Ace Combat

Well, that's a new one. Stupid Belkan E-767 in mission 18+ "8492" spawned so high up as to not even render. Still dropped every single one of the fighters, though.

Also, still irked at Pops for not even installing the gun pod, because I'd totally take on 4 F-15 S/MTDs with just a Hawk and 800 rounds in a machine gun pod.

EDIT: UGH, Pops, your plane has a throttle. FUCKING USE IT, SLOWPOKE.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:05:32 AM by Balmung

Maybe he could not install a gun-pod in the first place (be it due to time constraints or physical incompatibility of the gun apparatus with the plane itself), or never thought he'd ever need to do so.

Of course it CAN be installed. If you use the Hawk in literally any other mission, it has one. Besides, surely air force trainees need to practice with weapons, too.

EDIT: WAT. I finished flying through the cave and then I get a "MISSION FAILED" because slowpoke lost sight of me. The mission was OVER. There are no more maneuvers to follow the old man through or anything. I hate Mission 19, not because it's hard, just because it's bullshit and takes too damn much time.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:18:35 AM by Balmung

... Tell me you didn't just fly past him in an attempt to rush through the level. You're supposed to follow him, and stay within a specific range at all times. Really, it's so ridiculously easy to keep him both in front of you and relatively close.

Besides, just because you the player find it incredibly easy to fly this plane doesn't mean that the characters (or you in a real version of the plane) would do so as well. Heck, for all we know the planes are actually in barely flyable condition due to seeing little use.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:24:19 AM by MarqFJA

Hawks used for training don't normally carry gun pods. So it's entirely possible that there weren't any just laying around to fit to the Sand Island Hawks.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:24:31 AM by Deadbeatloser22

Oh, and they're also subsonic aircraft IRL. Only capable of Mach 0.83 at the most.

Pops claims that he kept them maintained to the same standard as all the other aircraft.

I FINISHED THE MISSION. I was through the last cave. There was nothing left to do, so I thought I'd have more fun than I did in the last ~6 minutes of following him. There was literally nothing left to follow him through.

It's not that it's hard in and of itself, it's that the mission is just so tedious.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:27:55 AM by Balmung

There was something left, actually. Radio chatter reveals that the 8492nd Squadron loses track of you, before the naval pilot Swordsman coming in his F-14 and confirms to Thunderhead that he found you guys, and is prepping to shoot you down... only for a short cutscene to reveal that he's using light-based Morse code to tell you to eject from your planes one by one before he takes each missile shot.

OK, I thought this was your first playthrough of the game.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:37:56 AM by MarqFJA

Yeah, you don't need to spoiler any of that stuff. I've beat the game like 8 hojillion times. I just hate mission 19 for being so painfully slow.

Justify it as much as you want, but it's easily the least fun mission in the game.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:37:51 AM by Balmung

Really? I liked how slow it is because it gives me a chance to admire the scenery without going into free flight mode.

Honestly, it was easier the first time because now I want nothing more than to just blast through it and get back to fun missions. At least the other non-combat mission has the decency to let me be in charge of the throttle.

Besides, if I wanted to admire the scenery, I'd pick a straighter flight path that would let me look at the same point longer more easily.

edited 26th Apr '15 2:49:01 AM by Balmung

Four Horsemen.

Bad, but still more fun.

That mission was the hurdle that came between me and the FALKEN and the X-02 for the longest time.

It's not really that hard. Fire your missile on 2 or 3 and Bob's your uncle.

I got the FALKEN in all of 2 playthroughs, fundraising not withstanding.

edited 26th Apr '15 3:30:28 AM by Balmung

Given that I was 13 at the time, I think I can be forgiven for not having the patience to deal with screwing it up multiple times.

I was gone for the weekend, but—

If you want a plane that can break a particular mission, without using superplanes or even any particularly advanced aircraft, take any plane with an FAEB out to fight the XB-0 in Zero and drop FAEBs on its fuselage. Each bomb will kill every currently active target on the aircraft—it takes like 3 bombs to kill it. Even better, there are a few fighters that can be equipped with FAEBs, to make the Espada squadron and escorts easier to take down, like the X-29, so you're not trying to shoot down enemy aces with, like, an A-10.

And if you don't mind using superplanes to break a mission, take the Morgan or Falken out to fight Pixy—the TLS is a one-hit kill, of course, for every stage of the fight. You can beat him in, like, 30 seconds, since you have to "kill" him several times. Even better, he's trying to plane-joust with you, so he holds nice and still for you to aim the laser.

Also, re: the Escape Sequence in 5, I think a more compelling reason to not fight your pursuers is that you've been framed for treason and are just trying to escape and vindicate yourself, not actually commit treason by firing on your allies. (Yeah, yeah, self-defense would be a reasonable case here, objectively, but they're not likely to really listen to you after you've been accused of treason and then immediately start shooting your way out...)

edited 27th Apr '15 7:43:15 AM by SolipSchism

And now I'm thinking back to the last time I played AC 6 online a few weeks ago, when I was trying to co-op the Aigaion mission with a friend. After trying to do it properly and getting whipped severely we gave up and broke out the CFA-44s. The ADMM might be locked out in multiplayer but the EML still wrecks shit up.

In my experience, the AC 6 F-15, with its glorious special weapon selection, is as broken as you'll ever need.

I personaly like the CFA-44 just for being a belivable fictional aircraft.

>.<

Want to break the Avalon Dam run in AC 0? FAE Bs are once again your friend.

As for the Aigaion fight... RC Ls may take a little practice to aim, but they wreck those airships like FAE Bs do the XB-0.

Yeah, but we were annoyed and didn't have time for that. So EML sniping it was.

Obviously in single player the ADMM really fucking wrecks it, but then it does that to everything.

I never actually nailed the XB-0 with an FAEB, and though the FAEB trivializes Avalon, I usually take an air-to-air weapon for the final mission against Pixy. Besides, it's not like taking out the V2 stuff in Avalon is hard.

edited 27th Apr '15 1:46:48 PM by Balmung

I'm pretty sure I've done a Gun Run on the V2 stuff before.