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“The Stage of the Apocalypse” Mission 12: Operation Ravage – June 6th, 1995 Overview: Osea moves to deliver the deathblow against Belka by striking at the South Belka Munitions Factory in the city of Sudentor. Galm Team and Crow Team is dispatched across the Waldreich Mountains to rendezvous with an Osean bomber flight currently en route to Sudentor.  Guest Commentator: Cirv joins me for a second consecutive straight outing as guest commentator for this mission.  Look, guys, I’ve got to level with you. I’ve had kind of a lovely week so I just want to get this video up and relax. There’s a lot to talk about in this one, but I just don’t have it in me to write up a giant post about it right now. I’ll be sure to edit it in later on. Watch this space.
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Jan 23, 2016 03:11
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crow, a-are you alright?
Sally fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 03:45
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I know I'm just a post on the internet, but hope things work out okay!
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Jan 23, 2016 04:08
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Put your feet up and relax, little buddy. Leave the jet porn to everyone else.
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Jan 23, 2016 04:42
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Just to make a placeholder to this video. Yeah, this one will be pretty important for Ace Combat 5, and the biggest continuity piece from Zero to 5. Just take it easy Crow. We don't want you to snap and start using the F-35 for the rest of the LP. 
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Jan 23, 2016 04:54
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I'm fine guys. But thank you for the well-wishes regardless. You're all free to discuss with happens in this video any time you want. I'm just trying to keep as much of this page clear for people who are seeing it for the first time. Because this is a pretty big event in the AC franchise. I don't want to impose some kind of arbitrary posting embrago though, so fell free to do what you want with this one.
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Jan 23, 2016 05:05
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nine-gear crow posted:I'm fine guys. Man, I am the same way about this week dude. Crack a beer, maybe this one
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Jan 23, 2016 05:18
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bunnyofdoom posted:Man, I am the same way about this week dude. Crack a beer, maybe this one 
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Jan 23, 2016 05:22
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Gotta say, that was pretty tame as far as nuclear weapons getting dropped on you is concerned.
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Jan 23, 2016 05:40
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I started the series with Zero (and then did 4, then 5), so I had no idea that this was going to happen. I was annoyed that this was a 'doomed to fail' mission and then realized that the detonation was in still Belkan-held territory. Welp. I was also pretty young and this was the first time I had even come across the idea of a 'defensive' nuclear detonation. The idea was so insane I hadn't thought of the possibility before, so it was a bit of a shock.
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Jan 23, 2016 06:07
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I thought it was v animé of Cipher to chase after Pixy as he faded into the distance, probably screaming his name into the dead radio the whole time. I appreciate the commitment to character, Crow.
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Jan 23, 2016 06:18
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So how were all the planes, including Cipher, not immediately annihilated?
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Jan 23, 2016 07:06
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That was... what the flying gently caress??
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Jan 23, 2016 07:21
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In today's mission, Belka does everything wrong.
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Jan 23, 2016 07:40
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The first AC game I played was 5, so when the event occurred I wasn't terribly surprised. I wasn't ready for the other curveball though. I thought the mission was over, and had set the controller down, you rear end in a top hat 
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Jan 23, 2016 07:50
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Flesnolk posted:So how were all the planes, including Cipher, not immediately annihilated? By being at a sufficient distance away from the detonation? Nuclear explosions are big, sure, but you gotta understand that the energy is not distributed laterally, it also goes up, like a sphere of fire. That's why it's such a big deal if a nuclear detonation is done in the air or the ground: in the air you get more range, but less power, and in the ground you can destroy anything that's inside the range, but it's more limited. Given what we'll see in 5, those should be ground detonations. If you're referring to the EMP that affected their avionics, then I dunno. I think some planes have back-up systems for exactly this kind of thing, but I don't know much about it.
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Jan 23, 2016 08:49
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Flesnolk posted:So how were all the planes, including Cipher, not immediately annihilated? We weren't the target, or even all that close.
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Jan 23, 2016 09:04
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That was surprisingly well done on all accounts. Speaking of F-15s, apparently this is a thing: 
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Jan 23, 2016 13:51
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Nanomashoes posted:In today's mission, Belka does everything wrong. BELKA DID NOTHING WRok yeah maybe they did do something wrong here.
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Jan 23, 2016 16:29
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 Also I do recommend it IRL too. Very decent beer.
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Jan 23, 2016 19:19
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Cooked Auto posted:That was surprisingly well done on all accounts. You find some strange stuff on US military bases. I still remember seeing "AMERICAN EAGLE" energy drinks in the soda machines that had the Pledge of Allegiance right on the can (and of course "UNDER GOD" was capitalized).
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Jan 23, 2016 20:46
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Well. That escalated quickly  Also, I hope thinks get better for you, Crow.
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Jan 23, 2016 21:33
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Geez, Belka, alright, ALRIGHT, you win the"flaming war crimes against Belkan citizens" contest. Bask in the glow of victory (and rads) I guess. Wonder if we'll see special ace squadrons named Radroach and Mole Rat now...
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Jan 24, 2016 00:21
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Kal-L posted:If you're referring to the EMP that affected their avionics, then I dunno. I think some planes have back-up systems for exactly this kind of thing, but I don't know much about it. This is a discussion I've seen pop up in other places regarding this mission. The thing about Strangereal is that nukes exist, but nuclear proliferation doesn't - I think this is the first in-universe detonation of a nuclear device outside of testing. This is a world where even unnamed terrorist groups can get their hands on enough air vehicles to rival a real-world superpower's air force; given that it descends into large-scale armed conflict every five years or so, nukes existing in similarly-exaggerated numbers would very quickly turn it into Fallout multiple times over sooner than it would be the grand stage for ace pilots to perform. (as a note on older stuff I love Pixy's mention of air superiority in the intro to mission 3, the way he puts it makes it sound like a state of mind rather than a result of a mission and it's just so silly) So then why are the planes built to survive distant nuclear explosions like in the real world? How did Cipher, Pixy, Crow team and the remaining Belkan planes survive the nuke with nothing more than slightly-fuzzy HUD and communications? As for the mission itself, there's not a whole lot of differences other than, you guessed it, dialogue. The primary thing is Crow 1 teasing PJ at the start; as a Mercenary he asks if PJ and his girlfriend are getting re-married (PJ protests they're both getting married for the first time), and as a Soldier he asks if PJ's current girlfriend is his first (PJ claims he had one in high school). The interesting thing is that some dialogue once you're actually in the thick of things changes, too; where Eagle Eye told you not to hold back in the video, as a Soldier he instead advises you to ignore the fighters and focus on the bombers. As a Merc I can't exactly remember what changes, even though I had just replayed that version of the mission a couple hours before the video went up, I double-checked with someone else's videos but the only thing I saw different was a line I'm pretty sure is in every version (where PJ asks Eagle Eye to confirm which bomber is carrying a nuke, and Eagle Eye says you'll just have to destroy them all). Also, one thing that didn't get brought up in the video for obvious reasons is that none of the planes left over from the first half of the mission de-spawn for the second. They do, however, turn into yellow targets if they weren't already one. It's a good way to shift your ace style in one direction or the other while still making money by taking them out first thing or waiting until after you've hit the bombers. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 01:46
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Wouldn't the fact that aircrafts can be basically considered to be flying faraday cages be enough to shield most of the internal avionics from an explosion that's not right on top of them even if they aren't specifically hardened against EMP effects?
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Jan 24, 2016 02:13
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Flesnolk posted:So how were all the planes, including Cipher, not immediately annihilated? The simplest answer is that they're far enough away that the only danger to them in the first place is the EMP and blast wave knocking out their systems and causing them to crash. Judging by the size of the map using the speedometer in the game even if the nukes were on the edge of the map the result would be the same. The biggest area of effect nukes have is the radioactive particles that they spread far and wide. The blast wave loses energy surprisingly quickly when you're measuring in KM. Now if it was an air detonation they'd probably have taken a bit more damage but still have been far enough away to not get swept out of the sky.
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Jan 24, 2016 02:20
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EMPs are also only devastating with a low-orbit detonation, roughly between 40 and 400 kilometres above the ground. That's when the whole 'gently caress all electronics' bit comes into play, with hundreds of km radius. A standard ground detonation isn't going to create an EMP powerful enough to affect anything beyond two, three times the fireball's radius, to my knowledge. An orbital detonation would've fried electronics throughout Belka, by the way. Edit: Phrasing
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Jan 24, 2016 02:37
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That's one way to apply a scorched-earth policy.
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Jan 24, 2016 04:02
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Man they reaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllly didn't want the allies getting into northern Belka.
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Jan 24, 2016 06:43
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Speaking of other games, randomly, Sky Rogue might be of interest to some of you. It leans more arcadey then Ace Combat is in terms of flight, but it's still pretty fun. And on PC, more importantly.
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Jan 24, 2016 21:33
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Since Crow is doing a Knight run and ACES CURES PLANES is doing a Mercenary run (in Ace difficulty to boot) Crow asked a few pages ago if someone would volunteer to do a Soldier run, and I think I'm up for it. So far my only contact with the whole series has been only this LP itself, but why not? I don't have much experience doing any kind of LP, so please point out any mistakes I make as I smooth things out. Before I go any further, I have to point out that I will be running the game via the PCSX2 emulator, and some games can be a pain to emulate properly. The Ace Combat series was an example of this, most notably when the collisions straight up didn't work, making the game unplayable, and it's a resource hog in general as well. However, the emulator advanced to the point that the game is only now a (relatively) huge resource hog when rendered in Software mode. Fortunately, there is the possibility of running the renderer in Hardware mode, and thus taking advantage of current video cards of the host PC. However, I still need the thread's opinion on the two test videos that I recorded so far: Test run of Operation Crossbow (Turn down your speakers for this one) Test run of Operation Roselein It should be pretty obvious what's the biggest (graphics related ) issue is. My question is, how annoying is that for you, the viewer? Should I go ahead with this?
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Jan 24, 2016 21:44
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“Lying In Deceit” Mission 13: Operation Stone Age – June 13th, 1995 HOW TO LAND IN ACE COMBAT ZERO, Vol. 2 Overview: The newly restructured Galm Team is dispatched to Yering Mine facility at Mt. Schrim, deep inside Belka. A contingent of Belkan troops who have refused to accept ceasefire agreement has reportedly holed up across the mining complex. Cipher and his new wingman PJ are sent in to clean up Belkan remnant.  Guest Commentator: I’m joined for this post-game changer mission by ACES CURE PLANES. ACES, as you’re already aware, is currently doing a parallel run through Ace Combat Zero on Mercenary mode and Ace difficulty and making me look like an absolute chump in the process because he’s way better at the game than I am. He’s also working on his own series LP of the PlayStation 2-era Armored Core games, starting with Armored Core 2.  So because literally anything I would have posted in the last update would have been massive spoilers for the reveal in that video, I’m posting the Mission 12 and 13 analyses in the same update. So expect this to run a little long. Let’s start with the craziness of Mission 12:  THE SEVEN PILLARS On June 6th, 1995, the Principality of Belka detonated seven V1 nuclear bombs on its own soil in a bit to halt the Allied advance into the north of the country where its capital lied. The true rationale for the devastation has been argued by historians and scholars for years. Perhaps it was just a case of good old desperate insanity. Regardless, the Belkans altered world’s geopolitical and military landscape in a single blinding instant. To say that this was a day that changed the Ace Combat world is one giant understatement. You could very easily imagine how earthshattering it would be in our world if during a war that was going badly for them, a foreign country dropped seven nuclear bombs on itself create an irradiated firewall against their advancing foes. The nuclear detonation sites would go on to form the demarcation line between North and South Belka, and the new border that would be drawn up following the post-war armistice. Officially, the death toll from the attacks was listed at 12,000, a surprisingly low number for seven—possibly almost eight—simultaneous nuclear detonations. People have criticized this number for being way too low for such an event, and have argued various explanations for it. 1) Project Aces fumbled the math (the most likely option), 2) the detonation sites were located along a sparsely populated mountain range, and the largest nearby city was Sudentor, which wasn’t actually hit by any of the bombs, and 3) the Belkans and Oseans were probably underselling death toll for propaganda purposes. And that’s not even going into the fact that the real casualty count from all the aftereffects of the bombings will be a rolling counter for the foreseeable future. The jury’s still out on whether or not the flight of BM-355s downed by Cipher and co. also had nuclear weapons aboard. The most likely answer is that this was indeed a decoy flight, one of probably several dispatched from Belka, all flying with falsified orders for a fictitious nuclear strike on Ustio in case of potential Allied signal interception. I say this because if this was indeed a flight armed with nukes on a veritable suicide mission like its fellow bombers were, then it would most likely have dropped whatever bomb compliment it had right as Galm Team engaged it. This is also another fairly big reason I wanted to make sure the Mercenary run of Mission 10 was the “canon” run for the LP. We see now that Huckebein’s alleged aborted mission to drop a nuke on a city within Belkan territory, the one that the fled from and attempted to defect to Osea over, was actually a test run for the Seven Pillars. Or perhaps they were Belka’s plan B in the wake of Buchner’s defection. Did Huckebein spawn an even greater devastation by refusing to follow his orders? Who’s to say for certain? The fallout (no pun intended) from this event is going to ripple down through future Ace Combat games, Ace Combat 5 in particular. It also helps to retroactively explain why there is a surprising lack of full-blown nuclear war in a world as constantly in conflict as Strangereal. Following the “Seven Pillars” as they would come to be known, the nuclear powers of the world (primarily Osea, Yuktobania, Sapin, Erusea, Emmeria, Wellow, Verusa, Estovakia, and the FCU) came together to sign a strict nuclear disarmament and prohibition treaty. This also helps go a long way towards bringing the series in line with the real-world reason why the games steer away from the use or at least the threat of nuclear weapon. The Ace Combat games are inescapably Japanese productions, despite how much they try to disguise it. And one of the big Japanese cultural threads that is woven though each of these games is Japan’s enduring nuclear weapons taboo. Japan of course is the only nation to have had nuclear weapons used upon it in populated areas in a time of war, so they know the true horrors of what a nuclear attack entails. It’s the reason why Japan has never developed its own nuclear arsenal following World War II, and why talk of starting a nuclear program even to this day still sparks public outrage. Instead, Japan is protected by the United States’ nuclear umbrella. The nuclear attacks on its home soil, even 60 years later, are still a huge cultural open wound for Japan, and the use of nuclear weapons in most of the fiction that comes out of the country is done so as a heavy allegory. Godzilla, for instance, was originally an allegory about the use of nuclear weapons. I don’t want to say that it’s “good” that we’re getting this out of the way right off the bat, but for what it’s worth, this event is effectively Ace Combat at its narratively and geopolitically darkest. Things will get better, but the scars Belka just left (and have still yet to leave) on Strangereal will never truly heal.  DISCONTENT IN BELKA Belka is essentially fraying around the edges politically, now more than ever since the government nuked a massive stretch of the countryside without any warning. The vast swath of Belka south of the Seven Pillars has already functionally defected to Osea, and the remainder of the country in the north is beginning to eat itself whole in a quasi-civil war between those who still support Waldemarr Rald’s now clearly unhinged government, and those who seek to topple it from within and put an end to this ghastly miscalculation of a war. The flight of MiG-31s that attempted to run down the (possibly) decoy bomber flight encountered by Galm and Crow Teams was representative of this new faction that has cropped up within Belka. It is assumable that similar flights were scrambled to intercept the other flights of bombers before they deployed their warheads along the Waldreich mountains. It can’t be known for certain how many of them were successful, but we now know that at least seven of them failed.  THE WALDREICH MOUNTAINS I’ve namedropped this location a few times to “prime the fire” as it were, but this is the point in Ace Combat history where they become a famous location. Waldreich basically just became to the people of Strangereal a similar shorthand for nuclear devastation as Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in the real world. Following the nuclear detonations, the Waldreich mountains became known as the “Northern Gate” of Belka, the line separating the lost states of the vestigial Belkan empire from the last sliver of true Belkan soil in the north. The resulting atomic explosions rendered the mountains a barren and irradiated wasteland, killing most of the local wildlife and blanketing the mountains in a localized nuclear winter that permanently altered its weather patterns. Despite the Osean government and the AN IAEA commission enforcing a zone of alienation around the blast sites, some survivors of the attacks have remained near ground zero, having nowhere else to go. “Waldreich,” once again is another one of those on-the-nose German appropriations meaning “woodland,” which is what the mountain range was famous for before Belka lit on fire.  STIER CASTLE One of the more famous cultural landmarks in the Principality of Belka prior to the detonation of the Seven Pillars. Stier Castle was renowned around the world as a tourist destination. Built on a lakeside hill, the castle overlooked the town of Stier at the base of the Waldreich mountains. The castle itself dated back to the late Middle Ages when Belka reigned as a dominant force on the Osean continent and the legendary Belkan Knights rode the land. The castle also served as the inspiration for and setting of the popular medieval Belkan fairy tale A Blue Dove For The Princess, one of the first medieval works to feature the famous Demon of Razgriz as a character. Following the Battle of Waldreich and Seven Pillars incident, Stier Castle and its surrounding villages were evacuated by the disaster relief workers from the Osean military and all travel to the castle has been forbidden under international law. The decaying, irradiated remains of the fortress now lie in the center of the Waldreich Zone of Alienation along what is now Belka’s southern border.  THE SOUTH BELKA MUNITIONS FACTORY A Belkan state-owned weapons manufacturing firm headquartered in the city of Sudentor, Belka. The South Belka Munitions Factory was responsible for nearly all of Belka’s weapons development breakthroughs and its slate of advanced weapons such as the Excalibur tactical laser weapon and the V1 nuclear bomb, both of which we’ve seen in action already. The SBMF was also the driving force behind Belka’s Project Pendragon, which was under the direction of Belkan Air Force captain and chief engineer Dr. Anton Kupchenko until the opening days of the Belkan War. Kupchenko and his entire Gault Squadron were reported as “missing” during a sortie in March of 1995. While he has been presumed deceased ever since, his legacy remains an active threat to the Allied Forces. In addition to Excalibur and the V1, the SBMF was reported to have been hard at work on a weapon codenamed V2 (speculated to be an intercontinental MIRV nuclear warhead delivery weapon), though official evidence of its existence is still speculative. Communications intercepts and redacted and partially destroyed documents recovered from captured SBMF facilities also mention projects codenamed “Hresvelgr”, “Zoisite”, “Hypersthene”, “Morganite”, and “Morgan”. Following the destruction of their facilities in Hoffnung and the Waldreich nuclear strikes by the Belkan government itself, the SBMF began to rapidly shutter its facilities and destroy all potentially incriminating documents, and key members of its upper management have gone into hiding. However, Osean spyplane photographs have shown that materials and personnel previously reported missing from SBMF facilities have been spotted at the Yering Mine facility at Mt. Schrim. …What do mean “That’s a picture of Jorhan Stahl”? We haven’t even started Killzone 3 yet.  THE DESERTION OF LARRY FOULKE In the chaos following the detonation of the Seven Pillars and the so-called “Battle of Waldreich,” Larry “Solo Wing Pixy” Foulke, also known as Galm Two defected from the Ustio Air Force and fled the battlefield over the Waldreich mountains following the receipt of a cryptic transmission from a source later identified by Osean Air Defense Force Intelligence as former OADF Captain Joshua Bristow (callsign “Lucan”), flight lead of the OADF’s Wizard Squadron. Bristow himself, along with the entirety of Wizard Team would also go missing shortly after the nuclear detonations. Their current location remains a mystery. Prior to fleeing the battlefield, Foulke opened fire on his wingmate and squadron leader, Cipher (Galm One) for unknown reasons. Due to electromagnetic interference from the nuclear explosions, the Ustio Air Force was unable to track Foulke’s F-15C Eagle as it fled the battlefield. Though it is unlikely he has defected to Belka, his current location and disposition remain unknown. And now, for Mission 13:  OPERATION STONE AGE Someone at Allied command has a really loving sick sense of humor to call the first official operation after a massive nuclear strike “Operation Stone Age”. I’m just saying… This is a roundabout reference to the quote by Albert Einstein on the inherently apocalyptic nature of nuclear warfare, who said “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”  THE STATE OF THE WAR Functionally speaking, the Belkan War ended the night of June 6th, 1995. The Allied Forces halted their northern advance towards Dinsmark following the nuclear detonations in the Waldreich mountains, putting the war on hold as the Osean Military GHQ in Oured reassessed the situation in Belka before sending troops and planes back into the chaos strangling Northern Belka. Inside Belka (or what’s left of it now), the groundwork for an official end to the war is being laid. While it will be another year before the Fatherland and Workers Party government is toppled and Chancellor Rald is officially removed from power, the forces integral to his demise have found their rallying cry in the wake of the Seven Pillars attack. Belka has found itself backed into a corner strategically. Its bid to end the war on favorable terms ultimately worked against it and left it with only two options: surrender, or suicide. For now, the world holds its breath to see which option the Belkans will choose.  HEIERLARK AFB A high altitude air force base in the mountains of Southern Belka formerly belonging to the Belkan Air Force. Following the surrender of South Belka to the Allied Forces, the Osean Air Defense Force took command of Heierlark AFB and repurposed its former Belkan Air Force materials and personnel to suit its needs. The base has already become a sore spot for the Belkans in the north, standing as a symbol of their lost pride and prestige and of what they see as relentless Osean expansionism and aggression. Though we only have a brief layover at Heierlark for the duration of this mission, we will be seeing a little more of the base once we get to Ace Combat 5.  MOUNT SCHRIM A lonely mountain surrounded by low lying foothills along the Edelstein River in South Belka. Despite the demilitarization and surrender of Southern Belka, the Yering Mine supply airfield and outlying facilities at Mt. Schrim have been occupied by a large force of pro-Northern troops who remain hostile to the Allied Forces, despite a pending cease fire agreement between Belka and Osea. While the facility is ostensibly a mining facility, the presence of a massive hanger installation at the mine’s airfield and an off-site unmarked manufacturing facility heavily defended by anti-air installations and a rapid-response MiG-31 squadron suggests there is more to this facility than meets the eye.  BAGGER 288 As noted in the video, the “bucket and wheel” excavator glimpsed in this mission bears a strong resemblance to the Bagger 288 (Excavator 288) strip-miner. The Bagger 288 was manufactured by the German Krupp corporation (now known as ThyssenKrupp) in 1978 for the Rhine-Westfalia Power Plant (RWE) energy company. It is currently the second largest bucket and wheel exactor in the world, superseded only by the Bagger 293 excavator. As both ACES and I mention in the video, the Bagger 288, or a vehicle resembling it, has seen a number of cameos in movies and video games such as Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengence, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and Call of Dutys Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops. For reference, here is a potato-quality video of Nicholas Cage turning the Bagger 288 into a giant flaming hell machine from the Ghost Rider sequel. God bless you, Nic.  Following the mayhem of Operation Ravage, we have a change to the roster of Galm Squadron.  GALM SQUADRON Ustio 6th Air Division, 66th Air Force Unit Members:
Squadron Composition: F-15C Eagle (x1), F-16C Fighting Falcon (x1) So now you know what/who Lunethex lost his poo poo over when I accidentally name-dropped him in the Mission 10 video and had to bleep it out. To compensate for the loss of Pixy, the Ustio Air Force 6th Air Division reassigned Lt. Patrick James “PJ” Beckett from Crow Squadron to Galm Squadron to function as the new Galm Two. The fate of Beckett’s squadron mates from Crow Team is never elaborated on, but since they never appear again after Mission 12, I’m going to say they’re effectively KIA, having being shot down by the mystery flight of Su-27s that engaged Cipher after the nuke strike, or they crashed as a result of the explosions. Rather than switch over to an F-15C, most likely due to material scarcity this late into the war, PJ elected to remain in his F-16C on sorties for Galm Team. He even elects to retain his Crow Team colours over a new Galm Team emblem for his plane, most likely as a memorial to his (probably) fallen comrades. This is also the space where I get to vent about why I dislike PJ as a wingmate. He comes across, intentionally or not, as a whiny kissass to Cipher. His unrealistic peacenik idealism is particularly grating, and in a series like Ace Combat, that’s really saying something, mostly because there isn’t anything else of worth to his character to balance it out in order to endear him to you in the way that say your wingmates from Ace Combat 5 have, because good loving god do THEY get preachy as poo poo too but they’re all still respectable characters. There is also the fact that he is forced upon you unwanted as a replacement for a vastly better character. I feel like I just got ripped off by a pickpocket who put my wallet right back where he found it, only to swap out all my money with tiny dickbutt drawings. The game also doesn’t do PJ any favors by introducing him as basically a flying punchline and he doesn’t really do a whole lot to shake off that stigma for the rest of the game. So sadly, this is our new wingman. We’re stuck with him for the rest of the game. We’ll just have to see how he holds up. He’s not the worst wingmate you will ever have in an Ace Combat game, that dishonor belongs to the utterly insufferable Shamrock in Ace Combat 6, but he is one of the bottom rungers, for what it’s worth. I probably have more to say about why PJ is such a shite character, but I can’t find the right means to articulate it, so I’ll just throw the floor open to the peanut gallery from here. On to the planes!  Aircraft featured in Mission 12, Operation Ravage:  BM-335 Lindwurm Manufacturer: South Belka Munitions Factory Role: Strategic bomber Manufactured: 1951 Status: In Service Primary Operators: The Principality of Belka Quick Facts:
 Su-27 Flanker Manufacturer: Sukhoi Role: Multi-role air superiority fighter Manufactured: 1982-Present Status: In Service Primary Operators: Russia, China, Ukraine Quick Facts:
  Codenamed "Flanker," this aircraft is at the pinnacle of modern air superiority fighter technology. Its refined aerodynamics and powerful engines provide exceptional maneuverability. Ammo Missile: 72 XMAA: 16 UGBL: 8 SFFS: 12  F-15E Strike Eagle Manufacturer: Boeing / McDonnell Douglas Role: Strike fighter Manufactured: 1985-Present Status: In Service Primary Operators: United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Korea Quick Facts:
  Known as the “Strike Eagle,” this F-15 adds ground attack capabilities to its full-scale aerial combat abilities. The outward design of this fighter appears similar to that of the F-15, but has in fact undergone extensive modification. Ammo Missile: 76 SFFS: 14 SAAM: 10 GPB: 14  EA-18G Growler Manufacturer: Boeing Role: Electronic warfare Manufactured: 2004-Present Status: In Service Primary Operators: United States, Austrialia Quick Facts:
  This carrier-based electronic warfare aircraft is a modified version of the F/A-18. Its primary role is to minimize threat to itself and the squadron by jamming enemy radar. It is often employed when an enemy offensive is apparent. Ammo Missile: 74 ECHP: 6 XMAA: 8 LGBM: 10 Aircraft featured in Mission 13:  Sorry folks, I got nothing for you this time. We’re circling the drain in terms of “new” or “suddenly prominent” planes as we head into the home stretch for Zero. I’m also never going to be checking the Hangar shop again now that we have the F-15C, so we’re not really gonna see any more unlocked planes. But don’t worry, anything that doesn’t get featured in the individual missions will be included in one bulk spotlight session for the post-mortem update.  Mission 12:  107 Konrad Neumann "Spatz" 30, Male, Belka 06.06.95 Operation Ravage - Killed In Action F-35 Lightning II Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Mercenary (Appears after the mission update if all bomber escort fighters are shot down) Joined the Belkan Air Force in 1993, and was called Spatz for his small build and boyish looks. He was an elite student who graduated second in his class from military school. It is known that he bailed out soon after being shot down, but has not been heard from since. In 1996, he was claimed to be a casualty of war.  108 Benjamin Pingel "Lynx 1" 39, Male, Belka 06.06.95 Operation Ravage - Killed In Action Su-27 Flanker Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Soldier (Appears after the mission update if all the bombers are shot down) Commander of the Lynx Squadron of the Belkan Air Force. He was a self-made man who climbed the ranks from being a foot soldier in the Army. His nickname, Lynx, came from his army days. He died during Operation Ravage when his plane was shot down by Galm Flight.  109 Etta Shultheiss "Lynx 2" 27, Female, Belka 06.06.95 Operation Ravage - Shot Down Su-27 Flanker Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Soldier (Appears after the mission update if all the bombers are shot down) A female Belkan Air Force pilot who flew second in the Lynx formation. She bailed out in the vicinity of the V1 bomb site and miraculously survived. She retired in 1997 and now teaches at Gratia High School in Belka.  110 Adler Braun "Nebelbank" 28, Male, Belka 06.06.95 Operation Ravage - Killed In Action EA-18G Growler Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Knight (Appears after the mission update if all the bombers are shot down) Has not been heard from since Operation Ravage. The last recording on the communication log indicated that he was trying to escape from the nuclear bomb site. Soon after the cease-fire, he was deemed officially a casualty of war.  111 Dedrick Ebert "Trombe " 29, Male, Belka 06.06.95 Operation Ravage - Killed In Action Su-37 Terminator Difficulty: Ace Ace Style: Any One of the top aces of the Belkan Air Force. Nicknamed Trombe (Tornado), he served on the western frontlines. He was sent to the Waldreich Mountains immediately after accepting an ambush mission, but died when his aircraft was shot down by the Galm Flight. Mission 13:  112 Hans Frey "Riese" 28, Male, Belka 06.13.95 Operation Stone Age - Shot Down MiG-31 Foxhound Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Mercenary (Appears after you have scored 10,000+ points and destroyed a squadron of three MiG-21bis and one MiG-31 that appear in the west of the airport.) Was shot down in the vicinity of Schrim Mountain on June 13, 1995. Because of the wounds sustained from this incident, he moved away from the frontline. He currently lives with relatives in Edelburg, North Osea.  113 Rambert Booher "Beo" 27, Male, Belka 06.13.95 Operation Stone Age - Shot Down F-15E Strike Eagle Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Soldier (Appears after some enemy units in the north-eastern sector are destroyed.) After the surrender, Osea captured him as a war criminal and incarcerated him for 8 years. He returned to Belka upon release, cut all ties to former military personnel, and now lives as a civilian.  114 Rudiger Schmitt "Mondlicht" 29, Male, Belka 06.13.95 Operation Stone Age - Missing In Action F-15C Eagle * (Special Plane Colour Unlocked) Difficulty: Any Ace Style: Knight (Appears along with SAM sites after some enemy units in the south-western sector are destroyed.) He reported a malfunction during Operation Judgment and broke from the formation prior to losing communication. Afterwards, he suddenly appeared around the Yering Mines where he shot down two Allied planes. It was confirmed that his craft was shot down in Operation Stone Age and has been M.I.A. since.  115 Harvey Leykauf "Grani" 32, Male, Belka 06.13.95 Operation Stone Age - Shot Down YF-23A Black Widow II Difficulty: Easy Ace Style: Any (Appears after some enemy units in the eastern sector are destroyed.) After the fall of Belka, he fled to Osea, where he shot a police officer during questioning and absconded. Leykauf's prints and DNA were found on the soda can at the scene. Currently a fugitive.  116 Friedrich Nowak "Schatten" 28, Male, Belka 06.13.95 Operation Stone Age - Killed In Action F-117A Nighthawk * (Special Plane Colour Unlocked) Difficulty: Ace Ace Style: Any (Appears on the south-east end of the map.) As a sentry, he continuously reported the Allied Forces' movements. Investigation of the log from the downed plane revealed numerous exchanges with Anton Kupchenko. Because of this, it is deemed that Kupchenko is most likely the ringleader of the coup d'etat.   Tracks featured in Mission 12, Operation Ravage: DISC 1 Tracks featured in Mission 13, Operation Stone Age: DISC 2  Concept sketches of the BM-335 Lindwurm from the ACES AT WAR: A History artbook. 
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Feb 5, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 12:06
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This LP is making me consistently sad that the PC didn't get a good arcady flight game since Crimson Skies.
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Jan 28, 2016 13:26
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"Visari nuked his own drat city!"
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Jan 28, 2016 16:14
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Blind Sally posted:"Visari nuked his own drat city!" Belka went full Visari. You never go full Visari.
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Jan 28, 2016 17:04
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quote:Harvey Leykauf Harvey seems to be another casualty of the Cola Wars as well...
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Jan 28, 2016 18:18
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When I commentated on Mission 4, and I made mention of "my wingman" showing a surprising amount of competence when I gave him the Attack order, I was being weirdly vague on who that wingman was because of this. It wasn't Pixy who did that, it was PJ. I'm still going to be vague on what he attacked because that's not come up yet. Just keep an eye on those code words for things the South Belka Munitions Factory, we're going to be seeing all of them eventually. As for the mission itself, I don't have much on dialogue changes. This is the one I was talking about earlier when I mentioned the better of the two missions that went back to the 04 style of mission structure. You've got a time limit and a minimum score you have to make before that, but it's more tolerable because there aren't a ridiculous amount of targets or a full fleet of useless NPC allies. It's less "okay here be a cog in the machine" and more "alright, Demon Lord, show us what you can do". Also, try to remember this map too. We'll be here again. On the comment where you mention "jesus crow why don't you let these guys LP the series" front, just wait until AC2. Assuming I can actually find some way to record ePSXe without massive framerate drops or black screens (why hasn't anyone made a DX9+ renderer for that yet ) I'm going to be doing a hell of a lot for that game.As for the issues you mentioned with Infinity: right now they have challenges to unlock a special version of the just-added F-14B (already bad enough that they added a ridiculously-better version of it after I went to the trouble of bringing a regular one to level 5), which require you to grind out a total of six million credits within 3 and a half days as of this post. I mean I'm going for it, because I could really use six million credits and an actually-mobile Attacker right now, but I'm going to be burning fuel for the next three days at the sort of rate I'd really prefer to wait for the next re-run of the Mercenary King event for. Now for the planes Crow mentioned. First up's the Su-27 "Flanker-B". It was one of the two Soviet aircraft designed to counter the F-15 Eagle in the late 70s and early 80s as part of the Soviet General Staff's call for a "Prospective Frontline Fighter"; the interesting thing is that it was determined early on that no single aircraft could meet the requirements in the necessary numbers without costing too much (Lockheed  ), so it was split into a "Lightweight" and "Heavyweight" version; the Lightweight one became the earlier-mentioned MiG-29, and the Heavyweight one became the Su-27.It started out as a delta-wing design given the designation T-10, which was codenamed the "Flanker" by NATO when they learned of it. Problems plagued the design all throughout, eventually leading to a fatal crash of one of the prototypes in May 1978, leading to a complete redesign into the T-10S we're all familiar with; a few of those also crashed, but ultimately the design was more successful, and the 15th prototype was eventually produced in the form we're all familiar with. When the Su-27 is called essentially the Soviet F-15, as far as Project Aces is concerned that's a very, very apt descriptor - they have as much of a hardon for the Flanker as they do for the Eagle. Every game in the series includes at the very minimum two versions of it, and one of those is usually the Su-37. There's still other versions we have yet to unlock or even really see yet, so keep it in mind. The Strike Eagle is a fighter-bomber variant of the original Eagle, as mentioned, most easily told apart by the large (and apparently ugly to some?) conformal fuel tanks attached around the fuselage. The Air Force initially had no interest in such a design - as the Special Project Office once said, "not a pound for air to ground" - but McDonnell Douglas began developing a strike fighter version on the sly, converting the second TF-15A prototype into a demonstrator for the concept. In '81 the Air Force changed its mind and began the Enhanced Tactical Fighter (later Dual-Role Fighter) program, with the Strike Eagle competing against a "cranked arrow" delta-wing conversion of the F-16 and the Panavia Tornado (which didn't stand a chance in Hell of being adopted, but hey). Crow's mention about a perfect combat record isn't quite right, but it's pretty drat close - only two Strike Eagles have been confirmed lost to enemy action, both in the first days of Operation Desert Storm. Only about 14 more have been lost to accidents. It's also, as has been mentioned earlier in the thread, the craft that scored the first ever air-to-air kill with a bomb. It's also my favorite aircraft in Infinity. Like I've even got access to the XFA-27 now, with stats extremely close to it at level 3 (for comparison my Eagle's at level 8) and I still use the Strike Eagle primarily. In the early days it was one of the big three aircraft that potentially broke the game, being fast and mobile aircraft with insane slots for parts and access to the 4AGM alongside the Su-34 and the F-35B. It kind of fell by the wayside after the S/MTD and Su-47 were introduced a month or two in and completely broke the game by being fast, mobile aircraft with insane slots for parts and access to the LAGM/UGB respectively, but the Strike Eagle is still pretty usable (I actually outscored people with jets that had a total-cost rating a full 600 points above my plane's twice last night). The Growler I'm going to wait on. It's essentially an electronic-warfare variant of the Super Hornet, and most of what I have on that is basically a rehash of what I got for the Super Hornet so I'm going to wait for a game (2) that uses that. I will note though, this is another case of the series attaching a gun to a plane that didn't have one; the real Growler removed the Vulcan cannon in the nose to make room for the airborne electronic attack equipment. It's also one of the many anachronistic planes in this game, as the real Growler didn't see its first flight until five months after this game came out. It makes even less sense in the scheme of things because they went ahead and used the regular Hornet instead of the Super Hornet for the non-EW version since that was what was available at that point in time. Eh. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jan 28, 2016 |
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Jan 28, 2016 21:51
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I don't mind PJ. Incidentally, I'm slowly but surely learning how to fold origami dickbutts out of paper money. Completely unrelated. I guess he does make 'comedic LP commentary' redundant though, so I understand why everyone hates that. He does talk like he's a post-4Kids Sonic the Hedgehog animal friend, though. That's kind of off putting.
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Jan 28, 2016 22:39
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Did someone say Macross Missile Massacre?
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Jan 28, 2016 23:14
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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Yah that Lord of War poster is pretty freaky looking.
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Jan 28, 2016 23:44
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