Ace Combat: Infinity

[omgsean1]

Never mind.

 

[Paulie]

When I finished up just before I was 211th around 100k pts clear of 1000th place, I hope that lasts me through the week. I used Merc contracts during the burn, spent well north of $5mil. I've unlocked most of the tree including the B-2. Not only did I complete the NSU challenge I also had one randomly drop so now I have 3, woot!

It can EVEN be a gift or a drop since It's for the 1st anniversary of Infinity...
Maybe the iconic F-4E as gift and the F-22 -Mobius1- as top 1000 tournament reward.
ISAF and Mobius roundel as tournament rewards as well.
I'm planning to get the top 1000 of Akula, the T-50 looks cool enough for me but those Naval TDM are pure gambling in terms of ranking pts...

I'd love a respectable F-4E, and yeah the TDM rankings are crap. If your team loses you only get about a 3rd of the ranking points.

Haha I swear these free to plays are so similar to how casinos do their business.

Your idea for the update could work quite well. Mobius 1 F-4E as a month long drop with Ace Combat 4 themed tourneys and challenges for the whole of May. Might even get a new set of campaign missions to boot!

Had to move this from my previous post since I editted it while you were posting but what will you spend all your Mobius tournament money on once it's over and done with ?

I was thinking of levelling a B-2 Spirit but I would barely make it past 4 unless they have the 2 million credit crates next month.

A level 15 plane may be possible but again very expensive. Max out a main character plane such as Pixy's Morgan maybe? Realistically I'd probably just start unlocking the rest of the aircraft tree and put some levels on low level planes/special weapons.

inb4 << I've got a girlfriend back at base>> and gets shot down by a whale in the rankings .

I still have 200 fuels left at the moment, unless I have to spend more for the Akula, hopefully that will still get me something nice in the Mobius sweeps.

The Delphinus and XFA are ridiculous! It will take years of grinding or hundreds of dollars before you even get a few levels on those things! The Delpuinus HUD looks cool though. I just hope the CFA and other new planes that are on their way don't have a multi-million credit price tag on them.

Yep, unless you have everything else maxed out I wouldn't bother with them.

Edit: Hours later and I'm still in the top 300, c'mon baby, Papa wants a new T-50!
BTW, has anyone tried a machine gun setup on an Attacker with the new Large damage part and Medium damage/range part? I'd give it a go, maybe even in TDM, but I only have level 1 Attackers basically. I test flew one in Test Flight, level 1 FB-22, and though it's not much of a test it destroys dummy targets with one bullet. The fact you could keep up a near constant fire rate, plus throw in some missiles here and there, a SFFS to open up on clustered areas, I'd be interested just how lethal it could be.
Does machine gun damage increase at higher levels?

 

[Louie_Schumii]

@Paulie tricky thing with a machine gun set up is you can't fire and forget. The range part might help though since you'd hit the ships from further out. There's a thread in ACS that goes over what upgrades a plane gets at higher levels apart from the stats bars and special weapons. Might be worth a peek to see if there's anything on MG power when an aircraft levels up.

Under halfway to go in the NSU challenge. Religious supplied sortie-ing is not easy!

 

[Paulie]

@Paulie tricky thing with a machine gun set up is you can't fire and forget. The range part might help though since you'd hit the ships from further out. There's a thread in ACS that goes over what upgrades a plane gets at higher levels apart from the stats bars and special weapons. Might be worth a peek to see if there's anything on MG power when an aircraft levels up.

Under halfway to go in the NSU challenge. Religious supplied sortie-ing is not easy!

If that thread is on there they didn't sticky it, aint nobody got time for that! I'd assume it probably is. As for fire and forget, I tend to find I get a good amount of machine gun shots on the aircraft carrier in a flyby (gotta keep that speed up to avoid being shot down every two seconds) since it's so damn big and such an easy target. Though I'm also wondering about the effectiveness in co-op. I'm going to go ahead and assume machine guns (unlike special weapons) get better at higher levels. One day I'll test a machine gun ground pounder setup. Obviously after this tournament is over. It'd probably be better if the target reticule was always on instead of randomly popping up when it feels like it.
Speaking of the tournament! I stayed top 400 for 24hrs which is a great sign.

 

[Vitocorp]

Good luck @Paulie for the top 1000, not going anymore, this NTDM are too risky in terms of points and I don't want to spend money on this game, Mobius is near and we don't know how many days of forced sortie will take...so better stay safe, got atound 300 stocked fuel and I'll burn just some to get the non standard upgrade form.
Drops are being quite generous, fuel, a 2mln drop and finally got the cloverleaf emblem...I got my Black Hornet to LVL9, Garuda LVL8, the X-29 experimental LVL 6 and the Mickey Simon LVL 10. Got some aircraft parts as well and now I'm ready to buy both XFA and Delphinus.
Oh and I got tons of players with my good old -Y13-, for the attacker role I guess the best weapons are bombs, any kind of bombs.
LASMs are useless from distance unless CIWS is disabled, with an SFFSs you can blow up the entire fleet alone...geez...FB22s are a pain in the butt.

 

[Paulie]

Good luck @Paulie for the top 1000, not going anymore, this NTDM are too risky in terms of points and I don't want to spend money on this game, Mobius is near and we don't know how many days of forced sortie will take...so better stay safe, got atound 300 stocked fuel and I'll burn just some to get the non standard upgrade form.
Drops are being quite generous, fuel, a 2mln drop and finally got the cloverleaf emblem...I got my Black Hornet to LVL9, Garuda LVL8, the X-29 experimental LVL 6 and the Mickey Simon LVL 10. Got some aircraft parts as well and now I'm ready to buy both XFA and Delphinus.
Oh and I got tons of players with my good old -Y13-, for the attacker role I guess the best weapons are bombs, any kind of bombs.
LASMs are useless from distance unless CIWS is disabled, with an SFFSs you can blow up the entire fleet alone...geez...FB22s are a pain in the butt.

You got that $2mil drop? Well done, for all the sorties I've been doing I only saw a $75k drop. Though as I mentioned earlier I did get a level 5-6 upgrade card drop, would still rather the $2mil.


Edit: Well isn't this wonderful? I'm getting the bull:censored: "Can't communicate with PSN" message that won't let me sign in tonight. I'll tell you what, I won't be happy if I miss out on the top 1000 because of this.👎

 

[Vitocorp]

Well, this is the first 2 mln drop I get and it's been almost 1 year of infinity
For some strange reasons long range missiles have a much better chance to hit a plane, I took the Mickey Simon with HVAAs and this thing got a surprisingly high amount of hits...too bad the payload is low, damage is even worse and the plane can carry a low amount of slot parts...too much circle-jerking attackers, the best strategy is probably this one...the use of long range weaponry...

 

[Morgoth_666]

Long range does seem to be the key for defending the fleet. I waste so much time attempting to tail the attackers and multiroles attacking the fleet(can multiroles under 1,500 cost even accomplish anything doing this? mine don't seem to), and I can't hit anything, while of course my attackers and even fighters get shot down all the time even while twisting and turning. I'm just not quite used to the techniques of creating space yet -- I always wind up turning around too soon or slowing down too much and getting blasted. If I do get a run from a good distance back I do seem to hit more often.

Last night I actually manged to get killed by an MUGB from a B-1B I had already shot down. That takes some talent. Shot him down 5 times and he still got MVP though.


I've actually found LASMs to be quite useful all along though... but I use them to attack the CIWS ships directly until they are sunk. They don't hit 100% but they usually do. I either send one at the CIWS units and then send the other at the Aegis and then almost always wipe out both CIWS units and can pound on the ship until it comes back, which if I don't get shot down a couple times usually means the ship is almost sunk. I don't tend to score a ton of points myself when doing it, but I do tend to win quite often, even when trailing. Once those things have gone down the rest of the fleet usually lasts about as long as a homemade raft in a Jaws movie.

The tricky bit is that if you get a run past two Aegis ships you have to be careful you're not too low after hitting the first one, or else you can't use the reloaded LASMs on the second ship, they'll just fall into the water.

 

[Paulie]

I went most of that tournament with the ADF-01 on level 10 using level 5 HVAA with Large damage, homing and speed upgrades for standard missiles. I understand why the long range missiles are giving you guys the impression of a high hit rate, because I often fell victim to it myself for a while. When it comes from so far away you pay a little less attention to it and go about your battle almost like it's not coming. That leads to being in a compromising position when it does come.
I normally scored around 30-40k points during any mission. If you time it right you can defend the fleet by firing just as the aggressors are levelling out. Normally in their determination to drop their payload they'll take a hit. Funnily enough the guys who seemed to consistently score the most were FB-22s who travelled slowly and dealt lethal damage before taking a hit and re-spawning.
Some people just had dodgy ability to shoot you down though, I played a Mirage 2000-5 with a 1500 cost who could consistently shoot me down but I couldn't land a hit on, very suspect.
BTW, I came home with 1hr left in the tournament and had fallen to 1040th. I went a little crazy and finished in the 600's, that T-50 will be mine! Trying to sign back in now but getting the "Failed to communicate with PSN" 🤬 again.

OH! And I got a $2mil drop in the last hour of the tournament today as well! Used it to buy all the remaining jets except the standard Rafale M (and the stupidly overpriced R-101 and XFA-27 of course). After this tournament I also own all the parts except a few of the hybrid parts that give dual purpose upgrades. Now going to work on upgrading the FB-22, which is currently on level 2, and I have $900k left which will get me to level 7 (using a NSU level 5-6 upgrade token).

Speaking of the stupidly overpriced jets, remember how we joked about people spending all their fuel to get the XFA-27 Scarface 1 only to find they can't afford to upgrade it? It costs $87.8mil to get to level 10. I played against one in TDM today, it was hella weak obviously because the poor sucker can't afford to upgrade it.

This months special drops are the F-35 Taurus and the ADF-01 Osea (which is a copy of the hideous red Z.O.E. skin, and has basically all the same stats except more defence, less speed, 1 more body parts slot and 1 less Misc parts slot. So in a way it's kind of worse because speed is more useful than defence.)

 

[Vitocorp]

I went most of that tournament with the ADF-01 on level 10 using level 5 HVAA with Large damage, homing and speed upgrades for standard missiles. I understand why the long range missiles are giving you guys the impression of a high hit rate, because I often fell victim to it myself for a while. When it comes from so far away you pay a little less attention to it and go about your battle almost like it's not coming. That leads to being in a compromising position when it does come.
I normally scored around 30-40k points during any mission. If you time it right you can defend the fleet by firing just as the aggressors are levelling out. Normally in their determination to drop their payload they'll take a hit. Funnily enough the guys who seemed to consistently score the most were FB-22s who travelled slowly and dealt lethal damage before taking a hit and re-spawning.
Some people just had dodgy ability to shoot you down though, I played a Mirage 2000-5 with a 1500 cost who could consistently shoot me down but I couldn't land a hit on, very suspect.
BTW, I came home with 1hr left in the tournament and had fallen to 1040th. I went a little crazy and finished in the 600's, that T-50 will be mine! Trying to sign back in now but getting the "Failed to communicate with PSN" 🤬 again.

OH! And I got a $2mil drop in the last hour of the tournament today as well! Used it to buy all the remaining jets except the standard Rafale M (and the stupidly overpriced R-101 and XFA-27 of course). After this tournament I also own all the parts except a few of the hybrid parts that give dual purpose upgrades. Now going to work on upgrading the FB-22, which is currently on level 2, and I have $900k left which will get me to level 7 (using a NSU level 5-6 upgrade token).

Speaking of the stupidly overpriced jets, remember how we joked about people spending all their fuel to get the XFA-27 Scarface 1 only to find they can't afford to upgrade it? It costs $87.8mil to get to level 10. I played against one in TDM today, it was hella weak obviously because the poor sucker can't afford to upgrade it.

This months special drops are the F-35 Taurus and the ADF-01 Osea (which is a copy of the hideous red Z.O.E. skin, and has basically all the same stats except more defence, less speed, 1 more body parts slot and 1 less Misc parts slot. So in a way it's kind of worse because speed is more useful than defence.)

The OSEA Falken is darn expensive, the "standard" one looks cooler and it's cheaper...for a slighly better performance the black one is better!
Yeah, sometimes missiles are strange, some bombers managed to avoid QAAMs and that's sad...I mean it's supposed to be the best missile in terms of accuracy...
The new -Grabacr- feels strange...the plane is complete with Belkan and Grabacr roundel...just like the -Gryphus-
I mean...what???
Can we have a complete Yellow 13?

 

[Paulie]

I don't know what the Grabacr is, over an hour later and I still can't sign in.

 

[omgsean1]

I don't know what the Grabacr is, over an hour later and I still can't sign in.

Well, the Garbacr is just Su-47, and it still on top 1k points last I check around 7:30am in this morning.

 

[Paulie]

Well, the Garbacr is just Su-47, and it still on top 1k points last I check around 7:30am in this morning.

It's a pretty strong Su-47 as well, 775 Cst and good looks, heaps of parts slots. I won't be going for this one though.

 

[Flaren89]

A chance to get another non-standard upgrade (or get one if you lost the NTDM one)!

Instead of a skin, the final reward for this new challenges-chain is this object. First step do 180k with a Fighter, then 60k with 4AGM, then a challenge with F/A-18F but it's not clear if it's "do 200k" or "S rank 8 times a certain thing". We don't know successive steps atm.

 

[ClydeYellow]

Oh, gosh, I just realized how poor I actually am. Oh, well. I just started playing, so my lack of means may be excused, perhaps?

Anyways. I am undecided whether I should unlock and develop the Su-35 or Su-37. I know, I know. They're practically the same plane, but... I've been flying a lv. 4 MiG-29 for a while (about half a week) now and I'm really liking the combination of maneuvrability and QAAMs (which would unlock at lv. 4 for the Su-35, at lv. 7 for the Su-37); also, the 6AAM seems like a better fit for my player style than the HVAA the Su-37 starts with. Finally, the Su-37 is on a dead-end of the tech tree, while choosing the Su-35 would eventually allow me to walk down the path that leads to the PAK-FA and the ADXF-01 later on.

So, am I missing something? What plane should I go for (first, because I plan to eventually unlock both over time?)

 

[Morgoth_666]

I don't have them both myself so I can't say which is necessarily better, as you say their stats are nearly identical. You can actually "walk around" the Su-35 though, because the 37 isn't really a dead end... it's actually one less part to buy. The poor neglected Su-33 is the dead end with less equipment space.

I went with the Su-37 myself because in order 1) there was a challenge that required it, 2) I already had 6AAMs on my F-14A(but they are pretty useful, particularly at long range) and 3) It's called the Terminator . It's become pretty potent since I upgraded it a few levels - pretty much everything sucks at level 1 because of short lock-on range and (I suspect)lousy homing - but without being able to compare both at the same level it's tough for me to say any more.

One thing I can say is that getting most anything to level 7 is going to take a bit of time and money, while level 4 is still pretty quick for those planes. If you resist the urge to research everything however, you can make money a good bit quicker by getting the bonus it gives you for not having enough active research items after a mission.

Both have pretty useful parts right around them in speed/acceleration/missile reload speed, and both are very very cheap for as good as they are, only costing around 250k. I'm not sure how much difference stealth upgrades really make in most co-op missions but stealthy planes can sure be annoying in fleet assault deathmatch.




And going off-topic, they finally put the F-14 Jolly Rogers I've been waiting for up for sale... so now I have two F-14Ds I can spend 3 or 4 million credits each on trying to make as good as my F-14A .

 

[Vitocorp]

Oh, gosh, I just realized how poor I actually am. Oh, well. I just started playing, so my lack of means may be excused, perhaps?

Anyways. I am undecided whether I should unlock and develop the Su-35 or Su-37. I know, I know. They're practically the same plane, but... I've been flying a lv. 4 MiG-29 for a while (about half a week) now and I'm really liking the combination of maneuvrability and QAAMs (which would unlock at lv. 4 for the Su-35, at lv. 7 for the Su-37); also, the 6AAM seems like a better fit for my player style than the HVAA the Su-37 starts with. Finally, the Su-37 is on a dead-end of the tech tree, while choosing the Su-35 would eventually allow me to walk down the path that leads to the PAK-FA and the ADXF-01 later on.

So, am I missing something? What plane should I go for (first, because I plan to eventually unlock both over time?)

Personal preference: su-37, for the canard wings....
As long as you have a good payload...QAAMs are much much better than 6AAMs, much more versatile and deadly...I have the -13- so it has more slot parts, 30 QAAMs on lvl 9 and it's actually my best fighter so far, 6AAMs were my old choice but now I use them just in raid missions with the Typhoon...
I'm not a free player but I spent my fuel wisely so I do have a good hangar, last time I bought fuel was on september.
HVAA are good in PVP, but avoit them in co-op.
Low payload, low damage, not so good accuracy...they need a multirole with tons of slot parts to get seriously competitive...at least you get tons of 6AAMs...
I got level 5 QAAMs and they are deadly, not so good in PVP to be honest, they have a good maneuverability but not so good to face circle jerking idiots...since I only go for the SP weapon part I suggest to upgrade damage as far as you can one shot any kind of red (S part on my 13) then homing then speed...payload is good!

 

[Louie_Schumii]

SOLG III with @Vitocorp just before! Expanded the number of players from 6 to 8 to make sure we can get an S rank, only to get 2 players disconnect on the loading screen.

Being the good host that I am I decided to take a few hits (shot down twice, erhem) to make sure we got that S while I was levelling up my Aquarius F-18 (she's only level 2). It cost me around 100k (only got about 325k) in prizes at the end but at least we got S with around 20-25 seconds to spare!

Still jelly of everyone getting 2M drops though .

 

[Paulie]

A chance to get another non-standard upgrade (or get one if you lost the NTDM one)!

Instead of a skin, the final reward for this new challenges-chain is this object. First step do 180k with a Fighter, then 60k with 4AGM, then a challenge with F/A-18F but it's not clear if it's "do 200k" or "S rank 8 times a certain thing". We don't know successive steps atm.

I just finished the 4AGM missile challenge on my last sortie, when my Supplied's restock I'll be starting the Super Hornet challenge with my level 6 plugger. My challenge stated it was get an S rank 8 times, that will take a couple of days!

Oh, gosh, I just realized how poor I actually am. Oh, well. I just started playing, so my lack of means may be excused, perhaps?

Anyways. I am undecided whether I should unlock and develop the Su-35 or Su-37. I know, I know. They're practically the same plane, but... I've been flying a lv. 4 MiG-29 for a while (about half a week) now and I'm really liking the combination of maneuvrability and QAAMs (which would unlock at lv. 4 for the Su-35, at lv. 7 for the Su-37); also, the 6AAM seems like a better fit for my player style than the HVAA the Su-37 starts with. Finally, the Su-37 is on a dead-end of the tech tree, while choosing the Su-35 would eventually allow me to walk down the path that leads to the PAK-FA and the ADXF-01 later on.

So, am I missing something? What plane should I go for (first, because I plan to eventually unlock both over time?)

I would go the Su-37, IMO slightly better and you navigate around some parts to get straight to the T-50 if that's the path you're aiming for.

Personal preference: su-37, for the canard wings....
As long as you have a good payload...QAAMs are much much better than 6AAMs, much more versatile and deadly...I have the -13- so it has more slot parts, 30 QAAMs on lvl 9 and it's actually my best fighter so far, 6AAMs were my old choice but now I use them just in raid missions with the Typhoon...
I'm not a free player but I spent my fuel wisely so I do have a good hangar, last time I bought fuel was on september.
HVAA are good in PVP, but avoit them in co-op.
Low payload, low damage, not so good accuracy...they need a multirole with tons of slot parts to get seriously competitive...at least you get tons of 6AAMs...
I got level 5 QAAMs and they are deadly, not so good in PVP to be honest, they have a good maneuverability but not so good to face circle jerking idiots...since I only go for the SP weapon part I suggest to upgrade damage as far as you can one shot any kind of red (S part on my 13) then homing then speed...payload is good!

I find HVAA pretty useful in co-op on my YF-23. I have no upgrade parts for it, just standard HVAA at level 5 and they're really useful for sniping long range targets before anyone else gets to them. I find they have a pretty good rate at long range because the enemy doesn't engage you at that distance. My standard missiles are strong enough to one-shot anything short of a boss Fighter, so sprinkling in the HVAA where required is quite handy.

SOLG III with @Vitocorp just before! Expanded the number of players from 6 to 8 to make sure we can get an S rank, only to get 2 players disconnect on the loading screen.

Being the good host that I am I decided to take a few hits (shot down twice, erhem) to make sure we got that S while I was levelling up my Aquarius F-18 (she's only level 2). It cost me around 100k (only got about 325k) in prizes at the end but at least we got S with around 20-25 seconds to spare!

Still jelly of everyone getting 2M drops though .

Nice work, SOLG III would be fun with a friend. And yes that $2mil drop was as good as it sounds. It saved me a few weeks worth of devlopment, all my dreams are coming true!

 

[ClydeYellow]

I got level 5 QAAMs and they are deadly, not so good in PVP to be honest, they have a good maneuverability but not so good to face circle jerking idiots<...>

Heh. Circle-jerkers really don't know how to do stall turns, yeah? Or to do anything but circle around for that matter.

Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't noticed that by picking the Su-37 when the time comes, I'll be able to skip researching the Stealth S+ module. Thought that branch of the research tree ended there... I clearly must be going blind.

 

[Vitocorp]

Thanks to @Louie_Schumii I was able to get 660K credits from that sortie, 3X fuel, all contract active and all reasearch closed Now I'm near to 6mln again!
I want to go for this top 1000 or top 200...the first one seems easily doable (for now of course)...the fact the plane has already all the emblem he needs really bugs me, it's different from the classic aces
@Paulie , maybe it's B7R but last time I tried HVAA was a disaster

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Ugh.. I just can't get into this game. I wanted a classic AC, not a frantic multiplayer frag fest.

 

[Louie_Schumii]

Have they updated how credits get reimbursed with the plant investment contracts? Early in the games life the plant investment contract credit reimbursement doesn't double with the elite merc contract.

I really want to try an HVAA build for the Falken during the next TDM. That HVAA part after the YF-23 is really intriguing.

The same goes for a QAAM build for the X-02. You can fit Homing L, that QAAM part and a bunch of other goodies so those things will chase your target like crazy.

Will need to save up money for both projects first though . It's times like these when I wish I was a whale.

 

[Akira AC]

Ugh.. I just can't get into this game. I wanted a classic AC, not a frantic multiplayer frag fest.

Same, it is time to fix it.

 

[Vitocorp]

Have they updated how credits get reimbursed with the plant investment contracts? Early in the games life the plant investment contract credit reimbursement doesn't double with the elite merc contract.

I really want to try an HVAA build for the Falken during the next TDM. That HVAA part after the YF-23 is really intriguing.

The same goes for a QAAM build for the X-02. You can fit Homing L, that QAAM part and a bunch of other goodies so those things will chase your target like crazy.

Will need to save up money for both projects first though . It's times like these when I wish I was a whale.

If Infinity was a simulator then LVL 5 QAAM, with homing L and the QAAM part, was probably the nearly ultimate missile.
If the enemy aircraft performs some smooth evasive maneuvers there's pretty much no chance to escape the missile, unless it has been shot from some weird angle.
But this is infinity and high-G maneuvers are the basics so circle jerking and crazy movements (like mid-stage bosses) make QAAMs nearly useless.
Let's be honest, for being the so-called fire and forget quick maneuvering missile it still has a BIG percentage of failure against bosses...
Still, this is by far the most versatile missile.
High damage, good maneuverability, decent payload for most aircrafts, nice reload time and an above average range.
HVAA is good in certain situation but the low payload...meh...honestly...damage is low as heck...what am I supposed to do with 20 or so missiles?

 

[ClydeYellow]

The QAAM IS quite the fire-and-forget missile, in that it seems to be the most accurate sp. AA missile and is effectively a fire-and-forget weapon (contrarely to, say, the SAAM). And with its usually generous payload it's a good way to be able to fire 4 AA missiles at once, if anything. It is something that every Ace Combat vet knows well: there's no weapon or tactic as efficient and effective as missile spamming.

That being said, my experience is limited to my peasant-tier MiG-29 and F-14A, so take what I say with a generous pinch of salt.

 

[Paulie]

I only just found yesterday that you don't need to be facing a target to lock on and hit a target with QAAM!

 

[Louie_Schumii]

If Infinity was a simulator then LVL 5 QAAM, with homing L and the QAAM part, was probably the nearly ultimate missile.
If the enemy aircraft performs some smooth evasive maneuvers there's pretty much no chance to escape the missile, unless it has been shot from some weird angle.
But this is infinity and high-G maneuvers are the basics so circle jerking and crazy movements (like mid-stage bosses) make QAAMs nearly useless.
Let's be honest, for being the so-called fire and forget quick maneuvering missile it still has a BIG percentage of failure against bosses...
Still, this is by far the most versatile missile.
High damage, good maneuverability, decent payload for most aircrafts, nice reload time and an above average range.
HVAA is good in certain situation but the low payload...meh...honestly...damage is low as heck...what am I supposed to do with 20 or so missiles?

Haha yeah the High-G turn dynamic they have caught me out when I first started playing this game as well. Around Tokyo in my trusty F4-E trying to chase that AI plane then BAM! Too much turn and straight into a building .

@ClydeYellow I'm definitely a fan of the QAAM during TDM and they're pretty handy during co-op as well. Time to work your way up the tech tree though since special weapon power is tied to the base "Cst." of a plane!

@Paulie yeah QAAMs are awesome! The mechanic where you don't have to have your nose pointed at the target is similar to having the targetting system connected to the pilots helmet. All he has to do is look at the target (in our case, hold triangle) and fire the thing.

There's limitations to it though. I think this video sums it up. A lot of good content here:



EDIT: typo

 

[Vitocorp]

QAAMs are unpredictable, just like women in their period.

 

[ClydeYellow]

Brace yourself, the unskilled pilots with cereal box ADF-01s are coming!