Ace Combat Infinity (PS3) review

[jimtendo]

The temptation is too great...
I might just get the infinite campaign ticket and just use that to farm credits while my fuel supply is on cooldown.

[Darwock]

The thing that bothers me about that ticket is you still can't play it offline. The game won't even let you past the title screen unless you are connected to PSN. So the 'unlimited' thing is a bit of a misnomer IMO.

[Darwock]

I'm stuck in a dilemma, whether to save my stocked fuel to play more for the upcoming tournament or whether to splurge as much as possible now to level up my aircraft so I can get better results. Yesterday I binged with the elite mercenary and plant research contract active, so made good progress. My 10th day drop today was 3 stocked fuel, and i got two lucky fuel drops as well so I'm at around 14 in hand. Used up all my aircraft research reports to get the A-10A unlocked to 92% from 0% without a sortie, and hit first lieutenant rank so my special weapons are upgradable now also.

Using my fuel now would mainly be in the attempt to get the F-15E unlocked but I think i wont be able to get that far before it starts, so maybe best not to try. My hope of using the F-14 forever isn't going to work, much as I love the plane it's upgrade slots are too limited (and they don't increase as the plane levels up). The F-15E has basically double the capacity. Once everyone has upgraded I guess those early aircraft will be a rare sight.

[jimtendo]

I'm still trying to debate which route to unlock.
Currently using the Super Hornet (only because of the generous slots afforded for upgrades) as the Tomcat, as lovely as it is with its speed and air to air combat, it just lacked the slots as mentioned.

The two routes are either the Mig or the Eagle. Both have decent unlocks along the way.

I'm not going to bother with the Attacker class yet, as the Multirole can deal with that side.

[jimtendo]

RE: Darwock

Are you going to be about over the next couple if days to compete in the event?
As I've got about 40 odd fuel units to burn through to make it in the top 1000!

[Darwock]

Yeah I've been doing my best. Started off with 26 stocked fuel, now down to 12 which I will try to use up tomorrow, and clinging on at 3,500 odd in the rankings.. Can't play on Monday so I have to try and buffer my position - aiming for top 5000 (2nd prize), I haven't been able to get anywhere near the top 1000 on my free fuel alone.

Sadly the first night of play I was totally off my game, coming in with crappy rankings all night which wasted a lot of fuel. Today was better. On the way I took down Moby Dick II with an S rank, elite contract active and x3 stock fuel - the credits reward was over 300,000... oddly the rank points were pretty lame, not much better than a standard mission performance.

It did mean I could purchase the Strike Eagle earlier than expected, thought I'd be grinding for days on that one.

Edit - the invite challenge has cycled back round for me (3 stock fuel reward) but it was such a pain last time I may just leave it. If the opportunity is there though, let's play!

[jimtendo]

I'm currently about 5300 odd in rank (with every game now moving me only about 150-200 or so places up) and yeah I'm just trying to buffer enough points for 2nd place so when it comes to Monday morning and everything gets worked out, I'll (hopefully) have enough.

[Darwock]

I have done all I can do, fuel is at zero, finished off with a Moby Dick that earned me nice rank points and took me to 2,593 on the leaderboard. Five minutes later when I checked again I had already dropped to 2,615... and there are 17 hours left in which I am unable to play. I don't like my chances of staying within the top 5000.

Unless everybody splurged their fuel today and not many will try hard tomorrow, but I doubt that.

If nothing else this weekend has really accelerated my progress. I've got the A-10 to maxed out level 4, and the F-15E to just the beginning of level 4. 4AAMs and FAEB to level 2. 350K still in the bank. When I eventually level the F-15 up, i can do the A-10 at the same time and win a free upgrade to level 6 for one of my planes. The F-15 should then be a capable enough craft to take me on the road to one of the endgame fighters. I hope.

[jimtendo]

It's a proper grind.

Worked out that over the weekend I had 94 sorties as I had 63 fuel units saved up (including the x20 from single player campaign) but this is not including the supplied fuel rotation/ gifts from challenges and free ones you might rarely get from a drop.

Well, apparently the deadline is 07:59 today and I'm currently sitting at rank # 2218

Towards the end i was only getting (on an average run) 400 odd ranking points with 700 - 1000+ or so for an 'S' rank. I wish I had known sooner that 'Pipeline Destruction' mission is quite easy to 'S' rank on a regular basis, otherwise I would've been running that.

[Darwock]

I am a little scared, sitting at work and unable to check how my rank is, but it seems many players have really put on a spurt in the closing hours. You came from way behind me jimtendo but have gone far ahead in the rankings (relatively speaking)... so i could be in for disappointment here. Fingers crossed.

Funny thing is what I mostly wanted was the credits... before I started the tourney 55K seemed like so much! I earned like 8 times that much just by trying to get the prize though, lol.

[jimtendo]

I think you'll be ok.
I worked out that when I finished last night (roughly midnight) and checked first thing this morning (6:40) I had lost about 250 places.
I'm guessing at worst you're in around 4000 bracket.

The weekend was a proper slog though, spent the best part of it hosting rooms and just mindlessly playing.

If I bought x50 fuel and had another day then yeah I might've been able to scrape in the 1000.

Pay to win fo life yo.

[Darwock]

It was nice to see you finally willing to spend some fuel! lol!

A pity we only hooked up when I was on my last few fuel supplies, it was good having a teammate who is not just some random competing for your kills. It was effectively three free games anyway thanks to the invite challenge. Nice MVP too btw.

Im going to go into conservation mode now, and play only on supplied fuel to try and build stocks up for the next tourney. I hope they give us a few weeks respite, i love the game but don't love that kind of regular grind.

[Darwock]

Well, I got home, did a check ranking, and my ranking has vanished from the message screen. It just makes it look like I havent entered at all. I hope this is not a problem...

[jimtendo]

I know!
From day# 1 I had been saving and scrimping fuel as I knew something like an event will turn up.

Hopefully it's a server refresh and everything gets tallied soon.

[Darwock]

Final results are out - 3433rd, yay! Really happy to have hit my goal, especially as i am a freeloader.

I look forward to flying with same nickname as everyone else* tomorrow, lol

*Except for the big spending first place winners, but those guys probably kick guys like me from their rooms anyway