User:WENth100/sandbox



Project Wingman is an indie arcade-style combat flight action game mostly inspired by the Ace Combat series, developed by Australian studio Sector D2 and published by Humble Games. It was released for PC in December 2020 on Steam.

The game takes place in "alternate scorched earth setting". Centuries ago, Earth was ravaged by a worldwide cataclysm known simply as "The Calamity". A newly exposed and highly volatile material named "Cordium" triggered a chain reaction that caused catastrophic volcanic eruptions around the Pacific Ring of Fire and tectonic shifts. Destroying the old world order, and plunging humanity into darkness. Centuries later, humanity has managed to rebuild by learning to harness the massive quantities of geothermal energy generated by the volcanoes as well as Cordium itself to power various machines such as gigantic aerial warships and railguns.

In the year 432 AC (After Calamity), a multinational geopolitical superpower known as the Pacific Federation, who has control over the enormous Cordium deposits across the Ring of Fire, declared war on the Republic of Cascadia, a nation situated along the North American Western Seaboard, following the their refusal to be annexed by the Federation in order to acquire their large deposits of cordium and geothermal sources. Several private military companies such as the Sicario Corporation are hired by Cascadia in their war of independence against the Federation.

The players control a Silent Protagonist simply known by his callsigns: "Hitman 1" or "Monarch", the leader of the Hitman Team of fighter pilots employed by Sicario, the two other pilots (callsigns "Hitman 2 Diplomat" and "Hitman 3 Comic") and Monarch's weapon systems officer, callsign "President" or "Prez" for short. Other members of Sicario include "Galaxy", Sicario's primary AWACS operator, and the company's president, callsign "Assassin 1 Kaiser", leader of the Assassin fighter team.

While mostly inspired by games like Ace Combat 6 Fires of Liberation, Project Wingman includes several features not seen in Ace Combat before, such as the ability to simultaneously equip multiple special weapons on a single aircraft. Another unique feature of the game is the Conquest Mode; a customizable Roguelike game mode where you buy upgrades for your arsenal, hire more capable wingmen and crawl the territory map to complete objectives as the game throws increasingly dangerous hostile at you. This mode allows the players top adjust various difficulty modifiers and enemy numbers. Defeat in this mode will cause the player to lose all progress in that run, and they have to start from scratch all over again.


 * 0% Approval Rating: The Pacific Federation ends up having their intention opinion plummeting after
 * Ace Pilot: The player character, Monarch, is considered as such from the very beginning. Naturally, the Pacific Federation also has its fair share of aces, notably the Peacekeeper Squadrons known for their skills and the extreme loyalty to the Federation. In Conquest Mode, the player can also encounter random enemy ace squadrons near the end of the mission.
 * Air Strike Impossible: Unlike most Ace Combat games, there are no mandatory tunnel flights in this game, but optional ones do exist.
 * In Mission 6, there are several Federation Cordium extractors located within the lava lakes of the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone, they're shielded by large tunnel-like structures from the top, to destroy them you either have to aim your missiles or bombs carefully through the gaps in the roof or fly through these tunnels to get a clear shot at the structures. However, going for the latter forces you to fly low over the lava which will slowly start to bake your aircraft.
 * In Mission 9, there are a few large tunnels in the mountains used by the Federation garrison as runways. You can fly through them if it pleases you, because there aren't really much targets inside those tunnels.
 * AKA-47: As the game was developed by a fairly small 3-man indie studio who cannot afford the license fees like AAA developers, thus the game's aircraft have slightly altered names and sometimes appearances compared to real-world aircraft:
 * All the aircraft produced by Mikoyan-Gurevich are now simply renamed to MG-*number* (for instance, the MiG-29 is now the MG-29), the same applies to Sukhoi aircrafts which follow the SK-*number* naming convention.
 * For American aircraft, the series letter suffix is now moved behind the modified mission code. For instance, the F-15C Eagle is known as the "F/C-15".
 * Aircrafts from other nations tend to have a more varied alternative names, for instance, the Harrier is now the Accipator, the CF-105 is now the CR-105, and the J-20 is named the VX-23.
 * Alternative Calendar: The game takes place in the year 432 AC (After Calamity), named after the global geothermal cataclysm that reshaped the Earth’s surface centuries prior.
 * Anti-Frustration Features:
 * Targets that are killed by your allies will still reward you with a small amount of points, with more points received if you dealt damage to the target before it was finished off.
 * While the game lacks checkpoints, You can restart from the Mission Update.
 * Apocalypse How: The Calamity that sets the background of the game is a Class 1 or Class 2 example, it destroyed the old world orders and reshaped the world and nations as we know them..
 * Awesome but Impractical: The 2 Super Taurus-class Land Battleships fielded by the Federation in mission 17 never went past the prototype stage since, despite having as many weapons as actual battleships of the Federation, they're still target practice for strike fighters. Your wingman even calls them out for that:
 * Hitman 2 Diplomat: These things? Impractical SOBs.
 * The Dreaded:
 * The Federation Peacekeepers, the cream of the crop of their air force. Among them, Crimson Squadron are the top aces, flying top-of-the-line VX-23 and SK.37 experimental fighter jets. Crimson 1 in particular is somewhat of a poster boy in the Federation Air Force and is considered by many to be the top ace in the whole world. The radio chatter fills with dread when these guys enter the scene, and the first time they appear you even get a tooltip telling you to run.
 * HUD: "OBJECTIVES >EXIT THE AO >ENGAGEMENT WITH CRIMSON TEAM NOT ADVISABLE. Cross the blue line heading 000 (NORTH) to escape and return to base. ENGAGEMENT NOT ADVISED"
 * You, Monarch, becomes one for the Federation after Mission 11, and earn the nickname of "The Crown" from the enemies.
 * Federation Defense: Ah shit. We've got positive contact with the Crowned mercenary. All arrays concentrate on him!
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: The fate of your friends and allies are left ambiguous after the final mission. You only find out what happens to them after beating the game on the highest possible difficulty.
 * Shout-Out:
 * Icarus Armory's super fighter bears a striking resemblance to the VF-11C Thunderbolt.
 * The conical shape and red glowing particle emissions of the airships' Cordium powered engines is very similar to GN Tau Drives.
 * The mercenary pilot Master Goose One's call sign is a reference to Vincent Harling's transport in Ace Combat 5 & 7, Mother Goose One.
 * Super Prototype: "Prototype" is listed as a separate class for flyable planes in the game, they range from real-life prototype designs to completely fictional ones originating from the game. These aircrafts can be equipped with AOA (Angle of Attack) Limiters which allows them become supermaneuverable and perform post-stall maneuvers.
 * The F/S-15 is based off the F-15 ACTIVE prototype, despite its name which seems to be a reference to the F-15S/MTD.
 * The SK.37 is largely based off the Su-37 Flanker-F technology demonstrator, a very familiar plane for most Ace Combat players. Half of the members of Crimson Squadron flew these planes.
 * The VX-23 seems to be the fusion of a F-22A Raptor and a J-20, possessing outstanding speed and mobility. Those in the Crimson Squadron who do not fly the SK.37 use this as their plane.
 * The ACG-01 Chimera is another original design, combining elements from the Su-57 and the F-16XL. Overall not as maneuverable as the VX-23, but possessing better anti-surface capabilities.
 * , best described as More Dakka incarnate, it's capable of equipping every type of gunpod in the game, plus it comes with a rapid-firing railgun.
 * Unusable Enemy Equipment: During Mission 7 & Mission 11, Federation pilots will show up in SK.30s which appears to be based off the 2-seater Su-30. This plane has yet to be made available for the player.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: Much like in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, some targets will show up as yellow ones (either civilian targets, or unimportant military targets that isn't directly contributing to the battle at hand), such as the unarmed, unescorted transport planes (all Federation fighters are too busy engaging with Cascadian and mercenary fighters nearby in a giant furball) evacuating Federation troops, or the also unarmed, unescorted evacuation trucks in Mission 14, or the 2 transport helicopters in Mission 6 that are most likely just carrying civilian factory workers. But unlike Ace Combat Zero, Project Wingman doesn’t have an Ace Style gauge, you’re kind of encouraged to shoot them down to earn more money and your arsenal.
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