Caesar

Damn, Julhelm you went off and made the NATF! I recall that was the plane that was supposed to replace the Tomcat till it got cut from the budget. The model's lookin great!

Smaller sword is the wakizashi. Then there's the tanto, the dagger.

Maille, I wouldn't doubt, a breast plate on the other hand, highly unlikely. Maille is vulnerable to thrusts, but the Katana does not taper as much as a straight sword, and doesn't have as easy a time as, say a later bastard or true two-hander when punching through the rings, it's a matter of blade geometry. As for a breast plate, I have yet to see any sword thrust through an all-metal plate (peascod, gothic or otherwise.) Even masters such as Talhoffer and Ringeck (fl. mid-1400's) advocate attacks at the vulnerable points in the harness, utilizing Halbschwert (half-sword, to increase maneuverability) or the mordtschlag (using the hilt as a mace or hammer to crash down on the opposing man's helm) because a sword simply could not defeat the plates with the blade.

There is no best sword. There never has been, and there never will be, no matter who made it or where it was made. The katana is probably the most overrated sword I have ever run across. Yep, it's sharp all right...but then so is every combat sword. The katana can cut through a 7" piece of bamboo, but so can a blunt European longsword! The katana is fast. A German-made bastard sword is inherantly faster because of where it is balanced (toward the hilt) and because on average it weighs about 1/2lb less than a katana. A katana can cut through a car. Wait, no it can't, nor can it cut through a fighter plane, or a historic breast plate, or even properly made maille. Do I think it's a bad weapon? Hell no! The katana evolved into what it was just as any other sword, through centuries of use, trial, error and arms evolution. But it sure as heck ain't God's gift to swords either!

Tomcat. Both the reason I got into fighter planes at the age of 3 and the reason I went Air Force now (I think you can guess why.)

Okay, blasto, I'm going to ask you a few questions to try to troubleshoot this as best I can. Some of them have already been asked by the other folks here, but not answered. I'm serious now, so try to answer these as best as you can. 1.) Are you flying with external tanks? 2.) At what airspeed are you fighting? 3.) At what altitude are you fighting? 4.) What is the experience of the players you're going up against? All of these factor in to who has the advantage and who is going to win. If you're fighting with 3 external tanks at low altitude and airspeed, the Tomcat is going to tear you apart, especially with a skilled pilot. Jettison your tanks if you are fighting with them on, get the 'Cat high and keep the airspeed up and you'll notice the fight is a lot easier. The F-14 is noted to have a hard time at high altitudes. Closer to 30K feet I find it tough loading 6G on the Tomcat if that. I try to draw my opponents down low. If you're getting into a turning fight, remember that it's not just thrust to weight, but also profile. The Tomcat has the swing wing, and straight out is going to give a hulluva lot of lift. Keep the speed up towards 500kias. If you drop below that, especially down towards 250kias and the Turkey's Big Boys (flaps) come down, you're done. Most of this has already been said, but if you can just answer those four questions, it'll give a better idea of what's going on and why you're loosing.

You mean "Tomcat: The F-14 Simulator"? Released on the Atari VCS (2600) and 7800 in 1988? Still got her running on my VCS! Was made by Absolute Entertainment, pretty much an offshoot of Activision at the time.

The former 'Cat pilots that I've talked to say the Viper is a royal pain, but if the Viper pilot didn't respect the Turkey, especially the big-engine B&D models, they could get a nasty surprise damn quick. I seem to recall "Hey Joe" Parsons's account of one such engagement, the Viper pilot horrified to see the Big Engined Turkey follow him through the vertical and gun him, saying something to the effect of "Do you have any idea of how big your intakes look when you're behind us!?" in the debrief. Among other things, the reliable GE's allowed the Turkey to play with the port/starboard thrust ratio without inducing a stall, "Snort" Snodgrass being one pilot who used differential thrust to whip the nose places it shouldn't be in ACM/BFM...though NATOPS kind of prohibits that... Still, against a G-Machine as the pilots attest, the Tomcat is in for a tough fight.

That looks like the maneuver!

IIRC an A-6 driver said they'd do a half cuban eight, firewall the throttle and "lob" the bomb in the pull-up, keep pulling till they were straight and get going as fast as they could.

If it'll run in DOS, get DOSBox, that's how I play Fleet Defender, MechWarrior 2, Mega Race, X-Com...amongst others. DOSBox is a DOS emulator, no games included, so you have to own the game you want to play, first off, then install it (you can install thru DOSBox, IIRC). Once the game is installed, dust off your old DOS instruction manual and get her runnin!

Finally played AC6 online, and was quite happy with the results. Not too much standoff stuff goin' on, and the missiles are harder to dodge, and I did pretty darn good to top it off.

That's pretty sweet. I've noticed the new F-8 can fly pretty well without wings. Two days ago, I noticed a damage call from my wingman. Of course, I thought he bought it, but then I see this flying cigar, still fighting. Oooookay... the guy even landed it! I took some screenshots, but I've also been screwing with display settings and evidently, every time I take a screenie now, it just looks like a bunch of vertical lines. Gotta look into that. Good job bagging that ship with a 'Winder!

Just flew a mission with the new F-8 armed with 2B's and 1C. The C (radar guided) hit well in an off-angle nose-on shot, the Bs hit 1 out of 2, both fired at roughly the same parameters. The first one, just as a MiG-19 had run out of smack and was back level, I had good tone and fired from 6-o'clock, he was not in burner, 1G. He just began to maneuver, but as stated, no speed and way too late, tailpiped. Second missile fired on a straight and level MiG-19, but I was just coming out of a turn, might have been excessive G still, but it sailed just under his wings, popping up in front of the pit. Finished him with guns. Generally speaking I get good results with the B when the opposition is straight and level, or just beginning or ending a maneuver. Outside of that, very low Pk.

I was a former table-top player myself, did space marines and have an army in a box somewhere that's pretty sizable. I'm pretty happy that the series has so much acclaim on the computer now: don't need to buy expensive models! And I slowed down table top operations around when 3rd edition came out (what are they on now, 5th?) when they removed all the special weapons and distinct army capabilities (this counts as a power fist, that as a bolter/storm bolter, no we don't use the other 20 types of grenades or missiles anymore...and everyone moves the same distance...bummer). Atreides, I think I remember hearing something about the tyranids no-show a little while ago, thanks for confirming.

Last time I heard of the Mirage 4000 was way back probably around 1990 on a VHS "Fast Jets" at the age of 5. I certainly wouldn't protest if someone made it!

Started back in '95 with Fleet Defender, but simming per week is up and down, some weeks 0, some weeks...a lot Figure a good average of 20 hrs/week overall average across those 12 years as an estimate. 20x52x12 = 12480hrs.

Same here, though I was hoping the Tyranids would show up...

Well, above all else it was all the fake planes in it. One or two are fine, like have been seen in the other AC series, but when practically every jet in the game is made up...not a fan.

Gotta say 6. I own all of em 'cept 3 (I hated 3) and X, and have to say, eventhough I loved 5's storyline above 'em all, and the voiceactors, the radio got so God-d*mn annoying that I found myself answering everything against my flight just to tick them off (Your hate is slowing you down? What the *expletive*?). On top of all that, in every game up to 6, your wingmen were just about useless. In 6, they can completely wreck any opposition from any mission except in special cases. They're actually competent, and did I mention they don't suck on the radio? With the more functional cockpits showing working dials, great graphics, and the addition of hi-G break turns, I really and truly believe 6 is the best Ace Combat yet. EDIT: And the Big Cat is still in there! Anytime, Baby!

Congratulations!

On the loadout screen there's a dropdown menu with your callsign and number. Say you're Gunslinger, the top left dropdown box should say Gunslinger 11. To arm and select the paint of Gunslinger 12-44 (goes 11,12,13,14,21,22,etc...) hit the dropdown box where Gunslinger 11 is and select 12. You can even change the plane they're in, but the aircraft are limited to what they can carry by whatever weapons are common among the aircraft, and their weapon stations. If you're flying a Tomcat and your #2 is an Eagle, it won't be able to carry AIM-54's. Just the same, if you're flying an Eagle and your wing is a Tomcat, because the F-15 doesn't have the -54 in its arsenal, you won't be able to arm the Tomcat with -54's.

I think the default key for target radio is "R," so the instant you hear "Bandits!" hit "R" and it should say "(enemy aircraft type) targeted" by hitting F4, it should pan over to the enemy. Failing that, once you hear the call, tell your flight to engage the enemies (TAB, 2, 1), then follow the #3 aircraft (#4 can be unreliable for some reason and just fly off, but 3 usually finds the opposition). Also, try a plane with a powerful radar, think Tomcat here, that'll spot them far, far away. If you get a lock at distance, or up close by boresight, hit Ctrl+R (default for look at radar target), the same key that IFF's the badguy, and you should be able to follow him around by pressing F4 (padlock default). Hope this helps. EDIT: also, if you hit F6, align the camera directly behind your aircraft and then hit Shift+F6, the camera will go to the last plane in the enemy formation. If you pay attention to the way the camera pans and the landmarks around the enemy, point your nose in that direction at at least a moderately far range to ensure you can spot them on radar. It's a little cheap, but if you're really just looking to find the damn bogeys, it's not a bad move.

I'm a fan of the A/C series; got all of 'em from Air Combat to Zero, sans AC3 (not very appealing) and am hoping to pick up 6 in the near future. Sometimes just blowing s**t up with 80 missiles and no g-limits is a good way to unwind. Also didn't like Nagase in 5; I wish there was a third option for radio responses along the lines of "No one cares, shut up." I've heard that online play with 6 isn't that great, mostly people using long range missiles, getting in range, firing and turning back. Any truth to that?

All hard, baby, and I'm willing to bet most of us here do too. With hard visual difficulty you can find targets in about 5 miles or less. Usually one of your wingmen spots them first and calls "Bandits, Bandits!" and if you use your target visual key after the call, you should spot them. Unfortunately this is pretty close for radar guided missiles. What I do is set my radar to max range on search and point the nose around. Usually I can spot the enemy pretty far out. Once they're on the radar, if Red Crown doesn't see them yet they will, and will call out the bandit aircraft's position, affirming that the a/c on the radar are hostile. Lock 'em up, and shoot 'em down. If you want to IFF the target, lock it up and hit Ctrl+R (default) to ID the radar target. There is no max range for this, you could ID the aircraft 200 miles out with that command. If you're having difficulty operating the radar, check the knowledge base here. It has a comprehensive look at radar operations.