Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24440536-20150516114626/@comment-25467429-20150520235547

Assuming they are telling the truth, the first thing is that they definitely have time under their belt. To even get to the Falken you have to have progressed deep in the tree to unlock it, so they likely have a very good plane (possibly already maxed) and no other research going on.

Second, the Falken itself isn't that expensive - at least not like the R-101, Fenrir, or definitely not the X-49. Total cost to get the Falken to ten is about 5.5mil. That cost, spread out over 100 missions, would be an average of 55k a mission. If that were the case, surely they are using a mix of forced and non-forced sorties because normal sorties wouldn't give that much, and forced shudl be giving much more than that. If they were only doing forced sorties, then, as in my earlier post, it would be all too simple to have a lvl 10 Falken in far less than 100 sorties, or even 100 units of fuel. A maxed out Faken in 100 sortiees is absolutely possible - it's just a matter of how much fuel you have to spend and how quickly you're able to spend it.

I would say locking your research is only beneficial so far as getting to a specific goal with minimal delay. But if your plane isn't up to par to compete and score at a reasonably high level, you don't have the parts to better your plane, then you may end up doing yourself more harm than good in lokcing down on reserach. What are your results when you sortie? Are you at least challenging for MVP? Are your teams getting S ranks? If the answer is no to thost two questions,  you're better off spending time and effort right now to get at least to where you're competitive and your teams win and score S ranks. Then is when you should focus on chasing certain things like lvl 10 on a super plane.

I would say you need to get that T-50 up a few more levels and focus on flying missions suited to your T-50 (Aerospace or B7R - maps you can focus on dogfighting). Better would be to switch to a less expensive multirole that you can have a couple setups for different missions - one for ground-based assaults, one for air combat. Again, you'll want to get to at least around lvl 7 to stand a chance at being competitive, and definitely try to stick to rooms close to your MR - no one likes a seal clubber, and no one likes being a clubbed seal. As for contracts, the sign-in bonus usually includes one or the other each period, and there is that challenge that awards one for 300 rescue bonuses. The challenge is tough if you're flying a limited number of sorties a week, but it is not all that daunting, and the elite merc contract can be very valuable when used at the right time.