the deflector can use a medic when available to heal him back up. Other than a Medic DO NOT USE ANY SUPPORTS!!!! Radar jamming, Missile restriction will really screw up your shooters, EMP or Altitude Limiter will potentially kill all your shooters, for the safety and peace of mind of all involved don't even bother. Good luck out there guys!
Credit: I heard this strategy somewhere from someone then made appropriate changes, ie plane types, flight paths, number of people etcetera in order to optimize experience gain. Credit due to the inventor of this method, whoever he might be :)