YMMV / Ace Combat Infinity

• Awesome Music: As expected.
• Best Level Ever: The Excalibur Onslaught set of raids is widely praised for the sheer amount of action it offers on all versions, on top of mind-boggling visuals with the laser web. The tower itself is a huge Damage-Sponge Boss, preventing any premature mission completion unless you're really trying hard to ignore the remaining enemies. Hilariously enough, this is also a significant step-up from what was considered the lamest superweapon fight in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
• Broken Base: Already, people are throwing tantrums about the game apparently not taking place in Strangereal, the setting for previous Ace Combat games. This isn't the first time it's happened, either.
  • Another point of contention is the game being free to play.
  • And it being a PS3 exclusive.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Varies between patch:
  • The initial release consisted of F-35B Lightning II with the 4AGM being the go to aircraft due to the aircraft having massive upgrade slots and a high tier in terms of performance and damage. To a lesser extent were the F-15E and Su-34, both having access to the same weapon (the latter especially, being the only one of the three to start with them; for the longest time it was the only Attacker anybody ever used because of it) and slightly fewer upgrade slots in return for slightly better base performance in one or two stats.
  • The patch introducing the S/MTD and Berkut obsoleted the F-35B thanks to the two having weapons dealing massive damage, with massive blast radii, and from far further ranges than the 4AGM could reach. This made any other form of ground attack a waste of time. It wasn't until the next patch that the weapons were nerfed, which completely killed all usage of the Su-47 (some S/MTD users persist, going the route of huge, powerful explosions with it being the only Multirole to also get the FAEB).
  • As if the above wasn't enough, another patch introduced the FB-22 Strike Raptor serving as the high tier attacker of the game. It was further overpowered than even the above thanks to an earlier patch that buffed the power of the SFFS, a weapon that when used right made the Berkut's UGB look like a firecracker. Aircraft that carried this weapon could wreck ground targets in no time regardless of tier, but the FB-22 was the real gravy. The SFFS' earlier buff was negated, but it and the FB-22 are still potent in spite of it.
  • The X-02 Wyvern, introduced via patching, is becoming the ultimate air-to-air plane. Massive upgrade slots and excellent weapon load outs for a fraction of the cost of any of the other fictional superfighters helped big time in cementing the Wyvern as the ultimate ASF. The ADF-01 FALKEN is a more minor one for those playing pure Fighters, also coming with an unusually high number of upgrade slots for a non-Multirole, getting the Tactical Laser System as its first weapon to work against ground targets as well, and being one of the only three other superfighters that doesn't cost millions just to purchase — the regular Morgan, in comparison, is only ever bought just to get to the FALKEN and/or the ADLER, with actual usage of the Morgan being almost entirely restricted to Pixy's special version.
  • As for maps, expect Area B7R Dogfight to be hosted on 80% of the lobbies at any given time. About the only thing that can displace B7R is a map having OEL challenges associated with it for a month, but even then it'll only last for four days maximum before everybody moves back to B7R — which also has the added annoyance of effectively locking out those challenges for everyone who wasn't able to grind out the necessary points all at once. The only other match for B7R is Moscow Battle and its Hard mode variant, mostly for being ground target central for planes carrying potent ground weapons alongside having some air targets here and there, especially in the extra phase of the Hard variation. Avalon Dam Invasion is a semi-frequent alternative to Moscow, serving the same overall role, but with even less aerial targets, making it the perfect map for Attacker-centric challenges. Paris Liberation War is shaping up to be a go-to mission as well, featuring a layout similar to Moscow Battle, only with extra scores of ground and air targets, giving all classes of aircraft plenty to do. Ironically, when regular Team Deathmatch events are running, B7R actually seems to take a backseat to most everything else, despite these events having introduced the map.
• Critical Dissonance: The game is hated by critics for being repetitive, with a short single player campaign, the fact that it was released on a legacy console instead of a new console at the time, and the restrictive sortie fuel system. But gamers and fans of the series willing to look past the prohibitive costs like it for being a return to Ace Combat's roots while compromising with the real world setting. Having two million users download the game also helps matters.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The Scinfaxi submarine of Ace Combat 5 fame/infamy is this in the co-op emergency missions, as it launches unmanned fighters as bodyguards, has the health of 10 Aircraft Carriers, slaughters players like animals with its ballistic burst missiles and has a lot of conventional weaponry to boot. What makes it worse is, in most levels it can show up in (which is almost every one of them), it leaves after it's submerged twice, meaning you've also got a limited amount of time to pound it or you're pretty much guaranteed to miss out on an S-Rank.
  • On that note, Battlecruisers and Aegis-destroyers in Naval Team Deathmatch. All ships are damage-sponges on par with the Scinfaxi in this game mode, the aircraft carrier even beating it on that front, but the Battlecruiser is armed to the teeth with SAMs and VLSs, making it the most dangerous ship to fight by far, and the Aegis-destroyers, whilst not as missile packed, have CIWS, which will block your missiles unless you attack en masse or destroy them with your guns.
  • The Butterfly Master returns with a vengeance as a rare spawn Mission Update mini-boss in Moscow Battle, Area B7R Dogfight, Adriatic Sea Landing Operation, and Paris Liberation War. Not only she is much, much stronger than her Campaign incarnation (albeit without the Plot Armor), her drones are much more numerous and this time, it's more than happy to gang up on any one pilot foolish enough to charge in headlong (which, provided you have a plane with enough speed, attack power, and durability, can be a surprisingly reliable but obviously risky, if not outright suicidal, tactic as opposed to hanging back and trying to pick her off from afar). While their lasers do not deal that much damage, they will absolutely hit, damage you over time, and having more than two aggroed is a recipe for very quick deaths. This is on top of the fact that Butterfly Master's Nosferatu fires her ADMMs at regular intervals.
  • God help you if you are ever brave (and fortunate) enough to challenge Stonehenge Black Ring, the Stonehenge Returns IV Special Raid. There, the Butterfly Master and her pack of MQ-90Ls will menace you once all the ECM jammers, the elite enemy air forces, and the three Kottos-class heavy command cruisers are destroyed, providing another lengthy roadblock before the last set of jammers and the Stonehenge railguns themselves. And then, when you finally do get around to attacking Stonehenge directly, a second QFA-44 Camilla and a second wave of drones will appear to impede your progress. The same goes for the no less arduous Moby Dick Pursuit IV and Satellite Interception IV. Naturally, the sheer number of enemies thrown at you, in addition to everything else in these missions, makes the challenge of obtaining an S Rank—or even an A or B Rank—nothing short of a nightmare, even for an 8-player party with tricked out, high-end planes.
  • The elite squad of CFA-44 appearing during Excalibur Onslaught III and higher. Far more durable than the ADFX-01 flight in other golden raids, and you're forced to fight them while also making sure you don't run into the superweapon's laser web. Not only does Excalibur Onslaught IV increase their health and damage output, but once they're defeated, the above Demonic Spider immediately appears, giving you no chance to rest.
• Fanfic Fuel: What the UN is doing to take down USEA, especially since the game is being discontinued after March 2018.
• Game-Breaker: Depends on the version of the game.
  • Initially, the F-35B, and to lesser extents the F-15E and Su-34, were this because of the 4AGMs they carried, but an early patch introduced the F-15 S/MTD and the Su-47 Berkut. The latter two aircraft carried LAGMs and UGBs, which had devastating damage and blast radius capabilities alongside greater range than the 4AGM; this effectively made ground attacks with aircraft not using those weapons a waste of time and ammo, as even if you got in lock-on range with your own weapon someone else's bomb or missile would hit and kill it before yours even got close. A later patch gave LAGMs and UGBs nerfs, however, but the S/MTD still sees a lot of use because it's the only non-Attacker to get the FAEB, the bomb with the largest blast radius in the game, immediately after the LAGM (the Berkut has almost been entirely abandoned for being more air-focused, which other multiroles can do better).
  • After the LAGM and UGB nerfs, another patch introduced buffs to other weapons. One of them was the SFFS, which was more or less a cluster bomb. Nobody used it prior to the buff because of how powerful^note even before the S/MTD and Berkut brought them to the forefront, most people paying attention would notice that planes with the LAGM and UGB like the Su-34 were almost unstoppable in the right hands, widespread^note before the buff, only the Mirage 2000-5 and F-15E could use the SFFS — and nobody used it with them because they both also got the aforementioned 4AGM and comparatively-simple to use^note The SFFS is targeted just like the UGB, but its dispersal area widens based on the altitude and angle it's dropped from, and there's a minimum height from which it will actually disperse - drop from too high and the explosion radius will be extremely wide but unable to scratch even AA guns, but drop from too low and you'll get a quarter of the UGB's damage or radius the LAGM and UGB were, but it wasn't until the buff and the introduction of the FB-22 Strike Raptor that SFFS usage became rampant. In addition to demolishing ground targets over an even wider area, they also terrorized Naval Team Deathmatch battles by vaporizing enemy fleets in seconds. It got to the point that another patch was introduced to undo the buff that the SFFS received, though the weapon is still effective in co-op missions (thanks to the nerf simply bringing it back to its pre-buff stats rather than actually nerfing it) and it is expected to have an impact in Naval Team Deathmatch battles, since it's one of the few weapon types CIWS can't intercept and multiple high-damage Bombers get access to it.
  • Zig-zagged with the FAEB. Though capable of mass destruction in a wider area with upgrades and can be thrown across maps like the pre-nerf UGB, armored targets shrug them off and it usually takes two bombs to destroy orange level targets. Also, it is exclusive to two aircraft in the whole game without taking into account special aircraft; the A-10A Thunderbolt II which is a slow Attacker and has little room for upgrades but wrecks ground targets better, and the F-15 S/MTD which is a fast Multirole plane with more upgrade space but lacks in the ground attack specialization and ultimately did better with the more-focused LAGM. Only time will tell if the FAEB will also receive the bomb nerfs.
  • The premier air superiority fighter in the game is the X-02 Wyvern, capable of massive upgrade load outs and carries both the 6AAM and QAAM in addition to unbelievable performance. For extra gravy, it's actually the cheapest of the super fighters the series is known for — the four and a half million you'd need to buy nearly any other superfighter can bring this one to Level 10 and give it near-perfect stats even without attaching parts. It also gets the SOD for ground work, allowing it to perform in that role just as well as, say, the far more expensive XFA-27 at a fraction of the cost.
  • Of all things, the regular missiles end up with this status in Team Deathmatch modes with the right setup. With a sufficiently-leveled plane and the right combo of the High Homing datalink, the best Advanced Mobile Missile Fin, and/or the Homing Enhancement Plan, your regular missiles suddenly think they're AC04-era QAAMs, and as such will absolutely refuse to give up on chasing a target until they run out of fuel. Unless your target is willing to completely give up on actually trying to fight you or your allies for a solid minute, they will take the hit. It's telling that Ring Battle TDM had to introduce an optional rule to disable weapons completely, since avoiding those unavoidable missiles while trying to fly between tightly-packed buildings is the perfect recipe for lots of crashes and ragequits.
  • In the Naval Fleet Assault mode, just about any Attacker equipped with the New Defense Jamming Device part will have the luxury of avoiding enemy missiles like there's tomorrow (yes, even the parts combination mentioned above). Put that on a high level aircraft whose special weapon is the SFFS (like the commonly used FB-22, or possibly even worse the F-14B Persian Cat), considered to be the bane of Naval Team Deathmatch, and you've got yourself a near-invincible fleet destroyer that makes scoring high in this game mode a triviality and enrages defending players to no end. ^*Another method of reliably destroying the fleet just as quickly is bringing a high-levelled bomber, although that's much more expensive and you're effectively guaranteed to get shot down after every two or three ships you destroy - but as long as your team can defend you or your fleet well that won't matter.
  • The LACM. You'd be hard pressed to find another air-to-ground weapon that locks on as far as this one, on top of a really wide blast radius ^*The only other weapon that can overpower it is the MAGM that's only reserved for Bombers. This means that any map with a decent amount of target clusters can be trivialized by a couple of fire-and-forget LACMs. Thankfully, it's limited to a select few planes that tend to suffer in air-to-air combat, has a deprived ammo capacity and, as noted in its description, takes longer than most other A2G weapons to reload.
• Gateway Game: To an extent. A number of fans who have been introduced to Ace Combat through this game have found themselves scoping out the titles from which the various missions recreated here originated from, particularly the PS2 trilogy of 04-5-Zero.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The F-4E 20th Anniversary special plane's 4AGM was only able to lock on two targets instead of four upon initial release. This was patched in a later update.
  • Similarly, the T-50 Albireo's MSTM could not fire more than 2 missiles before being forced to reload. This was acknowledged by Project Aces in an in-game notification, and was fixed by January 2016's update.
  • The EA-18G Beast from the Skilled Pilot Medal exchange had a similar issue, where it was supposed to reload its ECM faster than other craft could, but for whatever reason they couldn't get it to work. Two months after its introduction, Project Aces refunded every medal spent to acquire it and every credit spent to upgrade it, and massively reduced its cost in the exchange from 500 medals to 20.
  • Since Day 1, a pack of Gripens in the second part of the Alps Air Corridor has the ability to pass through the mountains. A few other aircraft are similarly capable of clipping through level geometry without issue, particularly some of the Eurofighters in the first half of Tokyo Martial Law that will happily fly through a building near the bridge. The only saving grace, unlike cases of this in earlier games, is that their mostly-scripted flight paths mean they don't do it deliberately every time you get a lock on them.
  • Upon the release of the XFA-33 Alect, players who leveled it up early noticed a ridiculous difference in its price tag compared to the tree version, with the Alect costing about as much as a mid-to-high tier Fighter up until Level 8 while the tree version costs as much as the other multimillion superplanes. Project Aces confirmed it as a bug, and quickly fixed the price tag on upgrade levels beyond 7 to make it comparable to top tier specials like the GAF-1 Sulejmani. This practically turns the plane into a Game-Breaker given its massive slots attunement of 40 without the need to gain experience, and a Crutch Character for those unwilling to pay up millions for further upgrades.
• I Knew It!: The moment the end of Mission 8 teased a color-swapped version of the Mobius Squadron emblem reading "Infinite-111" instead of "Mobius-118", many fans speculated, albeit half-jokingly, that this was Project Aces' way of finally hinting at Ace Combat 7, as 118 - 111 = 7. Over a year later, dataminers found evidence of a Challenge Event corresponding to the PlayStation Experience 2015, where Ace Combat 7 would ultimately be announced for real.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Even among those who applaud the game for going back to the series' roots, there are some who find the campaign portion of the game wanting due to having to tell a story within the span of just eight missions and with limited cutscenes compared to previous titles.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Most of the starter aircraft, particularly the non-Multiroles, due to their wimpy upgrade slot count even after taking into account they can be leveled up to 15 or 20 for much cheaper overall than later craft can. The exceptions to this are the special aircraft, but they're either tournament exclusives or random drop planes, and even then some ones like the Block 1 Morgan aren't all too useful.
• Most Wonderful Sound: "Hostile forces evacuating! Operation successful!" Congratulations, you just got you and everyone in your lobby an S Rank.
  • The sound that plays when you got a limited time monthly random drop plane is also this.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The sortie fuel system, according to some. Having just completed a mission with your last stock of fuel, only to see a Special Raid mission appear is annoying. Worse if you're the room host, thus forcing you to close the room down on people hoping to get a massive credit bonus.
  • Random plane drops are also considered this to a portion of the players. You can end up with an incredibly powerful aircraft such as an F-14A Zipang or Pixy's ADFX-01 in as little as one flight during the month-long events, or fly dozens of sorties all throughout that month and never get them at all.
  • Tournament play can be seen as this. In addition to forcing people to buy up lots of fuel and there never being more than two days between each event, it's effectively the only way to earn tournament exclusive prizes. Hope you have constant access to a working PS3, let alone lots of fuel and free time to play, or else no nickname, emblem or plane for you. It got even worse once the prize tiers were reworked — previously, the main prize would be awarded for the top 1000 players in the event, now if the main prize includes anything more than emblems and nicknames it only goes to the top two or three-hundred. Reworking the ranking points as well (they're now solely dependent on your personal score and whether your team won, rather than what rank the room gets in a mission and how much time is left with an S-Rank) softens the blow somewhat, but not very much. Combine this with the fact that the game is particularly overrun with boosters and "seal clubbers" (essentially newbie bullies) when these events take place and you have a real hard time reaching rank 200, especially without paying for fuel.
    • Bandai Namco Games apparently caught on that, too, at least for a while, since a few main tournament prizes starting with Su-37 -Yellow 13- were awarded to Top 1000 players, while bonus skins can also be won by Top 3000; now primary special-plane prizes are still top 200, but extra ones are for the top thousand, and skins go to anywhere between 3000 to 10,000 — basically the lowest tier at which you can get any prizes — depending on how many there are. They are also random Lucky Numbers that net certain players the aircraft that would normally only be available to top placers, and the fact that as of the game's first anniversary the devs have begun to re-run classic events so new or unlucky players can get another chance at their rewards. Update #14 just prior to the game's second anniversary also added a catalogue of previous prizes that can be purchased with Skilled Pilot Medals players attain in lieu of non-emblem rewards by placing well enough in subsequent tournaments, allowing those who can score consistently in events to eventually save up for a reward they want (although this also included the scrappy mechanic that the catalog may not include a reward they really want, and may take a long time to add it - it took an entire third year for them to finally add the first event emblem to the exchange).
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • The High Capacity Air-to-Air missile. It's a missile that targets aircraft and has a high loadout — basically a second set of the standard missiles, but with very poor damage, doing less than a regular missile, and no use against the much more plentiful ground targets unless the missile is dumb-fired at a target, which usually requires point-blank range. It is considered a Scrappy Weapon because an almost disturbing amount of medium- to high-tier aircraft start out with it and/or have it in their arsenal instead of something with better range and/or damage than the standard missiles, especially since the standard missiles can be easily upgraded to extremely powerful levels, but missile-based special weapons require a lot of cash to progress quite a bit through multiple branches of the tech tree before the player has access to parts that upgrade anything more than their reserve capacity and reload speed. While the November 2014 patch improved on this weapon greatly, it's still no substitute for other air-to-air weapons in the game.
    • While not entirely "rescued" yet, more seasoned players have proven that the HCAA, though far from amazing, is at least serviceable when properly leveled (a minimum of Level 3, preferably 4 or 5) and with a few choice parts added on to enhance propulsion (and homing, if deemed necessary). With its quick reload speed (the HCAA's main strength), a slightly longer lock-on range than normal missiles, and a large maximum capacity compared to most other A2A weapons, the HCAA becomes a great supplement to standard weaponry that is easily spammed because of its almost instantaneously replenishing ammo, to the point that it is actually possible to outdo 4AAM and 6AAM users on maps like Moscow Battle and Area B7R Dogfight and even during special raids like Moby Dick Pursuit and Satellite Interception.
  • The Multi-Purpose Burst Missile is this for another reason. As noted on the main page's Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke entry, the blinding flash of light generated by the explosion, in addition to clearing the area of any of low-level targets the player was going after, makes the task of navigating through tight spaces incredibly harrowing due to the several seconds-long loss of visibility. On maps where numerous enemies are grouped together in tight spaces that require expert maneuvering to reach (ex. Tokyo Martial Law, Moscow Battle, Dubai Night Assault), the firing of this weapon is nearly a death sentence.
  • The actual death sentence weapon belongs to the Varcolac's and Fenrir's Long-Range Shock Wave Missile. It's smaller, but more powerful than the burst missile (dumping all of its damage in one hit rather than multiple spaced out hits). The bad part? The visuals are even more blinding, if that was somehow possible, being more like an orbital laser burst than an explosion.
• So Bad, It's Good: AWACS Heavy Cloud's voice acting is made fun of for being hilariously bad. Between the terrible pronunciation ("EXcalibur" and "AWOCS", for starters), unconvincingly deadpan orders, and jarring monologues, fans have singled him out as a minor Fountain of Memes.
  (pinpoints an extra enemy naval fleet out in the open) They were hiding this much military power?
• That One Level:
  • Weapons Base Assault (HARD). Trying to complete the mission with an S Rank, even with 8 players, is nothing short of an accomplishment due to how far away from enemies players start off, as well as some late enemies spawns on all phases of the mission (barring the emergency mission update).
  • Area B7R Dogfight Battle (HARD), which is unexpectedly difficult for all the wrong reasons. Why is this so different from its pathetically easy normal counterpart? Most orange and red targets have an increased ability to dodge your missiles on top of circling you for days. And then we get to the third wave, where enemies spawn in increments and are even more agile, as if they came straight out of the second phase of an Emergency Air Strike ^*For reference, all red targets except the bombers in an Emergency Air Strike require nothing less than a homing combination part to take them down. This in turn requires tricked out, high-end Fighters with extreme homing ability.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: With the game shutting down in March 2018, the backstory of Camilla and how she got involved in the campaign's plot won't be explored unless by some miracle Project Aces announces a sequel set in the same continuity further down the line.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Because the game runs on a modified Assault Horizon engine, it offers very detailed explosions when taking out enemy aircraft or ground targets, as well as sweet views of the battlefield, which is especially prominent in Dubai Night Assault. Said map also features a dazzling display of fireworks when celebrating the coming of a new year.
• Win Back the Crowd: The game uses Assault Horizon's engine (including the "Steel Carnage" mechanic), but with no hint of Dogfight Mode.
  • Its apparent attempt to reconcile elements from all home console titles between 2 and 6 with a real-world setting can perhaps be seen as this as well.
  • It's safe to say that with every month Namco Bandai adds several elements that earn the game additional players and please some vocals ones.
    • As of July 2014's updates, a PvP mode is available for limited-time events.
    • The August update features a new Special Raid Mission: one to destroy three variants of Stonehenge (which replace the Aigaion special raids), as well as new aircraft and the 7th Campaign mission, in Area B7R aka The Round Table. And there were also three "Emergency Strike" missions.
    • The October update's key features include the 8th Campaign Mission, a new Online Co-Op map, a new Team Deathmatch event and a collaboration with Area 88. The aforementioned Team Deathmatch Event, combining both player-versus-player and player-versus-environment elements is well-received for balancing both and making Attacker planes relevant (as opposed to pure dogfights, where Attackers pretty much languish due to their poor air-to-air abilities).
    • December's update brings in four new missions — black Level 4 versions of Aigaion and Stonehenge (as well as bringing previous three versions of Moby Dick Pursuit back altogether), a giant furball above the Round Table, and a Hard Mode version of the Tokyo map to help pacify those who can S rank all of the other maps with over a minute to spare. Also, the addition of Special Payment Tickets, that, when accumulated, will allow the players to buy unique radio messages as well as skins, planes, and emblems that they could have missed during previous events.
    • January's update brings the SOLG from Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War back as well as adding the Falken, Morgan, and Wyvern to the standard aircraft tree.
    • March's update adds a new mission, Avalon Dam Invasion, a HARD variant of Dubai Night Assault (happening during the day), the R-101 Delphinus and XFA-27 to the aircraft tree, plus 14 special iDOLM@STER aircraft as random drops, including a B-2A!
    • May's update adds the Fenrir and X-49 Night Raven (as well as MiG-31 "Foxhound"), a new map (Adriatic Sea Landing Operation), and celebrates the game's 1st anniversary with a Mobius 1 tournament.
    • The "20th Anniversary" update features skins from the original game as rewards for challenges, as well as some long awaited aircraft, such as the SAAB 35 Draken, GAF-1 Varcolac, Su-27, MiG 1.44, the fourth variant of SOLG and a very special guest... Godzilla!
    • Update #11 goes full War Thunder and adds the Piston Aircraft (last seen in Joint Assault and Assault Horizon Legacy), with four of the most famous fighters of them all (Supermarine Spitfire, Messerschmitt BF-109, P-38 Lightning, and the A6M Zero), plus a map restricted only to them and a Team Deathmatch for Piston Aircraft only. Many players welcomed this as a nice change of pace.
    • The November 2015 update adds the F-35A Lightning II, A-6E Intruder, and F-15SE Silent Eagle, allows players to set plane cost limits when creating rooms (1500 or less, 1500 or more, 1800 or more) while also giving them the option of adjusting the levels of their aircraft if need be, introduces a Hard version of Weapons Base Assault, includes a greater variety of music to make the other Hard maps (Tokyo Martial Law notwithstanding) more distinct, and brings in a showdown with a heavily-revamped Excalibur as the newest Special Raid mission. Like with the previous update, a lot of fans who found their interest waning in Infinity were brought back in full force with these new features (Excalibur especially).
    • With another new year comes Moscow Battle (HARD), Excalibur Onslaught IV, additional Free Flight maps, a Ring Battle rule for TDM based upon the Pilot Aptitude Test Special Raid, the ability to exchange different types of Research Reports, and a host of new aircraft: the F-14B Bombcat, EA-6B Prowler, MiG-35D Super Fulcrum, and—by popular demand—the ADA-01B ADLER, a variant of the ADA-01A which was cut from both 5 and Zero that serves as the game's first Attacker superplane.
    • The following update at the tail end of March 2016 adds a new co-op mission in Paris Liberation War, a Hard variant of Area B7R Dogfight, an option for players to convert leftover Slot Expansion Points into credits, and Skilled Pilot Medals, another form of currency awarded as ranking event prizes that allows players to buy several of the rewards from previous tournaments (with returning rewards being much cheaper than all-new ones, at that, and rewards being added to the exchange catalogue twice a month like with the Special Supply).