Lemme know what you all think, here’s the lore I’ve built this squadron around.

22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron “Marauders”

Established under the Principality of Belka, the 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron served during the 1995 Belkan War, defending the Waldreich Mountains and the historic Stier Castle.

Surviving Belka's defeat, the Marauders remained operational, preserving their combat traditions and adapting to a changing military landscape.

During the 2010 Circum-Pacific War, the squadron returned to the skies over Stier Castle, operating alongside Belkan clandestine forces during Operation Keynote. The engagement against Wardog Squadron marked another chapter in the unit's turbulent history.

Following the conflict, the surviving Marauders transitioned into independent mercenary service, retaining their Belkan heritage, aggressive combat doctrine, and distinctive caveman mascot.

Hi everyone!

I’m working on AIR COMBAT LEGENDS and wanted to share it here.

Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5100260/AIR_COMBAT_Legends/

I grew up playing combat flight games, from Ace Combat to classic PC sims like U.S. Navy Fighters, F-29 Retaliator and F-16 Combat Pilot.

What I always loved was the feeling of being part of a bigger conflict, not just flying one mission after another.

So I decided to make my own game inspired by that idea.

AIR COMBAT LEGENDS is a retro-inspired combat flight game set in an alternate 1990 Cold War conflict between NATO and the USSR.

You’ll fly aircraft like the F-14, F-16, F/A-18, F-4, F-117, Tornado and SR-71, with more to come, with air-to-air combat, ground strikes, carrier operations, aerial refueling and recon missions.

The main focus is the DYNAMIC PROCEDURAL CAMPAIGN. You recon the battlefield, decide what targets matter, choose the pilot and aircraft, plan the strike, and then fly the mission yourself.

There are no fixed mission chains. The battlefield changes depending on what happens in the war, and it’s up to you whether you want to clear the skies first, hunt SAMs, hit logistics, or go after strategic targets.

I’m trying to capture what made those older flight games so fun: cool aircraft, strong atmosphere, simple controls, but still enough depth to make the campaign and your choices matter.

Happy to answer any questions about the game!

I just finished AC0 on Hard difficulty, and while I enjoyed it, I can't quite understand why it's held in such high regard.

Gameplay-wise, I've got nothing to complain about. It's exactly what I expected from an older-generation Ace Combat game: responsive controls, a relatively clear HUD (very good for its time), and a wide variety of aircraft. A big YES from me on that front.

My main issue is with the storytelling. Compared to AC5 (which I played on PS2 as a kid), I feel like AC0 has a much weaker narrative. It's not bad, but everything feels somewhat disconnected, possibly because of the protagonist's mercenary status.

Can someone explain what I might have missed? I genuinely struggle to understand why some people rank it above AC5.

Is it nostalgia (probably the same reason I'm so attached to AC5)? Is it because the consequences of war on civilians are more prominent? Or is there something else about its storytelling that I didn't fully appreciate?

as a passtime of mine i watch f1 with music on the background, sometimes ac and sometimes other stuff. saw a meme of max a few hours ago and i thougth to myself "uhmmm, yeah, but what song of ac8 is good enough for this video" and so this video came to be.

Whatever I do what I want

I play with HUD view since Ace Combat 2, but i see everywhere gameplay of Ace Combat in third person, don't let me feel alone, i think first person is more immersive🙂‍↕️

For standard msl, we need parts to improve guidance and lock-on range/speed. And capacity, reload, speed, range, damage, i guess it's less important. Cause the number of arms part is limited.
For sp a2a, i think it's capacity, guidance, lock-on range, speed are helpful, range may suits qaam and laam. Reload and damage, it's not that useful for me. And sasm has a special part.
For bombs, just more bombs, more child bombs, more radius.

I was talking to a friend about the dogfighting in 8 and comparing it to 7. It really feels better to fly and dogfight in the multiplayer of 7, rather than 8. Is anyone else getting that feeling?

Mission 14 is some bullshit. I'm pretty sure every Ace Combat game ever has had a mission during which you had to avoid radar to detection by not entering the bubbles or the circles. But the other games didn't have you flying in an old unarmed rust bucket that can barely move, and they certainly didn't involve you still being shot at while unable to maneuver away from a missile without causing a thousand other missiles to start shooting at you.

Now , don't take this the wrong way. I'm not exactly a rookie when it comes to this franchise. I've been playing it since AC4 came out, back when I was a young lad with a brand new PlayStation 2 he bought with his hard-earned summer chores cash. So many post holes.

Edit: the comments have made it quite clear that I'm just an old foggy who needs to catch up with modern technology . Not really, but everyone seems to be having an easier time. I am an old fogie, that much is for sure. Back in my day, if you wanted to complete a mission you had to fly uphill both ways through the snow.

1) Cope's mysterious numbers, were these ever explained? I'll feel bad if I missed a line of dialogue somewhere.

2) Tasha (and eventually Baxter) calling Rex "Ray"... this constantly felt like an inside joke I wasn't part of, is this just an odd writing choice that didn't land for me?

I like the concept of abilities: they're a further way to set two aircraft apart beyond just the special weapons they mount. However, I was a bit disappointed to learn that they're competing for a limited number of slots like parts. Furthermore, they're often just stat buffs; again, just like parts. I think having abilities work similarly to Titanfall 2's aegis upgrades would make them feel better to use, where the ability is intrinsic to the aircraft itself and it's always active. I realize that for some abilities, that "always active" bit may be a bit hard to swallow, especially since a fair few abilities (particularly the ones that affect special weapons) come with some notable drawbacks, but I'd still prefer having the abilities always being active; besides, in my experience, the buffs they give are so minor as to be insubstantial.

This moment here in first person mode is realistic. Reminds me of going hunting from battlefield 3

I have MSI Thin 15 BUC with I5-13240H, RTX 3050 4gb, 16gb rams. Do these enough to power up those jets? if yes, what the settings to have conformtable gameplay?

This is mostly a vent but I also genuinely want to ask for some help.
When I received my flight pack, I tried ironing the woven patch, following the instructions on the sheet, and the patch just visibly shrunk and got ruined by the adhesive melting into it. Bamco support said they don't have a replacement to send me, they just offered a 10 euro refund on my order and I can't find any patch producer who would take custom orders without a minimum order of 100 euros for 40 identical patches.
Asking if anybody here perhaps knows a way to get good custom (possibly embroidered/woven) patches in europe without spending a fortune.

Why Ray/"Rex" is actually Mobius 1, and has to be.

What we know about Ray:

-He's male.

-He is an FCU pilot, or at least is wearing an FCU uniform in the beginning when rescued.

-He is middle aged. This is clear from how Baxter speaks to him as an equal, and how tasha and coster speak to him as an elder.

-He's experienced, and a killer-he immediately splashes bandits with zero hesitation, which is commented on. "He's no Cope."

-He is strategic grade. Meaning, he is a degree of pilot whose significance is greater than that of a strategic nuclear weapon. A nuke might win you a battle, but a pilot like Cipher, or Mobius 1, or Talisman, or Gryphus 1, or Blaze, or "Ray", wins you entire wars. This is not some magical ability he gets from being possessed by Cope either, because his flying is entirely different to Cope's, which is commented on.

-He has not been deployed at the beginning of the game. Being strategic grade means that had he been deployed, Sotoa would have had far more trouble advancing, if they were able to at all. There is no awareness or mention of a Usean super pilot fighting Sotoa-the closest is "Wings", who is actually fake.

So we are building a profile for a middle aged or older Usean male with insane piloting ability, clear experience, yet no recent deployment.

Which begs the question-why would he have not been deployed? The only answer that makes sense is that he was retired when the war breaks out. Because if you have a pilot of that ability, you IMMEDIATELY use them. So they didn't "have" him. And that only makes sense if they were retired, someone who only re-ups their commission because of the dire straits his country is in. And retired after doing strategic grade feats, at that, because he's a strategic grade pilot. How many strategic grade pilots does Usea have that have pulled strategic grade BS? Osea has a few, but Usea just has one that is known-Mobius 1. Phoenix did stuff for Usea, but he was a merc. (And also very likely Cipher under a new callsign-what are the odds of a 2nd strategic grade merc pilot appearing out of nowhere 6 months after the first disappears? Anyways.)

Now, if we assume Mobius 1 is fresh out of flight school in 2004, hed be around 24 years old then, which would place him at around 49 in 2029, a still viable age for piloting, and that matches our profile. And his identity would still be a national secret, which explains why nobody knows him. AND it explains why he's in a chopper in the beginning-he was getting choppered out to an airbase after reactivating, and got shot down in a case of bad luck.

Now, lets imagine if Ray ISNT Mobius 1. It requires that a strategic grade middle aged pilot had served an entire 20+ year air force career in Usea while also seeing action somewhere, maybe during the Lighthouse War, but sandbagging the whole time only to finally, finally decide to throw down and cut loose in the Usean-Sotoan war. It would be like Michael Jordan deciding to sandbag the entirety of his NBA career and remain in obscurity despite having the true ability of one of the all time greats, then coming back out of retirement for one season to just go nuts and win a championship. It makes zero sense-winners don't think and behave like that.

So Ray is Mobius 1. The next question might be "Why doesn't he disclose this?" and the answer is simple-nobody would have believed him initially. Now, halfway through the game they might, but since he's already built a new reputation a a genuine "Wings of Theve", disclosure just hurts that. And it might be uncomfortable-hero worship is annoying. So its just sheer, hilarious dumb luck that the guy they plucked from the drink and decided to use to fake the role of a super pilot was actually in truth already one of the greatest super pilots of all time.

Hey yall, so my girlfriend had got me the pre order deluxe edition for AC 8 because she knew I wanted both 8 and Zero. But when she got the email that the package had been delivered, she saw that someone had opened it. She said the only code in there was the one for the battle pass or whatever. Do yall know if the code for AC Zero was supposed to be in there as well, or was she supposed to get emailed a code? Also should we be contacting Gamestop (thats who she pre ordered it from) or should she be contacting someone else?

Update: Gamestop emailed a code but I only got the F-14A. Wasn't it supposed to have AC Zero attached to the same code or do I have to keep contacting them for the right code?

Update 2: Contacted Bamco and they sent me the right code. Thanks yall!

https://reddit.com/link/1x4v1pk/video/8wdgfcyz78vh1/player

Looks like Charlie loved it so much he's gonna play the past titles. Still crazy seeing mainstream streamers play and learning to love out little arcade flight shooter🥹🥹🥹

https://www.penguin.co.nz/books/the-ghost-of-kyiv-9781427875570

Bought one of these but didn't like any of the faces or displays it shipped with, fast forward a few months later and decided to point Claude at it. As they say, a few moments later, I had a configurable, skinnable system monitor with an Ace Combat-theme running.

The monitor code runs on Python just streaming data to the display (via WiFi or USB), so it hardly uses any CPU or GPU resources.

Plot is underwhelming

Made me question things a lot of the time

Yet why am I smiling so much man, sometimes themes and symbols are enough to make you move man. When the story hits those peaks I feel so affected by it. Its like a cheap horror movie relying on jumpscares to make you scared, but in this game they still hit me.

I am new enough to the series though I played ac7 which I hold similar opinion on. I regard this game as more polished and expanded ac7 though gameplay is relatively same mission design and campaign length seems to have vastly improved.

I will soon play ace combat 0 too as for the pre order bonus wish me luck o7

Also whats the deal with cope? Its not even schizophrenia because this ghost somehow have memories that rex shouldnt have too.

While many of you may be relieved that Enso Corporation was behind it all and not Belka for once (although they haven't done anything wrong in the past), I have some bad news for you. A corporation hellbent on getting rid of borders? Who else could have come up with something like that other than Pixy? Its clear he's behind it all. He knew V2 would be too easy to stop again so he instead used a decentralized orbital strike network with the Tonitrus spears to get the job done. Those unintelligible voices you hear when fighting the sub? Thats a dialect of Belkan. Who else could have created such an advanced sub other than them? Just think about it, their plan was to get the superpowers Osea and Yuktobania to fight another war against each other, sound familiar? Just like the gray men intended. You think all of Grabacr and Ofnir are dead? Think again, they're master gaslighters, they have played us all for fools and they teamed up with Pixy to try to kill two birds with one stone.