Ace Combat

Sorry... never played AC 5 myself, can't say anything about the plot.

In some franchise related news, AC7 has sold over 500,000 units in East Asia. That's... much, much less than I thought a title like Ace Combat would generate. I don't think that number includes Japan, but it's both peculiar and kinda distressing to realize that Bandai-Namco considers half a million sales to be beyond predicted expectations.

You have to wonder if that includes digital sales or not. And I've read comments elsewhere that AC 7 is exceeding expectations in every region. Its a niche genre from a franchise that's (excluding Infinity) been dormant for a while after all.

Hopefully this gets older titles ported/remastered to modern consoles.

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Regarding the online portion of 7, what kind of builds do you guys normally fly? I've been doing alright with the Eurofighter with HCAA equipped. Mainly because I'm an awful shot and those have high ammo stores.

I've got a decent set of planes now, but I think I'm going to move towards the Fullback now (it is better than the A-10, right? Or are both of the Attackers bad?). I have the Raptor for most of my campaign needs, and the Eurocanards and the F-35C (Gib A variant Project Aces!) for ground strikes.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 26th 2019 at 1:39:31 PM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Can't say, I've honestly never found a strong enough reason to fly the SU-34, though the SFFS ordinance it can drop is definitely better than most bombs.

Now, regarding the multiplayer, I'd say it comes down to what the point limit is. If you're in a lobby that only allows up to 2000 pts then you're probably best off min-maxing the situation by upgrading the crap out of the Mi G-21 and using it's SAA Ms to snipe people at a distance. That, or use the F-16 and it's SAS Ms; those missiles will gain you a surprising amount of kill-steals, especially during Battle Royales. Heck those two jets are still completely viable choices at 2500 pts, though get ready to be out-manuevered and out-paced since the Mi G-31, SU-29 and the FA-18 are common in that tier.

In terms of parts, you're best off just copy-catting the metagame right now and focusing on maximizing the efficiency of your standard missiles, regardless of your class of fighter. Afterwards, focus on whatever augments what your aircraft of choice is already good at; this game seems to calculate stats in a way that makes it more beneficial to to further improve what's already strong instead of the weakest stats. Oh, and ignore those lvl 1 flap rudder upgrades and their early-game parts, they quickly get rendered useless by far superior upgrades.

Beyond that... get ready for some serious F-22A QAAM or 6th gen stealth fighter bullshit. It's all anyone ever plays whenever there's no point limits.

Yeah, I try to stick with under 2500 points. I swear that QAA Ms are fueled by malevolent and highly advanced AI.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Screw QAAM, EML is where it's at, and you can bring it to a sub-2k room.

You can do the same with QAAM since the Hornet gets both; though you don't have enough overhead to use the better upgrade parts so it's not as bad; personally I find Gripen/SASM really good on 2000-2500 matches and even strong enough to give a decent showing in unlimited.

Still prefer Wyvern/EML though as it feels more skill based than any of the missiles to me (and they nerfed TLS enough that it's kinda useless; really hope the Morgen, FALKEN, or RAVEN we get as DLC has buffed laser damage or it just won't be the same).

For the question on the SU-34 it's amazing for mission 8 (Havn't unlocked Ace yet but SU-34/SFFS got me S ranks for normal and hard on the first try) and I've heard it's good for 11 as well though I haven't tried it.

I'm way too poor a marksman to use EML against anything other than ground targets.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

I actually find most ground targets far harder to hit; not sure if it's them generally being smaller or something to do with the difference in relative motion compared to aerial targets that throws me off but I've only managed a few good hits on anything other than the platform cores in mission 11.

I did manage to tag one of the absurdly fast tanks in mission 12 on my last playthrough but that was more a "Well I might as well toss off a shot while I close to missile range; ...holy shit that actually hit" kinda thing than an actual targeted shot.

Yeah, plinking players out of the sky is actually easier than hitting ground targets. Simply put, planes are big targets.

OK, I'm starting to get a sense that the Multirole (and even some of the Fighters) are just flat out better for most missions than the Attackers are. Even discounting how most require some dogfighting, planes like the F-35C and the Gripen/Rafale have flat out superior Special Weapon options (namely the 8AGM and cruise missiles, respectively). The Fullback and the Warthog got shafted pretty badly.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Maybe if they add back in the FAE Bs for the Warthog in exchange for removing the UGB it might be more salvageable, but right now your assessment about Attacker planes being useless is correct. No point playing them when they suffer in the maneuverability department and you're constantly facing off against the drones, even during supposed ground-attack missions.

Best way to make them worthwhile again would be to at least add in a multiplayer PvE mode that pits players into an annihilation style mission with tons of ground targets for Attacker planes to focus upon. Or maybe something akin to War Thunder's air arcade battles where you can either focus on attacking objectives (ex tanks, AA emplacements, structures, ships, transports, etc) or killing enemy jets to reach the point limit.

Has anyone taken a moment to appreciate how huge the ADF-11F is? It's 94 feet long, about a third longer than the F-22, and wider by a similar ratio. It's absolutely enormous for a fighter.

You'd think a drone would be more compact, what with not requiring room for a pilot and all the amenities needed to keep said squishy alive. Inefficiencies of prototypes, or just Rule of Cool?

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 27th 2019 at 9:17:07 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Keep in mind that the ADF-11 is already a nearly full size plane, and then it has basically power armor for planes on.

Plus it has the ability to spawn those weird, even smaller weapon drones out of nowhere. And no, I've got no idea where it's carrying those suckers either.

Been having a lot of success using the F-15J today, after I got used to the lower stability compared to the Typhoon.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Since Ace Combat 7 revived my taste for the series, I decided to search around for any similar titles on the PC. Apparently aside from Sky Rogue, which I had already played with prior to buying AC 7, there's only a couple of incomplete early access titles and... Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Yeah...

Well, I've only ever played the PS 3 demo back in the day before its initial release. The demo only included the initial Miami tutorial mission and the gunship mission in east Africa, neither of which left a good impression, and thus I never bothered to get the full game.

However I managed to grab a free digital copy of Assault Horizon a couple of years back, but never got around to playing it; the negative press around the game's awful control scheme and the infamous "Dog Fighting Mode" scripted chase sequences being the key reason. That changed a couple of days back when I heard the developers patched in the original control scheme, so I finally decided to give the game its fair shake.

Well, the good news: it's not all godawful. Despite the effort to mimic the Call of Duty titles and their In fact the original formula shines through every now and then with some of the missions in the middle of the campaign. You just need to get past the terrible Miami tutorial, which is HEAVILY scripted and will only allow you to approach enemies in an exact manner, and the game begins to open up and feel like the older titles.

However the update apparently couldn't fix all of the problems brought about by the DFM mode's existence. The key way to lose an enemy tail now is to slow down, level out your plane, and then hit both forward triggers in order to execute a tight barrel roll, putting you directly behind the enemy fighter and in DFM lock. Losing a track of an enemy via other means now is significantly more difficult, sometimes even impossible, meaning that the first major dogfight against the Russians is surprisingly difficult: I must've died almost ten times in that mission.

Then the second on-rails-door-gunner mission starts. That was probably the first time I felt bored as heck playing one of these types when I'm usually a really good sport about it. Felt generic and implausible, which a blackhawk door gunner somehow downing MULTIPLE Hinds, shooting down enemy missiles in mid-air, a flotilla of terrorist-owned civilian boats shooting AA missiles at you, etc.

I finally gave up on the Moscow mission. There's far more ground targets than you have ATG Ms or rockets to kill, and you'll eventually be left with nothing more than the 20mm autocannon to finish off the remaining targets. It's not as difficult as being left only with the jet MG, especially since it's so easy to lock on and focus fire on a target, but it was frustrating enough to be the final straw that broke this camel's back. Oh, and there was this bullshit mission prior to Moscow where you had to shoot down an ICBM that had already been launched by using the DFM mode. Only, the missile is going to wag around erratically, exposing you to its damaging exhausts, AND you're being targeted by enemy Mig-29s. You CANNOT break off, lest you immediately lose the missile and fail the mission. Not fun.

I put roughly 7 hours in total into the game - can't say I didn't give it a fighting chance to prove itself.

I just unlocked the "Loose the Battle, Win the War" nickname in a way I wouldn't have thought possible; mutual point-blank EML.

Edited by Jaustin89* on Mar 2nd 2019 at 12:28:19 PM

What planes/loadouts did you guys find best for Fleet Destruction?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Hornet w/ LASM

Slaughters the naval targets in no time.

Alternately, you can use pretty much anything and just destroy the core blocks.

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They

Wyvern/EML. Most ships take 1-2 shots to sink and the cores go down with 1; I usually clear out the fleet and the northern platform (take out the cores starting from the east and you can prevent anything from taking off for extra points), mop up any ships and the 2 aces on my way to the return line to rearm and then take out the valley platform. I generally clear out the last platform with 2-3 minutes left.

I did my first run through on Ace this morning and got ~59000 points; S rank threshold is 40000 so it clears it pretty handilly.

Edited by Jaustin89* on Mar 3rd 2019 at 1:02:52 PM

Sounds pretty similar to what I managed with MGP while doing MG only.

Rafael M

It has 6aam, and Cruise Missiles, you fly in with the 6aam to the north platform nail every thing that flies, make a U-turn and mop up... then use the cruise missiles to one shot all the ships and platforms.

75,000 points easy.

I more or less do what Immy suggests.

Who watches the watchmen?

Fleet Destruction's one of my favorite levels in 7. So much to blow up, and so much freedom to how you approach that blowing up. It's the first mission I replayed after finishing.