Those are the general guidelines I use in my routes, I'll address things as they become relevant

version stuff WIP 1 23/06/2020 (mission 1-7, mostly Any% easy) WIP 2 25/06/2020 (tweaks to 1-7, added 8 to 13 and a few videos)

Run start right at difficulty selection but it is still a good idea to have the tile screen right before it as it shows missions / rank clears (or lack thereof) to help quickly check you in fact did clear every level on every difficulty with an A rank for 100%.

As for difficulty itself, you obviously need the appropriate difficulty level for Any% Easy / Normal / Hard, Geopelia has no requirements so Easy is the only relevant difficulty right now, 100% due to how rules are set up requires you to start with Normal (if you want a competitive time that is), as only that difficulty unlocks the mission simulator and you cannot use it before it is naturally unlocked according to the current rules (if you did happen to have a save with it unlocked prior to starting a run you would have access to it as long as you cleared any difficulty), this is relevant because as it currently is unlocking the simulator as soon as possible is the fastest way to clear the 100% run as it allows you to use superplanes for the 2 remaining difficulties.

The units used are all kind of messed up, the speed is in "Kph", the altitude is in "ft" and the distance to target on the targeting reticle is not really defined anywhere, so I'll use a generic "units" or "u" when referring to that specifically.

AI The aid seems to have three states scripted patrol Which is usually what happens when you're far and not locked onto them, but there are exceptions to that defensive mode Which happens when you got near enough to them or are targeting them but not always and not in a fully consistent manner, especially since formations of plane seem to trigger a specific behavior script when that mode happens and that sometimes require firing a missile or staying in gun range long enough. evasive mode Which is what happens when you've launched a missile onto a plane after it's formation script has stopped, but again not always and not in a consistent manner, more prominent in higher tiers of enemy planes.

Missiles firing and behavior Firing missiles in specific ways is actually something you want to try and master, firing tightly packed clusters of missiles tend to be less desirable on easy because everything dies in one hit so if all your missiles are coming from almost the same way like they would if you fire them very quickly there's a fair chance that if one misses all of them will miss, what you instead want is a slightly staggered launch with intentional small pauses so that the missiles can have ever so slightly different vectors and get more chances to hit the target, I think there's also some weird effect on the AI, although I cannnot prove it. On the other hand on Normal and Hard you want clusters of two missiles or even all of them at once since planes almost always take two hits to destroy, as having several missiles fired under the same conditions raises the chances they both hit (or miss). You do impart inertia to your missiles but they are still gonna accelerate in a straight line from where you're actually pointing meaning that the sweet spot is right between the center of your screen (where you're pointing) and the directional vector (the direction your inertia is pushing you towards) if you're trying to fire on something that is currently doing a turn, but that's a lot of things to consider in a dogfight especially when the AI seems to takes frequent pauses in it's evasive maneuvers so it's usually better to simply follow a plane until it stabilizes for a moment, although it is extremely relevant in "Zero Gravity"

There's another weird trick that might simply purely be confirmation bias from my part but it seems that on higher-tier AI planes if you start a roll then keep rolling for a bit then launch all your missiles, the AI just gets confused and fails to try to dodge them sometimes or dodges in the completely wrong way (attach a video here)

Different type of missiles have different behavior but the only two relevant ones are standard missiles and SRMs, standard missiles have worse inital speed and acceleration but better tracking while the SRMs have much higher initial speed slightly better acceleration but worse tracking, they also have a smaller lifespan and will fall off if the plane you're targeting is accelerating and moving fast enough away from you.

Start of the run Mash "Start" until the plane selection, "X" does not skip the briefing in blocks not does it skip some of the menu animations.

Mission 1: Transport

All categories Only plane you can select is the EF-2000E, it's shit but it's all you have right now. Only loadout for it is Vulcan / MSSL. There's a cutscene right before the mission starts, you can only skip it with "Start", you do want to have "R1" pressed while mashing as you will gain control as soon as that cutscene is skipped. If your mashing is good and you're playing on an actual PS1 / accurate emulator you gain control at 17.x seconds

Any% Easy Right away Yaw left and start a 3° descent while accelerating, stop yawing left when your directional vector (the ┴ looking thing that shows where your plane is actually going) is hitting the leftmost part of the N in NE of the FPV compass, change target till you target the rightmost R-501. Both R-501 will cross path when you're about 5000u away from them and the one you're targeting should be going down and to the left. Keep accelerating until you're 2300-2500 u away from the R-501, release the throttle (no airbrakes just release the throttle), roll appropriately to set your position just right so that you only have to pull on the stick to hit both R-501, you can decelerate more or earlier to make it easier without too much time loss. Launch one missile on the first R-501, quickly swap target and launch the second one as soon as the lock is okay, accelerate again, if your timing is appropriate you should have destroyed both and be on your way to the second group with a speed around 2400-2500kph. Now direct yourself to the left of the second group of R-501 and try to get on the same altitude, there's two behavior pattern this second group can observe, either they'll act much like the first group of R-501 and cross path or they won't cross and directly try to flee , you can see which one is currently relevant by observing the target box. If you see the locking box of the two R-501 getting closer they're going for the first pattern which is the easiest to deal with as you merely have to do a simple turn to attack them from their 7 o'clock, obviously target the one that is going to be the leftmost one when in locking distance and quickly swap target after you fire one missiles. If the locking box are separating getting away from each other you have to turn away from the group a bit to take a much wider turn to attack the group of R-501 from their 9-10 o'clock, the target change can get mixed up and go for the R-201 so you have to make sure the second R-501 is the closest to your directional vector before trying to swap, in the best case the time loss is negligible but the consistency is much lower. Afterward try to take a slow turn aiming for the right of the sun (keep over 3000Kph), and try to put your directional vector on the locking box of the target R-101 once in visual range, you can also preemptively get to 4200ft to prevent needing altitude adjustment, I've had similar amount of success going for missiles and gun as well as both, although missiles can be a bit more random, the main factor here is how well you're centered on his locking box before he gets within 3000 u and the altitude difference between this plane and yours. Missing him and circling back around to hit him is a 7-10 second time loss.

Here's how this looks when executed well

Any% Normal/Hard Same as Any% easy except you want to airbrake completely once within 2500 u of the R-501, then fire both missiles and quickly turn to the other R-501 to gun it down (you won't have missiles soon enough unless you really go slow). Then instead of trying to flank the second group you instead want to accelerate and decrease your altitude as you go behind the leftmost R-501, airbrake when within 3700u of it. Once you're inn range fire both of your missiles and quickly aim for the other R-501, this one you can wait for the missiles to rearm instead. Afterwards get to 4200ft while heading to the final R-101, like on Easy you just joust him, except there's a higher chance of him not getting destroyed on Normal / Hard, nothing you can do about it.

Geopelia TBD

100% (first playthrough + loop 1/2) TBD

Mission 2: Interference

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard Plane selection is again limited to the EF-2000E and loadout to Vulcan / MSSL Due to the targets all being ground based ones the route is pretty much exactly the same between difficulty, although Hard might have you dodging one or two missiles. Start the mission by rolling left and turning till you're slightly right of the SW indicator on the FPV compass, also engage a 10° descent towards the target, then proceed to engage only the target while going clockwise on the map, try to gauge how inertia work and manipulate it a bit by intentionally overshooting turns, donn't hesitate to airbrake if you feel like you need it but you really shouldn't have to or even ever have to let go of the throttle (except maybe right after the second target) After you destroy 7 of the 8 targets prepare to make as tight of a right turn as soon as you have fired you missile on the 8th target, once you're going towards the crater start climbing to around 2300-2400ft. Once you're around 2800 u of the first crater base airbrake down to 1700kph, the fire a missile on it, quickly change target to the bridge, the number of time you need to hit the change target key is very variable and there's no good tell for it so you'll have to be careful not to overshoot, you can if you mess up use the gun but it is a bit slower. Once the bridge is gone roll to the right and initiate a climbing turn then circle bac kto the second crater base. Once the second crater base is gone head to the last two targets, start with the right one, do not try to be fancy and use the gun to shave some time on the second target as it has an invisible hitbox extending farther than it's model would suggest and which will kill you if you fly into it.

This is how this should look like if executed well

Geopelia Plane selection is also limited to the EF-2000E and loadout to Vulcan / MSSL Same route except you have to destroy the first R-101 on your left at the start, then you also have to destroy every single secondary ground target on the way, It's easier to deal with the central two secondary right after the 4th target instead of at the end but dealing with them at the end is potentially faster.

100% Plane selection on the first playthrough is not limited anymore as you have unlocked the Mig-33 which is all around better than the EF-2000E the loadout is still limited to Vulcan / MSSL on the Mig-33. On loops 1/2 you want the XR-900 with Laser / SRM. Same route as Geopelia except you also have to destroy two additional planes, the easiest of those being the two R-201 which you can target immediately after destroying the R-101 at the start, as their patrol script will have them turn away from you right when you're going towards them if you do so right after destroying the R-101. Another potential time you can try to destroy them is right after destroying the central secondaries, although the R-201s will randomly head directly towards you instead of staying on their patrol routes which is an issue as normal and hard require two hits for a destroy which is much harder to get head on especially on the early planes.

Mission 3: Joint Maneuvers

All categories The F-15 S/MT uses the same exact set of maneuvers every single time, get familiar with it, be careful to not accelerate too much, even with the EF-2000E, don't panic if you lose sight of him just release the throttle and use the off-screen target indicator to locate him. You do want to try your best to get 3200 points (counter for said points is right above the altimeter) on the first part regardless of the category you're running, the closer you are to the F-15 S/MT the faster those are gained. After you've destroyed every training target there is a curtscene, which you'll want to skip with "Start" This video is a demonstration of how the mission should go in general, although it doesn't exactly match the conditions you'll be facing when running Geopelia / 100% it is close enough to not really matter

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard Plane selection is still limited to the EF-2000E with the Vulcan / MSSL Try to follow the F-15 S/MT as best you can until 1:14 on the timer, you want over 3200 points when that is over as it is mandatory to get a high rank which you want because it unlocks better planes sooner, then go straight forward until 1:20 then turn left till you're going straight south, you specifically want to be as near to the river on the minimap as possible, and accelerate while climbing to around 3500ft, if done right you should be within 2500 u or less and going over 2200Kph when the flying targets become tangible. Once the aerial training targets are dealt with go towards the nearest ground training target and destroy them while going clockwise, after the last one quickly roll and turn towards the F-15 S/MT. Immediately climb straight up while trying your best to be lined up with the row of parachutes, once at 12500ft pull down to line up with the first container. Containers should become tangible right when the fourth text box disappears (the one with "experiment" at the end, adjust speed accordingly.

Geopelia First mission where the MiG-33 is available in that category, loadout is locked to the Vulcan / MSSL one Same route as Any% exactly except you have a faster plane so you might need to go airbrake a bit when waiting for the targets to become tangible. You might be again a tad too fast on the container part, so pay attention to your speed.

100% Again using the MiG-33, loadout is locked to the Vulcan / MSSL one Same route as Any% exactly except you have a faster plane so you might need to go airbrake a bit when waiting for the targets to become tangible. You might be again a tad too fast on the container part, so pay attention to your speed. For the loops you will most likely use the XR-900, the loadout is not very important The route is the same again but now your plane is absurdly fast so you'll have to gauge the timing for the targets some other way or feather the throttle to simulate a slower plane. You will again be going way too fast on the container part but you also run the risk of stalling if you try to airbrake too hard, the laser is extremely good at dealing with the container because it has a much longer range (about 2000 u versus 1000 u for most guns)

Mission 4: Megafloat

All categories This mission introduces ships, ships have a main target, if you destroy it everything else part of the ship is gone too, said main target has the name of the ship type. This mission also introduces post mission tasks (landing etc), you can skip that by mashing "Start"

Any% Easy First mission where the MiG-33 is available in that category, loadout is locked to the Vulcan / MSSL one Directly roll right and turn till you're going South-East, descend with a 20° angle till you 6000 units away from the ships, release throttle when about 3500 units Turn towards the ships , target the main part of the bigger one ( Warship), launch one missile then quickly double tap the change target button to target the main part of the other ship (Convoy) then quickly launch a missile. The second missile can sometimes not hit its target, the chances of this decrease with your speed being lower although it can definitely still hit even if you barely slow down (around 2800-2900Kph). After that turn towards the island with yawing not rolling you'll lose too much speed (you also wanna stay on the throttle at all times), and head towards the carrier, aim for the main part of it, fire when in range. After the carrier is gone keep going past it but after a second or two roll and turn left to try and get behind the 2nd wave of planes that is just spawning, there's no real cue as it depends entirely on your speed . The planes in the second wave spawn while descending rapidly so you want to be in targeting distance not immediately but fairly soon after they become so. First get the back R-101 then quickly get the second one and airbrake to be able to destroy the R-201 in front of you, then circle back to the last R-201. If for some reason you miss the R-101 just go past it and destroy the R-201 as if everything was normal the R-101 will be in your way and in a decent position for you to hit on your way to the second R-201.

This is mostly how this should look if executed well

Any% Normal / Hard First mission where the MiG-33 is available in those categories, loadout is locked to the Vulcan / MSSL one First part of the mission is exactly like on Easy, except the Convoy ship seemingly takes two missiles to sink for no particular reason meaning you'll have to slow down a bit and try to hit the back part of it with your gun. The second part will have planes take two missiles to go down and have a tendency to behave more erratically which means you'll want to take it a bit slower, if somehow you manage to miss destroying both R-101 it's best to ignore them until the R-201 are gone as the R-201 will ignore you and try to go away from you whereas the R-101 will try to pursue you instead (not always).

Here's a video showing the whole mission being done on, which include one of the R-101 not getting destroyed on the first pass.

Geopelia TBD

100% TBD

Mission 5: Scramble

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard You'll want the F/A-18U you just unlocked, with Vulcan / SRM as a loadout Yaw right a tiny bit, until your directional vector is just to the right of the SW on your FPV compass, then start a 9° descent once the "ENGAGE" text disappears You should be fine until you hit around 3200Kph, then the targets should come into visual range, switch to the rightmost one, airbrake when about 5500 u away from that target while trying to engage an appropriate attack vector to hit all 4 R-201 in a single pass. You can approach this two ways on easy, either fire a single SRM keeping in mind that they won't track as well and those targets seem to have a very nasty tendency to not get hit for no particular reason, or you can fire two but this will require you to slow down more to wait for the refill on the last two planes of the row,. Quickly turn left after the 4th one is destroyed and repeat the same process for the second row of R-201. Excluding Hard you have a tiny bit of leeway if you somehow touch the ground but hitting the hangars is certain death in every difficulty. Every additional pass you have to do is a 15-20 second time loss and you can get exceptionally unlucky sometimes, especially on hard

Here's how the mission should go in Any% Easy with the SRM loadout And here's how the last part is handled on Normal/Hard again with the SRM loadout

Do note that the specific approach taken is extremely specific (as in if you don't approach from that angle at that speed doing that turn it won't work) and that often one or several R-201 will not be destroyed or even damaged, do also note that using your gun is extremely risky and should only be used as a last resort.

You can also use the default loadout (Vulcan / AGM) of the F/A-18U which when you're trying to fire at air targets (which is what the grounded R-201 are considered) gives you regular missiles but still retains the ability to fire 4 of them, this isn't particularly relevant on Easy but it is much more consistent and easy on Normal / Hard even if it is slower than a single pass using SRM as can be seen in that video.

Geopelia You'll want the F/A-18U , with Vulcan / SRM as a loadout Same as above except you want to destroy an additional 5 secondary targets, best choice seems to be the top R-211 and the two group of ground defense you come across on your attack pass in regular Any%, if you miss the R-211 you can try for the R-102 as a backup, if both fail you wiull have to leave the very last R-201 and get one of the ground defense to the left of it.

100% You'll want the F/A-18U you just unlocked, with Vulcan / SRM as a loadout Same as Any% except you have to destroyl all but two targets, best choice being the bottom R-211 and one of the R-102, there's no real backup for a miss on the R-211. For the loops the XR-900 with Laser / SRM as a loadout and more or less the same strategy is the safest choice, however there's a cheeky strat with bombs but the tendency of the target to automatically swap to a R-201 coupled with the fact that those are not considered ground targets even when on the ground (meaning you can use bombs due to how they work in AC3) means it's too risky to be worth the few seconds of time save you can potentially get from it.

Mission 6: Target Acquisition

Any% Easy You will want the F-16XFU, with the default HMG / MSSL loadout The first part is fairly easy, accelerate at all time while going exclusively for the targets, try to lose as little speed as possible while taking wide turns. The laser designator is behaving more or less like the O.S.L. meaning as long as you have a lock it'll hit and it's automatically selected if you're currently targeting a relevant target, do not fire too early, the reload time mean,s an automatic need to turn around and thus a time loss of 10-15 seconds due to that and the loss of speed. Once you hit the last target make as slow of a turn you can to get on the 4 o'clock of the nearest target group, airbrake when around 3500 u of the rightmost target, then fire one missile on that one and immediately switch and fire on the middle one, immediately switch to the last one and wait for missiles to rearm, stay around 1000Kph to confirm the kills and proceed to the other group once they're done. For the F/A-18I group you instead want to try to get on their 6 which will almost always trigger their script thhat causes them to fan out then you want to airbrake as much as possible after getting in lock range on the leftmost one and firing once so you can eliminate them going clockwise, those are more prone to dodging single missiles than the previous group, but they're not very reactive on easy so you have time to get a second shot without needing to circle back around or dogfight.

Here's how this should go

Any% Normal / Hard You will want the F/A-18U, with the Vulcan / AGM The latter is more consistent but cannot recover from a mistake as fast, the former is less consistent but will recover much faster from any mistakes The actual mission goes more or less the same way as it does in Any% Easy but the second part is less consistent due to the AI being more reactive and planes taking several hits to destroyl, especially the last group.

Geopelia TBD

100% TBD

Mission 7: Fragile Cargo All categories Who doesn't love an RNG autoscroller where you can still easily fuck up and die Plane doesn't matter but loadout does, you do not want AGM as they have so massive trouble destroying the chimney, however since you'll most likely want the F-16XFU for Any% Easy and the F/A-18U for the other categories on the next mission that's what you should be taking. Basically the starting point determines how much time the level will take, the one you want is the northernmost starting point as it is the shortest, you start losing time on getting the second best starting point (slightly less north and more to the east) after 4 mission restarts, and obviously you do not ever want the southern one since it takes another 40 seconds more. You'll automatically get an A rank if you destroyl the UI-4054 at all and destroyl the hydrofoil as fast as possible, there's nothing special here, although it is a good idea to destroy the first two chimney if you're gonna go after the UI-4054 because if you don't the UI-4052 you're supposed to be escorting is gonna crash.

The video demonstrates both undesirable starting points starting from the worst, then the secodn worst and finally the best one, then proceeds to complete the mission

Mission 8: Demilitarization

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard You will want the F-16XFU, with the default HMG / MSSL loadout Descent at a 10° angle, when within 3500 u of the first target you come across start airbrake then prepare to destroy the ground targets going counterclockwise around the island. Once the ground target are gone only the two R-201 remain, if they're both moving away from you go towards them but airbrake when getting closer so you don't overshoot them. If one of them is focusing on you after all the ground targets are gone ignore it until you've dealt with the one moving away first.

Geopelia TBD

100% TBD

Mission 9: Moonlight Flower

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard You will want the F-16XFU, with the default HMG / MSSL loadout Descent at a 5° angle, engage the ground target with the gun when appropriate, then proceed to make a wide turn to destroy the 3 remaining ones Then do a sharp ascending turn towards the center to get in position to kill the last target.

Geopelia TBD

100% TBD

Mission 10: Maze

All categories You will want the R-101 using the default HMG / MSSL loadout The trick here is to observe the behavior of the A/F-117X without making any other input than the If it's descending then ascending and going slightly to the right, you want to head for the middle base If it's ascending then quickly descending and taking a sharp turn to the left, head for the rightmost base If it stays in the middle then rolls to the left right as you fly past him, head for the leftmost base The rightmost base is the slowest, followed by the middle one and finally the leftmost base is the fastest to reach There's almost no differences between categories except you'll want to kill 6 target total in a Geopelia run and 8 total in a 100% run.

Mission 11: Escort

All categories You will want the R-101 using the default HMG / MSSL loadout Simply get behind each group of F/A-32C and kill them, them deciding to dodge or not is almost entirely up to luck, do it fast enough (before the timer hits 3:00) and you automatically get an A-rank

Mission 12: Stratosphere

All categories You're forced to use the RF-12A2, you'll want the default HMG/MSSL loadout The time limit is actually a problem if you make too many mistakes.

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard You're forced to use the RF-12A2, you'll want the default HMG/MSSL loadout Aim for the nearest R-531 on either side, accelerate towards it till you hit 2700Kph, fire when in range. Once you've fired immediately airbrake and take a sharp turn towards the nearest R-531 that is in the back of the formation to try and get right behind it, but pay attention to your speed and try to not go below 1800Kph or you'll stall, destroy it when Proceed carefully to destroy the rest of the formation until you get to the last two R-531, go for the one in the front of the formation first then once again airbrake take a sharp turn while watching your speed to get behind the last R-531. Normal / Hard means it's easier to miss the first and fifth R-531.

Geopelia This time you have to kill one R-311, best one to go for is the one you automatically have targeted at the start. After that get behind one of the R-531 at the back of the formation and proceed like for Any%

100% This time you want to kill two R-311, the one you have targeted at the start is a good start. You then want to go for the nearest one after that, by talking a very sharp turn and being careful not to stall, but there's a fair chance you might still miss it. For the last loop of 100% you'll have the O.S.L. which remove the potential to miss target.

Mission 13: Claustrophobia

All Categories You'll want the R-101 whit the default HMG / MSSL loadout

Any% Easy / Normal / Hard Start a 5° descent and yaw a tiny bit right, once you're in visual range of the first target Get in the right position to start a high speed pass (want to stay above 1800Kphthrough the first grouping of target clockwise. Once done with the 4 targets in the first grouping go towards the two isolated sets of two targets You can approach the first one full sped but you will want to do an ascending roll turn and slow down to 2000Kph, then quickly pull down to hit the two targets, immediately pull back up or you'll crash into the canyon walls. You can then turn towards the last grouping of targets and prepare another high speed clockwise pass over those.

Geopelia TBD

100% TBD