Ace Combat 5

[David Hingtgen]

Ah, 15, how I hate it. But learned to master it.

1. Pick a FAST plane. Got the money for a MiG-31 or can sell stuff? Buy it. After that, F-14 or F-15. MiG-31 is worth it for this mission alone. Russian design at its finest---HUGE engines=speed.

2. The ground enemies at the start are a minor threat, but should be eliminated.

3. Nagase's location is random, but is often one of 2 spots, and usually the Western-most one. Memorize where they are. Determine exactly what stage of "finding" her will activate which enemy (like the enemy E-767) and exactly how long you can let the timer go before getting a mission failure due to not looking for her. Spend every possible second blowing up ground targets, and when you only have like 30 secs to the next stage of "finding" her, race over to where she probably is, kill the bad guy, and go back to blowing up ground targets and Super Hornets.

4. When you get the "final" finding of her, run SE immediately and kill everything at max range. An Apache cannot dodge a Phoenix, so F-14D is a good choice, though you're unlikely to have it--anything with XLAA is a good choice here. Second to the Apache is SAMs and AA in a line running SE. The third biggest threat is new planes approaching from the N, including an ace X-29. The SAM and AA that attack the rescue chopper do not show up until the rescue copter does, so you can't take them out early.

The best way to protect the helicopter is to prevent the enemy from firing--that's different from killing the enemy. Now, about the only way to do that for ground targets is to kill them, but if you can just constantly buzz around harassing the enemy choppers and planes, you can stop them from firing as they're trying to evade you. If you spend more than 5 secs on an enemy but haven't killed it, break off and go after someone else. Your goal is to distract enemies enough by attacking them that they can't do much damage---unless you're lucky the bad guys won't be in the perfect place to kill them all quickly---so just keep harassing as many as possible as often as possible, killing when you have a chance.

PS---wingmen! Set them to ignore YOUR target so they go and harass other enemies. I have won several times because a wingman fired (and missed) at an enemy, but it was enough for the enemy to break off from the rescue chopper while I was busy with another enemy.

Or in summary--you said it only took a few seconds to go chase down enemies and kill them, but the chopper died in that time---just chase them off, not chase them down. Saves a few seconds, and that's what you need.

Edited May 2, 2006 by David Hingtgen

[Jolly Rogers]

3.  Nagase's location is random, but is often one of 2 spots, and usually the Western-most one. 

Her location is fixed whenever I play. However, you need to hit a few hot spots before her final loation will be revealed.

After you locate her, 2 rescue choppers appear. The closest one is destined to be shot down. Just haul ass to the further one and escort it. I usually take out as many ground targets as I can while zipping over to the far chopper, and spam missiles at all the hostiles in the air as soon as I get into range. If you can work fast enough and clear out the immediate area near the rescue chopper then it should make it to Nagase.

[Skull Leader]

I guess I never really had an issue with this mission... I do know that I kept my finger on the afterburner for most of the time. quick, decisive kills, never stray far from the choppers. That's the technique I followed for the most part (as I remember. It's been a little while since I've played)

[Akilae]

For some reason this particular playthrough of 15 is killing me... I've already lost count of the number of times I've cleared the area around the rescue choppers (thank goodness for QMAAs, hehe), take a breather for a sec, and just as the next wave shows up, the chopper goes down... am I up against bogeys equipped with XLAAs? Ach...

[Dobber]

From what I can remember about that mission, I think Valk Hunter D is correct, Apaches seem to jog my memory.

Chris