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stryth posted:Employ emulator hackery and land a plane upside down. Unfortunately there is no invincibility code for the game, so I can't do that. sb hermit posted:Are there anime paint jobs for the planes? The alternate paint schemes wi get their due in a separate video. HOWEVER, because this is emulated and running with texture replacement, I CAN swap in just about anything you guys can think of/suggest for certain planes.... nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 18:06
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bacon texture f-35
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Jun 9, 2021 20:41
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Alect Squadron Mission 13A: Alect Squadron – December 19th, 2020 Overview: Gryphus Squadron intercepts the elite Leasath Alect Squadron en route to Sentry Island before they can reach Archelon Fortress and gain control over Fenrir. A fierce air battle erupts in the Danern Straits inside Leasath territory as Gryphus Squadron is joined by another heroic Aurelian fighter team...   Guest Commentators: Things go off the rails in more ways than usual when Awful Survivor loser Blind Sally and gastrointestinal disease survivor CJacobs make their Ace Combat X return.    FALCO SQUADRON Aurelian Air Force Experimental Flight Technology Evaluation Squadron Members:
Squadron Composition: F-22A Raptor (x1) YF-23A (x2) | XFA-24A Apalis (x1) (Skies of Incursion) The heroes of another story. You may or may not remember Falco Squadron, and specifically Falco 1 as the protagonist of the iOS game Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion (helpfully LP’d for us by Ashsaber). The intersection of Gryphus 1 and Flaco 1 in this mission (and Mission 13B, Armada) is one the only time so far that a player character from one Ace Combat game has directly and canonically crossed paths with the player character from another Ace Combat game and is our lone tenuous thread on which to claim Skies of Incursion is canon to the Strangereal timeline. To give a quick recap of events for Skies of Incursion, the game takes place ten days before the start of Skies of Deception and follows Falco Squadron up in Northern Aurelia as they try to stave off the surprise invasion of Aurelia by Leasath. The game takes Falco Squadron through eight missions that are straight up asset flips from X, culminating in a boss battle with the prototype of the Gleipnir, the Gandr over the same map that is used here for the fight with Alect Squadron. The game then ends on a note of “And then Aurelia fell to Leasath anyway, nothing you did even mattered.” Despite Falco Squadron’s ultimately pyrrhic resistance effort against Leasath, Aurelia fell to the might of the invading forces and the country was occupied from mid October to early December of 2020. However, Falco Squadron’s efforts in stymieing the Leasathian forces just long enough paid off in the long run, as they kept Leasath from reaching Cape Aubrey and wiping out Gryphus Squadron. Gryphus would then go on to lead the counter attack on Leasath which culminated in the complete rout of Lesathian forces from Aurelia with the liberation of Griswall in early December. With all of Aurelia free once again, including Flaco Squadron’s home base of Phuku Lagolla Air Force Base, the squadron was once again able to take to the skies and will now accompany Gryphus Squadron on their mission to destroy Fenrir and Archelon Fortress and end the threat of Leasath’s rogue military state for good. Just kidding, they disappear after this mission!   ALECT SQUADRON Democratic Republic of Leasath Air Force Members:
Navarro’s star pilots. The dreaded Alect Squadron is the pride of the Democratic Republic of Leasath’s Air Force and the top ace pilots in the southern skies. They fought alongside Chimera Squadron and the airborne fortresses Gandr and Gleipnir in the opening blitz of Leasath’s attack on Aurelia in October of 2020. And while they claimed many victories of Aurelia with their unquestionable skill, their successes also made them overconfident. With Aurelia firmly under Lesath control within just ten days of combat, Alect Squadron was sent back to Alendal and placed on standby to maintain the Leasath homeland air defense network. It was assumed they would no longer be needed in a combat role, but shortly after the destruction of the Gleipnir by Gryphus 1, they were recalled to front line duty by Diego Gaspar Navarro’s personal request. Navarro had promised them the fight of their lives against a pilot his soldiers had dubbed (to his chagrin) “Nemesis,” the one who has shot down the Gleipnir. The opposing aces finally met in the skies over the Danern Straits in mid-December as Gryphus and Falco Squadrons ambushed Alect Squadron on their way to Archelon Fortress to claim Navarro’s new weapon, the invisible superplane codenamed Fenrir. With Alect Squadron utterly wiped out by Gryphus and Falco, the Aurelian forces will no longer have to worry about facing a flight of Fenrirs in the hands of legendary aces. However, while they were occupied with Alect Squadron, a transport convoy from Cobalt Cave in the southern Danern Straights managed to make it to Archelon Fortress with an experimental High-Power Microwave weapon to mount to Fenrir and complete its armament. In the end, it seems they have simply traded one problem for another. “Alect” is a mistranslation of Alecto, one of the ancient Greek Furies, the female deities of vengeance and punishment. There were three of them in total, Alecto (“endless anger”), Megaera (“jealous rage”), and Tisiphone (“vengeful destruction”). Alecto would inflict madness upon the sinful humans whom the Furies were sent to castigate for their crimes. While the Furies punished crimes by humans against other humans, the deity Nemesis existed to punish humans for their crimes against the gods. The emblem of Alect Squadron, depicting Alecto on its seal, was revealed as a part of Ace Combat Infinity’s “End of Deception Ranking Tournament” event. Prior to that, no canon emblem had existed for the Squadron.    FALCO 1 Real Name: Unknown (Player Determined) Callsign(s): Falco 1, Sir, Southern Cross, FALCO01 Age: Early 30’s Sex: Male Nationality: Aurelia Signature Plane: Player choice (XFA-24A Apalis in all canon material, F-22A Raptor in Ace Combat X) Voice Actor: Uncredited The other Southern Cross. Falco 1 is the unsung hero of the opening days of the Aurelia-Leasath war, single-handedly managing to forestall the progress of the Leasath military into Southern Aurelia by ten days and costing them their prototype aerial fortress superweapon the Gandr. Based out of Phuku Lagolla Air Force Base southwest of Griswall, Falco 1 was to Northern Aurelia in the early days of the war what Gryphus 1 was to Southern Aurelia in the latter days of the conflict. And although Falco 1’s fight was unsuccessful in the face of Leasath’s overwhelming might and the power of their true superweapon, the Gleipnir, it’s reasonable to assume that Aurelia’s very survival was even made possible in the first place by Falco Squadron’s efforts. Little is known about Falco 1 as a person, however he is known to be a dedicated family man, stating in Missions 13A and 13B that his son is a big fan of Gryphus 1. (Also way to accidentally dunk on yourself there dude, you’re part of the reason Aurelia is even still standing at the moment and you’re not even your own kid’s hero, someone else is.) Before helping Gryphus Squadron take down the menacing Alect Squadron, Falco 1’s other claim to fame was defeating Leasath’s deadly Chimera Squadron, the predecessors to Alect, who had by that point racked up multiple crushing victories against Aurelian forces themselves. Falco 1 put an end to their reign of terror, an event recapped in the opening cinematic of Skies of Incursion (as well as in the opening to Skies of Deception with Gryphus 1 doing the deed instead). Originally, Falco 1 was just a minor character who appeared in this mission and its B-side analog, Armada, and then disappeared from the plot entirely. It wasn’t until the release of Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion for the iOS platform in 2009, three years after Skies of Deception’s original release, that he became a playable character himself. This makes Falco 1 the first and so far only Ace Combat protagonist whose character was established in another game before becoming the hero of their own story.   SKIES OF INCURSION So we kind of need to talk about Ace Combat Xi. Well, we don’t really need to talk about it, its entirely vestigial at this point, but I’m going to talk about it anyway. Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion (pronounced any way you like, “Zee”, “Chi”, “Zai”, “Ecks Eye”, etc.) was a mobile side story game developed by Project ACES and released in 2009 (three years after Ace Combat X’s 2006 release) for the Apple iOS mobile operating system. The game was purchasable and downloadable from the App Store and could be played on the iPhone or iPad. It was ultimately pulled from the App Store in 2015 after six years on the market, after the jump to iOS 7 and 8 broke its save game functionality. The game was largely an asset flip, reusing whole models, maps, graphics, and audio from Ace Combat X to cobble together something presenting itself as an original story when it was sort of anything but. Ashsaber’s LP of it gave it the treatment it deserved. As to its exact canonicity, I’ve been treating it the same way I’ve been treating Electrosphere, in that it’s as canon as I need it to be whenever I need it to be because it’s slightly more plausible than considering Northern Wings 100% canon as well. Slipping in references to Falco 1 and the Gandr, and the general arc of Xi is fun, but it’s all meaningless window dressing in the long run. Its plot shoves a slate of eight missions into the ten-day gap mentioned by Albert Genette in the opening of Ace Combat X between the start of the Leasath invasion and Mission 1 of the game. Its missions concern Falco 1’s fight to try and halt the Leasath advance through Northern Aurelia from the border and Griswall down to Santa Elva and eventually Port Paterson and Cape Aubrey. It’s plane roster was mainly the Ace Combat X semi-superplanes like the Apalis (the default plane for the game), the Cariburn, the XFA-27, the Forneus, and Fregata, with additional planes purchasable with real world money via in-app purchases. It reused maps from Mission 1, Mission 2, Mission 3A and 3B, Mission 9A and 9B, and Mission 13A and 13B. I had, at the outset of this whole project, intended to actually LP the game alongside Ace Combat X myself, but I’d missed the boat on being able to even acquire it by literal months before I started working on Zero. Finding an iPhone or iPad that still has a working copy of Ace Combat Xi is a truly rare thing indeed, so this is my chance to properly thank Ashsaber for all their hard work LPing Xi in the first place and give them the proper cred they’re due.  DANERN STRAITS Our first actual foray into Leasath territory. The Danern Straits are a small body of water in the Aurelian Sea in the southern Atlantic Ocean separating mainland Aurelia from the island territories of the Democratic Republic of Leasath. The largest of the Danern Islands is Sentry Island, directly south of the Leasath capital city of Alendal and home to Archelon Fortress, a massive military installation where Leasath has been developing its meson particle based weaponry like the Shock Cannon. There are two routes to Archelon Fortress from Griswall, the northern route over open waters and in the patrol range of Leasath’s capital fleet, or south through the islands passing near Cobalt Cave, another top secret Leasath weapons development and communications facility.  ALECT SQUADRON So Part 3 of the game is incredibly straightforward after the sprawling and convoluted Part 2. There’s no trap missions, no real wild branching paths, just a simple choice of what kind of final boss do you want to face in End of Deception: a relatively bog standard boss AI with an amped up super weapon to compensate, or a very precise and deadly boss AI that can mince you up easily on its own merits, no fancy weaponry required. There is no right choice or wrong choice here. Both options are equally valid, although it is clear that Project ACES weights End of Deception II a little more heavily than End of Deception I when it comes to which version is considered the “canon” outcome of the game by the extra little thing it adds at the end of it, but we’ll discuss that when we get to it. For now, you can all pat yourselves on the back for overwhelmingly choosing to do Mission 13A (Alect Squadron) even though the choice didn’t matter, because this allows us to line up End of Deception II as our final final mission to close out the game before we move on to Operation X and the bonus videos. Upon completing Mission 13A, our two options ahead of us are now rushing right to Archelon Fortress and doing Mission 15A (End of Deception I), or taking a detour to Cobalt Cave and doing Mission 14B (Offline). Rushing ahead and doing End of Deception I is only a viable strategy if you’re going for the Swift Hunter medal, where you complete the game in the shortest number of missions, or if you actually want to face down the Fenrir’s fully powered microwave weapon for the sake of an added challenge. So because we’re NOT going for that medal and leaving any missions undone, our next stop is going to be Offline so we can nerf the microwave gun before we have to face Fenrir because, holy poo poo, if that’s what it’s like at half power, I don’t want to see what it can do at 100%.  
SORROW 
PAIN 
 
★Cont. Ship   Tracks featured in Mission 13A: DISC X nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Oct 29, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2021 22:29
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biosterous posted:bacon texture f-35 
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Jun 9, 2021 22:47
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Does anyone else suddenly have a nose bleed?
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Jun 9, 2021 22:48
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You were struggling with those Gripens.
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Jun 9, 2021 22:59
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nine-gear crow posted:
Behold, the one cargo ship to ever be equipped with nitrous, we will never see it's like again.
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Jun 10, 2021 01:21
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I'm honestly surprised to see 39's this late into the game as they're usually a mid-tier plane. Even if the bad guys. The 1.44 made a lot more sense in that case.
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Jun 10, 2021 01:40
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that level basically fulfills my request for "yf-23 and pretty scenery" lol
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Jun 10, 2021 04:16
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biosterous posted:that level basically fulfills my request for "yf-23 and pretty scenery" lol I might have to tweak it a tiny bit to make the bacon more visually resolvable because right now it looks like the inside of the goatman's rear end, but still, proof of concept. Anyone else got any similar requests for wacky skins?
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Jun 10, 2021 04:29
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Go for a nice sky blue with wisps of white. Stealth by blending into the sky and clouds! Or just go hot-pink all over, so any enemies shot down will die of embarrassment.
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Jun 10, 2021 05:11
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nine-gear crow posted:I might have to tweak it a tiny bit to make the bacon more visually resolvable because right now it looks like the inside of the goatman's rear end, but still, proof of concept. Anyone else got any similar requests for wacky skins? full. anime. idolm@ster if you have to, for the Ace Combat 6 experience
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Jun 10, 2021 06:02
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Offline Mission 14B: Offline – December 20th, 2020 Overview: Prototypes of Leasath’s new cutting-edge weapon, the High-Powered Microwave gun, have been shipped to Archelon Fortress and mounted to Fenrir. The only way to mitigate its power is to destroy the radar targeting network linked to the HPM at Cobalt Cave. Gryphus Squadron must make one final detour before confronting the super weapon at Sentry Island if they are to have a hope of surviving the encounter.  Guest Commentator: I am joined for this mission by Kane’s emissary on Earth, Jobbo_Fett. Jobbo is currently in the midst of a series playthrough of the various Command & Conquer games inspired by my game-by-game LP project of the Ace Combat games. After making it through the original game, Tiberium Sun, and both Red Alerts and their expansions, he is currently LPing Command & Conquer: Renegade, that weird FPS set in the C&C universe that Westwood tried to make along with the “real world” based Generals duology before giving in and going back to the well with Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. You can catch Jobbo alongside his eternal partner in LP crime, ChaosArgate in Argate’s LP of Yakuza Kiwami 2 (the remake of Yakuza 2), and in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and its DLC epilogue Future Connected alongside myself and Artix, which is due to wrap up its final update in the next few weeks.  COBALT CAVE On the southern-most of the Danern Islands lies Cobalt Cave, a Leasath military weapons development, naval station, and communication facility. Spread out on the surface level of the island is a vast array of radar and radio facilities, with an effective range covering the entire Danern Straits from the coast of South Osea to Sentry Island. The communications facilities at Cobalt Cave provide real-time broadcast connection between Sentry Island and the Leasath capital city of Alendal, as well as provide Archelon Fortress with an early warning radar network. Hidden under a vast overhang, inside the actual cave portion of Cobalt Cave lies a submarine dock and naval repair drydock facility servicing the Leasath Navy. Inside these underground facilities lies a weapons development laboratory  OFFLINE So because we let the microwave weapon make it to Sentry Island while we were fighting Alect Squadron in Mission 13A, Fenrir is now going to have a super powered super weapon and regular enemy AI as opposed to no super weapon and really powerful AI. Mission 14B is your one and only chance to nerf what is perhaps one of the most bullshit gimmicks any Ace Combat game has ever thrown at you outside of Time Limit, and we’ve already done Time Limit. The other option is rushing on ahead to Sentry Island for the sake of expediency or because you actually want the challenge, but this is it, after this the only other mission we have available for Part 3 is the final mission of End of Deception I. Now mind you, we are not done with the game yet, so we’re not going to be seeing the credits roll on Mission 15A. That will be reserved for our second run through Part 3 and the final final mission, End of Deception II which we we be getting to later next week. 
ORCA  
★Cont. Ship Tracks featured in Mission 14B: DISC X nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jun 11, 2021 19:35
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both of you are wrong about the FB-22 every ace combat player in the world sees this image and thinks 'okay if I just apply a little rudder I can fly right through' and of course you did it twice ...well, three times if we count your "forgot to fire the missiles" run 
Psion fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jun 11, 2021 |
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Jun 11, 2021 20:41
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Psion posted:both of you are wrong about the FB-22 It would have been more fun if you had to land or take off in the cave. I mean, we're in a game, so why not do something outlandish?
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Jun 14, 2021 01:18
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sb hermit posted:It would have been more fun if you had to land or take off in the cave. I mean, we're in a game, so why not do something outlandish? Understandable, but the conceit of Part 3 is that these missions are all functionally happening within hours of one another, so stopping anywhere seems self-defeating--hence why you get the mid-air refueling section after you clear 13A or 14A. So we're just in a mad rush to make it to Archelon Fortress and murder the poo poo out of Navarro...'s superplanes.
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Jun 14, 2021 02:52
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nine-gear crow posted:Understandable, but the conceit of Part 3 is that these missions are all functionally happening within hours of one another, so stopping anywhere seems self-defeating--hence why you get the mid-air refueling section after you clear 13A or 14A. So we're just in a mad rush to make it to Archelon Fortress and murder the poo poo out of Navarro...'s superplanes. I never really stopped to think about why some missions have you land, while others had a mid-air refueling segment, but thanks for pointing that out. I'm going to assume that special weapons also get refueled... somehow... we live in a
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Jun 14, 2021 07:50
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sb hermit posted:I'm going to assume that special weapons also get refueled... somehow... we live in a They just use CheatEngine while you're hooked up to the tanker and find the remaining missiles count and reset it to max.
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Jun 14, 2021 18:29
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End of Deception I Mission 15A: End of Deception I – December 20th, 2020 Overview: Gryphus Squadron assaults Archelon Fortress on Sentry Island to destroy the final Leasath superweapon Fenrir and end Diego Gaspar Navarro’s reign of terror once and for all. As Navarro prepares to unveil his masterwork to the world, Albert Genette stands poised to reveal every last lie and deception which the General built his empire upon. One way or another, the truth is about to come out… And it’s going to hurt.  Guest Commentator: I am joined for this first run of the final mission by our first outside-SA guest of the LP, SlyCooperFan1. As one of the main admins of Acepedia, Sly is one of the internet’s top Ace Combat fact masters and is here at the end of all things to call me out on my bullshit in revenge for torturing him with various gameplay shitposts in the bonus videos I’ve been racking up and never posting because video editing is hard and I hate it. Either way, this mission and End of Deception II are the only two videos where I have someone on who actually knows anything about Ace Combat X, so treasure them while they last.  FENRIR Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Odin. That’s who. Perhaps the most famous wolf in all of mythology, Fenrir is the great destroyer beast of Norse myth whose unleashing begins Ragnarök, the prophesied final battle of the Norse gods and the end of Aesir dynasty over the Nine Realms. Fenrir is one of the many monstrous children of the giant Angrboða and Loki, god of mischief, Disney+ star, God of War deuteragonist, all-around poo poo-riling rear end in a top hat, and son of the jötunns (frost giants) Farbauti and Laufey. Fenrir's siblings are Hel, the goddess of death and keeper of the underworld, and Jörmungandr, the world serpent who encircles all of Midgard (Earth) and the eventual killer of Thor (also during Ragnarök). Known also as Fenrisúlfr (Fenrir’s wolf or Fenris-wolf), Hróðvitnir (flame wolf), Vánagandr (monster of the river Ván) or Vanargand, Fenrir is the father of the wolves Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson, who chase the sun and moon across the sky by day and night respectively. The gods knew of the danger Fenrir posed right from the start, as it grew rapidly from a pup to monstrous size and bit off the hand of the god Tyr before it was finally bound by the impossible chain Gleipnir. Ragnarök begins when Fenrir slips the bonds of Gleipnir and begins a rampage across Asgard that quickly escalates to all hell breaking loose among the gods and Fenrir killing and devouring Odin, the All-Father. Fenrir is then slain by Odin’s son Víðarr, who cuts off the beast’s head with his sword, avenging his father and ending Ragnarök. The medal for destroying Fenrir in under 10 minutes in the game is called “The Mark of Vioarr”, named after Víðarr. Yes Odin deserved to die, and I hope he burns in Hel.  ARCHELON FORTRESS Archelon Fortress is a massive Leasath military installation and weapons development and manufacturing factory built into the rocky terrain of Sentry Island in the southernmost extreme of Leasath territory in the Atlantic Ocean. For the majority of the war with Aurelia, Archelon Fortress served as Leasath’s military GHQ, despite General Diego Gaspar Navarro personally taking up residence in Gaiuss Tower in Griswall from late October to early December while Aurelia was under Leasath occupation. The fortress is the only currently known location responsible for the manufacturing of the XFA-33 Fenrir next generation superfighter, as satellite observation have shown no other signs of Fenrir activity in Leasath territory BUT at Archelon. It is possible that components for the Gleipnir were also manufactured and tested at Archelon, as a massive stationary shock cannon has been discovered atop the mountains into which the fortress was built, along with a large rectenna array used to amplify and co-ordinate the firepower of the High-Powered Microwave weaponry currently installed upon Fenrir. A direct broadcast link to the People’s National Stadium in Alendal was set up by Leasath propagandist agents with the intent to showcase the true capabilities of the XFA-33 in a live fire combat situation as part of Diego Navarro’s grand unveiling of the aircraft to the public and to prospective international buyers who were invited to the capital. Navarro had hoped the footage of his invincible new weapon destroying the Southern Cross in aerial combat would send the Fenrir’s sales price soaring beyond his accountants’ wildest expectations, but instead the sight of the planes falling from the sky one by one, followed by the destruction of Archelon fortress itself turned the crowd on the dictator instantly. In terms of namesakes, Archelon fortress is named for an extinct species of giant turtle that lived during the Late Cretaceous epoch. Fitting for a fortress built into a shell of hard rock on an island in the middle of the sea. Archelon Fortress is even vaguely turtle shaped itself to boot.  END OF DECEPTION I So this is it, the first final mission of the LP. There’s literally nowhere left to go from here but to the credits—but we’re not going to the credits yet. Those come with End of Deception II, which we will be getting to in short order. Under normal circumstances, when the game returns you to the title screen you will unlock Free Mission mode as a reward for your new clear flag on your save file. A cutscene viewer and music player are also unlocked, but the music tracks are incomplete and none of them are named in any way.   FENRIR The future of manned aerial warfare. The XFA-33 Fenrir is a next-generation air superiority superfighter developed in secret by the Democratic Republic of Leasath and aeronautical engineers loyal to and at the behest of General Diego Gaspar Navarro. Fenrir is one of the largest fighter platforms ever developed, even dwarfing the [INFORMATION REDACTED] code-named “RAVEN” developed by [INFORMATION REDACTED] near the end of “Lighthouse War” between the Osean Federation and the Kingdom of Erusea one year prior. The airframe utilizes a polyhedral cropped delta wing configuration with bent wingtips, V-tail rudders and forward canards, and dual air intakes supplying airflow to three massive turbofan engines, the middle of which can gimbal downward 90° to allow it to momentarily hover in place or to arrest its forward momentum for high-precision mid-air maneuvers and allow the craft to make vertical take-offs and landings. It also boasted a proprietary version of the Connection For Flight Interface (COFFIN) 360° digital combat awareness cockpit display system originally developed for use by the recently dissolved North Osea Gründer Industries GmbH defense contractor. In addition to its normal stealth features, the Fenrir prototypes encountered by Gryphus Squadron at Archelon Fortress also had a similar retroreflective optical camouflage system as seen on the destroyed aerial fortress Gleipnir. A secondary system also reduced the Fenrir’s engine noise, making it virtually undetectable by all possible means. However, the cloak on the Fenrir was only effective at short range and needed power supplied by an external generator and microwave transmitter rectenna found at Archelon Fortress. Further development on the Fenrir project would no doubt have solved this power supply issue, but with the fall of the Navarro military government in Leasath and the destruction of all known Fenrir airframes, the issue appears to be moot. In terms of armaments, the XFA-33 had a vast array of special weapons options available to it, though only one was seen in action at the time of its destruction in the skies over Archelon Fortress: the High-Powered Microwave gun or HPM, which will be discussed in depth elsewhere. The second of the Fenrir’s two offensive superweapons was not yet fully developed at the time of its deployment against Gryphus Squadron. The Long Range Shockwave Missle (LSWM) is a significantly scaled down, yet still incredibly powerful version of the Shockwave Burst Missile (SWBM) utilized by both the Gleipnir and Gandr airborne fortresses. Just like the SWBM, the LSWM houses a compact cyclotron reactor in its warhead and functions by dispersing meson particles to act as catalytic fuel before the warhead detonates by intentionally overloading the cyclotron. The chain reaction produces a powerful shockwave that ripples out in all directions, destroying everything in its path within at least a 2KM radius. The weapon, however, was prohibitively expensive to manufacture and deploy, and the Fenrir could only carry two of them at a time on its loadout. After the battle of Archelon Fortress and the official end of the Aurelia-Leasath War of 2020, pieces of the XFA-33 airframe and its blueprints were recovered by the Federal Republic of Aurelia for study purposes. The Usean defense contractor firm General Resource Ltd. was able to reproduce at least one working copy of the Fenrir prototype for Aurelia, but were unable to replicate its optical camouflage, VTOL, and HPM systems. In exchange for the loss of those features, the Aurelian model of the XFA-33 sports increased maneuverability thanks to its lighter airframe. While further development on the XFA-33 appears unlikely at this time, GR has taken the data gleaned from its reverse engineering and is currently at work developing a streamlined successor to Fenrir due for rollout within the next 15 years—the XFA-36A.  HIGH-POWERED MICROWAVE The Fenrir prototype encountered by Aurelian forces at Archelon Fortress was equiped with an experimental weapon known as the “High-Powered Microwave” gun, or HPM for short. The underslung pod found beneath the Fenrir’s cockpit provided the main housing and targeting hardware for the microwave weapon. The Fenrir was capable of creating a concentrated ball of microwave energy by interfacing with a nearby microwave generating array which produced a plasma reaction in the air. The plasma sphere would then travel at high speed towards the nearest hot object—the engines of any plane that happened to be nearby—and would cause the target aircraft to explode by frying its electronics and causing its fuel tank to rupture by superheating the fuel inside. The Fenrir itself was protected from the effects of its own microwave weapon by increased anti-electromagnetic and radiating shielding on all of its vital components and fuel tank. It is possible that the Fenrir could even survive the EMP generated from a nuclear detonation at close range. The weapon was manufactured originally at the Cobalt Cave weapons development laboratory and was originally intended to be used in conjunction with the radar and microwave dish arrays on Cobalt Island to further enhance the HPM’s already phenomenal power by increasing its tracking accuracy. However, with the destruction of the radar facilities at Cobalt Cave by the Aurelian Air Force as they made their way to Sentry Island, the HPM’s accuracy was diminished by at least 50% and it had to rely on local on-site tracking provided by Archelon Fortress to co-ordinate its fire with Fenrir’s onboard targeting computers.   XFA-33 Fenrir Manufacturer: Leasath Military Government Engineering Corps. Role: Prototype Multirole Manufactured: 2020 Status: Prototype Primary Operators: Leasath, Aurelia Quick Facts:
 quote:”An advanced fighter developed using tactical battle data gathered on the Gleipnir.”
 Medal: The Mark of Vioarr Awarded for: Completing Mission 15A or 15B in under 10 minutes. Description: Awarded for destroying the advanced fighter Fenrir.  Medal: Swift Hunter Awarded for: Completing the campaign in 10 missions. Description: Awarded for finishing the campaign with the fewest missions. 
ELIZA  
★Cont. Ship Tracks featured in Mission 15A: DISC X nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Jun 15, 2021 00:19
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And we made it all the way through with no mention of Belka! Hurray!
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Jun 15, 2021 02:32
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Oh right, almost forgot. Remember way back when, I made mention of really unfitting music in the mobile game? Well, now I can actually name what track that was. it was 34. End of Deception I & II. Yeah, the high energy final mission music, for a dead easy mission shooting a few ships. What the gently caress were they smoking when they decided on that?
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Jun 15, 2021 04:35
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That was a little too risky, sir
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Jun 15, 2021 07:15
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Chaosbrain posted:And we made it all the way through with no mention of Belka! Hurray! No, seriously, whose idea it was to leave bleeding-edge military tech developer without proper supervision? Trice! I have serious questions about Osea goverment competency.
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Jun 15, 2021 07:34
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Chaosbrain posted:And we made it all the way through with no mention of Belka! Hurray! There's still 4 videos left 
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Jun 15, 2021 10:27
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Well you've jinxed us now, that's for sure.
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Jun 15, 2021 11:11
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I'm gonna say it: That's an ugly plane.
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Jun 15, 2021 17:37
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Yeah, I'm not sold on the Fenrir either. It has too much of everything going on.
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Jun 15, 2021 17:40
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It would be fine if they took that stupid underslung pod off of it. It’s kind of grown on me as a design because I’ve been using it with cheats to clear missions real fast by dumping a bunch of LSWMs and basically freezing the game.
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Jun 15, 2021 17:58
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Fire Storm Mission 14A: Fire Storm – December 19th, 2020 Overview: A new cutting-edge weapon for Fenrir is being developed at Cobalt Cave. If Gryphus Squadron can destroy the prototypes before they are shipped to Sentry Island, it will severely cripple Fenrir’s attack capabilities. However, the only way to ensure Cobalt Cave’s destruction is with a series of precise strikes directly into the docking ports leading to the weapons storage bays. Guest Commentator: I am joined for this first mission of the final run of Part 3 once again by Jobbo_Fett.  COBALT CAVE On the southern-most of the Danern Islands lies Cobalt Cave, a Leasath military weapons development, naval station, and communication facility. Spread out on the surface level of the island is a vast array of radar and radio facilities, with an effective range covering the entire Danern Straits from the coast of South Osea to Sentry Island. The communications facilities at Cobalt Cave provide real-time broadcast connection between Sentry Island and the Leasath capital city of Alendal, as well as provide Archelon Fortress with an early warning radar network. Hidden under a vast overhang, inside the actual cave portion of Cobalt Cave lies a submarine dock and naval repair drydock facility servicing the Leasath Navy. Inside these underground facilities lies a weapons development laboratory  FIRE STORM We start the final run through Part 3 on the other end of the coin flip between this and Alect Squadron. Choosing to do Fire Storm first is banking on your confidence in your dogfighting capacities versus not just the high end AI of Ace Combat X and not just the game’s one true superplane, but both factors smashed together combined with the cloak gimmick we’ve already witnessed in End of Deception I. At the very least, you won’t have to tangle with the High-Powered Microwave super weapon on Fenrir this time around. Thankfully, those two options are mutually exclusive since you HAVE to do either Fire Storm or Alect Squadron to get to End of Deception period. From here we have two choices: move on to Mission 13B (Armada) or zip ahead to Mission 15B (End of Deception II) and face probably the lightest of consequences for skipping 13B. Not doing Armada will, in addition to netting us the Bad Ending by leaving a mission on the table, will result in there being slightly more sea targets at Sentry Island by letting the Leasath Navy reach Archelon Fortress. Oh no, more things to blow up that barely pose a threat to you! Whatever will we do? Look, I’m not gonna lie here, the game kind of runs out of steam when it comes to missions that aren’t either Alect Squadron or End of Deception here at the end. We’re almost done, just hang on. 
LANCER Lancer is our final Named Ace with a namesake from another game. In this case, the name “Lancer” would turn up later in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy (Ace Combat 3D: Cross Rumble in Japan), the remake of Ace Combat 2 for the Nintendo 3DS handheld system released in 2011. Lancer Squadron is the first of the game’s four boss squadrons you encounter, not including the sporadic boss fights with the ZOE fighters.  
★Submarine Tracks featured in Mission 14A: DISC X nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Jul 14, 2021 |
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Jun 17, 2021 18:48
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Armada Mission 13B: Armada – December 20th, 2020 Overview: Gryphus Squadron intercepts a massive Leasath armada en route to Sentry Island. If they can sink the naval fleet in the Danern Straits inside Leasath territory before it reaches Archelon Fortress, Aurelia’s landing force will have little resistance as they storm the island. To help them accomplish this, Gryphus Squadron is joined by another heroic Aurelian fighter team... Guest Commentators: I am joined one last time in the base game of Ace Combat X by Blind Sally and CJacobs as we close in on the end at last. FALCO SQUADRON Aurelian Air Force Experimental Flight Technology Evaluation Squadron Members:
Squadron Composition: F-22A Raptor (x1) YF-23A (x2) | XFA-24A Apalis (x1) (Skies of Incursion) The heroes of another story. You may or may not remember Falco Squadron, and specifically Falco 1 as the protagonist of the iOS game Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion (helpfully LP’d for us by Ashsaber). The intersection of Gryphus 1 and Flaco 1 in this mission (and Mission 13B, Armada) is one the only time so far that a player character from one Ace Combat game has directly and canonically crossed paths with the player character from another Ace Combat game and is our lone tenuous thread on which to claim Skies of Incursion is canon to the Strangereal timeline. To give a quick recap of events for Skies of Incursion, the game takes place ten days before the start of Skies of Deception and follows Falco Squadron up in Northern Aurelia as they try to stave off the surprise invasion of Aurelia by Leasath. The game takes Falco Squadron through eight missions that are straight up asset flips from X, culminating in a boss battle with the prototype of the Gleipnir, the Gandr over the same map that is used here for the fight with Alect Squadron. The game then ends on a note of “And then Aurelia fell to Leasath anyway, nothing you did even mattered.” Despite Falco Squadron’s ultimately pyrrhic resistance effort against Leasath, Aurelia fell to the might of the invading forces and the country was occupied from mid October to early December of 2020. However, Falco Squadron’s efforts in stymieing the Leasathian forces just long enough paid off in the long run, as they kept Leasath from reaching Cape Aubrey and wiping out Gryphus Squadron. Gryphus would then go on to lead the counter attack on Leasath which culminated in the complete rout of Lesathian forces from Aurelia with the liberation of Griswall in early December. With all of Aurelia free once again, including Flaco Squadron’s home base of Phuku Lagolla Air Force Base, the squadron was once again able to take to the skies and will now accompany Gryphus Squadron on their mission to destroy Fenrir and Archelon Fortress and end the threat of Leasath’s rogue military state for good. Just kidding, they disappear after this mission! FALCO 1 Real Name: Unknown (Player Determined) Callsign(s): Falco 1, Sir, Southern Cross, FALCO01 Age: Early 30’s Sex: Male Nationality: Aurelia Signature Plane: Player choice (XFA-24A Apalis in all canon material, F-22A Raptor in Ace Combat X) Voice Actor: Uncredited The other Southern Cross. Falco 1 is the unsung hero of the opening days of the Aurelia-Leasath war, single-handedly managing to forestall the progress of the Leasath military into Southern Aurelia by ten days and costing them their prototype aerial fortress superweapon the Gandr. Based out of Phuku Lagolla Air Force Base southwest of Griswall, Falco 1 was to Northern Aurelia in the early days of the war what Gryphus 1 was to Southern Aurelia in the latter days of the conflict. And although Falco 1’s fight was unsuccessful in the face of Leasath’s overwhelming might and the power of their true superweapon, the Gleipnir, it’s reasonable to assume that Aurelia’s very survival was even made possible in the first place by Falco Squadron’s efforts. Little is known about Falco 1 as a person, however he is known to be a dedicated family man, stating in Missions 13A and 13B that his son is a big fan of Gryphus 1. (Also way to accidentally dunk on yourself there dude, you’re part of the reason Aurelia is even still standing at the moment and you’re not even your own kid’s hero, someone else is.) Before helping Gryphus Squadron take down the menacing Alect Squadron, Falco 1’s other claim to fame was defeating Leasath’s deadly Chimera Squadron, the predecessors to Alect, who had by that point racked up multiple crushing victories against Aurelian forces themselves. Falco 1 put an end to their reign of terror, an event recapped in the opening cinematic of Skies of Incursion (as well as in the opening to Skies of Deception with Gryphus 1 doing the deed instead). Originally, Falco 1 was just a minor character who appeared in this mission and its B-side analog, Armada, and then disappeared from the plot entirely. It wasn’t until the release of Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion for the iOS platform in 2009, three years after Skies of Deception’s original release, that he became a playable character himself. This makes Falco 1 the first and so far only Ace Combat protagonist whose character was established in another game before becoming the hero of their own story.  DANERN STRAITS Our first actual foray into Leasath territory. The Danern Straits are a small body of water in the Aurelian Sea in the southern Atlantic Ocean separating mainland Aurelia from the island territories of the Democratic Republic of Leasath. The largest of the Danern Islands is Sentry Island, directly south of the Leasath capital city of Alendal and home to Archelon Fortress, a massive military installation where Leasath has been developing its meson particle based weaponry like the Shock Cannon. There are two routes to Archelon Fortress from Griswall, the northern route over open waters and in the patrol range of Leasath’s capital fleet, or south through the islands passing near Cobalt Cave, another top secret Leasath weapons development and communications facility.  ARMADA Armada by Ernest Cline is probably the worst book I’ve ever read, and that includes Eragon by Christopher Paolini and its somehow progressively worse sequels. The word “abysmal” can’t do it one one thousandth of the justice needed to properly encompass how bad it is; it is actually as bad as what lovely Star Wars nerds claim The Last Jedi is and I swear to God—oh wait. Yeah, Armada the mission is where the game just kinda rabbit ears its pockets and goes “what were you expecting? You did Fire Storm first and let Alect Squadron get away, I don’t have poo poo for you, chump. Go sink a bunch of ships and gently caress off.” This is definitely a “you sure did the other mission first” mission. And that’s really all I can say about it. If anything, Armada is kind of a reward for sticking out the game up to this point, giving you largely a turkey shoot mission as a breather before heading for the final battle with End of Deception II. And really, it’s a nice change of pace from having to fight Alect Squadron in 13A and a chance to catch your breath before taking them on in their final form in 15B. That said, if you ignore 13B and just head straight to 15B from here, the fleet gathered at the Danern Straits will show up at Archelon Fortress and you ultimately have to fight them there in addition to Alect Squadron, just not in as many numbers as they show up here. From here, there is literally only one mission left ahead of us: End of Deception II and with it the final credits. Aside from Operation X, as of the next update Ace Combat X is officially done, fully and completely. 
COMET 
SPIDER  
★B-2A Tracks featured in Mission 13B: DISC X nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Oct 6, 2021 |
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Jun 21, 2021 21:37
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I loving love the track that plays during this mission. It goes so hard and is so cheesy that I can’t help but head-bang!
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Jun 21, 2021 23:33
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End of Deception II Mission 15B: End of Deception II – December 20th, 2020 Bad Ending Epilogue & Credits Overview: Gryphus Squadron assaults Archelon Fortress on Sentry Island to destroy the final Leasath superweapon Fenrir and end Diego Gaspar Navarro’s reign of terror once and for all. As Navarro prepares to unveil his masterwork to the world, Albert Genette stands poised to reveal every last lie and deception which the General built his empire upon. One way or another, the truth is about to come out… And it’s going to hurt. Guest Commentator: I am joined once again for this final mission of the base game of Ace Combat X by SlyCooperFan1. ALECT SQUADRON Democratic Republic of Leasath Air Force Members:
Navarro’s star pilots. The dreaded Alect Squadron is the pride of the Democratic Republic of Leasath’s Air Force and the top ace pilots in the southern skies. They fought alongside Chimera Squadron and the airborne fortresses Gandr and Gleipnir in the opening blitz of Leasath’s attack on Aurelia in October of 2020. And while they claimed many victories of Aurelia with their unquestionable skill, their successes also made them overconfident. With Aurelia firmly under Lesath control within just ten days of combat, Alect Squadron was sent back to Alendal and placed on standby to maintain the Leasath homeland air defense network. It was assumed they would no longer be needed in a combat role, but shortly after the destruction of the Gleipnir by Gryphus 1, they were recalled to front line duty by Diego Gaspar Navarro’s personal request. Navarro had promised them the fight of their lives against a pilot his soldiers had dubbed (to his chagrin) “Nemesis,” the one who has shot down the Gleipnir. The opposing aces finally met in the skies over the Archelon Fortress in mid-December as Gryphus Squadron confronted Alect Squadron, now flying Navarro’s new weapon, the invisible superplane codenamed Fenrir. Despite not having access to the High-Powered Microwave prototype weapon, the pilots of Alect Squadron were able to utilize Fenrir to its full potential, making use of its superior maneuverability and and cutting edge avionics, as well as its optical camouflage system. It was only after a fierce and prolonged battle that Gryphus 1 was able to emerge victorious over the Alects, obliterating the ace squadron and their new superplane once and for all and ending the war with Leasath along with them. “Alect” is a mistranslation of Alecto, one of the ancient Greek Furies, the female deities of vengeance and punishment. There were three of them in total, Alecto (“endless anger”), Megaera (“jealous rage”), and Tisiphone (“vengeful destruction”). Alecto would inflict madness upon the sinful humans whom the Furies were sent to castigate for their crimes. While the Furies punished crimes by humans against other humans, the deity Nemesis existed to punish humans for their crimes against the gods. The emblem of Alect Squadron, depicting Alecto on its seal, was revealed as a part of Ace Combat Infinity’s “End of Deception Ranking Tournament” event. Prior to that, no canon emblem had existed for the Squadron. FENRIR Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Odin. That’s who. Perhaps the most famous wolf in all of mythology, Fenrir is the great destroyer beast of Norse myth whose unleashing begins Ragnarök, the prophesied final battle of the Norse gods and the end of Aesir dynasty over the Nine Realms. Fenrir is one of the many monstrous children of the giant Angrboða and Loki, god of mischief, Disney+ star, God of War deuteragonist, all-around poo poo-riling rear end in a top hat, and son of the jötunns (frost giants) Farbauti and Laufey. Fenrir's siblings are Hel, the goddess of death and keeper of the underworld, and Jörmungandr, the world serpent who encircles all of Midgard (Earth) and the eventual killer of Thor (also during Ragnarök). Known also as Fenrisúlfr (Fenrir’s wolf or Fenris-wolf), Hróðvitnir (flame wolf), Vánagandr (monster of the river Ván) or Vanargand, Fenrir is the father of the wolves Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson, who chase the sun and moon across the sky by day and night respectively. The gods knew of the danger Fenrir posed right from the start, as it grew rapidly from a pup to monstrous size and bit off the hand of the god Tyr before it was finally bound by the impossible chain Gleipnir. Ragnarök begins when Fenrir slips the bonds of Gleipnir and begins a rampage across Asgard that quickly escalates to all hell breaking loose among the gods and Fenrir killing and devouring Odin, the All-Father. Fenrir is then slain by Odin’s son Víðarr, who cuts off the beast’s head with his sword, avenging his father and ending Ragnarök. The medal for destroying Fenrir in under 10 minutes in the game is called “The Mark of Vioarr”, named after Víðarr. Yes Odin deserved to die, and I hope he burns in Hel.  ARCHELON FORTRESS Archelon Fortress is a massive Leasath military installation and weapons development and manufacturing factory built into the rocky terrain of Sentry Island in the southernmost extreme of Leasath territory in the Atlantic Ocean. For the majority of the war with Aurelia, Archelon Fortress served as Leasath’s military GHQ, despite General Diego Gaspar Navarro personally taking up residence in Gaiuss Tower in Griswall from late October to early December while Aurelia was under Leasath occupation. The fortress is the only currently known location responsible for the manufacturing of the XFA-33 Fenrir next generation superfighter, as satellite observation have shown no other signs of Fenrir activity in Leasath territory BUT at Archelon. It is possible that components for the Gleipnir were also manufactured and tested at Archelon, as a massive stationary shock cannon has been discovered atop the mountains into which the fortress was built into, along with a massive rectenna array used to amplify and co-ordinate the firepower of the High-Powered Microwave weaponry currently installed upon Fenrir. A direct broadcast link to the People’s National Stadium in Alendal was set up by Leasath propagandist agents with the intent to showcase the true capabilities of the XFA-33 in a live fire combat situation as part of Diego Navarro’s grand unveiling of the aircraft to the public and to prospective international buyers who were invited to the capital. Navarro had hoped the footage of his invincible new weapon destroying the Southern Cross in aerial combat would send the Fenrir’s sales price soaring beyond his accountants’ wildest expectations, but instead the sight of the planes falling from the sky one by one, followed by the destruction of Archelon fortress itself turned the crowd on the dictator instantly. In terms of namesakes, Archelon fortress is named for an extinct species of giant turtle that lived during the Late Cretaceous epoch. Fitting for a fortress built into a shell of hard rock on an island in the middle of the sea. Archelon Fortress is even vaguely turtle shaped itself to boot.  THE DECEMBER REVOLUTION In a single shocking instant, Diego Gaspar Navarro’s would be PR triumph turned into a populist revolution that swept the Leasath military dictator and his ruling junta of generals out of power almost overnight. Inspired by the sight of the Southern Cross obliterating the new symbol of Leasath military oppression, the crowd of onlookers gathered in Alendal Stadium rushed the stage on which Navarro was standing, quickly overwhelming his guards and destroying the Fenrir demonstration unit that had just been unveiled minutes earlier. When the dust had settled, nothing was left of the plane but parts and pieces. No trace of Diego Navarro was ever found, but it is unlikely he managed to survive the mob uprising. Nevertheless, since his ousting from power in Leasath, Navarro currently sits near the top of INTERPOL’s most wanted list for a multitude of crimes. Both Aurelian Intelligence and the Osean Intelligence Agency are still trying to unravel the monstrous paper trail leading to the truth of what the press has dubbed the “Skies of Deception” scandal after Albert Genette’s exposé on Navarro’s crimes was published in the World Times. With international aid money once again flowing freely to Leasath’s people, and measures being taken to dismantle its military and contain the corruption of Navarro’s still at-large cronies, a new government will soon take power in Leasath, one by, of, and for its people, not just its leader’s pocketbook. As a sweltering summer Christmas dawns on the southern hemisphere, a new uncertain era awaits both Lesath and Aurelia, but now the road to healing can finally truly begin.  THE BAD ENDING I said we’d talk about the bad ending when we got to End of Deception II, so here we are. Ace Combat X is one of the few games in the franchise to have an actual Bad Ending state. We’ve seen this previously in Ace Combat 2’s bad ending where if you fail to stop the SLBM from reaching St. Ark in the mission Last Resort, it results in St. Ark being obliterated and the game going “Yeah, we won, but you hosed up.” and kicking you back to the title screen. Here in X, the “bad ending” is not as grim and really not all that bad to be perfectly honest. Achieved by failing to complete even a single mission before clearing the game, the bad ending consists of a closing monologue from Genette that informs you that Navarro managed to escape the murderous crowd in Alendal and disappear into obscurity, and that pockets of Leasath resistance still inside Aurelia’s borders are going to continue the fight instead of standing down and the war will continue for a while longer yet. Basically the inverse of the good ending, without it being a complete “you lose” disaster situation. Unlocking the bad ending comes part and parcel with unlocking the Swift Hunter medal, as the only way you can get that medal is by skipping as many missions as you can to clear each act as quickly as you can, which of course gets you the bad ending by doing so. The inverse of this is getting the Conqueror medal, which we would have unlocked by dint of doing the LP anyway and that’s doing the maximum number of missions before completing the game.  WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS So as Genette sticks around and grabs some sweet military-branded Christmas swag, Skies of Deception comes to a close and everything is wrapped up in a nice neat little package. So what have we learned? Other than people who commit grand larceny and fraud are usually monumentally stupid and wind up hanging themselves through their own greed? There’s not really that much to talk about or sum up with X like there is other games. There’s no real overarching theme to its story like there is in other games, other than, I dunno, don’t do fraud and fascism is a loser ideology. But that second one is basically every Ace Combat game in a nutshell and the first one is just good life advice. You can see now why I insisted on jumping ahead and doing X first and then finishing off with 7 because I’m going to have SO MUCH more to talk about there rather than just ending on kind of a whimper here with this one. Everyone lived happily ever after except for the bad guy and there were no war crimes or civilian casualties and everything is going to go back to normal in like a week because we’re dealing with a work of fiction in which wars are frequent and frictionless except when they aren’t for story purposes. Can you tell I’m getting incredibly cynical about these games as we finally claw our way to daylight on them, or have I just always been like that? Please, let me know by posting something about it so that I know people are actually reading this poo poo and I’m not just screaming into the void about the nichest entry in a series of already niche games about magic jet planes and fantasyland geopolitics that falls apart the second you bother to try and analyze any of it. This game sold 476,000 copies, by the way. That’s actually drat respectable for a PSP game and an Ace Combat game too; it was only like 300k off from matching Ace Combat 6’s sales records for God’s sake.  END OF DECEPTION II And then there were none. No more missions, no more options, no more choices. We’re finished. 30 missions, 30 updates, 30 videos. We have now seen just about everything Ace Combat X has to show us under normal circumstances except for the credits and one last little thing… Completing all 30 missions of the game unlocks the SP Mission “Operation X”. So from here, we have one final update to sew up before we go off into Bonus Video land. So stay tuned! FENRIR The future of manned aerial warfare. The XFA-33 Fenrir is a next-generation air superiority superfighter developed in secret by the Democratic Republic of Leasath and aeronautical engineers loyal to and at the behest of General Diego Gaspar Navarro. Fenrir is one of the largest fighter platforms ever developed, even dwarfing the [INFORMATION REDACTED] code-named “RAVEN” developed by [INFORMATION REDACTED] near the end of “Lighthouse War” between the Osean Federation and the Kingdom of Erusea one year prior. The airframe utilizes a polyhedral cropped delta wing configuration with bent wingtips, V-tail rudders and forward canards, and dual air intakes supplying airflow to three massive turbofan engines, the middle of which can gimbal downward 90° to allow it to momentarily hover in place or to arrest its forward momentum for high-precision mid-air maneuvers and allow the craft to make vertical take-offs and landings. It also boasted a proprietary version of the Connection For Flight Interface (COFFIN) 360° digital combat awareness cockpit display system originally developed for use by the recently dissolved North Osea Gründer Industries GmbH defense contractor. In addition to its normal stealth features, the Fenrir prototypes encountered by Gryphus Squadron at Archelon Fortress also had a similar retroreflective optical camouflage system as seen on the destroyed aerial fortress Gleipnir. A secondary system also reduced the Fenrir’s engine noise, making it virtually undetectable by all possible means. However, the cloak on the Fenrir was only effective at short range and needed power supplied by an external generator and microwave transmitter rectenna found at Archelon Fortress. Further development on the Fenrir project would no doubt have solved this power supply issue, but with the fall of the Navarro military government in Leasath and the destruction of all known Fenrir airframes, the issue appears to be moot. In terms of armaments, the XFA-33 had a vast array of special weapons options available to it, though its main armament, the High-Powered Microwave gun or HPM, was inoperable at the time of its destruction over Archelon Fortress thanks to preventative actions taken by the Aurelian Air Force to halt its deployment. The second of the Fenrir’s two offensive superweapons was not yet fully developed at the time of its deployment against Gryphus Squadron. The Long Range Shockwave Missle (LSWM) is a significantly scaled down, yet still incredibly powerful version of the Shockwave Burst Missile (SWBM) utilized by both the Gleipnir and Gandr airborne fortresses. Just like the SWBM, the LSWM houses a compact cyclotron reactor in its warhead and functions by dispersing meson particles to act as catalytic fuel before the warhead detonates by intentionally overloading the cyclotron. The chain reaction produces a powerful shockwave that ripples out in all directions, destroying everything in its path within at least a 2KM radius. The weapon, however, was prohibitively expensive to manufacture and deploy, and the Fenrir could only carry two of them at a time on its loadout. After the battle of Archelon Fortress and the official end of the Aurelia-Leasath War of 2020, pieces of the XFA-33 airframe and its blueprints were recovered by the Federal Republic of Aurelia for study purposes. The Usean defense contractor firm General Resource Ltd. was able to reproduce at least one working copy of the Fenrir prototype for Aurelia, but were unable to replicate its optical camouflage, VTOL, and HPM systems. In exchange for the loss of those features, the Aurelian model of the XFA-33 sports increased maneuverability thanks to its lighter airframe. While further development on the XFA-33 appears unlikely at this time, GR has taken the data gleaned from its reverse engineering and is currently at work developing a streamlined successor to Fenrir due for rollout within the next 15 years—the XFA-36A. XFA-33 Fenrir Manufacturer: Leasath Military Government Engineering Corps. Role: Prototype Multirole Manufactured: 2020 Status: Prototype Primary Operators: Leasath, Aurelia Quick Facts:
quote:An advanced fighter developed using tactical battle data gathered on the Gleipnir. Medal: The Mark of Vioarr Awarded for: Completing Mission 15A or 15B in under 10 minutes. Description: Awarded for destroying the advanced fighter Fenrir.  Medal: Conqueror Awarded for: Completing the campaign in 17 missions. Description: Awarded for finishing the campaign while taking part in all missions.  Medal: Bronze Ace Awarded for: Destroying 200 enemies. Description: Awarded for destroying 200 enemies.  Medal: Silver Ace Awarded for: Destroying 500 enemies. Description: Awarded for destroying 500 enemies.  Medal: Gold Ace Awarded for: Destroying 1000 enemies. Description: Awarded for destroying 1000 enemies.  Medal: Marksman Awarded for: Shoot down 5 enemy planes with the machine gun. Description: Awarded for destroying 5 enemy aircraft with the machine gun.  Medal: Sharpshooter Awarded for: Shoot down 15 enemy planes with the machine gun. Description: Awarded for destroying 15 enemy aircraft with the machine gun.  Medal: Expert Marksman Awarded for: Shoot down 50 enemy planes with the machine gun. Description: Awarded for destroying 50 enemy aircraft with the machine gun. 
Dusk 
 
★U-2 Tracks featured in Mission 15B: DISC X
Tracks NOT featured in Let’s Play Ace Combat X: DISC X And with that, we reach the end of the timeline for the Strangereal Years. At least as far as I’m willing to go into it. Electrosphere is still out there, still ambiguous as to whether or not it really is canon, and thus still fair game to completely ignore if I want to. Whether or not Simon and Martha are out there laying the groundwork for Nemo to come into existence is still very much up in the air and up for debate, but that’s for other minds to ponder. In the immortal words of the G-Man, “this is where I get off.” With Fenrir destroyed and Diego Navarro thrown down from power, Aurelia and Leasath begin the long road to recovery and reconciliation. The specter of Fenrir will haunt the skies no longer and mankind has a bright and hopeful future to look forward to in the vast expanse of space beyond the dark blue of Earth. But just how did we get here? Ending things on such an underwhelming note like this isn’t befitting of this project at all anyway. So let’s take a look back in time now, one year prior from where we left off here, back to 2019. At a small airbase on Fort Grays Island off the coast of Usea, a young OADF pilot assigned to the Internation Union Peacekeeping Force is about to launch on his first sortie. And the world will never be the same again. All good things must come to an end eventually, right? 01000011 01000001 01001110 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01001000 01000101 01000001 01010010 00100000 01001101 01000101 00101100 00100000 01010000 01001001 01001100 01001111 01010100 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000 00100000 01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01010100 01001000 01010010 01000101 01000101 00100000 01010011 01010100 01010010 01001001 01001011 01000101 01010011 00111111 
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Jun 23, 2021 18:02
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Jun 23, 2021 18:23
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nine-gear crow posted:fascism is a loser ideology 
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Jun 23, 2021 18:36
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nine-gear crow posted:Please, let me know by posting something about it so that I know people are actually reading this poo poo and I’m not just screaming into the void about the nichest entry in a series of already niche games about magic jet planes and fantasyland geopolitics that falls apart the second you bother to try and analyze any of it. would it be rude if I just posted tl;dr, which suggests I didn't read it but by specifically quoting this part I'm implicitly acknowledging I did read it, thus sending us into an ironic reading feedback loop? yeah? yeah, I thought so too. X is just kinda empty, start to finish. It's there. It exists. It gave me a mean hand cramp trying to play it on a real PSP (while curled into a window seat on a plane flight, for maximum aviation) and uh, I wish the Apalis had a showing in a better game? Cooked Auto posted:01010111 01101111 01101111 01100110 
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Jun 23, 2021 19:12
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Psion posted:would it be rude if I just posted tl;dr, which suggests I didn't read it but by specifically quoting this part I'm implicitly acknowledging I did read it, thus sending us into an ironic reading feedback loop? That's a great way to sum it up, basically. From a technical perspective, X is a triumph for the series in terms of doing so much with so little resources, but when it comes to actually standing up and saying something, it steps up to the mic, farts meekly, and then shuffles off stage.
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Jun 23, 2021 19:22
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nine-gear crow posted:That's a great way to sum it up, basically. From a technical perspective, X is a triumph for the series in terms of doing so much with so little resources, but when it comes to actually standing up and saying something, it steps up to the mic, farts meekly, and then shuffles off stage. 01000111 01001111 00100000 01000100 01000001 01001110 01000011 01000101 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000 00100000 01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01000001 01001110 01000111 01000101 01001100 01010011 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 23, 2021 19:44
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sb hermit posted:01000111 01001111 00100000 01000100 01000001 01001110 01000011 01000101 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000 00100000 01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01000001 01001110 01000111 01000101 01001100 01010011 
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Jun 23, 2021 20:20
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wow, I can read binary because I don't have to translate that to know what it is!
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Jun 23, 2021 21:41
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Psion posted:wow, I can read binary because I don't have to translate that to know what it is! Personally I'm non-binary so I had to stick it in one of those sites google spits out that look sketchy as hell. And also I can't read binary.
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Jun 24, 2021 03:05
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