David Hingtgen

Gotta ask--in *Expert* difficulty? I swear, Mission 24 is the only one that really gets harder as you up the difficulty. Happened on Hard, now on Expert. I am SO going to use the X-02 or ADF-01 for Ace mode when I get to it. Finally beat it after a dozen attempts with a new strategy--QAAM's. XMAA/XLAA will lock on to ANY target they find, which just wastes them. You need the ENGINES dead, FAST. Almost beat it with YF-23, eventually won with Su-37. (Those two have the highest number of QAAM's in the game). SAAM's I think would do more damage, but holding still for even a few secs is fairly lethal on Expert for the second part. ::edit:: Whoops, That NOS Guy was talking about 23, I'm currently talking about 24. I have to go through 23 again anyways to find an Ace to bag, will try that method.

I've noticed that they have PW engines and old-style gun vents on their F-14B's...

Umm, that's on about 99% of all F-14's, and every kit I've ever bought. And that is the F-14D-specific chinpod I mentioned. There are several, all slightly different. Check here: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-chinpods.htm The dual TCS/IRST is on all F-14D's, and only F-14D's. And Shin's. Shin has basically (though not exactly) an F-14B, but also has the very distinctive chinpod of the F-14D.

You know, I don't think that scheme existed. (As in, that exact scheme--there were many variations of VF-84 high-vis, but that's not one of them) Specifically---small insignia on the nose below and behind the nose stripe, with white undersides. Small nose insignia came about with grey undersides. Once grey undersides appeared, they never went back, even when large nose insignia (covering the nose stripe) reappeared. Nose insignia and underside color are the 2 main things about VF-84 high-vis variations. Everything else was minor (like modex font and solid vs hollow squadron numbers).

No, the Su-37 is noticeably more agile than the Su-35. However, the Su-35 has XLAA's (look like AA-9's actually, which shouldn't be--should be AA-12's) which are *very* useful in Mission 23, as the Typhoons get much nastier than before, and all the agility in the world won't let you lock a QAAM on to them. Once I came really close to beating the mission without taking any of the Typhoons out, but was "zapped from above" with no warning.

Poor Graham. While I spent the night trying to level up the A-10. It's gun has longer range than the pipper indicates---the pipper comes "in range" at the same range as all the other planes, but if you just fire away you'll notice the A-10 has much longer range. But since there's no pipper until you close to "M61A1" range, it's hard to aim. Hard to tell if it's more powerful or not. So close to X-02, just need YA-10B and S-32. BTW--I highly recommend the Su-35 for Mission 23 on Expert. The Typhoons get vicious. Su-37 isn't useful at all there. Still trying to beat Mission 24 on Expert. Will try F-14D and MiG-31M next, Super Flankers just aren't putting in enough power/speed.

Depends what you want. If you just want "any" F-14, get a Fujimi. If you want an *accurate* B or D, you'll probably want to go with the Hase. And there's always lots of people who use the Fuji's weapons on the Hase.

You wouldn't happen to be amazingly biased towards the F-15 in real life would you? And if you didn't know it was unrealistic after several hundred replies and the entire internet and every gaming magazine's reviews, that's your own fault. PS---The upcoming Knights of the Old Republic 2 is also not a realistic sim of swordfighting. Just FYI.

FYI, it's not a D. Much closer to a B. Official name is F-14A+ Kai, which would "translate" to F-14B Custom. F-14A+ and F-14B are the *exact* same plane, it just has two names. Though 99% of the world calls it F-14B instead of F-14A+ nowadays.

Launches? As in being shot off the carrier? Anyways---for Shin's, it depends. There's earlier and later releases of the Revell F-14D I think, and the later one wouldn't be as good for Shin's. Because it's a more accurate F-14D. (Shin's is actually closest to a B, and its official name in the compendium reflects that, but it has the D's chin-pod which is generally only available from a D's kit--unless you kitbash 2 or 3 pods from an A/B together) Quick summary for Shin's plane: From an F-14B, add the D's chinpod and remove the forward-most of the ECM bumps under the wing glove. Remove the ALR-45 antenna bumps. From an F-14D, add the rear ECM bump of an F-14A/B and replace the entire cockpit with an A/B's. Remove the ALR-45 antenna bumps. Though I dont think any Revell kit has the ALR-45 antenna bumps. (or ALR-50, 60, etc---they keep getting upgraded, but the external bump is identical) What's the ALR-45 antenna? This one, which is on ALL B's and D's, and late A's. But not Shin's, which makes no sense at all, since every Tomcat since about 1988 has had them. You can also see the next 2 bumps behind it--some A's and all B's have both of them (this is a pic of a B), the other A's and all D's have neither of them. Shin has the rear one only.

Mission 21---great place to try out jammer planes. Anyways, the SP scheme for the Tornado ECR is quite cool, dark blue with white. It's got stripes that only "line up" when the wings are swept back. Kind of reminds me of the prototype scheme, but in reverse colors. Also, that was the first time I had a Tornado mission where you get to land---and the thrust reversers deploy! Never expected that. And I do think it decelerated faster than most other planes.

I'm considering it. Would be my first PC game in like 2 PC's. (I'm 100% console now) Any game with multiple F-8 variants piques my interest. Of course, would probably need to get a decent joystick, though I am pretty good at numeric-padding my way around the skies.

At the end, I was frustrated enough to set it to easy. Didn't help much. I could cast haste on myself, blind on the enemies, and still miss a lot and not get off many attacks. I could spend 2 rounds casting nothing but buffers, and still be in a tough fight, against basic lackey orcs. It reminded me of like Persona 2 for "long hard battles". I play RPG's more than anything else, (they're like 2/3 of what I own) and this is the least fun one in a long time, IMHO. Amazing, considering it is FFX with a LOTR setting.

Ah, thanks. I've never seen the Revell F-14D built-up out-of-the-box before. Only "plastic in a box" and "5,000 hours of modifications and paint".

Rant time! 1. I *love* FFX. I have a save with 92 hours on it. 2. I think FFX has about the most perfect battle system of any RPG in a LONG time. 3. I got fed up and annoyed with LOTR pretty quickly and am not going to finish it. Trading it in for Metroid Prime 2. Detailed analysis: 1. In LOTR, the battle system is like FFX with one big exception. (well, 2, but they go together). You are slow, and miss a lot. You can easily have enemies get in 4-5 hits in a row, causing your death, before you can have a character take another action. Also, you can easily miss 3 times in a row. So by round 4, having had maybe 2 characters hit twice (if you're lucky), you've taken off 1/2 HP of 1 of the 3-4 bad guys. That means LOOOOONG fights. 2. Enemies have high HP, as RPG's go. Yes, you can get lucky and get a triple-critical hit and take out badguys in a single hit. But not nearly as often as you'll miss time and time again, and then die because the enemy got in 4 or 5 free hits, plus double counter-attacks every time you miss (because they always get to have their regular attack right after their counterattack). Yes, they miss too, which only prolongs the already long fights. 3. Story. I like LOTR quite a bit, otherwise I wouldn't still have my 15-year-old copies of the books. But this is not a "parallel" story. It is EXACTLY the story following EXACTLY in the fellowship's footsteps. Kinda boring IMHO. Also, the characters are so utterly like their Fellowship counterparts, from clothes to speech, it just kind of feels stupid. The ranger is SOOOOOO much like Aragorn, and the dwarf is SOOOOO much like Gimli, it feels like you're playing a knock-off of LOTR, rather than a "real" LOTR game. 4. Yes, everyone else seems to have nothing but praise, but I started disliking the battle system at about round 2. Oh yeah--magic does have a 100% hit-rate (thank god, there's been dozens of battles where I've had one bad guy with like 5HP left, but it took another 2 rounds to kill him because EVERYBODY missed time and time again, and he got in like 6 hits and killed off 2 of my guys) but magic is quite weak. 5. Quantifying the above: no I'm not screwing up my stat-building or anything to have such slow, missing, low-damage characters. Even the elf-chick (with naturally high magic and dexterity, with me devoting most of her points to even higher magic and dexterity, with similar armor/accesories for even bigger boosts) still does sh*t for magic damage, and misses all the time. Even using the most powerful water spell against a fire-based enemy who has had his magic defense weakened from a previous status attack.

"miniature spiral hand-drill"=far superior to a pin-vise. IMHO. They're even smaller than a small pin-vise, and drill much faster/easier.

wm cheng can probably tell you exactly how, but it's always best to drill a smaller hole than you need, then work your way up.

Well here's the big things that are "incorrect" from a flight-dynamics standpoint: 1. Pulling a 6G+ turn doesn't bleed speed. Not any. 2. Your stalling speed is your stalling speed. Thus, an F-14 can roll 90 degrees and do sustained 360 turns like that, at 130kts. 3. Thrust/weight ratio seems "inflated". Most any plane can sustain vertical flight, even an F-117. 4. You can reach max speed at sea level, or thereabouts. 5. Acceleration is much faster than real life (see above).

What kit is that, I don't recognize that wing-sweep mechanism. Also, it looks like an F-14B. (Well, close to a B, missing the "shoulder pad" ECM antenna) Missiles appear to be AIM-54A/B, not C. AIM-54C is the only type carried by the F-14B and D AFAIK. Easy to fix, just sand off the 4 little "squares" on the front end of the Phoenix. 99% of people miss this.

Yes, the F-16C will unlock all other F-16's. Takes about 170 kills, based on my stats. I still don't have the Su-35, be a while before I get the 37. As for Yellow--I still haven't even SEEN him. I presume he can't be much worse than any Su35 or 47, I just haven't even had the chance to fight.

Well the F-14 is the fastest Navy plane of all time. And the F-4 still holds second place.

I wrote a little mini-FAQ about it just after I built mine. No, it certainly won't win any awards for "well-written", but it should help. http://members.aol.com/ncc42768/PGWingZero.doc

Burton+Depp were at the core of my fave movie, Edward Scissorhands. If anybody BUT Winona Ryder had been in it, the movie would have been perfect. Now, can we get Danny Elfman to do the music?

Why they have the S-32 as a separate plane I'll never know. And I REALLY wonder why it's considered better than the Su-47, seeing as how it's the unbuilt prototype. That's like having the single-tailed F-14 concept rated as better than the F-14D... Difficulty: ammo, and how much damage you take. 1 missile will do about 3/4 damage on Expert. No plane can take two missiles. Hard vs Expert---guns do quite a bit more damage against you. Free Mission: The more exp gained for harder levels isn't worth the added difficulty, because there's NOTHING more frustrating than having racked up 20 air-to-air kills--- (I think they're worth more than ground kills--actually, I think Exp is based on the target's point value, because the last time I played 27+, Grimm actually got the final SOLG hit, his only kill that mission, and his plane's bar shot up like 20%--because SOLG is worth a LOT of points) --then die with 30 secs to go because they kind of expected you to be using an Su-47 when playing mission 17 on expert, not an F-16C... Play normal, maybe hard. Expert--nothing beyond the first missions, because you'll be fighting for your life trying to evade missiles with "less than the best" planes. You can go from 100% to 0% health REAL fast in expert, unless you're moving CONSTANTLY. I've never been able to use a full load of SAAM's, you'll die if you stand still for long. From a time/annoyance/boredom factor, replaying lots of missions on easier difficulties is better I think. Still say 16B, boring but low risk of death and lots of targets. I actually do 3,4, and 27+ a lot just to hear the music. Same for 18. Not worth as many points, but more fun.

Upgrading planes: Did you use "basic" planes for the entire game? I mean, I used the F-22 when *necessary*, but otherwise, F-16C, F-14B, etc. Still took until 2nd run-through for many. Still don't have some on 3rd run. Best way to upgrade: Mission 16B. LOTS of targets. Little to worry about in the air. Mission 2 is the shortest mission, if you just need like 10 kills. 4 is also short, with more kills. 17 for air-to-air. I upgraded many planes purely by fighting in free mission. I mean, you're sure not going to upgrade planes much sinking the Hrimfaxi or rescuing Nagase all the time.