- "That white bird was a symbol of hope for Captain Nagase."
- ― Hans Grimm
- "And now she must try to shoot it down."
- ― Marcus Snow
White Bird (Part II) is the 24th campaign mission of Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. The player must race to destroy the Grey Men-sabotaged Arkbird before it can conduct a nuclear attack within Yuktobania.
Briefing
The intelligence vessel Andromeda has picked up another encrypted transmission in Belkan. They have changed the code, so it took a little longer to decipher the message. The content is as follows: "N attack by A-Sat on Okchabursk to commence at 1400 hours." Apparently, efforts to secretly repair the sabotaged Arkbird are now complete. We confirmed this by observing its orbit from the ground. We believe that a Belkan nuke has already been loaded onto the Arkbird. In order for the Arkbird to attack the city of Okchabursk in Yuktobania at 1400 hours, it must make one major correction to its orbital trajectory. To do this, it must first drop into the upper atmosphere and use air friction to lower its speed. We have already calculated the time and location in which this maneuver will occur. Your mission is to destroy the Arkbird. You will only have one chance to stop it. Destroy it before it withdraws from the battle zone.
Objectives
The player's only objective is to destroy the TGTs located on the Arkbird. After some dialogue and a cutscene, the player must fly up to the Arkbird and cause damage to it in some way, triggering more dialogue. After two UAV launchers and a laser port spawn, two engines on the back of the Arkbird will activate. These must be destroyed as quickly as possible before the Arkbird exits the combat zone.
Once the engines are destroyed, the Arkbird will begin to descend and eventually turn left 90 degrees. The player should slow down at this point, since it's easy to slam into the Arkbird when flying at a high speed. Three anti-air missile launchers will spawn on top of the Arkbird, and after a moment, another laser port and two more engines will activate. Once again, the two engines must be destroyed as quickly as possible, though there is more leeway at this point.
Once the two engines are destroyed, the player is free to engage either the UAVs or the other targets on the Arkbird while waiting. After a while, one final engine will activate - once this is destroyed, the mission is completed.
S Rank
Earning a S rank on this mission is time-based and requires completing the mission in 7 minutes or less (08:00:00 or higher on the clock).[1] The difficulty here lies in using an aircraft fast enough to catch up to the Arkbird - the MiG-31M and Typhoon are both recommended for this task. The player must be as fast as possible during the first minute of the mission, as well as whenever the Arkbird activates its engines.
Debriefing
We succeeded in halting the Arkbird's nuclear attack on the city of Okchabursk in Yuktobania. The Arkbird crashed into the middle of the Ceres Ocean after attempting to detonate the nuke above Osea. Miraculously, there were no ships near the area of the crash site. According to our investigation team, there is currently no evidence of radiation fallout in the area.
Gallery
Arkbird launching escape pod
Arkbird falling
Trivia
- When playing on Hard difficulty or above, if the player destroys a UAV immediately before the Arkbird's final engine is activated, the Arkbird may adopt the same AI tactics as the shot-down UAV and begin to fly around like a normal aircraft.[2][3]
- This glitch gives the Arkbird much more speed, making the final stage incredibly difficult to complete, if not impossible when using slower aircraft.
- It is believed by many fans that this glitch later inspired the Orgoi in Ace Combat: Joint Assault.
References
| Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War Missions | ||||||||
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| Campaign |
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| Arcade |
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