Air Combat

• The arcade-like fighter plane simulator game Air Combat was made by Namco in 1995.

• This TAS is on Hard.
• Ends input at the frame of the final "Mission Complete".

Gameplay

• The game has planes that unlock as the player beats levels. Each Level has Targets that need to be defeated before the level can be completed. There are different paths to take, but the path this tas takes is the quickest. On Hard the player only starts with the F-4. After the first two missions the MIG-31 is the next best plane to get since it can defeat enemies with two missiles. After the MIG-31 the F-15 is the last and best plane.
• The main advantage for the tas is that it is possible to hit enemies without lockon. The general strategy for hitting planes is to line up as best as possible before firing. For smaller planes the firing jet needs to move to the side and sometimes slightly up and down so that the second missile can hit, because the missiles fire alternate left then right. The real issue is stationary planes on the ground. For some reason stationary planes are extremely difficult to hit with strange collision areas around them. Very few of the stationary planes in the tas are hit without lockon. In fact sometimes the missiles that are fired and hit the stationary planes do not actually hit. A couple other stationary objects have strange hitboxes like the oil rig, and the small towers in that stage where the actual hitbox is just a square on the ground.
• The plane can fire missiles but only two can be in the air at the same time. There are machine guns as well but the range is around 500ft or less. Missiles behave very strangely at the most extreme range where sometimes they will miss if you plane moves in a different direction. It seems sometimes the missiles move a little, or they can go out of range since moving the plane can sometimes cause the speed to drop slightly.
• The plane can increase or decrease speed, but there is a cap for both. When the speed reaches the cap it won't increase any further, however if the speed decreases too much then the plane stalls and starts fall. Note that increasing speed is much slower than decreasing speed. This means that in almost every case slowing down is slower.
• Movement just uses the d-pad pad, so down, left, right, and down.
• The end of each level can be speed up if you are able to get the plane above around 4100 feet. Getting above that height speeds up the ending score tally.
• There is an option to bring a wingman, but it is pointless since it does not speedup anything.

Mission 1

This is extremely similar to the Air Combat 22's first level. There are large transport planes that are the Targets.

Mission 2

Couple B-52s that need to be destroyed. Unfortunately it is necessary to turn around since there is one plane that is too off to the side.

Mission 3

Able to buy the MIG-31 at this point which is a big improvement in speed and damage. Another level that needs a turn around due to the four fighter planes in the first group.

Mission 4

Level has four towers which are the main targets.

Mission 5

Can get the F-15 now which is slightly faster than the MIG-31. The oil rigs and the small towers have some unusual collisions, but nothing too bad.

Mission 6

Tricky stage. The first two fighters are not bad to take out, but the B2 flying wings have extremely small hitboxes. Slowly down slightly gives just enough time to defeat all three of them. The next area has stationary planes, which are very hard to hit on the ground. Luckily I was able to hit the first one without lockon somehow. The other two planes I was not able to hit them without lockon, but the plane is moving so fast the time loss should be minimal. Ending the stage a frame away from death by ramming into the cliff. Once the mission complete message occurs the plane is invincible and just start going up in height for the score tally.

Mission 7

Three targets on the bridge, a tower, and two stationary planes. The planes are kind of protected by a tall fence, so it does not seem possible to hit the planes before getting close.

Mission 8

The plane cannot accelerate here. The main point is to make tight turns, while also avoiding most turret shots.

Mission 9

The flying fortress has four main engines that need to be destroyed before the main Target that is in the center of the flying fortress. The flying fortress has ports on the top that are firing missiles backwards which limit the height your plane can reasonably go up without getting hit. There are turrets on the extreme ends of the plane that also regenerate. The turrets also can shoot through collision boxes of the other fortress objects in what looks like a full sphere of range. The hitbox of the flying fortress is much larger than it appears. Every time an engine is defeated it breaks off and slowly falls. Note that the falling engine can kill you if you bump into it. The stage has a F-22 which constantly is on your tail firing missiles at you. The F-22 is also rather pointless to kill since immediately the level spawns another fighter that does the same thing. There is an option to bring a wingman, but it is pointless since it has no effect on anything.

At the start I destroy the two turrets to give me some time and to avoid damage while getting into position. Once the plane passes the flying fortress and start following it from behind the F-22 will start firing at the plane repeatedly, and the turrets start up once they come back. The trick is to try and get close enough use the machine guns when possible since it can do a missile worth of damage. Getting in close helps massively with speed since only two missiles can be in the air at once. Hitting enemies quickly lets missiles fire more quickly. However due to the engines falling once destroyed, some space to dodge is needed. Also space is important to juke left and right, and increase or decrease speed to avoid missiles from behind and the turret shots.

Once the four engines are dead, the main section becomes possible to damage. Machine guns and missiles at very close range take it down. Oddly enough surviving after the boss is technically dead is also tricky. The "Dead" flying fortress keeps firing at you, and the F-22 still hounds you firing missiles. I do a little maneuvering for entertainment at the end here where I move at ultra short range right on top of the falling flying fortress.

This ends input at the frame of the final "Mission Complete".

Potential Time Saves

• A user commented on Youtube noted that Mission 6 has an issue that I missed. Going North first is slightly faster. I noted three seconds faster. However the issue is that the next level desyncs.
• Figure out how to shoot those stationary planes better.

File Hashes

This works on two different rom files that I tested. One has the green checkmark and the other has a question mark.

Air Combat (USA)

Disc was identified (99.99% confidently) as known good with disc id hash CRC32:484EA15F

Nonetheless it could be an unrecognized romhack or patched version.

According to redump.org, the ideal hash for entire disc is: CRC32:5B9D9183

The file you loaded hasn't been hashed entirely (it would take too long)

Compare it with the full hash calculated by the PSX menu's Hash Discs tool