Chronocidal

So, I realized I've been posting a lot of really long and bulky posts here.. this might become another one, but I figured someone might be able to make use of what I've learned from the "crafting" system in the game.. maybe better referred to as an "aircrafting" system. Early on, I didn't know what was going on at all, and misinterpreted the way the build menu works. That "0/50" number in particular. I thought that that was a theoretical goal to approach, and getting closer to 50 would generate higher rank planes. Nope. That number 50 is your limit to how many parts you are limited to in building the plane. This isn't a big deal at first, since early planes don't need many parts, or points. So, to maximize the use of the parts you have, don't use high point value parts if you don't need to. I learned this the hard way, and this really ties in to preparing for starting a second game with your first run's data. Rank 1 valks are easy to make. Early in the game, I would just go down the list of parts, starting at the lowest value, and put in as many as I could of each. I didn't actually hit the limit of 50 parts until somewhere in chapter 8, almost to the end of the game. It was then that I started paying more attention to how the system worked. Now, how this ties in to starting a new game.. Here's the problem with new game plus. Yes, it suddenly opens up the ability to buy pretty much any valk blueprints you want, at any rank. The problem though? You're now stuck back in chapter 1. Rank 3 valks tend to need 120+ points from parts in each of the three categories. If you don't have an inventory absolutely bursting at the seams with parts worth at least 6-8 points, you're not going to have enough high leveled parts to actually make any of those planes until you reach the end of the game again, and can farm targets for those part drops. So, bottom line.. when you get to the point at the end of chapter 8 where it warns you to save, and gives you a new menu option in orange to go to the last level? If you want to be able to build those rank 3 valks quickly, you'd better go farming for parts and money before you finish the game. You'll need a ton of parts, and a ton of money, because the rank 3 blueprints range in the 40-50k range in the first area, and I imagine the later ones will be even more. I can easily see a blueprint for something like a rank 3 YF-29 would be in the 100k+ range. Now, it's not like you can't eventually get back to the end of the game again, and you'll have to in order to get the rank 3 blueprints to the later aircraft anyway. Just don't expect to be buying all those blueprints and building everything after one playthrough. Personally, I'm picking and choosing which ones I buy, and I've only had enough parts to build about two rank 3 planes. Speeding through has let me get back to about chapter 4 in one evening though, so I might actually just use this run as a farming run, stock up on parts and cash in the last area, then dump all my quest items and start another game to focus on learning how to do the guild quests.

Key to the races is use an upgraded valk, and don't use real aircraft controls. I've gotten a couple golds, but the longer ones will take practice. Basically, you just need to memorize the routes to complete them in time. Ok, so update on this thing.. I went ahead and finished the story. Not going to spoil anything (I literally can't actually, because I have no idea what happened anyway. Yeah, it was one of those endings.), but you get a TON of unlocks for completing it. After finishing the story mode (even on easy) I pretty much received every major character's valk, along with their pilots. The entire Skull squad of VF-25s appeared, two custom VF-27s (Brera's and one other), M&M(and Gamlin) VF-22s, the YF-21, Isamu's, Alto's, and another YF-29, plus the YF-30.. and I'm probably leaving out a few. The valk tree basically exploded when I looked at it. Now.. the down side to the New Game Plus mode.. Yes, you keep all your stats, characters, developed valks and items, but the story and quests all reset to chapter 1. That includes making any uncompleted guild quests and races completely inaccessible until you progress to the point in the story where you got them. Also, it seems to be playing shenanigans with some of the quest items. After restarting the story, I've been attempting to finish EVERY guild quest I possibly can... and become incredibly frustrated, because while certain quests will give you that big green bubble region to hunt in, I'm getting a ton of them that tell me to collect a single item... but I have absolutely no idea where to find it. Knowing Japanese might help I admit, but I'm not sure if the game is quite working right here... See, the REALLY screwy part of this... I picked up one quest, and it told me to get 5 items from one region that it highlighted. I could only find 3 total. I do know that sometimes those quest items just come from those little gold sparkly bits on the ground, but these came from 3 of those big crate objects. I looked high and low, and could never find the other two.... Until I looked in my storage. I had picked up the other two on my first playthrough. The quest relevant items don't reset, so if you still have any from the first playthrough, you might be in for a serious headache. Honestly.. the whole "storage" mechanic is not really useful. You can't view your quest log while in the hangar, and you can't view your storage while looking at the quests. It'd solve a whole heap of problems if you could just turn in quests using items in storage, but nope. I might actually try dropping every such item, and see if they respawn on the map. So yeah... be prepared to get incredibly frustrated with the quests. I went scouring through my storage looking for potential quest items, and have been carrying them around in the hopes that I actually can complete some random quests easily, but I'm carrying drops from all three game regions, and only a few are relevant to the starting area. It seems a lot of those one item search quests don't ever reset, because I have three or four of them, and can't even begin to find where to get the items. Anyway, yeah. So, in order to really get the most out of the new game plus mechanic, you need to play through the game to the ending twice, so you can actually travel freely to all the areas. Once you start over, you've got to progress through the story again to unlock things. Finally, one weird bit of VF-1 unlocking.. I will say that starting new game plus will flood your shops with various blueprints of all three ranks. I found a ton of amusing ones, but one that made me do a double take was some kind of special Skull Leader VF-1S. It's not Hikaru's, because you get that earlier in the game, and it's loaded out with 4 micro-missile pods. This one's loaded with two pods, and 4 reaction missiles, and is a rarity for a custom, because it comes with three sets of markings on one valk. You can probably guess which ones. Now I'm just speeding through things as fast as possible to unlock all the areas, and get back to where I can travel freely to hunt for quests. Still no strike pack for the VF-1, or VF-25 armor set, and I think I lost the quest to unlock the armor set when I restarted. Oh well.

I'm actually betting it'd be those same items I've been looking for, which are "bandit (something in kanji)." Literally, every single quest I have right now is to collect varying amounts of the same item, or kill varying amounts of the same thing... but I have yet to get a single one. EVERY quest that rewards a blueprint requires those. I'm just resolving to finish the story mode, and then see if stuff unlocks after that. Then I'll do another playthrough from the start and keep better track of the quests, and what appears when to help piece together a guide to unlocking blueprints. I still think it's funny that I cannot find the VF-171EX ANYWHERE.

Looking at this last night, there are definitely hidden requirements to unlock being able to buy these. The few I've seen appeared randomly, and take a ton of high value items to build. Building new planes was never a problem during the main story, but now I'm going to have to kill a ton of stuff for drops to build the upgrades (once they appear). Different subject though, wondering something about controls.. is there a way to switch over gerwalk controls to strafe mode without having the targeting system lock onto whatever is nearest? Steering in gerwalk is a royal pain the butt, because for some reason you can't actually spin in place to turn (unless holding the lock button), you have to make a big circle. Makes steering toward item drops extremely annoying.

That would be great, except I'm at the point in the story where no bandits spawn anywhere. I'll probably get a ton of unlocks as soon as I finish the story, so I guess I'll just try that tomorrow.

So, after unsuccessfully translating ン as ソ for several days, I FINALLY realized that the drops I need for nearly every hunter guild quest I'm running is something from bandits. I can't read the kanji, but the katakana is バンデット. I need MANY of these drops, on the order of 15 or so per quest. Going to try jumping into the bandit hideouts to see if they drop, because sadly I got overzealous and killed all the bandit ships. Also, still no 171EX... But now I have a quest to get the RVF-171, and just bought the RVF-25. I can't imagine what special abilities this game will give electronic warfare craft, but it should be interesting. As far as upgrading valks to rank 2 or rank 3 though, yeah, I don't know what triggers the bluprints becoming available, but you have to buy them and build them separately.

Oh, yeah.. for those not acquainted yet.. Japanese games seem to love using circle for "enter" rather than X... it's the same on PSO2, and I have to admit, I literally got stuck in a loop watching the intro for about half a dozen times before I realized I had to press CIRCLE to start the game. The ps3 still uses X to confirm saving, and circle to cancel, once you get to the save menu. But all the selections in-game use circle to confirm.

I'd like to help contribute what I can, but I'm curious, is there a way to take screenshots on a ps3? My biggest thing right now is translating item names and quest requirements... I have several quests that all ask for the same exact thing, but even translating, I have no idea what they're asking for.

Probably depends on your control setup too, the special I tend to hit on occasion is Leon's standard spam barrage, which triggers if you hit circle + triangle (on control type C) Again, I've found very little reason to use them on easy mode, BUT! They seem to be the best counter to an enemy activating a special of their own. One of the very early story quests has you fighting a YF-29 in one of your beginner valks, and when he activated his combo, it pretty much destroyed me outright. On other occasions though, hitting my own special seemed to negate the effects of the enemy attacks. Could be an easy-mode only thing, but given how those special moves tend to freeze you in place, it makes some sense to give you a few seconds of invulnerability while you use the attack. I haven't tested it that much, but so far, executing that combo right as I see an enemy activate theirs has kept me from taking much damage, if not completely negating the enemy attack.

Heh.. "anticipated shortage." Bandai ought to just change that to their new company motto.

Ugh.. I might not be doing myself any favors playing on easy mode. I usually like doing that just so I can enjoy things and take it easy, but I'm not needing to use any of the fancier combos or evasion skills much at all. I think I've died maybe three times during the run up to the last chapter. Missiles just seem really easy to avoid with minimal effort. Maybe due to being on easy mode though, I discovered an incredibly cheap way to beat the bandit ships.. just gerwalk hover directly underneath, and spam gunpod and missiles point blank. There's actually a subsystem under the back end that registers critical hits if you concentrate on it.

Ok, I actually am curious about this.. what difficulty level are you on? I'm wondering if certain blueprint unlocks are tied to the level you're playing at. Maybe I was just jumping ahead too quickly to each new valk as I got it? I don't know. I just haven't seen any hint as to what's required to upgrade a valk to rank 2 or 3. I have to say I do really enjoy the hangar viewer as well, it was one of the first things I found in the game My standard method for learning how to play this game was basically save, then go to a menu and press every button to see what it does. Really do wish we could make our own paintschemes on this though. Some schemes are incredibly awesome, like the Dobber-ish SV-51 option, the VF-1D scheme on the VF-0A, and the various camoflage schemes scattered about.. but for every one of the awesome ones, there's at least a clunker or two. There seemed to be an awful lot of "Let's randomly paint different panels neon colors!" going on with the VF-0s. Then you get to the VF-25s, and the YF-29.. and you get planes painted in TARTAN PLAID. Yes, it's kind of awesome in a way.. but it's PLAID. Maybe they were going for a kilt-ish motif

Heh, I did mean something bigger, but yeah, I didn't specify. I wish Hasegawa would take on the stuff from Yukikaze like they did with Macross, and that new plane from Ace Combat. Well.. that and all the other stuff from Ace Combat and Macross I'd love to see. I'm still waiting for that 1/48 YF-21.. my three YF-19s are getting lonely.

I don't know where to get the VF-25F from, but the blueprints for the standard model A and S are available from shops in the third region, along with the 27beta, and that region gives fairly simple quests for the 27gamma, and the VF-25 super and tornado packs. The basic YF-29 came along very easily, but I don't remember if I found it, or it was a story quest reward. No sign yet of the personalized versions of anything, but given that there isn't a gap in the progression like I have for the 171EX, I think the various VF-25 variants will only show up as character specific customs.

Oh, I can't tell you what the individual stats are, but you gain TP from kills/quests/buying it... in the upper left of the stat window is your total available, upper right is the amount used out of the current allotment for that aircraft (it goes up with rank of the aircraft, which I still don't know how to do). You just select up and down through the list, and left and right to reduce or increase a stat. Nothing's permanent, so you can retune things at will if you hit the cap and want more emphasis on damage or speed, or something. L1 and R1 cycle between stat categories, which someone explained earlier. Only ones I focus on are the aircraft stats in the first tab, the gunpod stats (usually has a XXmm label in the tag, and allows you to tune the sniper rifle by pressing square) and the multi-missile tab. I'm not sure what all the numbers refer to, but one of the stats on that tab increases the amount of simultaneous targets/launches you can make. I think that particular stat bar has divisions in it, showing how much you need to gain a missile. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, or thinking of the wrong menu though. I've been learning by trial and error... especially with quests... it gets really interesting trying to figure out what drops the item you need to turn in. (Kill target, grab drops, check quest log, repeat.) OH.. yeah.. that is probably my biggest gripe with the gameplay. Those sparkly dots indicating drops are useless. I want an option to just deliver all obtained items to my inventory, or don't let them time out, because if you're in fighter mode, the chances of you actually getting those approach zero.

If you're attempting them early on, then yes they're a pain. They get significantly easier as you upgrade the planes. Not to say they might not still be irritating, but they do get better. Also, don't try them with real aircraft controls, because having to roll to collect those targets is much harder than just steering around. I think I just hit the final chapter, so I'm done for the night. It's one of those "Are you sure you want to do this? There's no going back after this" points that tells you to save. I think there's quite a bit to go still though, because very little (if anything) has actually been resolved in any way. It might be just a save point before the storyline branches to different paths (or endings, if it's almost done). I'm about 30 hours in, but I admit, I've been happily running about spamming missiles everywhere to gain TP and unlockables. Really.. I think my most serious gripe at this point is that they've had Ranka dressed in the absolute fugliest outfit I have ever seen in my life for the entire game. It's hideous. At least they had Sheryl arrive in a flight suit, but EVERY dialogue scene of Ranka has had her in that wonky thing. I want to slap that hat off her head, and then slap the artist who designed that. Ugh.. aside from that though, only complaint I can think of at the moment is that the aircraft tree seems to jump around, or that several of the main developments are hidden, while later versions pop up easily. I don't recall what I did to unlock the VF-171EX armor pack, I think it was just a simple hunter guild quest... but I can't find the actual VF-171EX blueprint at all. It's not a quest or race reward, and I can't use the packs without making the plane (which is kinda messed up, since I think non-EX variants are using the packs in the game ) So far, only aircraft I'm actually missing are the VF-19S, VF-171EX, and all the custom paint jobs (except Roy's VF-0). Fortunately, the main VF-25 line is pretty easy to get, and the super and tornado packs are a breeze to get (a 1 item gathering quest for each, with a big map logo pointing out where to look ). No sign of the armored packs yet though. I do need to run the rounds of the hunter guild bases to see if any new quests have popped up after completing bits of the story, but so far I'm at a loss to see where the 19S and EX come from. Oh.. and two sad bits.. well, three, but two are fixable and one isn't. The fixable ones are plot relevant, so spoilers incoming (not that anyone couldn't see this coming though ) Ok, the unfixable sad thing: they skipped over the VF-17 entirely. There is a Millia-style red scheme for the 171, but Diamond Force is nowhere to be found. Guess they couldn't be bothered to make a few more aircraft and fill out Sound Force. Really.. Yamato has spoiled us. I want to see my entire valk collection in the game.

Wish someone would release something not in 1/100 scale already...

Ok.. So. End of Chapter 7, to beginning of Chapter 8. I don't know when I ate all those bricks, but they're out of my system now. If there's really anything I regret about not knowing Japanese, it's that I'd absolutely love to understand all the dialogue when person A meets person B who is somehow younger and/or went missing years ago. Anyway. So, how on earth do you go about getting different ranks for the aircraft? All of mine are stuck at rank 1, with no clue how to move beyond that. The only ones I've gotten that are rank 2 are the VF-19A, and VF-22, which start at rank 2 somehow. I've been maxing out the rank 1 stats of each valk as I get them, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of option for rank 2 or higher.

I really do wish NY could get more realistic with their FedEx prices. I've never paid $50 for them with HLJ, and my typical HLJ order is probably 3 to 5 times the physical size and weight of a single vf-25 shipping box. Their EMS prices don't seem quite as inflated at least, but then you have to deal with post office shenanigans. Oh well. Still worth it in the end. Will be glad to have these bandai valk hunting days over with.

Oy, this one apparently stayed up for quite a while, I nodded off on my couch, and just woke up. Managed to grab one, so if Hobbyfan comes through, I should have a spare to sell or trade. Or maybe I'll strip one down and make a custom... hmmm..

I get the feeling those will get much easier as you unlock higher level valks, and the ability to boost their stats above rank 1. I was within one second of getting the silver on one of them, but figured I'd wait for a faster plane. I also think it'd be MUCH easier to run them with the controls set to normal, instead of having to roll all over the sky to get through the targets.

Plus, you know, I hear there's this new Macross game out for the ps3, if you don't mind reading Japanese. Not to cross the threads and start talking about it here, but I'm enjoying the gameplay, even without knowing what anyone is saying. Aside from that, all I've gotten for the ps3 so far is StarHawk, and I'm planning on playing Chrono Cross again when I find my discs.

Oh, so maybe I'm misunderstanding the system for unlocking the paintschemes. Do things like Roy's VF-1S scheme get unlocked for selection under paintschemes, or are they a stand-alone custom aircraft you have to make?

How exactly do you unlock the different paint schemes? I'm up to chapter 4, and still haven't unlocked any alternate schemes at all. Up to the VF-11C, and still nothing but the defaults. No VF-1 strike pack either. I know some of the blueprints have to be bought from various locations, but I haven't seen anything like a paintscheme yet.

Sigh. That's what I get for playing Macross 30 all evening.