David Hingtgen

I watched about 2 mins of GITS. Kusanagi's voice is really "bland". Didn't watch enough to see what they cut. I'll stick to my DVD's.

Default X-29 scheme is identical to the default F-5 and F-20 schemes. I think. Only flew it once. Saved them some work, re-using a lot of textures. F-4X is vastly superior to the other F-4's in every way. AC5 has most every upgrade handle better than the predecessor. As in, F-14D is rated both more agile and faster than the B, when it obviously shouldn't be. They also rate many planes way too close in speed, and make many slower ones almost as fast as the faster ones. There's almost no difference between the Mach 2 and Mach 2.4/2.5 planes in the game, they're all rated in the mid-80's for speed. Which is about the entire speed-range in real life for most jets.

YF-19/21 are much bigger valks than the VF-1---in 1/72 they could probably use a larger scale female figure.

Soundtrack comes out in December, hopefully the liner notes will have the lyrics.

I'd like the lyrics for Unsung War. I know the first line is "something something something something Razgriz".

Green lights: right side Red lights: left side. Worlwide standard, civil and military.

All planes have OS, RZ, and ONE of the following: YK, BL, SP. All planes have only 3 colors. If you've got SP, then don't bother looking for a YK one to shoot down to get his color, etc. I really wanted a "fleet" F-14D color. Especially Bounty Hunters. If the A and B can obviously be the Jolly Rogers, I wanted the D to look like a famous squadron roo. I also wanted the F-15S/MTD to have its "real" colors as well--the X-29 does.

I'm not much fond of purely experimental planes designed with the goal of exploring one aspect of flight, like most of them are. Speed, roll, high-alpha, high-altitude, vectoring, etc. Very few are anything close to a "practial" warplane. X-29's one, and only because it's made from F-5/20 parts. X-31 maybe, due to so many parts from other planes. X-32/35 are mis-named, to this day I think nobody knows why they're X instead of Y. (And then they went and screwed up the F-numbering, X-35 should have been Y-35 to become F-24) YF-17 of course would ROCK, and be way cooler than the EA-18G. Heck, why not upgraded F-104's? They served into the 80's. No worse than an upgraded MiG-21. And a Viggen!

I was actually doing A-6 against Scinfaxi on Expert. Not fun. Almost won, but too much effort. Switched to Rafale B and won in like 1 min against it. Got 99% of my A-6's kills in Free Mission. For all jammer planes---I think they should be wingman-only. I mean, your wingmen don't get many kills anyway, may as well have them jam for you.

Tuffskull---what kit is that Tomcatters F-14? Looks like a Hase 1/48 I'd guess based on intake/glove shape, but the rear fuselage is wrong (not that the Hase's totally right). And it looks like Gull Grey overall, which I wasn't aware was ever applied to an F-14D. Black-tail, especially on gull grey, is my fave CAG design, but I only know of a few squadrons that did that.

Yup. Surprisingly, one of the few planes in the game (besides the X-02 and ADF-01) that don't really exist. Yet. Of course I'd much rather see the FB-23 go into production. My hints/tips for leveling up planes: 16B is the fastest way for any attack plane. Heck, probably the fastest way for a fighter, too. Sheer number of targets, and little resistance. Can fill 35-40% of the bar, depending on the plane. 2 is the quickest-to-complete mission, if you just need like 10 kills or less to fill the meter. Still have to get MiG-21,31, A-10, Mirage, and the entire Flanker family evolved. Gave up trying to level up planes in campaign, as the MiG-21 and Mirage are just not going to make it on Expert past the first few levels.

The big main thing is that Shin's plane has GE engines, and the kit has PW. As military planes go, that's one of the biggest, most visible differences there are. Hornet vs Super Hornet is more obvious, but that's about it. Quick summary: The kit is an F-14A. I don't have it so can't comment on the exact block, I would guess around Block 95. Shin has what is officially called an F-14A+ Kai. Of all things, it matches the quite inaccurate Fujimi F-14B prototype kit. It's not equivalent to any real F-14. However, the kit Hasegawa uses is as wrong as you could possibly be, without searching for a Block 75 kit. The engines are the big, main, most important difference between F-14's, and Hasegawa has the wrong ones. Shin's plane is basically like an F-14B, but with a non-existant ECM antenna array (being one of the main ways to differentiate the models, ECM antennas are important). Also, it has an F-14D's distinctive dual chin-pod, but lacks all other F-14D features. If you just take an F-14B, add an F-14D's chinpod, and slice off a few ECM antenna's, you'd be VERY close. However, a large number of F-14B/D kits are wrong to start with. Notably most Revell/Monogram/Fujimi ones.

I never did write the "how to make an ACCURATE Macross Zero F-14" thread due to the horrible weather this summer, which cancelled all my modeling projects...

27 Free Flight---you sure? It was really easy to do it in free flight due to lack of closing shutters. Man, it'll be a while before I can go through and get Su-37 Yellow, I don't even have the Su-35 yet.

I was about to write "take pics" but you already mentioned it. Would love pics/info of "real" AIM-9X's. JDAM paint schemes always useful, seem to vary a lot. My last suggestion/tip: How to tell most Hornet-C's from the last Hornet-C's: the really late ones have twin chaff/flare launchers, in a bulged fairing under the intake.

I just won on Hard about an hour ago. Am I the only who uses the HUD-view to do the tunnel? I tried it in free-flight in 3rd person view and was fine, but free flight doesn't have the closing shutters nor "barricades" in your way. Also tried mission 19 in free flight with F-16 (small, agile) but died pretty early in the tunnel. F-16 idle speed is 375, and it's just that much bigger than the Hawk. Certainly possible I think, but very difficult. Never found Su-37 Yellow in mission 27. I wonder if you have to bag both Su-47's in the tunnel to make it appear. Still have a lot more planes to unlock, don't know if I'll do normal or expert. Falken very soon. For the very last final mission, it's a lot more fun to attack it really slowly. You've got LOTS of time and missiles, and it's the only way you'll actually hear the coolest parts of the song. Also, it starts to break up once you get closer to the end of the stage. I killed it with like 25 secs left. Might try again to see what happens if you go all the way. Biggest change in Normal vs Hard: Mission 24. Way harder for unknown reasons. It was easy the time I beat it, but the first 6 runs I died really fast, even with F-15S/MTD. I highly suspect it moves faster, in addition to better defenses.

US version has both English and Japanese voice tracks--does the JP version have both as well? Graham--about the only control changes from AC4 are R3 to change view position, and both yaw buttons simulataneously for autopilot.

I never liked the orange-tube glue much. The liquid glue in the black plastic container (which changes shape every couple of years) is still the best all-purpose modeling cement I've found. Enamel still has the advantage of single-coat coverage when brush-painting in many circumstances.

My detailed saving Nagase mission/tips: 1. Location varies. Not a WHOLE lot (always Western half of map), but it does shift more north or south. 2. It always takes me about 2 mins to complete the "finding" part. Thus, start the mission by taking out every ground target and helicopter you can, then when you have 2 to 2.5 minutes left, start hunting for her. 3. You've probably figured out that banking seems to really mess up the indicator, thus yaw your way around. 4. Once you've found her (and of course, take out the 767 the moment it appears), go SE as fast as you can, and take out ground targets---and DO NOT MISS THE APACHE. Every time I've lost that mission that I can see what happened, it's an Apache that got the rescue heli. 5. I usually take an F-14 or F-15, for raw speed (while still having agility), to head SE as fast as possible after I've found her to help the chopper, then run NW again to fight off jets once the SE chopper's ok. PS---disperse wingmen. You want them all around, harrassing jets. Harrassing them all over is more important than killing them, as you merely need to stop them from shooting the chopper for like 2 mins.

For the past 10 years, Russia's developed more names and designations than planes.

I don't know why, but the 8492 mission--I either do well early, then bug out after the 2nd wave comes, or die in like 5 secs. Of course, I've never taken anything better than the Super Hornet against them. Actually did best with F-14B. I've yet to kill everything. I'm embarrassed actually, by not being able to do very well in a giant dogfight. BTW--anyone else think AMRAAM's suck against "good" opponents? They never hit. Sparrow's better IMHO, if the AI is better than average. And if you want to see missiles miss, end of mission 23. Yeesh.

The F-4G's HARM has a massive blast radius. 12A: actually one of my most-replayed missions, for exp pts for the planes. (that and 11A) Great for building up the Tornado. YF-23 3rd color is white. Very cool.

That's all I unlocked on my first run. F-14B seems to be the most commonly unlocked plane, for the first run-through. Though I seem to be one of the few to have had the F-20 unlocked already, the first time you could buy/select planes. Spent the last hour trying out some Free Missions, but having trouble---"normal" doesn't give much exp for kills, and early missions on Hard don't have enough targets. But trying to take on later missions with a Tornado on hard--not worth the effort. Yeah I could use the later planes, but most of them don't evolve so there's no point. Ironically, I have yet to actually USE the YF-23, since the time is better spent evolving the Rafale, etc. All in all---I do think the best way to "evolve" planes is to simply keep replaying campaign mode. Currently at mission 21 in campaign, 2nd run, Hard.

My opinions: Where possible, glue first, then paint. Paint: I like Testor's Acryl for brushing, their enamels suck for brushing IMHO. I personally don't like Tamiya much for brushing.

mike--I said earlier I got them confused--it's 11A that's fun (the airport), not 12A. But I still like 12A better than 11B and 12B. 11B's boring IMHO. 12A at least you get to fight. Yeesh, 19 already? I'm only on 17 for my second run. Though I didn't play anymore after I got my replacement PS2 yesterday. Emblems---nowhere that I know. The promo DVD only has very small pics. Best way to see Mobius emblem is to play Arcade mode in AC5, decent look at it there. MiG: Apparently, it's project 1.42, the plane is 1.44.