[PS2] Ace Combat Thread (a.k.a. We Do Not Have Air Superiority)

Originally Posted by Rei no Otaku

Sorry if this is a bit late, but I had a theory about AC5 that someone had mentioned. Basically they had asked why the Gray Men had Osea and Yuktobania fight, when it seems all the Yukes did was some aid in the form of technology and supplies. Well if you wanted to get back at Osea, a superpower, by having them fight a war that would wipe them out then you'd want them to fight a country of equal power. If they just had them fight, say Ustio, it most likely wouldn't have lasted long.

*shrugs* Just an idea.

It's not a bad theory, Rei, just not quite plausible given the chain of events. The main anomaly is the Arkbird's scheduled attack in White Bird II: if you have such a limited supply of nukes, why hit Okchabursk in Yuktobania when you could just as easily prolong the war and directly hurt the people you hate by taking out Oured? On top of that, if you are trying to prolong things, why nuke the Yukes when they're down? The whole thing's almost over as it is when you leave the OADF after Fortress, which even the Belkans sent to attack you concede when they blame you for screwing things up. Pretty much the only reason that leaves for Okchabursk as a target is a grudge against Yuktobania, one which ACZ doesn't do much to explain.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

If the Arkbird were to attack Oured then the people in both countries would know that there were other people at work trying to prolong the war other than the two countries were at war. By having a Osean weapon attack Yuke territory, it becomes another act of aggression, one that would mortify the rest of the world since they had no apparent reason to bomb the Yukes.

Ah, but it's even more confusing if you nuke Oured, blow up the Arkbird and tell the world a version of the truth: that the Arkbird was hijacked by Yukes. After all, they'd already accessed the Arkbird to sabotage its laser and committed acts of terror at Bana and Apito International; nuking the city would merely finish what they'd started. And from there comes not only a question for the world as obvious as it's ominous (why was the Arkbird carrying nukes?), but valid pretense for the Oseans to respond with anything up to and including the SOLG.

Originally Posted by Rei no Otaku

I'm not sure, but I don't think the Yukes were on the losing end anymore. I'm pretty sure Genette mentions that once the Razgriz left the war was stuck in a stalemate. So it wasn't so one sided at that point.

Damned if I know why it'd stalemate after Fortress, though; if it's solely because of Razgriz's absence, the OADF just sucks. I'm not contesting that the game suggests a stalemate, just that it never made sense given how well the invasions were going.

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Also as Racin mentioned, by nuking the Yuke capitol it would horrify the world and cause a huge backlash against Osea. Not to mention enrage the Yuktobanian population.

If losing an entire invasion fleet, not one but two submersible aircraft carriers, the southern half of the country and the last line of defense for the capital (Cinigrad, not Okchabursk) doesn't enrage the Yuktobanian population, I'm honestly not sure what will. Of course, just the fact that the Yukes weren't already revolting in the streets against their presumed leadership suggests that Nikanor could give Dubya lessons on surviving one's own ineptitude.

That said, "because it's there" is an even sicker, even more Belkan reason to devastate Yuktobania than anything remotely rational, but I'm a fan of logic.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Rei no Otaku

Could be more of the Gray Men's doing. I'm not sure just how in control of the respective governments they were, but if they saw the war was going to end soon they could have slowed the invasion quite a bit.

The Gray Men (too much Babylon 5...damn you, Grey Council) are really starting to come across like the Patriots do in Metal Gear Solid, namely just another form of deus ex machina: as secretive as they're powerful, accountable to nobody...not even common sense. Not like that's a bad thing, because without the Gray Men AC5's plot starts looking like something out of Armored Core, but it is a little amusing how often things come back to them.

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Also nuclear weapons hold a certain stigma with them that makes them far more evil an act than just blowing up subs. Also that nuke drop would have caused other countries to most likely strike out against Osea. Since, as you claim, Osea is the real target. Yuktobania gets nuked out of the war when Osea was winning, and the other countries see how ruthless they are and band against Osea.

It's entirely possible that wiping Okchabursk off the map might have done all that, but many things in the game suggest that the whole Belkan plan really does center on vengeance against Osea. Look at AC5's Free Mission map and consider the SOLG drop in The Unsung War: if Cinigrad is west of Oured and the SOLG is above South Belka (east of Oured) when its eastward orbit begins to deteriorate, it'd be faster and easier to deorbit the thing onto Cinigrad. Hitting Oured takes more time and a longer course, which doesn't make sense if Belka hates both countries equally.

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I think we're just looking too deeply at this though. I understand what you're trying to do. When you get below the surface of AC5's story it begins to fall apart, and AC0 didn't really fix those plotholes. But some things just weren't made for such analyzing. I do it all the time myself, but sometimes you just have to accept it at face value lol.

Anything falls apart if you look at it hard enough; just ask Superman. That said, though, one of Ace Combat's many charms is that its recent installments have presented a highly ambitious plot set in a world very close to our own, on powerful levels of both scale and detail. It's the kind of story that makes you think about it more than you should, yes, but I don't bring up its contradictions and loopholes because I hate it. On the contrary, I ask questions about the Gray Men because I want to know more about them; I wonder why the Belkans hate Yuktobania because it'd probably be a fascinating tale. As I mentioned in a response to Stealth, obviously ACZ doesn't answer those questions and I'll live, but events as they stand now beg for a sequel.

Originally Posted by Karasu

Again someone mentions the exact same thing I said. lol. I mean, come on. Does it really make sense that the Razgriz can fly from the Kestrel to other places around Osea and Yuktobania, and not be detected? Even if they gave Osean Air Command osean codes to hide that they were the Razgriz, the Osean military would have picked up the patterns between the Razgriz missions and the times these aircraft left with Osean coding. It's just silly to get anal about it...its a game. Just have fun with it and enjoy it.

Ah, Karasu. Good to see you again, although you're far more entertaining when you make points with your own words. Anyhow, now that we've exchanged the requisite opportunistic potshots, I think my reply to Rei above pretty much covers my points.

Although the real question with that example is how the Osean Navy could not only forget to replace a carrier's air wing, but forget the existence of its entire battle group...

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Ahh, I only watched the cutscenes my first time through so I didn't remember that. Do we know if it was widely reported to be sabatoge or if it was reported to everyone else as a 'malfunction' of the laser.

Odds are it probably wasn't reported at all. Supposedly the Yukes only managed to slip a bomb into one of the Arkbird's SSTO supply shipments, so the Oseans/Belkans could make up any cover story they wanted as to its existence, let alone its degree of success.

Anyhow, the real purpose in-game was simply to explain why the Arkbird doesn't have your back when you attack the Hrimfaxi in Demons of Razgriz. Obviously it's been repaired by White Bird II, but probably not up to original specs...if it was, that mission would have lasted about five seconds.

Originally Posted by Karasu

About the Osean Navy....either they're just dumb and don't see the connection, or Namco kinda left it up to the player to figure it out. Maybe like in the ending of AC5, Razgriz and the events leading to the final mission will be kept secret until they get released to the public. It was the president's personal airfleet. I'm sure he told the Military of this action, which is prolly why it's kept secret.

After the war, sure, but during it? That's the one that gets me: Harling wouldn't have any pull with a Belkan-controlled Osean Navy willing to fire on its own ships (per Sea of Chaos), and Anderson should have been ordered home if all his planes were down. Obviously there came a point when the Belkans finally figured out that the Kestrel wasn't on their side any more, but they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they'd been even a little faster on the ball.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Rei no Otaku

That's the most likely explanation. That it was the Gray Men.

I can't wait for Ace Combat 6, wherein the leader of the Gray Men is revealed to be Patrick Stewart, complete with theme song:

Who controls the Belkan crown?
Who helps keep the Arkbird down?
We do! We do!
Who leaves the Kestrel off the maps?
Who keeps Pixy under wraps?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the V2's nukes?
Who just hates random Yukes?
We do! We do!
Who intercepts presidents' flights?
Who rigs all the good boss fights?
We do! We do!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by PLUMP COCK

Wow dude. That's the most awesome thing I've EVER HEARD. In my ENTIRE LIFE. No lie.

The winner of 14000 internets right here boys. Watch and LEARN from this guy.

OMG, Cock. Extra points for the Stewart pic to go with the song...that's just classic.

But it's sad: the Gray Men so closely resemble the Stonecutters that when I looked at the original lyrics, it took all of ten seconds to rewrite the first half by simply changing the nouns. The second took five minutes of actual thought, which brought up another AC5 question as a frickin' byproduct (why did Belka need another 15 years to "develop" the V2 we've just seen in ACZ?). Of course, the whole thing's almost a no-brainer if you've read the last fifty posts or so...it's pretty much a summation of everything we've concluded about the plot to date.

FELIPE NO

There's been a lot of work with lasers over the last few decades, Shonos; the aircraft-mounted one you're talking about is the ABL or Airborne Laser, carried aboard a 747 with an effective range of 300km against theater ballistic missiles like SCUDs and about half that against ICBMs because their skin's harder to burn through. From what I've heard though, power isn't the problem so much as accuracy...you have to hold the beam on a single spot to detonate the fuel or cook something vital, otherwise you just end up with a warm strip of missile fuselage.

Anyhow, I wish we had some AC6 data to speculate on, but all the news I'm hearing about Namco Bandai shooters involves Gundam games like Crossfire. Not that I really mind, since Encounters in Space turned out to be a damn fine title, but even I have to admit that yet another slog through the One Year War is lower on my list of priorities than the fate of the Gray Men.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I haven't been playing that much, honestly: sat down for a four-hour marathon with AC5 a few months ago, replaying The Unsung War in Free Mission to buy a fourth FALKEN, but haven't played since. My estimation of ACZ's soundtrack has improved for having it on my playlist all summer, though: it still doesn't have the same number of truly great tracks as AC5 or even AC04, but The Inferno's rapidly growing on me...and I still love the section of Excalibur at 2:50 that sounds note-for-note like the "OMG, 20 armor and 10 fuel!" cue from Soviet Strike.

Anyhow, some news: this is from Gamespot's review at http://www.gamespot.com/psp/sim/acec...ml?sid=6160375, for those who haven't had a chance to play Ace Combat X. Just...wow.

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With every mission you accomplish, you'll earn credits with which you can purchase an ever-growing list of new jets. There are noticeably different handling characteristics for each jet, and it's important to bring the right plane into a mission, as some are better suited for air superiority than for taking on ground targets. Another new feature in Ace Combat X is that you can now purchase upgrade parts to fine-tune certain jets. You can purchase and install different wing parts, weapons systems, armor, cockpit computers, and more, and these parts all tend to have certain drawbacks to offset their advantages. For example, you can install overpowered engines that greatly improve your jet's top speed but also make you more vulnerable to damage. You can add extra armor, but it'll impact your maneuverability, and so on. Whether you choose to spend your hard-earned credits on new jets or on improving some of the jets you already own is up to you. Either way, Ace Combat X does a great job of constantly rewarding you with new options that you can purchase in between missions.

Jam it back in, in the dark.