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Who is the best Ace Combat protagonist? This poll is closed. |
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| Cipher |
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79 | 32.24% |
| Phoenix |
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9 | 3.67% |
| Mobius 1 |
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84 | 34.29% |
| William Bishop--lol get out |
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24 | 9.80% |
| SHOOT VISARI |
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49 | 20.00% |
| Total: | 245 votes | ||
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I've got another thing to go along with the Aces of this game. No, it's not another bullshit made-up Assault Record. This time it's more trivia! I've been kind of running out of plane stuff to talk about (I have my doubts I'll even have anything new to talk about after we get past 5, I think only Infinity has more planes than it and that's only because they've added more post-release). Fortunately, this game has really opened up the trivia bit because they, as mentioned, chose to name their Aces after astronomers. It's something entirely new that I didn't know much about before I looked them up for the sake of putting this together, but hey, writing Databases™ is basically my second-favorite part of making or even considering LPs. Ace Number Zero is Biela. Named for Baron Wilhelm von Biela, born March 19th, 1782. German-Austrian military officer, a grenadier Captain who also dabbled in astronomy. In that field, his specialization was observing and calculating the orbits of comets. He published articles, primarily in the Astronomische Nachrichten, discussing comets, theoretical considerations of comets hitting the sun, and occultations of stars by the moon. He was the first to identify a Jupiter-family comet, later named Biela's Comet, as periodic; the comet later split in two around 1852. Died February 18, 1856, at 73 years old. As Crow mentioned, Biela is not actually present in the game; the name is simply printed on the tail of the Ace paint scheme for the F-4E Phantom II, which is unlocked for purchase at just shy of a hundred grand after completing the game once. Ace Number One is Wang. Named for Wang Qi, Chinese astronomer. Little information is available about him, other than that he co-discovered a periodic comet named 142P/Ge-Wang. Presumably he's still alive, as the website for Michigan State University's Department of Physics and Astronomy lists him as a graduate student and even gives his email address (might be cool to try and get an interview, assuming it's the same person, otherwise please don't send him things that will make me regret posting this), and a double-check for info on the comet reveals it was discovered in 1988 (one source stating it was in May, the Polish version of Wikipedia claiming November instead). EDIT: On the subject of voting for best protagonist, Cipher is a more than acceptable substitute for Phoenix, so I can be more forgiving than ACES. add my loving phoenix emblem to the medal exchange already, infinity! Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 20:12
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Cythereal posted:A fun fact about the Bear: it's so ungodly loud that submarines have picked them up on hydrophone. I believe I recall reading that the Bear's noise was loud enough that not only the crews of them, but the pilots sent to intercept them at various points during the Cold War as well would routinely suffer hearing loss. EDIT: double-checking my source, this is indeed the case. Apparently the reason was because the tips of the propellers broke the sound barrier, thus at high enough RPM the plane would be creating a spiraling pattern of continuous sonic booms from the tips. Keep in mind too the Bear's propellers had 32 blades. Also, what the gently caress is wrong with all of you? I know I said Cipher is an acceptable substitute for Phoenix, but loving Bishop of all people is beating Phoenix too?! ...I say this as I'm considering reinstalling Assault Horizon, now that I have a computer that should be able to play it properly. Maybe I'll even LP it so someone else doesn't have to. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Aug 23, 2016 |
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Aug 23, 2016 23:35
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Ace Number Two is Ciffred. Named for Jacqueline Ciffreo. Again, very little information is available about her beyond her discovery of a comet in November of 1985, now known as 108P/Ciffreo. Recent attempts to search for more info about her indicate she's dead, though that source places date of birth in 1900 and date of death in 1990, which to me sounds like it might once again be a different person. This poo poo will actually be interesting soon I promise they eventually started picking astronomers more than two people have actually loving heard of.
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Aug 29, 2016 08:05
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Little late but here we go. Ace Number Three is Tempel. Named for Ernst Wilhelm Leberect Tempel, born December 4th, 1821. German astronomer who worked first at Marseille, France, then after the Franco-Prussian War moved to Italy. So far the most active namesake of the Aces here (by virtue of more than one discovery), discovering five asteroids on his own in a seven-year period from 1861-68, and co-discovering about 16 more. His discoveries include 64 Angelina and 65 Cybele in March 1861, 74 Galatea in August 1862, 81 Terpsichore in September 1864, and 97 Klotho in February 1868. Won the Prix Valz for 1880, later had the asteroid 3808 Tempel and the lunar crater Tempel named in his honor. Died March 16th, 1889, at 67 years old. (Told you I'd eventually have something worthwhile.) His paint scheme for the F-16C is one I like, upon closer inspection. The top looks a little like the F-15C's standard livery here and in Zero, and the bottom vaguely reminds me of the USAF's Thunderbirds. NobleSixFour brought up something I forgot to really mention in detail earlier, in this game the alternate paint schemes are treated less as paint schemes and more as separate aircraft: you have to buy each individually. The standard plane is made available after completing a mission as normal - every even-numbered mission gets you two or three new planes - while the standard Erusean version is unlocked for completing a specific mission with an A- or S-rank. The Ace paint scheme, as always, is unlocked for shooting down a named ace flying that aircraft, and that one costs between 15 to 30 percent more than the other two variations (in the F-5E's case, the standard version is $52,000, while the Ace version is $68,000). Also, remind me to add you on Discord, I got into that a month or two ago and it's pretty sweet. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Sep 5, 2016 |
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Sep 5, 2016 00:33
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Ace Number Four is Rigaux. Named for Fernand Rigaux, born 1905. Belgian astronomer who primarily worked from the Royal Observatory at Uccle, Belgium. Discovered seven asteroids in the 1930's, including 1292 Luce, 3280 Gretry, and 4908 Ward in September 1933, 1378 Leonce in February 1936, and 7000 Curie in November 1939. He also, with his colleague Sylvain Arend, co-discovered the comet 49P/Arend-Rigaux in 1951. Died 1962, at 56 or 57. I'm in agreement on Blockade being one of the best tracks in this game. I am very happy that Infinity uses it for the training mission you can fly at any time to test poo poo out. infinty?
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Sep 11, 2016 05:17
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Ace Number Five is Mrkos. Named for Antonin Mrkos, born January 27th, 1918. Czech astronomer and, again so far, the most active of the game's namesakes, discovering thirteen comets and 274 asteroids between 1977 and 1991. He was also the second Czech citizen to set foot in Antarctica, and the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility, as a member of the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition from 1957 to 1959; the second flag to ever be raised in Antarctica, in fact, was a Czech flag (after that of the USSR). He also came along with the 7th Expedition from 1961 to 1963 to study auroras. Died May 29th, 1996, at 78 years old. An interesting bit about the plane choice is that it's also a reference to a manga that ran from 1999 to 2001 called Red Prowling Devil, starring a female mercenary named Naomi who flew a MiG-29 in the same crimson paint scheme. They're also the only ace I ever found on my own in this game. I never looked very hard, to be fair.
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Sep 16, 2016 07:30
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NobleSixFour posted:Also, another possible reason for the game title: This is, after all, after the impact of the asteroid Ulysses 1994XF04. The real reason is much, much more  .The Japanese word for the number four is pronounced the same as the word for death, so they have the same sort of stigma attached to it as, say, most Western cultures have about 13 (or 23 in me and my friend's case  ). And because Japan, they're much more willing to go out of their way to avoid it. Hence the number for the fourth Ace Combat having a zero attached in front of it so it wouldn't kill the series, especially after the kind of money that went into Electrosphere's development because of poo poo like Production I.G's cutscenes.
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Sep 16, 2016 20:49
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Ace Number Six is Levy. Named for David H. Levy, born May 22, 1948. Canadian astronomer and science writer, discovered 22 comets either alone or alongside Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker, and 53 asteroids between 1987 and 2008. In particular, he and the Shoemakers discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1993, which a year later collided with Jupiter. Also wrote a thesis titled The Sky in Early Modern English Literature: A Study of Allusions to Celestial Events in Elizabethan and Jacobean Writing, 1572–1620, the completion of which got him a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in February 2010. At current one of the very few namesakes in this game who is still alive, at 68 years. The fun thing about his paint scheme is that the emblem on the tail is the head of Red Baron, the first player from Sky Kid. He's not the only one with an emblem from that game, either - spoilers, I guess, but we'll be seeing his face again next mission. On the subject of the Aegir Fleet, Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Sep 26, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 22:06
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Cooked Auto posted:Too late for that I imagine. Yeah, it's too late for me. I am the warning for everyone else to not do that poo poo.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:27
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Ace Number Seven is De Vico. Named for Father Francesco de Vico, born May 19th, 1805. Italian astronomer and Jesuit priest, in 1835 becoming the assistant superintendent and then in 1839 the director of the Vatican Observatory. His career was cut short by the Italian revolutions of 1848, but in that time he discovered a number of comets; alongside the American Maria Mitchell, who independently discovered the comet C/1847 T1 two days before de Vico, he was awarded a gold medal from the Danish King Frederick VI for being one of the first two people to discover a comet by way of telescope rather than by the unaided eye in 1847. He toured Paris, London, and the United States in his search for a new home after leaving Italy, planning to settle in America and once again touring Europe to recruit colleagues to come with him; he was unfortunately worn out from the constant traveling and died on November 15th, 1848, at 43 years old. The in-game De Vico flies the other swing-wing craft in the game, the Tornado Interdictor/Strike craft. Possibly owing to that, his paint scheme like Levy's also includes Red Baron on the tail, this time flying a plane of his own. What's interesting to note, however, is that "Free Erusea" is written on the fuselage and the nose - foreshadowing to the resistance movement from Ace Combat 5's Arcade Mode, perhaps. On the subject of censorship, it was mentioned earlier that one cutscene had the storyteller boy reveal he had a knife and pistol he managed to steal from someone at some point. In this cutscene too, the barkeep's daughter is holding a shotgun when the boy discovers what's going on. Nope, can't have guns in our war crime simulator! And, again, I've got to agree on the music in this game. I've been avoiding Infinity for the past month or so now, waiting until Project Aces stops being Project Asses and adds my loving Phoenix emblem to the medal exchange (which is probably going to happen about a week before either the game shuts down or my house catches fire again), but with how much of that game's soundtrack came from 04 I'm kind of wanting to get back into it just to hear it again. And, yeah, getting hit by flak in these games is more random luck on the game's part than any effectiveness of it as an air defense. I know I got my poo poo wrecked by it once when I did my Ace mode run through Zero, but that's the only time it's ever hit me in any of the games.
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Oct 2, 2016 01:26
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Ace Number Eight is Vaisala. Named for Yrjö Väisälä, born September 6th, 1891. Finnish astronomer and physicist, primarily known for his work in optics. Nevertheless, he discovered 3 comets and 128 asteroids/minor planets, which he usually named after personal friends, between 1935 and 1945. In particular, this is the reason the Palomar Mountain Observatory in California does not have an asteroid bearing its name, due to Väisälä naming one of his discoveries after a professor named Palomaa and the rules against asteroid names sharing all but one letter. He was nicknamed the Wizard of Tuorla, which was later used as the name for a book describing his works. Died July 21st, 1971, at 79 years old. If I ever get around to actually LPing HAWX, we're going to see this paint scheme again real soon. On the subject of this mission's song, I can't tell you how many versions of this song I've found on Youtube that are "extended", but only in the sense that the guy putting it up just made the second part repeat. There's two parts to the song, you jackasses!  And on the subject of arrestor hooks, way I remember it is a lot of planes do have them, but the ones on Air Force planes aren't as strong as those on Navy ones - it's more of an emergency thing for if they land too fast (recall the one-winged F-15 story from back in Zero, where the Eagle's hook got torn off), whereas Navy planes need to land as quickly as possible given the much shorter space carriers have (10,000 feet is adequate for a runway to accommodate just about anything landing at sea level; a Nimitz-class flight deck is only about a tenth of that), so their hook is stronger to better handle the sudden stops. Not that there are many flight sims that tell the difference, I know I've landed on carriers with F-15s and the like in some old freeware one called YSflight. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Oct 8, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 22:59
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Ace Number Nine is Tuttle. Named for Horace Parnell Tuttle, born March 17th, 1837. American astronomer and Civil War veteran who served the Union, first in the Army, then as a paymaster for the Navy, primarily stationed on the monitor ship USS Catskill. Discovered two comets and fifteen asteroids between 1857 and 1888; in particular, in January 1866 he independently discovered the same 55P comet previously discovered by Tempel the prior December; the comet is now named for both of them. Died August 16th, 1923, at 86 years old. I'll have words about the mission itself later perhaps, little busy at the moment.
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Oct 17, 2016 02:45
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hackbunny posted:While the A-10 was being developed the Avenger didn't exist yet and the YA-9 and YA-10 prototypes used the Vulcan Yeah, basically. The A-X was meant from the beginning to use a 30mm cannon, but the Avenger's design wasn't finalized until the YA-10 had already been selected as the winner. But that misses all the fun.
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Oct 18, 2016 02:09
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Yeah, I can tell you even back when I was new at this game and not very good at it this was the mission I crashed in the most, by far. I'm pretty sure it wasn't very long before I was good enough at this game that I could have done the entire thing in one sitting - especially that one time where I skipped all the cutscenes and only used the Su-35, pretending I was Scarface One coming out of retirement - but I never have, and I'm pretty sure this mission was always the reason why. Ace Number Ten is Faye. Named for Hervé Auguste Étienne Albans Faye, born October 1st, 1814. French astronomer, best known for the discovery of 4P/Faye, discovered in November 1843, which attracted worldwide attention and in the following year won him the Laland Prize from, and a membership in, the French Academy of Sciences. His work covered the entire field of astronomical investigation, from the determination of comet periods to the study of stellar and planetary movements, and advancing original theories on the nature and form of comets, meteors, the aurora borealis, and the sun. Died July 4th, 1902, at 87 years old. Fun thing about his paint scheme is that it's the one applied to the original Rafale A prototype. This series really likes prototype paint schemes, as I'm pretty sure I already ranted about in regards to the S/MTD.
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Oct 23, 2016 22:07
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nine-gear crow posted:(aside from coming down a case of shingles Please try not to catch H1N1 again on top of that, TIA. Also, I have some friends who'd probably be interested in that Dragon's Dogma segment, at least.
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Oct 28, 2016 01:07
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I'll be down for Assault Horizon co-op and stuff on PC when we get to the next thread, too, currently using the same name over Steam as here.
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Nov 4, 2016 03:42
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Ace Number Eleven is Neujmin. Named for Grigory Nikolayevich Neujmin, born January 3rd, 1886. Russian astronomer credited with the discovery of 74 asteroids, notably 951 Gaspra and 762 Pulcova, between 1913 and 1936. He also discovered or co-discovered some periodic comets, including 25D, 28P, and 42P, all named after him. A lunar crater and the asteroid 1129 Neijmina are both named after him as well. Died December 17, 1946, at 60 years old. As Crow noted, his paint scheme is a recurring one in the series. It's based on that of one of the Gromov Flight Research Institute's Su-27s, which has nevertheless become primarily associated with the Super Flanker and Terminator in this series - I think the only Ace Combat to actually attach it to the Su-27 is Joint Assault, and even then that's probably more because they wouldn't have room for an AC6 paint scheme on the Su-37 otherwise. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 21:23
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Putting this out here so it'll be ready to go along with Crow's write-up once he's ready to make it. I guess I'm lucking out in that I had all this poo poo pre-written, like, probably two years back at this point. Ace Number Twelve is Urata. Named for Urata Takeshi, born sometime in 1947. Japanese astronomer who is, by far, the most-prolific namesake of this game's aces, with 641 asteroids discovered between 1978 and 2000. Particularly, in 1978 he became the first amateur astronomer to discover a minor planet in 50 years, 2090 Mizuho, which he named after his daughter. This feat lead to an upsurge of such discoveries, and within the next ten years another 160 minor planets were discovered by Japanese astronomers. He also co-discovered the comet 112P alongside Niijima Tsuneo in October 1986. He was also an editor of the Japanese version of the Ephemerides of Minor Planets and shared observation data with other astronomers in a periodical named Tenkai (Japanese for "the Heavens"). The asteroid 3722 Urata, originally discovered in 1927 by Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth, is named after him. Died December 15, 2012, at around 65 years old, making him one of three namesakes that was definitely still alive when this game came out. His paint scheme is another unique real-world one applied to the game - it's that of the first XF-2A prototype. I haven't played Infinity in a while, but I know that Stonehenge is probably my favorite of the emergency raids you can get in that game, even if it's by far the one I disconnect from the most for some reason. Whenever I get Moby Dick Pursuit, even with my level ten-or-so Pixy F-15 I'm hard-pressed to be in the top four of the room - I think I MVP'd it one time, and that was only because the rest of the room were all bad and we only got a B rank. Stonehenge? I might possibly be able to count the number of times I wasn't MVP against it on both hands, and I know at least one of them was because I deliberately took a pure Fighter along just to grind out experience for another part slot (I burn three fuel on emergency raids as a matter of principle, which gets like a 27X multiplier on part slot points). also I reinstalled Assault Horizon to test how it works on my new computer and prepare for multiplayer shenanigans. Having the game run at the speed it's supposed to makes DFM more tolerable, I've noticed. Getting interrupted every minute when I'm in the middle of using it as the game insists on holding my hand, not so much. Also, the game lying to me and inverting the y-axis for looking around (press right to look left) after one helicopter mission was kind of a dick move. EDIT: you know that thing win10 does where things aren't allowed to make new folders within the Users folder anymore? turns out that causes more problems than it solves! i had to manually create a NAMCO/ACAH folder in my documents to get the game to remember my graphics or control settings between sessions, or even between individual missions apparently. Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Nov 12, 2016 |
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Nov 10, 2016 09:31
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NobleSixFour posted:So, how do people feel about Assault Horizon jam session maybe the weekend after this one? Should work for me, assuming weather, incompetence from my ISP, or general Win10 fuckery doesn't kneecap my connection.
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Nov 23, 2016 00:48
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RIP 2015-2016 It foxed the twos so that others would want to
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Nov 25, 2016 11:44
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I recently came across a new map of the Strangereal solar system. I think that Light House tower is just gonna be the tip of the iceberg in 7. Possible plot spoilers, so just in case.
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Dec 12, 2016 06:50
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Hi, I'm very easily distracted for hours at a time by Far Cry 4. First time playing it in two weeks and I didn't stop until six hours later. Ace Number Thirteen is Gunn. Named for James Edward Gunn, born October 21st, 1938. American professor of astronomy at Princeton University in New Jersey since c. 1968, with short stints also working at the University of California at Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology (the latter of which being where he got his Ph.D. in 1966). His work has not been so much discovering asteroids and comets like the others, but rather establishing the current understanding of how galaxies form, the properties of the space between galaxies, and observational tests to confirm the presence of dark matter. He also developed plans for one of the first uses of digital camera technology in space observation, leading to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. He has been awarded with the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics in 1988, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1994, the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2005, and the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal in 2013, among others. One of the few namesakes who is still alive, currently at 78 years old. (also that's the strike eagle)
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Dec 18, 2016 11:51
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Ace Number Fourteen is Abell. Named for George Ogden Abell, born March 1st, 1927. American astronomer and teacher at UCLA, best known for his catalogue of clusters of galaxies collected from the Palomar Sky Survey. His work demonstrated that second-order clustering existed, disproving the earlier hierarchical model of Carl Charlier. The Abell Catalogue of rich clusters of galaxies owes its existence in part to Abell's "Northern Survey" of 1958, supplemented by a "Southern Survey" compiled in 1989 by Harold Corwin and Ronald Olowin. He also co-discovered the periodic comet 52P/Harrington-Abell and determined that planetary nebulae were formed from red giant stars; he also helped produce two educational TV series (Understanding Space and Time and Project Universe), co-founded the Committee on Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, served as president of the International Astronomical Union's Cosmology Commission, and was to have been editor of the Astronomical Journal starting from 1984 before his death. The Summer Science Program at New Mexico Tech and University of Colorado Boulder memorialize him by way of the Abell Scholarship Fund. . Died October 7th, 1983, at 56 years old.
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Dec 26, 2016 17:04
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Ace Number Fifteen is Olmstead. Named for C. Michelle Olmstead, apparently born May 21, 1969 according to a non-English version of Wikipedia. American astronomer and computer scientist. Little information, up to and including her actual first name, is available. All that's said is that she discovered four asteroids in September 1990, and co-discovered the periodic comet 127P/Holt-Olmstead. The asteroid 3287 Olmstead is named after her. One of the handful of namesakes who might possibly still be alive, assuming that birth date is correct, who would be 47 years old at the time of this LP if that's the case. I'm reminded now that one of the late-game missions in the original Ghost Recon has your team sent to a test site at Arkhangelsk to destroy prototypes of both the Hokum and the Berkut. Which is kinda weird considering the game is set in 2008, but eh, I guess that's what happens when you set your game that far into the future.
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Jan 1, 2017 01:23
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AradoBalanga posted:So, was the Ka-50 the inspiration for the stealth helicopter from Goldeneye? Because it also had an ejection system that also involved the rotor blades detaching so the cockpit could fly into the sky unimpeded. I'd say it's possible, at least. The craft in GoldenEye was more or less an unmodified Eurocopter Tiger, but I can't find any consistent sources on whether it has a similar ejection system. I guess it depends on how much anyone outside of Kamov knew about the Ka-50 at the time.
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Jan 1, 2017 07:23
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I had my own words about the censored versus uncensored version of the cutscene in this video, but I ended up not posting them and then nine-gear crow more or less said what I wanted to say in a far better manner than I could. That said, having first played the game a long time before discovering it even was censored in any way, I always felt something was off about the censored version of the cutscene - the kid just turns around the corner and shouts at Yellow 13, what sort of backup plan does he have if the grown adult who is also a trained ace pilot decides to not play around with people more or less directly responsible for the death of his closest friend and wingmate? Learning that the kid originally had a gun to point at him as he did so just makes so much sense. That said, I do think I like the censored version a bit more. Whereas the boy finding himself unable to kill the man responsible for his parents' death because he's grown to respect him is nice, it's more or less the same sort of thing we already know from when he discovered the Resistance and mentioned how they were the "real heroes", while he found a haven with the Yellow Squadron. Meanwhile, the Erusian ace finding himself unable to do anything but let the kids involved with the Resistance and their bombing of their runway go, and then not do anything to bring it up when the kid keeps hanging out with them afterwards, is a nice demonstration that not all of the Erusian military are the kinds of assholes like that one guy from mission 11 who basically told a more conscientious wingmate to shut the gently caress up and shoot down the civvie planes. Granted, there's a good demonstration of that later on in both versions as well, so either version of this one could work. NobleSixFour posted:Finally remembered to post something that I keep meaning to, then forgetting to. I don't think the Erusian aircraft are from squadrons with color names. Rather, I think they're using the Russian practice of referring to individual airframes by the tail/nose number and the color of that number. A real world example is the Su-37 prototype known as "711 White", after which the default Terminator livery in AC0 is modeled. (I wanted to link a Wikipedia article, but "bort number" doesn't seem to have one.) I don't have much to say about the squadron bit other than to remind people that Yellow Squadron is officially designated Aquila (Latin for eagle). The practice munition thing, though, makes sense given what I know about modeling weapons. Even modern AAA FPS developers don't seem to have the ability (or enough fucks to give) to get actual weapons to model off of and keep having to settle for airsoft or just ganking models from whatever another dev under the same publisher put out last year, it'd make sense that the same would happen regarding aircraft munitions. I guess it's a spoiler for a plane we haven't seen yet, if you haven't been following the threads since Zero started more than a year back (in which case what is wrong with you  ), but the "S-37" in this game more or less has the same issue, there were still no proper references for the real craft at the time (it didn't even undergo its final name change to the Su-47 until the year after this game came out) so the in-game model is a hybrid of the real thing and the more fictional Su-43 from Electrosphere. Particularly, the twin tailbooms at the rear, the in-game model has them the same length, rather than the left-side one being shorter as in reality.
Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 02:59
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Ace Number Sixteen is Kwee. Named for Kiem King Kwee, yet another astronomer who somehow has no information anywhere that I can find beyond the year of birth, which the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names places in 1927. Seriously, I thought this would be interesting stuff! Why does no one care? Anyway, he, she, whichever, is notable for co-discovering a periodic comet in August 1963, 59P/Kearns-Kwee, while in search of the lost 55P previously discovered by our old buddies Tempel and Tuttle. One final check for information before posting indicates they also had a hand in Gart Westerhout's The Rotation of the Inner Parts of the Galactic System in 1954. A 2013 edition of the aforementioned Dictionary indicates they were still alive at the time of publishing, which would have placed them at 85 or 86 years old at the time, though it's hard to tell whether they were actually still alive at that point or if that dictionary simply couldn't find anything more personal about the guy either. Supposedly there's a 2014 biography on some archival website that may shed some more light on them, but for the time being I'm unable to access it because "free info" apparently means needing to pay to see it. Basically, it's appropriate that he's flying the F-117 in this game, in the sense that it's a well-aimed "gently caress you" at someone who's not even playing the game right now. On the subject of the Su-35, to get technical there are two variations of it that appear across the series. There's the original Su-27M, a program started in the 80s to upgrade the -27, which was shortly redesignated Su-35. About fifteen of those were built, two of which were later given thrust-vectoring engines to turn them into the Su-37. That's the version in most of the games up to The Unsung War. The second variation came about starting from 2003, which includes the thrust-vectoring engines but removes the canards (and airbrake, for some reason) among other improvements to create the Su-35S. Back when its first flight happened in 2008, though, plenty of media sources erroneously called it the Su-35BM, extrapolated from its design name of T-10BM. That's the version from Assault Horizon onwards.
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Jan 8, 2017 06:55
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Ace Number Seventeen is our penultimate ace, Halley. I think we all know this guy - Edmond Halley, born November 8th, 1656. English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician and the like - among other things, he had a hand in Isaac Newton's publishing of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687; created plans for a diving bell that featured a window to observe its surroundings and could support a person for more than ninety minutes (with further updates to the design extending its operational time to over four hours), and introduced a rudimentary magnetic compass in 1691; commanded the HMS Paramour for the first purely-scientific voyage by an English naval vessel in 1698; completed an Arabic-English translation of all seven books of Apollonius of Perga''s Conics in 1706; took part in the first attempt to scientifically date Stonehenge (hee hee) in 1720; and in the same year succeeded John Flamsteed as the second Astronomer Royal in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom, a position he held until his death 22 years later. He, of course, is most famous today for the 1705 publication of Synopsis Astronomia Cometicae, where he detailed his belief that comet sightings in 1456, 1531, 1607, and 1682 were all of the same comet, and gave his prediction that the comet would be sighted again in 1758; while he did not survive to see it, after its return in that year it generally became known as Halley's Comet (officially 1P/Halley now). Died January 14th, 1742, at 85 years old. The in-game Halley flies the F-15 S/MTD. As typical in this series, and for that matter every other arcade-like flight sim, his paint scheme is based on that of the real-world one used by NASA - which, from the perspective of someone who likes to convert paint schemes from this series to other games like Vector Thrust, makes the S/MTD a surprisingly boring-looking plane on its own. EDIT: to speak on the planes, I didn't really look up much about the Osprey (for one, not playable, and even so it's maybe half a plane?) but I'd like to imagine it's sort of the tilt-rotor equivalent of the Harrier, in that it's something drat near everybody who's heard of the concept of an airplane for military use has heard of that thing. Like they had these things showing up in games as far back as Half-Life in '98 (I have a very good friend who basically fell in love with the thing because of its appearance there). Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Jan 15, 2017 |
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Jan 15, 2017 06:27
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Cipher is a Time Lord. His TARDIS takes the form of a usable, armed vehicle, always a plane or similar; he's kinda like the War Doctor. His next regeneration takes the form of a young rookie not very far from where that one operated, training out on a quiet little stretch of beach paradise. His regeneration after that is where things get interesting, where the powers that be apparently decided to make him live through a good chunk of a regular life before he regained access to his TARDIS. Born to a family with a shipping business, instead choosing to join the Imperial Navy as an officer until an accident claimed the life of his older brother and I think you can see where I'm going with this. 
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Jan 16, 2017 09:43
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I'll settle for the " " award for being the first to bring up Dash if it means his one wins, yes.Also, there's one last thing I want to bring up before the final episode. In this week's video Crow mentioned that, much like whichever Yellow you bag over Stonehenge is canonically Yellow 4 (even if you shot the lead plane, or took XMAAs along like an idiot and bagged three or four to make up for it), whichever Yellow is left over for last in the final fight here is supposed to be 13. Personally, I don't buy that. I'm not going to say much because it'll spoil something from the final mission I'm sure he's going to bring up, but the game can differentiate between otherwise-identical planes in situations like this when it wants to. It didn't for Stonehenge Offensive because it'd be pretty drat annoying for a first-time player to find which of the five planes isn't still running godmode.exe and focus on them, and it didn't for Emancipation because they're supposed to be rookies who transferred in to get more flight experience (and even if they aren't, Mobius One/the player is good enough to take on most of them with ease at that point). But it can when it matters, and it's my belief that it does here. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that the last Yellow Crow shot down just sort of blew to pieces in mid air when it took an XMAA to the nose, whereas an earlier one burst into flames but remained intact as it slowly fell back down to Earth. I want to believe that one is supposed to be Yellow 13. One thing Crow hasn't really touched on is that if you're holding down the target button to focus the camera on your current target, it'll stay on them even if they get shot down, and while Zero (and 5, for that matter) will switch you over to whatever target the game targeted for you to after that, here in 04 you can stay focused on the destroyed target as long as you want until you let go of the button. It's overall a much more satisfying experience if you focus on the plane that's on fire and slowly falling to the ground rather than one that just blows the gently caress up where it is, which is why I want to believe they programmed one specific plane in the group (i.e. Yellow 13) to do something other than just blow the gently caress up. The only problem is being able to tell them apart to make sure you actually save 13 for last; I know I got lucky on my first playthrough and got him last, but I also recall expecting it in my second or third playthrough and ending up with a guy who disintegrated.
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Jan 17, 2017 06:42
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Psycho Landlord posted:Doesn't the final yellow get a massive boost to his AI when he's the last one in the air? Or am I imagining things? It's possible, but I'd imagine it's just as well, uh, imagined because once there's only one left you're necessarily forced to focus on the guy who's on your tail - when there's even one other, you can always break off from trying to turn things around on that guy and shoot the other guy who's trying to get you from a different angle that could be more effective, but also makes him more vulnerable if you're paying attention. Keep in mind though I haven't played this game in at least four years, the reason for which precludes any wish to play it now to make any extensive analysis on the Yellow's AI in Farbanti, while Crow does have some solid, recent evidence that the last one's AI does indeed step it up at that point. OddHaberdasher posted:To this discussion, I can only offer two things to say There's nothing worthwhile I can add to this, I just want to say this is a good post.
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Jan 17, 2017 23:03
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NobleSixFour posted:Maybe it's also from fewer Yellow units translating to more processing power per unit as you shoot them down, a la Space Invaders? Yellow Squadron was a successor to the ZOE project having a whole squadron of linked planes under the AI's command at once, Yellow 13 and 4 and all the other humans we saw at the air base in cutscenes were a smoke screen to make sure people - like, say, a civilian boy who befriends them - didn't realize what's really going on (because there's not enough money involved for everyone to be at the "bomb the poo poo out of innocent people for a simple coverup" level yet like with what happened after the Night Raven thing). Kadorhal fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Jan 19, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 04:36
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Ace Number Eighteen, our final regular ace, is Smirnova. Named for Tamara Mikhaylovna Smirnova, best guess I can find about the exact date of birth being Christmas Day of 1935. Russian astronomer, staff member of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in Leningrad from 1966 to 1988, who discovered 135 asteroids between August 1966 and June 1984. The asteroid 5540 Smirnova, her 100th discovery, was named after her. Died in 2001, right around when this game came out, around 65 years old. Of course, there's one more Ace paint scheme in this game - and I think you all can already guess who it is, it's none other than Yellow 13. His scheme is unique, much like Biela's way back at the beginning, in that you don't get it by shooting him down. Rather, his is your final reward for shooting down every other named Ace in the game and acquiring their liveries. VKing posted:E: Was this the mission where you got different voice clips if you down the Yellows in a particular order? Yeah, it is. This is the thing I was talking about about for the last mission regarding which of the actual Yellows was 13. The game can tell the difference between otherwise-identical planes when it wants to, and this is one case where it goes all-out with that. I'm not sure exactly how far it goes, since I've never been able to get further than taking out Jean-Louis before Gene, but I have heard that it goes pretty far. Thanks again for doing the series, Crow. Doubt I'm going to be able to do much on the commentary front for 5 (my audio jacks are apparently all deciding that working is for suckers and chumps) even if there are still any openings, but there's still a few planes for me to talk about when they come around, among other things.
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Jan 22, 2017 06:33
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Hace posted:Not having pressured buttons is especially annoying with the map, because in 5 it's either in super close, or suuuuuper zoomed out. This is a (self-inflicted, admittedly) issue I'm having nowadays now that I have a copy of Zero to play again. I know I mentioned it back during its thread but either it or 5 introduced the alternate (now standard, I think) control scheme where Square switches weapons and Select brings up the map, but they didn't quite think things through so the map is invariably zoomed out to the highest level when you use it that way. Also, looking forward to AC7 on PC, though I'd be kidding myself if I had any realistic expectation that its minimum requirements will be low enough that my recently-built-but-only-maybe-2013-level PC could actually run it.
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Jan 27, 2017 13:34
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nine-gear crow posted:It was bundled with AC5 on the same disc as a third separate game mode apart from its Single Player and Multiplayer modes. AC5 is the only one of the PS2 trilogy that doesn't have a multiplayer mode, actually 
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Jan 28, 2017 06:13
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Thefluffy posted:and now I have to wonder how fast a full play-though video of Ace combat 6 would be if it sped up every time someone says *REDACTED* A New Hope sped up every time any sort of blaster or laser was fired took about a minute fifteen, so that's my guess.
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Jan 31, 2017 09:40
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Is that my version of the Phoenix emblem they used under the first panel? drat, even after Acepedia deleted it in favor of an official image from Infinity, that thing still gets around. I imagine this is what it'd feel like if I had a kid who grew up to be a bit-part actor in just about everything I ever watched from then on.
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Feb 2, 2017 05:19
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NobleSixFour posted:(And apologies to Kadorhal, whom I also invited without realizing that co-op is limited to 3 slots because Guts is apparently too much of a snowflake to ever be played by an actual human.) No worries, at the very least I have my control settings ready (without the game setting them back to default every time, hopefully) for the next time.
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Feb 6, 2017 08:19
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It also made its debut alongside a Star Wars Humble Bundle, for the record. It's at the top-tier for non-physical stuff, but still, that's just shy of a buck each for fifteen games at maximum (and then another twenty for a shirt if you want), so if you're the kind of weird person who owns Steam but has somehow resisted the siren call of the constant sales and avoided picking up most of the Star Wars games partly by accident, it'd be worth getting. Or you could be patient and wait for another three months. I'm pretty sure "too new on Steam" isn't a factor in Star Wars games getting a deep discount for May the Fourth. Unrelated to Dash Rendar, I had an idea for an emblem to make in another game the other day. It's not quite an exact replica, I had to skip some of details because of lack of layers and it could always use a bit more work, but behold: 
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Feb 8, 2017 23:44
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Speaking of Ace Combats not directly related to the one with a currently-active LP thread, good news! I found out why my microphone wasn't working, so I'll be good for co-commentary on 5/Assault Horizon and/or finally getting around to LPing HAWX. The gist of it is I'm an idiot. Turns out there's a jack on the rear of my computer which is near-identical in color to the microphone jack, is easier to reach than the microphone jack due to my current desk setup, but is not actually the microphone jack. Ace Combat valentine's cards when? "Violets are blue" is just begging to rhyme into "Fox Two".
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Feb 15, 2017 04:36
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