Ace Combat XCOM: Enemy Skies
- Thread starter hYGP
- Start date
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Sociopathic mercenaries are easy to entertain in situations like this.
Just ask Pixy.
Just ask Pixy.
NONCANON OMAKE: The Virgin Pixy vs. the Chad SSRs
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Kind of my point. The man's got convictions. He just doesn't have a conscience.
But with that said, part of my reason for throwing him in on the write-in vote is because he's clearly aspiring towards SSR-tier air combat skills. And to really put the capstone on your SSR-tier status as an Ace Combat pilot... Well.
You need to take down a flying superweapon.
Blaze, and Trigger, in Unison: [nodnod]
Elcero and Talisman, via Videoconference: [nodnod]
Blaze, Grinning: "I know it can be embarrassing to admit you never lost your aerial superweapon virginity."
Pixy: "Hey!"
Talisman: "It's a very serious thing, you know. I've shot down five, but you never forget your first time."
Mobius One: "It was awkward for me too, Pixy. I mean, fifteen years and two wars under my belt, but somehow, I just felt like something was missing."
Blaze: "But you handled that shield ship attack run in the last mission like a champ!"
Mobius One, Blaze: [fistbump]
Trigger, Mobius One: [high fives]
Elcero, Smirking: "Now, now, gentlemen. Let's be fair to Pixy, he was technically present when I destroyed the Hresvelgr."
Talisman: "Does that count? I'm pretty sure that doesn't count."
Count: "Wait what, who called my name?"
Elcero: "No."
Talisman, Count: "Wait, to which of us?"
Elcero: "Yes."
Trigger: [nodnods]
Elcero: Now Pixy, it's past time you left the nest and took down an aerial superweapon yourself. Your 'one wing' trick is very nice and all, but it's starting to get a little overdone. You've gone through four Eagles that way."
Mobius One: "Wait, four? I shot one off, and there was the alien..."
White Witch: "Early nineties. Good times! Feisty young Pixy fly white plane. Shot his wing off, teach him lesson about stealing my colors! He learn to paint wing red, very good behavior! Dutiful! Good boy!"
Pixy: [Grits teeth]
White Witch: "Of course, then entire Belkan War happened. No Boundaries stupidityness happened. Attack on Yuktobanian contingent, allied forces. Saw boy I had shot wing off of, terrorizing poor innocent cuddly little interceptor regiment. Shot his wing off again. Then, shot other wing off!" [cackles]
Pixy, Angry: "That is not how it happened!"
White Witch: [Cackles in Yuktobanian]
Pixy, Disturbed: "Buddy... she's..."
White Witch: [Cackles Harder in Yuktobanian]
Elcero: [Cackles in Towering Lethality]
Pixy, Dismayed: "She's..."
Elcero, Calming Down: "It's very simple, Pixy. She is lording over you her superior aerial superweapon kill count. And it's working. Now man up, get out there, and key that battleship's paint!"
Pixy: "...Okay, fine." [sighs]
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- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Canon omake.
Firmly noncanon, but I lauged hard enough to want to threadmark it.
On to other matters: Depending on whether we're approval voting or not, sending in Pixy alongside Trigger is either winning the vote by two or losing it by one. Let's just get the ambiguity resolved before I start asking you to roll.
- Location
- Meycauayan, Bulacan, Philippines
Well for me I'm just waiting for word from you on write ons, @huhYeahGoodPoint. I approve of sending Pixy alongside Trigger.
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
I mean, I've said that I'd allow them? I'm just going to point out that there's not a guarantee Long Caster will do it.
CANON OMAKE: Solitary! A 444th Squadron retrospective
Solitary!
A 444th squadron retrospective
Spare 2:CountA 444th squadron retrospective
Name: Lt. Daniel L. Donnahan
Convicted of: Identity Fraud, Fraud.
Lieutenant Daniel Donnahan earned his TAC name and his spot in the 444th squadron as part of a long con perpetrated against the Dowager Countess Erina Hertsch, introducing himself to her as her bastard grandson, fathered by her only son during the Belkan War. For almost two years,Daniel wormed his way into the old lady's confidence, spinning tales of his impoverished upbringing (he was actually raised in a gated community by his parents, Donald and Maria) and of his struggles to survive. The countess showered her supposed grandson in gifts and money, enabling him to live well above his means as a lieutenant. Attention was finally drawn to him, when a paralegal at the old lady's law firm recognized that there was something fishy about her re-writing her will to leave her estates to a mysterious relative, and alerted a lawyer. One covert DNA test later, and the police were called. The countess insists that the poor confused boy must not have meant any real harm, but 'Count' clearly was no innocent.
Spare 6:Full Band
Name: Lt Jack G. Williams
Convicted of: Espionage, violation of National Secrets Act.
Possibly a pathological know-it-all, Jack Williams was initially selected for advanced systems operation training after he expressed a certain cunning and way with machines. However, he was promptly kicked out of said program after he displayed his inability to keep his yap shut about anything he had seen. Jack was then sent into a flight-training unit, where he earned his TAC name for taking up 'more than a full band' with his own chatter. For unknown reasons, Williams broke into a secure area of his base after assignment to a flying unit, and was caught riffling through a superior's desk. However, based on comments from his time in the 444th squadron, we can presume that this was part of a larger pattern of obtaining secure material. Williams did not spy for any agency or foreign nation, instead looking into matters purely to make himself feel superior.
Spare 7: High Roller
Name: Cpt. Jullio R. Ceaser
Convicted of: theft, conspiracy.
A compulsive gambler, but also a very good one, the TAC name of High Roller was earned from numerous card games and a notorious stinginess in paying debts. But the mob, they have a way of making a man pay. And when that man is a Captain in the Osean air-force, they make him pay with the entire payroll of the unit when his ponies don't run as fast as he thought they would. Caught with his hand in the cookie jar, High Roller sang like a nightingale and sent his co-conspirators to jail-but found himself banished to the 444th anyways.
Spare 8: Champ
Name: Lt. Marcus B. de Kamph
Convicted of: Attempted murder, domestic violence.
Victims of abuse frequently perpetuate the cycle in turn. At six foot two, and 230 pounds, Marcus de Kamph is certainly able to perpetuate the abuse that his alcoholic father gave him. While at first it seemed that Marcus had overcome his bad beginning, and found life in the military gave him meaning, and a wife. However, stress could cause him to react violently, and his history with his father made him detest those who showed weakness to drink. On October 26th 2018, Marcus returned to the mobile home he shared with his wife Lydia, to find that she had fallen asleep after drinking and had not prepared a meal for them. This added to a long week of punishing training that had severely taxed Marcus, and he began to yell at and beat his wife. A neighbor in the housing area called MPs, who arrived to find Marcus with split knuckles, and his wife badly beaten, with both her arms broken. Paramedics were called, and Marcus was charged first with domestic battery, and later with attempted murder in the second degree.
Lydia Conner de Kamph survives her husband and has received a widow's pension from the Osean military.
Spare 11: Tabloid
Name: Eric A. Linderman
Convicted of: Sedition, vandalism, resisting arrest, unlicensed protest.
One of a number of civilians attached to the 444th squadron, Eric Linderman is perhaps the strangest of them all, as he was a civilian pilot before he was conscripted into the 444th directly out of prison. Arrested for membership in an anarchist movement descended from A World Without Borders, and throwing bricks at goverment buildings durring a protest, his pilot licence saw him singled out for special duty. Trained only in light prop planes, with 10 hours jet and no combat experience before being told to fly a Mirage against hostile pilots. Eric was lucky that the various planes sent to bomb Zapland were also training squadrons, giving him time to get used to the complicated beast he had been shotgun married to. That he survived at all an encounter with the elites of Sol Squadron over the Yinshi valley is a sign of untapped greatness. That he was crushed to death by debris rescuing civilians is a tragedy. At the time of his death, Linderman's appeal was worming it's way through the Osean legal system. He is survived by both parents.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Poor Pixy, all those years in the air and not a single superweapon blown up. 
Nice expanding on the 444th pilots.
FTFY
Nice expanding on the 444th pilots.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean, he gets credit for being along for Excalibur.Poor Pixy, all those years in the air and not a single superweapon blown up.
But by bailing on Cipher when he did, he missed, specifically, the aerial superweapon thing.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I look at that and see one bad, one amazing, and two average. 9 and 10 are both pretty damn close to 'average.'
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Trust me, as someone who has years of experience with tabletop games, anything below a ten is a bad roll. Doesn't mean you won't succeed in what you tried to do, but the roll itself is still bad.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If a 9 is bad then a 12 is good. I'm a bit hesitant to say that because it leaves little or no room for "meh" results.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Generally it is, though I'd call 12 a 'pretty good' roll. 'Meh' result would be a bare success, which would still be a positive result.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
To be fair, the role of any air force not supported heavily by elite aces in custom superplanes is ALSO to die.
The aliens have an equipment advantage so ridiculous that it's like we're a tribe of mostly-spearmen with a handful of muskets fighting a Victorian era colonial expedition armed with breech-loading rifles and Maxim guns.
OK but like, the category breakdown is something like:
Horrible -> Very Bad -> Bad -> Meh -> Good -> Very Good -> Great
And I would think the break points there are, like... from 2 to 3, 5 to 6, 8 to 9, 12 to 13, 15 to 16, and 18 to 19.
Without knowing exact outcome tables it's kind of hard for us to know what is and is not a bare success.
Viewed in isolation we can't really know what the line between success and failure is.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
The way I've seen it generally used and prefer personally, is that Awful would be 1, Very bad 2-5, Bad 6-9, Average 10, Good 11-14, Very good 15-19 and Amazing 20.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I guess, but I feel like that artificially narrows down the range of what is 'average' to the point where it's a meaningless category.
Also it's an asymmetric distribution. The average result of rolling a lot of d20s is 10.5, not 10. Rolling an 11 is no more 'good' than rolling a 10 is 'bad.'
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Average is usually taken as the "middle" number, not an enumeration of numbers, to create an approximation of an average result to compare the results of rolls.
Well, yeah, it is and always has been asymmetric. You can't roll 10.5 on a d20, so people have taken the middle number, counting zero, as the average roll result.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
10 and 11 are both the middle numbers tho. You can't roll a 0 on a d20 any more than you can roll a 10.5.