What we know about getting A ranks on free missions

[Shika]

MISSION-SPECIFIC TIPS THAT HAVE BEEN NOTABLY HELPFUL TO MEMBERS ON HERE ARE IN THE 3RD POST IN THIS THREAD!

what we know so far

• Time to complete does not matter, other than giving you a bonus for speedy completion, however this does contribute largely to your score so it would be smart to be as fast as possible
  
• Deaths does not matter.
  
• Ace does not give you an automatic A rank, but gives you more points. people have gotten very high scores on Pilot, I have no idea how
  
• Chain kills and linked dog-fights give you bonus points
  
• There is an armor bonus, it seems this is obtained when you don't get hit by a single missile in the mission, or at least that is how I've gotten it every time
  
• Certain planes give you certain multipliers to your score, the worse the plane, the higher the multiplier(Please note this this only mulitplies your armor and time bonus, not your entire score!)
  
• The main income of points is quick DFM kills, time to complete, linked kills, and destruction points(number shot down?), in other words your main objective is to link as many kills as possible as well as shooting down as many planes as possible, this being said, the more enemies in the mission, the easier it is to get an A, so while long missions with lots of enemies will be mainly about completing it without dying on Ace, the shorter missions will be about speedruns and linked DFM kills
  
• Once you complete every mission with a specific plane type and an A rank(e.g. You beat the two helicopter missions with an A rank, or the Attacker mission with an A rank), you should receive a skill called X Pilot; which boosts the points you receive when flying that class of plane. I.E. you should receive the skill Multi-Role Pilot after beating Pipeline and Siege with an A, as these are the only 2 missions where you are restricted to only multi-role planes. The majority of missions give you the choice between fighter or multi-role, allowing you to then use a multi-role plane along with the Multi-Role pilot skill to give you a nice point boost for those missions. It should be mentioned that the Fighter Pilot skill isn't gotten until you have beaten every mission where it gives you a choice between fighter and multi-role planes with an A. If this is confusing to you, I'll sum it up: the fighter, helicopter, and attacker pilot skills are all worthless, as you get them once you no longer need them. However, the multi-role pilot skill is obtained by doing only 2 specific missions and the point-boost can be used across the majority of missions.
  
• It's around 2000 points for an A rank on each mission, normally the cutoff is exactly 2000 but a couple missions allow you to have less

Here is my strategy. At first I tried using the MG as much as possible and missiles as little as possible(this also increased the time to finish the level). This is a very bad strategy, i was getting 1800-1900s with this and when i switched to this new strategy I'm hitting 2300-2500 on the same missions i was getting 1800s on. The key is to do this fast, the Rafale M with 6AAM and a skill-set with Multirole Pilot is by far the best setup along with the PAK-FA. Use your 6AAM when there are a lot of non-TGT planes that need to be destroyed. What I do is soften up non-TGT planes with 1 standard missile hit, and then DFM them so that I get a nice quick-DFM kill bonus, which on certain levels added up to be worth 700 points. Try and use your MG a little bit and not just spam missiles, but remember that overall a quick kill is what you want. Link kills when you can, as this can accumulate to about 100-300 points per mission and may be the difference between an A and a B.

Minimum amounts of points to receive an A for each mission

Reply to the thread if you have gotten a lower score than one of these yet still received an A, and I'll fix it

for missions I've gotten over 2000 in I'm assuming the minimum is 2000, but if you know the cutoff please tell me

Nightmare - 1900
Inferno - 1900
Red Moon - 2000
Spooky - 1700 (memorize all major SAM locations and try to be at 0 damage when you start the balloon part, as this is almost impossible to do without getting critical damage)
Blue on Blue - 1900
Power Play - 2000
Lock and Load - 1700
Pipeline - 2000 (PAK-FA with Trinity)
Siege - 2000 (PAK-FA with Trinity)
Hostile Fleet - 2000(stay low, and when you have to initiate ASM on the cruisers with missile defense turrets, just go into ASM and then immediately disengage to avoid any damage)
Launch - 1900(destroying the missile takes a lot of luck, just try to circle around the missile while avoiding the exhaust and enemy missile. This is easier said than done, which is why it requires patience until you get it perfect)
Motherland - 2100 (Use the 4 Air-Ground missiles and save them for tanks/radar, and remember to always be moving to the left or right to avoid any hind fire; staying still is what gets you killed)
Aftermath - 2000 (During your fight with Akula, There are about 5 planes in the distance which will grant you a nice little boost if you need the extra points, you will see them on your map. Also, try to avoid going into DFM on the bombers before destroying their escorts, as they will interrupt your DFM and possibly send you flying straight into the bomber)
Home Front - 2000
Hurricane - 1800 (Rafale M + 6 Missiles, there is some potential for DFM linking here but it's not really easy, just try and get them in groups with your 6AAM. Tip when you start is to launch 1 standard missile at each plane below you and then get the incoming group with your 6AAM)
Akula - 2000 (F/A Hornet with ECMs, there is a lot of strategy used here, but I'll keep it short, exit out of DFM when you know he is going to counter-maneuver, and this will keep you from taking unavoidable machine-gun damage when he counters)

notes

If you need help on A-Ranking the ICBM Co-op mission to get the Untouchable skill, see here

[Bounty V]

Originally Posted by Shika

Everybody gather confirmed facts(done by you)here.

what we know so far

Time to complete does not matter
Deaths does not matter
Ace does not give you an automatic A rank, but probably gives you more points


I've confirmed the 2 above by completing the ICBM bomber mission on Ace difficulty. The missile part took me an hour, and i probably died like 50+ times.

difficulty seems to give you more points, however i completed dubai on ace and got a B rank, so i'll be running through that again.

I'll add things to the list as people reply to the thread,

You have to beat Elite to unlock Ace. Is there a specific amount of points you have to get for A rank?

[Shika]

Here are some various strategies people used, please note that these are just the ones people seemed to be helped by, and are not all the tips in this thread, just a couple! If you want more tips from fellow pilots check out AceCombatSkies

• Strigon:Sure. Here's my quick rundown.

- Aftermath was done on Ace difficulty using the PAK-FA. Skills were as follows:
Multirole pilot
Enhanced MG
Enhanced Missiles
Enhanced DFM
Quick Assault
Double Assault

I used the PAK-FA's 4AAM's to get rid of the bombers quickly, and also to dispatch escorts who were approaching head on with the bombers. There's a lot of time to destroy the greens after the cruise missiles are gone and only bombers remain. So don't be afraid to squeeze in a few more kills here.

- Home Front was done on Ace difficulty using the PAK-FA. Same skills as before

This mission is pretty straight forward. Get rid of all greens first before TGT's. When you get past the ambush part at the beginning, you can actually DFM chain a few of the greens that appear later on similar to how you could the first enemies in blue on blue for chain master. Make sure not to kill the final TGT(The last one before Markov appears) right away when in DFM with it. Switch to your 4AAM's because there will always be 3 greens that appear and fly beside him, effectively giving you 4 kills instead of 1.

- Hurricane was done on Ace difficulty using the Rafale M. Same skill set.

This mission is a bit tricky, but I found the Rafale more useful for it's 6AAM's over the 4AAM's specifically for the first group of greens that charge you at the beginning of the mission. Fire them as soon as all 6 missiles lock onto a target. As you pursue Illich/Markov, you will notice that at certain points, enemies will spawn in front of you. At those moments, you can break off the pursuit from the PAK-FA's and turn around to spray a few more 6AAM's at the greens chasing you before starting the pursuit again. Careful of DFM when in the hurricane, it seems to have a 50/50 chance of sending you into the water if you're chasing Illich through it.

- Akula was done on Elite difficulty using the PAK-FA. Same skill set.

4AAM's to get rid of bombers quickly and to spray a few greens if they're close together. Not really much to say here seeing as the Markov fight is all scripted. Just get as many kills as possible during the first half of the mission.

And of course, good luck.

Edit 1:
Another thing. When I went through these mission, I had more of a "speedrun" approach to them as opposed to trying to DFM chain enemies together. It seems as if Time bonus gives you a hefty amount of points along with your enemy destruction bonus. So don't try DFMing every enemy. If you can, try hitting a few targets from long range using the 6AAM/4AAM's and immediately switch to another target when you're certain they will hit.

• Ubu: (this is in regards to the mission Hostile Fleet)

For starters, get rid of
Extra missiles, you have more than enough to do this mission and having extra missiles actually lowers the damage that they do. Swap that skill for Extra Armor (a co-op A rank reward).

Secondly, change to the A-10, the F-117 is not a good plane for this mission on higher difficulties.

For weapons, I would use the rocket pods, they do an amazing level of damage but don't forget to keep your finger on the machine gun at all times when attacking as this also gets you points.

If you can't get it on Elite, change to Ace difficulty, the extra armor of the A-10 combined with the armor of the skill bonus should be more than enough to beat the mission.

Not sure what difficulty I did it on, but I remember getting a C the first time I did it, then I switched to the A-10 and got an A rank on my first go.

Alrighty then.

(this is in regards to Launch)First thing you should do. Go to the options and change the distance from it's default setting to knots and feet. Reason being is that theres a glitch on this level, if you have the measurements on any other setting, you can fail it the moment the missile fires.

Then pick either the Typhoon and select 6 missiles or the F-22 and the 4 missiles.

When the ICBM fires, go into DFM and close in on it, using the multi missiles when they're charged.

Get close, but hold either left or right on the D pad to get out of the fire trail, you'll take damage, but nowhere near as much as you would directly behind it, and the ICBM will still be in the circle, allowing you to use standard missiles when they're charged up.

• Whiskey: (Akula on Ace)

I just got through Akula on Ace, still didn't get my A because this game hates me but I thought I'd pass along what worked for the Markov battle. I can't take credit for it, found it on another forum (don't recall wich one). During the Markov fight you can abuse the DFM. If you enter DFM, disengage and quickly enter DFM again and just keep repeating (except for the scripted fly overs). If done correctly he'll never be able to fire his BS god missles. When I did it he got off a few, but it was always when I screwed up with my spamming of DFM. As cheap as this boss fight is I have no qualms over matching its "cheapness"

[Bounty V]

Originally Posted by Shika

it probably varies, but as an example i can say i got like 2100 points for an A rank on the ICBM mission, and 1600 got me a B on dubai

So assuming the point amount is the same per mission, it's possible that 2K gives you an A

[ghassanyoshi]

hi

i want to ask u when i beat every mission on ace difficult does it gave me

high score rank that worth . when damge airplane with machinggun gave me more score then

missle cause am on traning mission i cant get A rank lol.i have try it many time the maxiumum i reached rank B.

[Chopin6868]

time and deaths count too, not sure what the maximum time bonus is but i just got 240 bonus-points for a mediocre time and the 2nd mission. i could imagine the maximum is somewhere at 400/500 points which would help alot getting an A.

The deaths probably prevent the armor bonus you can get, i never got one so far even if i finished a mission with full health without dying (i got hit a few times but the health replenishes at checkpoints, i think the game remembers my damage though). So if you want that armour bonus i´d say get hit maximum 1-2 times.

Theres also an aircraft-multiplier bonus but its not worth it imo, it only affects the clear point chart of your final result and its usually alot less the battle point chart(atleast for me). I used the F4 phantom and got a x1.5 bonus, but its also slower to handle so your time (and other bonuses) might suffer from it.

[Shika]

Originally Posted by Chopin6868

time and deaths count too, not sure what the maximum time bonus is but i just got 240 bonus-points for a mediocre time and the 2nd mission. i could imagine the maximum is somewhere at 400/500 points which would help alot getting an A.

The deaths probably prevent the armor bonus you can get, i never got one so far even if i finished a mission with full health without dying (i got hit a few times but the health replenishes at checkpoints, i think the game remembers my damage though). So if you want that armour bonus i´d say get hit maximum 1-2 times.

Theres also an aircraft-multiplier bonus but its not worth it imo, it only affects the clear point chart of your final result and its usually alot less the battle point chart(atleast for me). I used the F4 phantom and got a x1.5 bonus, but its also slower to handle so your time (and other bonuses) might suffer from it.

sorry i was a little vague, when i put deaths and time don't matter i mean you dont need to complete it in any set time or without dying X amount of times

Deaths may matter in lower difficulties, but in ace you dont regenerate health even if you die so what you have at the end is what you have overall

[King_Ubu]

So then...

According to one Ace Combat fansite, the game actually has named Aces in it. For those who don't know, named aces is a theme which has been in a few previous Ace Combat games.

They're planes which appear like the usual elite pilots, only they also have a unique named callsign when they appear on your hud.

Now in past Ace Combat games, killing these named aces would give you a huge bonus point reward at the end of the stage.

The problem is that in the past the named aces sometimes are far away from the main battle, and in some cases may only be on the map for a short period of time. In one previous A.C. game the ace flew from one side of the map to the other, the only way to stop him was to be in a super sonic plane which had long ranged missiles equipted.

Keep an eye out for these enemies as chances are if they are in specific stages, killing them will net you a lot of bonus points.

[mjm9536]

So in reading on here I haven't really seen it confirmed what must be done to unlock ace difficulty -- do you have to beat the campaign on elite? or can you say beat a free mission on elite then ace is available for that mission?

[Bounty V]

Originally Posted by mjm9536

So in reading on here I haven't really seen it confirmed what must be done to unlock ace difficulty -- do you have to beat the campaign on elite? or can you say beat a free mission on elite then ace is available for that mission?

Read my first post on the thread