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Speedometer Check
It has always seemed to me that the indicated flight speeds in SCIA were very high, and the actual speeds-over-ground very slow. For example, when you are flying an AG mission you seem to have to fly forever to get to a point where you can turn around and still be far enough from the…
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Guns Along the FEBA
Ultimately, I plan to turn this whole blog into a weapons and tactics manual for the game. One of the things that I’ll need to do is a complete evaluation of all the weapons available to the various aircraft. So far, my experience has been that the good old wing-mounted gun is the best all-round…
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What’s Missing
There are a couple of features that could be added to make this a more enjoyable game. I mean, aside from allowing the player to actually dogfight with their aircraft. First, it would be nice if there were a flight training area where you could go to practice things like MCM and Expert mode. It…
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We’re Past Mission 6, Now What?
The first few missions after Mission 6 have been devoted more to advancing the story than providing good gameplay. Attack the volcano fortress, attack the secret lab, dash for safety with high-value cargo, chase Kylie around in the Sanka equivalent of a wet towel fight, etc. So far, the most interesting thing to occur was…
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Aircraft Performance Characteristics
As part of the rebuild, the data on SCIA aircraft performance characteristics have been moved to their own page. See the banner.
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Sky Crawlers Mission Six
Mission 6, with spoilers Introduction By all accounts, Mission 6 is the hardest mission of them all; it certainly was the most difficult so far for me. This is not because of the intrinsic difficulty of the mission, but because of the artificial obstacles the developers place in your way. For me, clearing Mission 6…
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Sky Crawlers, the game, a review: Part 2
The Badness Continues Situational Awareness One key to air to air combat is maintaining situational awareness. You have to know what is going on around you at all times. This includes where you are, where your friends are, and where the enemy is. SCIA gives you a number of tools for this, none of them…
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Sky Crawlers, the game, a review: Part 1
Introduction I am not a big gamer. Not since I FAFIAted, back in the 70’s. When I do play games, operational level wargames are my preference. I bought Sky Crawlers, Innocent Aces because I also like flying games, and because it’s the first one out for the Wii motion controller. Plus, it’s based on an…
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Sky Crawlers, the anime
Introduction This will be a multi-part post. The first part is about Sky Crawlers, the anime. The second part will be about the Nintendo Wii game. They are both about flying, and fighting, over Europe, in modern technology propellor aircraft — overlaid with a typical anime weirdness subplot. It’s not indicated, but it’s probably aimed…
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War Games – The Fall of France
Among my other interests is wargaming. My interest goes back to my childhood (see below), but I have also been involved professionally, during my years in the USAF. Although most of that was spent in preparing data for theater level simulations, I did spend two summers as a member of the Red Air Team for…