Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26341407-20151006194018/@comment-25467429-20151011022640

Remember this debate... anywho, Arkbird is a possibility if only because the Arkbird is so well known. But as everyone has said, it doesn't work well relative to the other Special Raids; too much like Moby Dick. Orgoi or Spiridus also pose similar issues, despite the difference in their actual mission progression, etc. Though, the use of the shockwave weapon could add an interesting dynamic too.

Sphirna would be the most intersting of the flying fortress missions only because of the supreme amount of gunfire you'd have to dodge. Aside from that it would take on a look a lot like Moby Dick too with all the fighters. Could make the fight against the X-49 or Aurora a part of it too, make it an all-on-one fight like against Butterfly Master. Would certainly make a far more intersting match than most other options, not to mention the fact that it would bring in AC3 which content wise is one of the more limited main-line games right now.

Excalibur might be interesting, even as a Stonehenge variant, becasue of the laser fire and the support facilities before you hit it. The idea of cutting off a chunk of the map at a time is a little too easy to work around, so they would probably have to adapt its mode or rate of fire thoguh, or it'd be too easy for a group of players to wipe it out quickly.

Another possibility, it could be a Piston-only mission - Piston-only White Whale -  as I don't know that the piston planes currently can do too much on one of the existing Raids.

Unfortunately, I just don't know for sure there is any satisfying answer for another Special Raid. Most of the other really big, memorable, missions are basically copies of the three already in place, or too small to make a raid out of unless you really go all out on beefing them up.

I would say there is a possibility that the emblems might have been for a mission they ended up scratching. They've had plenty of time and opportunities to spring a fourth Special Raid. Maybe they had plans for one at some point, but like this discussion is going now, they didn't have a clear means for separating whatever they had planned from the other missions, and decided to scrap it. Wouldn't be the first time a dev team had a semi-finished idea and ended up pulling it.