Topic: Ace Combat 7

I've made fair bit of MRP over 60 or so rounds of multiplayer - I thought I only had the MiG's and Su's left to get on the aircraft tree. Little did I realise that there was a raft of upgrade parts specifically for multiplayer at the bottom of the tree!

It's my first Ace Combat 7, but I'm loving the campaign so far! Seems to have some weird difficulty spikes here and there, but I'm figuring it out. Not sure if they are actual difficulty spikes or if it's because I joined the series so late.

I'm not sure how I feel about death match yet.... I can only fly in circles for so long before it gets old. I don't completely understand the mechanics because it will seem like I'll hit a guy 2-3 times before he blows up, but I'll just get 1 hit constantly. I think I've only been hit maybe 3 times total in my 10 hours or so in the campaign, but I seem to get wrecked online regardless of how I try and dodge. Maybe higher level special weapons? I still need to try battle royal too.

I have the fight stick and VR.... easily one of the best VR experiences. Shame it's so limited, but I'm really hoping for more VR content with later DLCs (but not counting on it)

@KALofKRYPTON yea the online rewards are NUTS. I think in like 4 or 5 matches (less than an hour), I made more than I did in the first 8 or so campaign missions combined.

@NathanUC Yeah, campaign really isn't where the money is without many, many play throughs.
There are often difficult spikes in the series; it'll be all fairly standard dogfighting and attacking ground targets then suddenly it's like "fly through that tunnel!"

Don't get disheartened online, just pay some attention to the aircraft tree and the parts that are equipped to your plane.
Unless you're playing consistently with people with significantly higher points value loadouts - the upgrades available are actually relatively modest - but if you are in something like an F-2A without any upgraded parts trying to take on Su's and F-22's with QAAMs SASMs etc, you'll be at a distinct disadvantage.

Try and find rooms with a 2000 point cost limit and spend some time putting a couple of aircraft sets together. I have most of the planes in the tree now, but am still mostly comfortable with my F-15C loadout and hold my own well enough against more modern planes.

@KALofKRYPTON That might have been my problem. I was in a 2500 room, but I think I WAS using F-2A with only about 1900-2000 points.

For me, the difficulty spikes were all just time based. Specifically the first time you have to destroy enough targets to get like 17,000 points. After the 15 minutes, I would be around 16,000 with almost everything destroyed. I had to drop to easy (sure enough, on easy I got around 18,000 first try) because of that one.

I also had a hell of a hard time with mission 2 in VR. It seemed no matter how fast I killed the targets, the base always blew up. On a couple occasions, I only had ONE air target left and it was attacking ME, but somehow, the base still got destroyed....

Do you play with expert controls? I jumped straight to expert because I have the flight stick, but I'm wondering if that was also a mistake. I don't feel like I have any issues flying around, but I wonder if it's hurting me online.

@NathanUC Apply the same multiplayer logic to the campaign: Right tools for the right situation.

For the '17,000' point mission - either go for something quick and stable enough to strafe with or something you can equip a decent air-to-ground special weapon to. Don't forget to go methodically to clear up an area, use your canon as much as possible as soon as you're pointed toward a group of targets and largely ignore enemy aircraft.

Always expert - I'd bet money no-one doing well online is using the standard controls. It'd be like playing Afterburner!

Enjoying it so far. But... my biggest gripe has to be the light green target boxes against the bright blue sky. Near impossible most times to see where anyone else is.

Just got this game myself and agree it’s awesome; but, I’m stuck on mission 5 (I think, the one after I supposedly killed the president or whatever) because I keep getting shot down. I mean, that missile warning NEVER STOPS. Flares seem worthless when I only have 5 and I’m having to dodge dozens of missiles. You guys have any tips for surviving this?

Really fun game otherwise.

@Boagrius75 Don't try to outrun the misses, keep an eye on your radar as you'll be able to see where they're coming from and use high g turns and cloud cover to evade. Leave the flares as a last ditch or for when you're already bearing down on another enemy.

Thanks @KALofKRYPTON, I’ll give that a go this evening. I do always forget about cloud cover, and only using flares when pursuing a target makes a lot of sense.

@Boagrius75 No worries. Good luck!

Well, I got past the mission...by restarting the campaign and dropping to Easy. Clearly I have no pride.

@Boagrius75 What plane were you trying to do it in?

Also, no problem with dropping to easy. It'll make the next runs more interesting.

@seanobi I get very motion sick. Even when the screen moves in Astrobot lol.

After a year of PSVR, I don't feel sick with any games anymore, but Astrobot still feels the 'worst' in terms of feeling sick for me out of any VR game I've played.

I wish we could earn MRP in the VR mode. The air show concept has some cool potential as well if they made the player do the stunts and get 'scored' on how well it was done or something.

@KALofKRYPTON - Was using the F-14 for that mission. Now using the F-18 for a couple of ground-centric missions. I might start working my way down the Russian branch of the tree...really anxious to try out some of those SU-xx (no, that doesn’t mean “sucks” ) fighters.

@Boagrius75 Bit of a heavy plane for that perhaps... I did it in the Typhoon, nice and nimble.

I haven't played in a few days now - depending on the impending 'snowageddon' here in the UK (because despite hundreds of years of industry and some of the finest engineering minds in the world on our oft' cold and drizzly island, we really can't cope with a bit of snow) I may have a few nights free to play

Perhaps even... a snow day!! =O