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nine-gear crow posted:
Welcome back. Terrible page snipe. 
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May 18, 2022 20:59
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Cooked Auto posted:Welcome back. Page 35, time to post Fat Amys to celebrate  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 19, 2022 01:52
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And to celebrate the long-awaited DLC coming soon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK0P1Bk8Cx4
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May 19, 2022 03:20
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Waffleman_ posted:And to celebrate the long-awaited DLC coming soon Not even the best Top Gun song. Comes well below Mighty Wings #1 is of course Playing With The Boys. it goes perfectly with the DCS yearly trailer things they make too.
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May 19, 2022 03:32
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Ready to watch some Erusean warships go down in flames
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May 19, 2022 04:30
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Great! Can't wait to see how this madness ends. And to get chain probed for past and future posting crimes.
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May 19, 2022 11:50
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Waffleman_ posted:And to celebrate the long-awaited DLC coming soon Speaking of which, the trailer just dropped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ujkyWqbfo
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May 19, 2022 14:04
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Geemer posted:Great! Can't wait to see how this madness ends. And to get chain probed for past and future posting crimes. I can't handle life on the outside, I've been institutionalized (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 19, 2022 14:48
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Cooked Auto posted:Speaking of which, the trailer just dropped.
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May 20, 2022 00:07
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I said "Monday", but screw it, the update's finished. Let's get this poo poo rolling today!
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May 22, 2022 17:07
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Anchorhead Raid SP Mission 2: Operation Domino – September 10th, 2019 | NO COMM Overview: Intelligence suggests that the Alicorn is en route to Anchorhead Bay on the coast of Erusea to resupply and link up with the Erusean Navy’s reserve Rán Fleet. Strider Squadron is deployed to conduct a lightning raid on the fleet and facilities at Anchorhead in order to cut Torres off at the knees. However, something seems to be amiss within the Osean forces…   Guest Commentators: I am joined for this mission by my good buddies FPzero and poorlywrittennovel. Novel graciously stepped in (under duress) to fill in for Artix who told me, and I quote “Never ask me to do another Ace Combat video ever again.”   ANCHORHEAD The coastal city of Anchorhead is the second largest city in the Kingdom of Erusea after its capital of Farbanti, though current demographic trends show it on track to become its most populated metropolis by the early 2030s. The city saw a vast surge of new residents moving into its suburbs over the last 20 years following the flooding of Farbanti’s downtown caused by the impact of a fragment of the Ulysses 1994XF04 asteroid, and the damage caused by the climactic battle of the Continental War of 2005 when ISAF forces sacked the city and forced the surrender of Erusea’s military government. Already a massive and thriving hub of shipping and commerce going back to the late 90s, Anchorhead has since become one of the preeminent port cities on Usea, hailed as one of the more liberal and “freer” cities currently under the Erusean rose banner. Dominating the city’s skyline are the twin towers of the Anchorhead Trade Center and the iconic Anchor Bay suspension bridge, which serves as the gateway into Achorhead’s inner harbor. However, the city has been no stranger to military conflict throughout its recent history either. It seems to run hand-in-hand with its burgeoning prosperity. In 1998, the city found itself under occupation by the Usean Rebel Forces following their continent-wide military coup during the Usean Civil War. The city was liberated from URF control during an operated headed by the Usean Allied Forces’ Scarface Special Tactical Fighter Squadron, which decimated the URF presence and resulted in the sinking of a URF aircraft carrier at anchor in the port. A month later, in May of 1998, Scarface Squadron was called upon to defend Anchorhead from a scorched earth bombing run as the URF began a tactical retreat back to their occupied capital city of St. Ark. In 2019, Anchorhead once again finds itself in the center of a war zone as the Lighthouse War presses into Erusean homeland territory once again. The city was already suffering a severe resource shortage as most domestic and international corporations began pulling out of and/or refusing to do business with Erusea following the sanctions levied against it by the Assembly of Nations and the AN Security Council. Only one company appears willing to defy the international outrage and continue to do business with the Erusean state: General Resource Ltd. With the decrease in civilian shipping traffic, the Erusean Navy has capitalized on the extra port space available and placed all of Anchorhead Bay on a war footing, using it as a staging area to regroup its naval power following the loss of the Njord Fleet at Snider’s Top. The previously mothballed Rán Fleet is currently undergoing hasty retrofitting to restore its surviving ships to combat readiness in order to push back against the encroaching Osean and IUN sea power. The Alicorn’s original deployment orders were to rendezvous with Rán and sortie against OMDF targets of opportunity off the Usean coast. Now, it appears that Rán is being scrambled to hunt down the rogue submarine as well. The city of Anchorhead was modeled after the industrial area of Yokohama Bay in Japan, and the current iteration of its iconic twin towers are modeled after the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, otherwise known as the Tokyo City Hall or Tochō for short, located in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. In previous incarnations the twin towers were modeled after the World Trade Center (appearing in Ace Combat 2) and a vaguely modernized two building structure following the redesign of Anchorhead for the post-9/11 updated re-release of Ace Combat 2, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy (also known as Ace Combat: Cross Rumble 3D). The city itself pulls its name from the small town of the same name on the planet Tattooine in the Star Wars universe.  RÁN FLEET The previously mothballed Rán (pronounced “rawn”) Fleet is one of several Erusean naval strike groups, similar in configuration to the now-destroyed Njord and Aegir Fleets. In 2014 the Rán Fleet was involved in the paramilitary terrorist campaign waged by Free Erusea against Usean and IUN interests across the continent. The aircraft carrier Rán itself, the namesake of the fleet, was one of several ships taken over by Free Erusea agents and stolen from her berth in Anchorhead Bay. The Rán was later sunk along with the rest of Free Erusea’s naval forces, by an IUN strike team led by Mobius 1. Following the humiliating theft of its flagship by rebel forces, the rest of Rán Fleet was officially declared obsolete by the new Erusean king. The fleet was then slated for mothballing and eventually deconstruction in accordance with the post-2005 disarmament treaty signed after the end of the Continental War. A lack of resources, manpower, and will ultimately forestalled the decommission of enough ships from Rán to allow the Erusean military command in 2019 to order its hasty recommissioning in order to fill the widening gaps in the Kingdom’s naval power the longer the Lighthouse War drags on. The stated objective of Operation Domino is the complete elimination of the Rán Fleet and all support facilities situated around Anchorhead Bay to cripple Erusea’s remaining sea power in preparation for the upcoming siege of Farbanti. Though Brigadier General Clemens’ assertion that the operation is also to prevent the Rán Fleet from joining up with the Alicorn seems highly suspect… Among the numerous ships on Rán’s deployment roster are the Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates Ceto, Metis, and Thalassa; the Kirov-class battlecruiser Dysnomia, the Udaloy II-class destroyers Aphaia, Calypso, Eunomia, and Hestia; and the Slava-class guided missile cruisers Eirene, Eris, and Enyo. If that last ship class sounds somewhat familiar to you, that’s because it’s been in the news a little bit as of the time of this LP thanks to the current real world war that is Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Slava-class cruiser Moskva, flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, was involved in several incidents in the early days of the war including the siege of Snake Island, where a defiant contingent of Ukrainian soldiers coined the phrase “Russian warship, go gently caress yourself!” in response to the Moskva crew’s demand for their surrender. Several weeks later, that Russian warship did indeed go gently caress itself, when it was struck by multiple Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles on April 13th, 2022 off the coast of Odessa, Ukraine and sunk with an indeterminate number of casualties, further adding to Russia’s mounting military humiliations over the course of the invasion.  RÁN The namesake of the Rán Fleet is the Norse goddes Rán, the personification of the ocean and wife of the jötunn Ægir (as in the Aegir Fleet of Ace Combat 04’s “Invincible Fleet”). With a name derived from the common Old Norse noun meaning “plundering”, “theft”, or “robbery”, Rán was often depicted as snatching people, ships, and treasure from the surface and dragging them to her realm at the bottom of the ocean using a magical fishing net. In both the Poetic Edda and the Völsunga Saga, she loans her net out to Loki, and being Loki, he causes dipshit havoc with it.  THE GREEK GODDESS LIGHTNING ROUND Despite the entire fleet and its sunken carrier flagship being named after a Norse deity, the remainder of the vessels namechecked in the Rán Fleet are all named after Greek deities or personifications, so let’s zip through them super fast all at once. Enyo: The namesake of the Rán Fleet’s interim flagship, the missile cruiser Enyo comes from the Greek goddess of the same name. The embodiment of strife and discord, she is often depicted in a similar role to Eris, the Goddess of Chaos, and is closely associated with Ares, the God of War, referred to as a “Sister of War”. Eunomia: A minor goddess of law and order, whose name literally means “good order.” She is the daughter of Zeus and the titan Themis, the personification of justice, and is the counterpart to Dysnomia, the personification of lawlessness. Dysnomia: The personification of lawlessness and daughter of Eris, Goddess of Chaos. Often seen in the company of fellow minor deities Adikia (injustice) and Hybris (violence), as one tends to follow the other wherever the law is absent or misapplied. Hestia: The virgin goddess of health, wellness and all things domestic. She is the firstborn child of the titans Cronus and Rhea and is the elder sister of fellow Olympians Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Hades and Demeter. Metis: The goddess of wise council. Metis was the first wife of Zeus, and one of the Oceanid nymphs, a daughter of the titans Oceanus and Tethys. She helped Zeus free his siblings from the stomach of his father Cronus after he devoured them one by one, believing they would one day overthrow him. Metis supplied Zeus with a special drug to disorient Cronus long enough to carve open his stomach and free the other future Olympians. The pair would later marry and she gave birth to the goddess Athena. However, when it was foretold that Metis would also bear Zeus a son who would be mightier than the King of the Gods and one day overthrow him, Zeus swallowed the still-pregnant Metis whole. Like father, like son, huh? Not to be confused with the ex-goon Metis, who commissioned the creation of the stomach-turning scatological ponographic video now known internet-wide as “swap.avi”. The horrific details of which are cataloged here by Something Awful’s very own Zach “Geist Editor” Parsons. It also spawned an equally disgusting forums smilie which I will not post here, but you can very easily locate if you’re feeling so inclined. Eris: The Goddess of Chaos. Her counterpart is the goddess Harmonia. She is one of the few major goddesses in Greek myth without any temples associated with her and is depicted primarily as a personification in most instances instead. She is also the namesake of the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet frequently referred to as the “tenth planet” of our solar system, given that it is roughly equivalent in size to Pluto the one-time ninth planet of our solar system. The dwarf planet Eris has one known moon, Dysnomia. Eirene: The personification of Peace and equivilant to the Roman goddess Pax. She was well recognized in Athens as a local deity. Aphaea: A local Greek fertility goddess worshiped exclusively at a single temple on the island of Aegina. Calypso: Greek for “she who conceals”, Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia and features prominently in Homer’s Odyssey where she lures Odysseus to her home and detains him for seven years out of his ten year journey home to Ithaca. She promises him the gift of immortality if he stays with her, but he refuses and returns to his journey, knowing his wife Penelope is still waiting for his safe return. Ceto: The primordial sea goddess. She is the daughter of Pontus, the primordial personification of the sea, and his mother Gaea, the primordial personification of the land, or Earth itself. She is considered one of the most ancient deities in the Greek pantheon and is the mother of an entire host of sea monsters fathered by her brother and fellow primordial sea god Phorcys. Thalassa: The general Greek word for “sea” and the divine female personification of the sea in Greek mythology. The word may have also been derived from a pre-Greek proto-language as well. The psychology term thalassophobia, fear of the sea, originates from Thalassa's name.  THE (ATTEMPTED) ASSASSINATION OF [NAME REDACTED] BY THE COWARD HOWARD CLEMENS So this mission is, to put it mildly, extremely unhinged. A lot of plot and character details come flying at you in rapid succession via the radio chatter while you’re otherwise occupied with focusing on trying to rack up the par score for the first half of the mission and then trying not to die against Rage and Scream in the second. The DLC trilogy only has three missions to tell an entire sub-game’s worth of story in, so with Unexpected Visitor focused on setting up the world and the stakes of the DLC, and Ten Million Relief Plan being the climactic confrontation finale, all the actual plot points find themselves getting shoved inside the middle of the story in Anchorhead Raid. The main revelations we are treated to is the fact that Brigadier General Clemens is both an idiot and traitor, and the entire DLC up to this point was just a secret ploy to try and assassinate Trigger by throwing him up against Torres and then using Rage and Scream as a backstop to ensure that he, in theory, does not walk away from the affair alive. Operation Domino was almost perfectly designed by Clemens to try and disprove the need for pilots like Trigger to the upper brass of the Osean military, and then promptly kill him when the brass sided with Clemens. Unfortunately for Clemens, he didn’t seem to realize he was dealing with an Ace Combat protagonist, and inadvertently set up a situation where a magical ordinance conjuring wizard like Trigger could wreak havoc and show anyone with a working set of eyes and/or ears just how vital he in fact was in a world where every problem can be solved by a fighter jet with infinitely respawning ammo. After a mission and a half of Clemens being a huge Small Dick Energy prick, it is quite cathartic to see him humiliated in short order by Trigger, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Rage and Scream in equal measure. His ill-thoughtout plan completely unravels and he tries to salvage it by getting on an open radio frequency and telling Rage and Scream to break off their attack on Trigger, thus revealing his treachery to everyone in earshot. He was the one who gave them the materials and intelligence to get the job done, AND we also learn that he was a worked over as a useful idiot by crooked informant sources who were actually working for Torres and the Alicorn as double agents on land. Suffice to say, September 10th, 2019 was not a good day for Howard Clemens. Still, this also explains how Torres has been able to stay one step ahead of the LRSSG up to this point. With their mole, “Zul” feeding Clemens intel drops practically written by Torres and the Alicorn command crew, the rogue captain has been able to control just about every aspect of his scheme to kill one million people. Everyone has been acting according to Matias Torres’ script. No wonder he seems so calm and confident throughout this whole charade. With Clemens’ arrest and Torres slipping away into the sea en route to Oured to launch his nuclear terrorist attack on the Osean capital, it’s time for the LRSSG to take matters into their own hands at last in order to stop the mad captain, at all costs. Good thing we’ve still got David and Alex along for the ride, because god knows we’re going to need them…  MUSICAL STORYTELLING This mission features a unique bit of musical storytelling for Ace Combat 7 in particular, specifically one of the series’ first dynamic boss battle background music. Depending on which way the first phase of the boss fight against Mimic Squadron goes, the second phase will have a different remix version of the “complete” version of the track “Mimic”, ie: the one featured on Ace Combat 7’s official release soundtrack. If Rage is the one killed at the end of the first phase of the fight, the stable version of “Mimic” will be replaced by the Scream version—a wild and incoherent take on the track that sees the drumline of the song quickly degenerate into mad thrashing without any semblance of timing or concern for what the rest of the band is playing as they struggle play the rest of the song properly, making the song incredibly difficult to try and listen to. This dissolution into incoherence mirrors Scream’s emotional and psychological breakdown over the loss of her brother. Elke van Dalsen’s last moments are an utterly harrowing existential crisis spent screaming and crying, begging for death yet still murderously dangerous herself right to the very end. If Scream is the one killed at the end of the first phase of the fight, the second phase will then switch to the Rage version of “Mimic”—an angry, powerful and focused track free of distractions, but brimming with an intensity so palpable it feels like the guitarist is personally pissed off at you the listener specifically. The drumline of the song dips in the background, only hitting about half the notes in certain seconds of the song as it does in the complete version, while the electric guitar comes to the forefront, drowning out all the other instruments in the piece as the guitarist ruthlessly shreds a riff so wild it would make Slash green with envy. This version of the track mirror’s the violent, focused rage that Otto van Dalsen flies into upon the death of his sister. The angrier Rage gets, the louder and more intense the guitar gets, with the drumline also snapping into focus around the midpoint of the song to keep a near perfect time with the guitar and help it drown out the keyboard section almost entirely. The only thing in the world that matters at that point to Rage is killing Trigger and Count, and he is more than willing to die in the process if it means they’ll follow him to hell. The track’s composer, Mitsuhiro Kitadani, had this to say about it during its composition, quote:I included an interactive music mechanic to this piece as well. The phrasing of the drums changes in the middle of it, but it branches off into 2 patterns depending on the situation. Feel free to play the mission and check for yourselves! Kitadani also described the track as a series of “perverse drumbeats” driven by the loud, bombastic and punk rocker attitudes and aesthetics of the van Dalsen siblings as characters.  HIGH VALUE TARGETS Anchorhead Raid features five high value targets of opportunity which spawn throughout the first phase of the mission at set intervals. Worth 1,500 points each, they are the highest value single targets appearing in the mission and will greatly contribute to reaching the point threshold needed to achieve an S Rank for SP Mission 2. The targets are a set of MV-22 Osprey VTOLs whose presence will be called out to the player by an OGDF spotter team, Tucker 0-4. Tucker will request the LRSSG’s assistance to take out several high priority targets before they can be evacuated from the combat zone. The player will then have a limited amount of time to intercept and shoot down each of the MV-22s before they leave the map and despawn. Shooting down defenseless MV-22s carrying VIPs trying to flee a combat zone? This is old hat for a guy like Trigger, isn’t it? The five high value targets are, in no particular order: Rear Admiral Samuel Prin (MV-22 PRIN), Vice Chief of Naval Operations for the Erusean Royal Navy; Captain Dirk Tarnat (MV-22 TARNAT), captain of the Erusean missile cruiser Enyo; Fleet Commander Gleb Almazov (MV-22 ALMAZOV), commander of the Erusean Navy’s Spring Sea operations; Captain Alonso Tarragó (MV-22 TARRAGÓ), captain of the Erusean aegis vessel Thalassa; and Vice Commander Tâm Vān Lẏ (MV-22 LY), second in command of the Erusean Navy’s 7th Destroyer Squadron, believed to be on the fast track to becoming commander of the entire Erusean Navy by 2029. Destroying all five MV-22s will net you 7,500 points, but can be quite difficult to pull off as the radio announcements denoting the departure of each Osprey can sometimes be lost in the near constant radio chatter of Anchorhead Raid.    RAGE & SCREAM Real Name: Otto van Dalsen, Elke van Dalsen Callsign(s): Mimic 1, Mimic 2 Age: Mid 20s Sex: Male, Female Nationality: UNKNOWN Signature Plane: Su-47 Berkut Voice Actor: Jordan Reynolds (Rage), Nicole Gose (Scream) Nearly all biographical information on the van Dalsen siblings has been scrubbed from public and national databases at the behest of General Resource Ltd. And following the twins’ death over Anchorhead Bay at the conclusion of Operation Domino, their employment records with the GR Group have now been sealed as well. What little info on the pair that is available has been discerned directly from their two combat encounters with the LRSSG and from information uncovered by the OIA and from General Clemens’ interogation following his arrest. The siblings’ country of origin is unknown, possibly either Osean or Usean in nature; either option is likely. Trained as pilots with combat experience, at some point within the past decade the twins joined the GR Guardian Mercenaries PMC and racked up an impressive sortie jacket and kill count, one noteworthy enough for Clemens to have requested their assistance in his scheme to kill Strider 1 Trigger, at the very least. Unconfirmed reports place aircraft resembling the dazzle camouflaged planes of Mimic Squadron on multiple battlefields in hot spots around the world from Leasath to Estovakia. At some point prior to September 4th, 2019, the van Dalsens were contracted by General Clemens for a mission to assassinate Trigger during the joint OADF/OMDF Operation Sighthound against the Erusean super submarine Alicorn. Failing to find an opportunity to score a quick kill, the van Dalsens rapidly retreated from the AO over Artiglio Port after meeting light resistance from the LRSSG. Rather than close the contract then and there, Clemens paid GRGM to issue a standing kill order against Strider 1, stating there would be plenty of opportunities to come. Unfortunately for Clemens, the joint military command of Osea’s combat operations on Usea under Lt. General Shepherd would go on to publicly affirmed their continued need for Trigger as a part of Osea’s battle doctrine against Erusea during Operation Domino. When Clemens attempted to cancel the sortie and the contract with GRGM, the van Dalsen siblings ignored the stand down order continued their engagement with Trigger and Count, inadvertently revealing Clemens’ treason in the process on Osean radio frequencies. The twins were remarkably well equipped for their operation against the legendary Three Strikes. Armed with insider information from Clemens and outfitted with the latest battlefield-grade equipment from General Resource’s advanced weapons development department, the van Dalsens posed a powerful threat to the LRSSG, perhaps the most dangerous direct ship-to-ship threat encountered up to this point aside from Mister X. Their Su-34 Berkuts were painted with dazzle camouflage, false cockpits, and OADF roundels to obfuscate visual identification by uninformed units. Tail code information indicates the planes originated from a base in Port Edwards, Usea, a location where the OADF has no presence, formal or otherwise. They were capable of not only imitating OADF IFF transponder signals, but also deploying hostile IFF spoofing saturation attacks and radar lock on interference via GR proprietary electronic countermeasure equipment. Their special weaponry also included a set of GR developed “stealth” missiles capable of closing the distance to their target without triggering a missile alert until right before impact. In terms of psychological profiles, both twins have been assessed by Osean Intelligence as possessing borderline personality disorder among other psychological disorders that likely kept them from applying to or being accepted into any number of proper national military outfits. General Resource does not appear to possess as stringent of mental health and competence screening protocols for their private military subsidiaries. True to his TAC Name, Rage flew into a violent, focused rage upon the death of his sister, while Scream descended into suicidal incoherence following her brother’s death, appearing to have a psychotic episode over the radio while engaging Trigger and Count. With the death of the van Dalsen twins, OADF Intelligence has ruled Mimic Squadron as officially destroyed and defunct. With the arrest of Howard Clemens it appears highly unlikely that any more units from GR Guardian Mercenaries or General Resource Ltd. in general will pose any further threat the LRSSG or Strider 1 Trigger.  ZUL Real Name: Edgar Saxon Callsign(s): Zul Age: 30s Sex: Male Nationality: Erusea Signature Plane: None Voice Actor: None Second Lieutenant (ret.) Edgar “Zul” Saxon is a former member of the Erusean Royal Navy and one-time crewmember of the submarine aircraft cruiser Alicorn. Saxon was one of the 356 crewmembers who departed aboard the Alicorn for her initial sea trials in 2016, and was one of the 330 survivors rescued when the submarine was located two years later in 2018 after its stranding at the bottom of the Spring Sea. Saxon was among the 30 men and women who declined to return to the submarine’s crew when it was transferred to the reserve fleet after its recovery. After following Saxon and the other 30 former crew for nearly a year, the OIA has now concluded with credible evidence that all 30 people, including Saxon, have become double agents working for Torres directly against the interests of both the Osean Federation and the Kingdom of Erusea. While the other 29 agents conducted espionage, counter-espionage, and cyber propaganda/cyber attacks on behalf of the Alicorn in preparation for the launching of Torres’ master plan, it was Saxon’s job to ensure the Osean military was led astray and kept occupied while the submarine conducted its operations. He was the one responsible for contacting General Clemens and offered up a treasure trove of intelligence data on the submarine and Torres, some of it true, most of it false, claiming to be an Erusean turncoat operating under the codename “Zul”. Clemens took this unverified intel as gospel and began planning his operation to capture the Alicorn around it. With Clemens successfully catfished, Saxon passed the word down the chain to the Alicorn that the “Ten Million Relief Plan” was officially a go. Saxon would continue to provide Clemens false intelligence right up to the zero hour of Operation Domino, after which point his deception was uncovered by David North and other OIA agents, who passed their findings to the Osean Joint Chiefs. At which point, Clemens was promptly arrested and Saxon went into hiding. Edgar Saxon and the 29 other Alicorn operatives ashore are currently wanted for questioning by the OIA, FBI, and Osean military intelligence. Saxon’s callsign of “Zul” comes from the 1989 action RPG arcade game The Legend of Valkyrie, also published by Namco. In the Valkyrie series, Zul is a former bandit and occasional rare enemy who gives up banditry and eventually becomes the series main shopkeeper character.  SHEPHERD Real Name: Hershel* Shepard Callsign(s): Gold Eagle Age: 50s Sex: Male Nationality: Osea Signature Plane: None Voice Actor: Uncredited Lt. General Shepard is the Supreme Allied Commander of all Osean military and attached International Union forces currently conducting combat operations on the Usean continent against the Kingdom of Eursea. Known as the “Golden Eagle,” the Lt. General is one of the most respected and decorated officers in the Osean Ground Defense Force. He has tasked Brigadier General Howard Clemens with heading up the operation to capture or destroy the Erusean submarine aircraft cruiser Alicorn. At Clemens’ insistence, Shepherd has convened a meeting of Osean senior staff officers to witness a live feed overview of Operation Domino in order to assess the effectiveness of the LRSSG as a fighting unit, and Strider 1 Trigger in particular as a combat asset. Clemens has been attempting to convince Sheperd that there is no need for pilots like Trigger anymore and that they should be dealt with accordingly, but Shepherd has reserved his judgment until now. Upon the revelation of Clemen’s treason against the Osean Federation, Lt. General Shepherd has absolved himself of all responsibility for Clemen’s actions and has abandoned any prior support for Clemens entirely. Ace Combat 7’s Lt. Gen. Shepherd appears to be a nod to the Call of Duty character of the same name, who is also famous for hanging soldiers out to dry and ghosting them, no pun intended, as he turns out to be the main antagonist of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.      CASUALTIES (AND CONSEQUENCES) Anchorhead Raid sees the end of the brief reign of terror of Mimic Squadron. The van Dalsen twins stormed into the plot one mission earlier overburdened with personality and dirty tricks and left it just as violently. Mimic Squadron is an example of perhaps the perfect Ace Combat rival squadron boss encounter. Their brief intrusion into the plot leaves you confused, delighted, enraged, entertained, and most of all wanting more. They take their secrets with them to the grave and we will probably never see their like again… at least until Ace Combat 8. On the hypotenuse side of this weird triad of dipshits is Howard Clemens, who decided to be an equally huge idiot as Otto and Elke and just started screaming at them on an open radio frequency to wave off the hit on Trigger that he called them in to execute. A veritable gift wrapped “MyCrimes.mp3” for the Osean authorities to prosecute him with. In addition, in a move of unprecedented transparency, General Resource Ltd. has provided excerpts from its “black book” financial records to the OIA and Osean Department of Justice confirming a financial transaction deployment order agreement between General Clemens and the GR Guardian Mercenaries PMC requesting utilization of GRGM assets for a kill mission targeting the flight lead of the LRSSG’s Strider Squadron, Trigger. With such damning evidence laid against him, Vice Chairman Edwards of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has called for the arrest of Brigadier General Howard Clemens on charges of treason against the Osean Federation, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder—among multiple other charges. Howard Clemens is currently awaiting trial in an undisclosed military prison. Meanwhile, on our side, both Lanza and Húxiān are forced to withdraw from the combat zone after suffering minor damage, from the Mimic surprise attack and cluster bombardment from the Alicorn respectively, but returned to base alive and uninjured, thus satisfying Wiseman’s 100% survival rate mission parameters. Both have been assessed by the New Arrows Air Base physician and cleared return to duty for the next mission.  Tracks featured in SP Mission 2: DISC 6 DISC X  Su-47 Berkut Skin 07 Rage and Skin 08 Scream:   Mimic vs. Three Strikes   Oh, did you think we were done? Congratulations on your three month reprieve from Solitary, but it's time to make like Howard Clemens and GO THE gently caress TO JAIL!
nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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May 22, 2022 17:12
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nine-gear crow posted:Oh, did you think we were done? Congratulations on your three month reprieve from Solitary, but it's time to make like Howard Clemens and GO THE gently caress TO JAIL! There is no prison that can keep me from extolling the virtues of SALVATION to the masses! But yeah, this mission has sooooooooo much going on in it for good and for ill as Crow has said. You've got the chaos of the bombing combined with Clemens trying to discredit/kill you combined with Scream and Rage trying to kill you combined with Torres doing his thing. It's kind of insane. On the plus side this cleans out all of the sideplots leaving us with only Torres'...well, everything. That and this mission has some really good music. So good. Anchorhead Raid is sooooooooo good!
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May 22, 2022 17:44
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Holy poo poo I thought "Your hypothesis is trash" and "The parameters you gave me are trash" was an edit
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May 22, 2022 18:00
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Waffleman_ posted:Holy poo poo I thought "Your hypothesis is trash" and "The parameters you gave me are trash" was an edit Like I said way back at the beginning, this game has amazing meme energy, and the DLCs even more so 
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May 22, 2022 18:12
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God drat what a way for this LP to resume. War crimes? Yup. Insane NPCs? You betcha! Sick as hell music? Definitely. Clemens getting his just desserts? Absolutely. Tragic deaths? Poor Cola... o7 It's got it all! What a hectic and amazing-looking mission. It was a nice surprise to see this LP return one day early, though to be honest I'd expected to find out about its return by seeing the Leper's Colony being full of planes or something. Wait, if we go to plane jail and harass Clemens, does that count as good behavior?
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May 22, 2022 18:29
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nine-gear crow posted:Shooting down defenseless MV-22s carrying VIPs trying to flee a combat zone? This is old hat for a guy like Trigger, isn’t it? lmao "do it with a bang," indeed, crow
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May 22, 2022 18:54
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lmao, you never fixed the typo on Anchorhead on the update header I noticed in the preview document you posted last page, Also drat, I never noticed how quickly a SFFS can take out those Aegis Ashore for really quick points. In addition to the most important casualty this mission, Lanza’s cola of course (pouring one out for my homie), RIP the future of Erusea’s naval command as well.
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May 22, 2022 19:12
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Jesus the Alicorn had midshipmen onboard? Imagine being a trainee on board for like a 3 month deployment and your loving captain is like "sorry boys looks like we're stuck". And then you spend more than a year trapped on board at the lowest officer rank as everyone slowly goes nuts.
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May 22, 2022 19:21
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paragon1 posted:Jesus the Alicorn had midshipmen onboard? Imagine being a trainee on board for like a 3 month deployment and your loving captain is like "sorry boys looks like we're stuck". And then you spend more than a year trapped on board at the lowest officer rank as everyone slowly goes nuts. Every ship needs a Harry Kim.
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May 22, 2022 19:24
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RIP that Cola.  Hopefully it was properly chilled and not just lukewarm.
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May 22, 2022 19:25
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nine-gear crow posted:Every ship needs a Harry Kim. Sometimes ships need alternate dimension clone Harry Kims just slotted into place without comment
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May 22, 2022 19:30
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I love the Mimic theme. All versions, unconditionally. Such a good song.
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May 22, 2022 19:39
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One of the things I really love about the fight with Mimic plot-wise is we get the moment that's just kind of skipped over in the main game that was desperately needed for the story. This is the moment when Trigger and Count finally put their bullshit rivalry and differences aside and start working together as an actual team. I already really liked Count as a wingman from the main game at that point, but the moment where he goes "Trigger, change radio frequencies" is, for me, the moment when he becomes the best wingman in the series.
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May 22, 2022 20:42
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nine-gear crow posted:One of the things I really love about the fight with Mimic plot-wise is we get the moment that's just kind of skipped over in the main game that was desperately needed for the story. It also cements that, in spite of his bullshit, Count is one of the best pilots alive. He's not as good as he hyped himself to be, but surviving that long and getting a top kill count in Spare was impressive, and now he's showing how he got that done.
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May 22, 2022 20:57
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Cooked Auto posted:RIP that Cola.
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May 22, 2022 21:02
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No part of the strike on Anchorhead is a war crime. While some of those port facilities may, in some paper fiction, still be owned by a civilian body, they're literally servicing a military fleet and are under military control. This is critical war infrastructure, and it's fair game. Nor is it a big deal to shoot down an enemy officer who's trying to make it out of the combat zone, aside from being something you get a medal for.
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May 22, 2022 22:52
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I think it's less destroying the port facilities and more the fact that you're using cluster munitions that tends to indiscriminately splash damage all around the target zone inside of a city.
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May 23, 2022 00:37
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It's fine, it's the same abandoned warehouse district all the Megazord fights happen in.
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May 23, 2022 01:17
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I'm yet to watch, so unsure if this is mentioned, but I really like how the dialogue from the Port Master changes depending on your weaponry. From 'using iron bombs with extreme precision' to 'advanced directed energy weapons'. And then followed up with the 'its a nightmare' line... shades of the AC5 mission where you destroy an underground minition stockpile... and get to hear everyone inside the bunkers trying to stop it burning them alive. Music still doing work. Honestly, I think Unexpected Visitor is the weakest of the DLC soundtrack, and its still drat good so that shows how top tier all of it is. Anchorhead Raid gets a lot of replay from me, the Mimic leit motifs are fun yet thematically evocative, and then theres what we're getting next mission... Also gently caress those Aegis Standard missiles, every death I've had on this op was from them. Bloody sea-launched QAAMs...
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May 23, 2022 03:39
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I intend to prove that our military can complete missions without any ace pilots, so I will send our military’s acest pilot on this mission.
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May 23, 2022 04:00
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ManSedan posted:I intend to prove that our military can complete missions without any ace pilots, so I will send our military’s acest pilot on this mission. The idea was getting Trigger killed in the first wave, then having the regular troops arrive late to clean up. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that Trigger was real good at killing people. Things fell apart from there.
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May 23, 2022 04:10
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This mission is just ridiculous, and it's so much fun to play. I never thought of using Clusters to nosell so many of the Erusean forces though, I gotta try that some time. Never been a fan of the laser - PLSL is much more fun to use, honestly. Or just railgun. North's AI calling him and his hypothesis trash though, I can't help but laugh every single drat time I see it.
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May 23, 2022 17:32
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 This was probably the hardest Ace S rank to pull off in the game for me. Holy poo poo you need to kill an ungodly amount of things to be able to make it work. The key ends up being copying Mihaly and using an Su-30SM, with the main advantage being the very specific special weapons it carries. LAGMs (Long range air to ground missiles) allow you to blow up most ships at range and with upgrades blow up both aegis units at range before they have a chance to activate. 6AAMs (6 Target Air to Air missiles) let you hoover up helicopters and other immobile air targets. QAAMs (Quick Maneuver Air to Air Missiles) are basically the only thing that will hit the advanced air units that show up and are hugely important for dealing with Mimic Squadron. So the plan looks like, you sweep in, blow up the Aegis ashore in the South, buzz some ships in the docks and kill the Aegis aboard the cruiser in the docks. Then turn and gun your engines to get to the Aegis Ashore in the North before it activates. It is hugely important that these go down before they activate because otherwise they will just kill you. They can shoot down missiles aimed at them unless you fire from point blank so dealing with them after activation takes too much time and is incredibly risky. If you can do this fast enough you can get to the crates the drones deploy from and with the right timing blow up the drones just as they're launching for double points and without annoying drones to shoot down. You then fly off the map, switch your LAGMs to 6AAMs and fly back out, blowing up all the copters in the area alongside any oncoming planes that choose not to stray from their path. As soon as you do that, you turn around, fly off the map again and switch back to LAGMs. You gun back across the map, using your LAGMs to kill everything on land and sea and polish off the Southern fleet before flying off again and grabbing QAAMs. Kill as many aircraft as you can with QAAMs until the fleet reinforcements show up. Switch off the map, grab LAGMs and then fly off to blow up the fleet. As soon as you've done that it's back to QAAMs again and then you're just trying to kill as many planes as possible before time runs out. The battle against Mimic sees you kill yourself as soon as it starts to get your missiles back and then you're just going to hammer them with QAAMs and Missiles until they die or you gently caress up and hurl your controller out a window. Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 19:58 on May 23, 2022 |
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May 23, 2022 18:33
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This is why I don't bother s-ranking games, to much work and frustration for me.
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May 23, 2022 19:09
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Even though I have never played it due to laziness, SP02 is ace combat boiled down into a very powerful essence. It's wonderful to even watch you go.
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May 23, 2022 20:47
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Waffleman_ posted:It's fine, it's the same abandoned warehouse district all the Megazord fights happen in. Yup. It IS difficult to zone for, though, so you gotta pay attention to the district’s historical data in regards to those sorts of fights.
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May 23, 2022 23:56
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Natural 20 posted:
All three SP Missions are incredibly hard to S Rank in general, but Achorhead Raid seems particularly spitefully designed at times towards getting a perfect score on, hence why they have those pop up high value targets to try and help you eat back that margin tiny bit. I might give it another run on PC with full cheats on and see if it's even possible to clear the map entirely or if new targets just continually spawn in.
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May 24, 2022 00:29
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nine-gear crow posted:All three SP Missions are incredibly hard to S Rank in general, but Achorhead Raid seems particularly spitefully designed at times towards getting a perfect score on, hence why they have those pop up high value targets to try and help you eat back that margin tiny bit. New targets spawn in. You have to kill (almost) every enemy on the map and multiple reinforcement waves to hit the S rank.
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May 24, 2022 00:55
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nine-gear crow posted:Achorhead Raid So uh, this is the second time I’ve noticed this, and it only happens when you try and mention the mission name and not the city itself. Autocorrect loving you, or is this an unconscious tic or something? EDIT: nevermind, it’s showed up a couple more times in your update post, so I guess it might just be you not seeing it on an editing pass, since the spell checker isn’t gonna recognize Anchorhead as an actual word anyway.
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May 24, 2022 01:27
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 21:39 |
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Natural 20 posted:New targets spawn in. You have to kill (almost) every enemy on the map and multiple reinforcement waves to hit the S rank. Yeah, I just checked. Once you clear the map the game begins spawning infinite waves of F-2As, F/A-18s, and Su-35s until the timer runs out. I got up to 137,000 points by the time Rage and Scream showed up.
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May 24, 2022 02:06
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