/acg/ - Armored Core General

20th anniversary edition.

Old bread. For all newcomers, Armored Core and all JP mecha discussion here. You are welcome to shill western stuff with JP influence.
We can talk about Ace combat as well and puchi posting is fine too.

BEFORE YOU PROCEED LISTEN TO OUR THEME SONG!!!
instaud.io/jzI

AC pastebin: pastebin.com/z1bJS9gF
Read that if you have any questions. If the pastebin doesn't answer whatever question you may have feel free to ask us in the thread.

/acg/'s partially complete recommendation pastebin:
pastebin.com/Wjv8sukr

Steam: steamcommunity.com/groups/armoredcorevg

/acg/ PLAYS

SCRIMMS
>Ask.

SUNDAY NIGHT FOR ANSWER
>Ask.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON VERDICT DAY
>Ask.

Official Strategy guide PDFs for 2, 3, and Nexus :
emuparadise.me/magazine-comic-guide-scans/Armored_Core_2_Another_Age_Prima_Official_eGuide/1833
emuparadise.me/magazine-comic-guide-scans/Armored_Core_3_Prima_Official_eGuide/1635
emuparadise.me/magazine-comic-guide-scans/Armored_Core_Nexus_Prima_Official_eGuide/2226

AC related cover music: ripped from niconico by risto
mega.nz/#!j1l03AjA!beyftPD1gLIsymJC2gdmHpUecO4JHGbg6KdFQNS7htI

Understanding Last Raven technical stuff.
pastebin.com/RfbVYwwr

AC Webm and Music collection download.
dropbox.com/s/eh12d8bhn4o5t3p/AC Webm.rar?dl=0#
dropbox.com/s/e43xmgrl76l9bpo/AC Music.rar?dl=0

Other urls found in this thread:

reddit.com/r/armoredcore/comments/3zg7pa/armored_core_last_raven_3_and_silent_line/
youtube.com/watch?v=PECmjB9df0w
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>old thread page 8
>suddenly archived
What the hell happened

Veeky Forums shit the bed.

>just finished the image for OP and there's already a new thread
so close

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>Anniversary
Kinda feel like a funeral

I've never seen this general before. All I need to know is is there anything AC related that I can get on PC?

me:
>poor kid who never had a ps2
>never owned AC games but played them at friends house
>always wanted to develop some elaborate backstory of my mech
>only dreams, never a reality
>now older and have money because job
>want to indulge in fantasy

You can emulate PS1-PS2 games and the PSP games. Iso's are on EmuParadise. I saw someone say there's PS3 emulation but I haven't heard of it prior.

But specifically an AC for PC, nothing as far as I know.

yeah you can emulate ps2 and psp games and maybe eventually the ps3 emulator will run ac as well

running ac3 on ppsspp right now, it's potato-friendly

some child spammed the board, bunch of other generals 404'd

What possible reason does FromSoft have to make an Armored Core game when Soulsbornes rake in the money?

Face it, mechs are niche.

Autism is one hell of a drug

thanks lads. I'm about to order a new Ryzen build so I guess I can try emulation. I've had success with PS1 games but haven't tried the PS2 yet. I've heard that PS2 emulation isn't quite optimized, even after all these years. I do have a freemcboot ps2 card so I guess I'll burn a copy of those games.

>What possible reason
Literally wanting to make a mech game, getting bored of Soulsborne games, player demand, things like that.

Soulsborne is the Call of Madden for the more enthusiastic gamers and we intend to capitalize on this for Armored Core's 20th birthday.

- FromSoftware PR

>it's a "we are mad at FromSoftware so we shit on the SoulsBorne series" episode

...

I can run the PSP versions at 1080p on my toaster laptop and the PS2 versions on my 5 year old rig on max res and settings. They emulate really well.

A sad fact

Those weathering effects are top notch

Soul's success is the #1 reason why they need to make a non-souls game. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
>Most of soul's money goes to Bandai or Sony, not From
>Souls is tied up in other company's IP and publishing rights
>Souls does not add or expand the development capability, since From is relying on Sony's team for providing engines
>There are TONS of competitors, including Bandai with Code Vein, that are starting to sell equal or better than souls with less risk, reaching market saturation
>They now have the size of the team where making multiple games simultaneously is possible

They need to do 2 things to avoid failing as a company:
1. Diversify the skill of their developers, and have projects for new team members to work on in a low-risk environment.
>multiple games a year with different development teams
>smaller, lower-stakes projects that can ride on existing marketing
>more variety in their game engines and platform releases (more PC, Switch, etc. releases)

2. Diversify and internalize the sales and marketing to different audiences, to cross-pollinate sales.
>new genres, global marketing instead of through-publisher marketing, direct distribution
>more self-published games, helping publish other studio's games
>internalized skills to avoid needing publisher devs (like Studio Japan or Namco's Developers) to port and translate games

More souls doesn't achieve any of that. A from-scratch reboot of AC, even if it doesn't sell a lot, will help the company with all of those things. It's an established name brand, but with low expectations so they are ripe to offer experimentation and diversification of gameplay away from souls, which brings them new customers and cross-pollination of sales. The end result is a company that can negotiate with publishers without being fucked over on every deal, because they have their eggs in more than a single basket.

Interesting. I'll definitely check that out. need to do some research on which games to get. What's your favorite AC game?

Look at Valve, Bethesda, Square, Konami, EA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Capcom. All of them have their main money-making franchises, but they are constantly diversifying their games so that they have new marketing methods, new game engines, new test beds for employees, and new creative work being done. It's because

Why would X company Make Y game if Z game is selling so well?
>Bethesda, Wolfenstein, Skyrim
>Valve, Team Fortress, Half Life
>Ubisoft, Ghost Recon, Assassin's Creed
>Square, Nier Automata, Final Fantasy XV
>Bandai, Code Vein, Tekken 7
>Nintendo, Metroid Prime 4, Splatoon 2
>Capcom, Monster Hunter World, Resident Evil 7
>Konami, Metal Gear Survive, Pro Evolution Soccer

Because they are smart and enjoy not going bankrupt from oversaturating their market and losing relevancy.

Most people recommend starting with AC3 or AC nexus. AC3 is really good about easing you into the difficulty, Nexus is a bit more modern and controls better though.

My favorite is last raven, but it's brutal for a first-time player.

Any anons have some basic coding experience?

I'm thinking it would be helpful to make a quick install program that would let players drag/drop the PSP workaround cheats and various control schemes into the PPSSPP install folder for people who don't want to manually copy/paste the cheats or can't find them online

It would just need to create a few text files in a few different folders (graphics, controls, and cheat settings for each AC game) based on what the person selects from a dropdown list.

do i need any workaround cheats for AC3: portable? all i see is last raven but i gotta be sure.

I'm not sure. There are codes for AC3 though. Just save states, if it crashes, put this workaround cheat following the same instructions, except use the file name to NPUH10023.ini instead

_S NPUH-10023
_G Armored Core 3 Portable
_C1 Hang Workaround
_L 0xE0010003 0x002258E8
_L 0x202258E8 0x34070001
_C0 Hang Workaround [Disable]
_L 0x202258E8 0x28A70003

aight thanks

Any ways to get Silent Line Portable to not freeze on PSP?

I thought the .iso I got was corrupted but after a redownload it still freezes at the same spots for the same reasons.

see: and
reddit.com/r/armoredcore/comments/3zg7pa/armored_core_last_raven_3_and_silent_line/

SL's code is
_S NPUH-10025
_G Armored Core: Silent Line Portable
_C0 Hang Workaround
_L 0xE0010003 0x00248884
_L 0x20248884 0x34070001
_C0 Hang Workaround [Disable]
_L 0x20248884 0x28A70003

Got something special in the oven. Be ready for it.
Depends, do you accept MATLAB?

>Double barrel shotgun

Alright that worked.

Out of curiosity would you happen to know what is even causing the hangups?

Just beat Daemon and holy shit was that tense. I have to give props to the devs for forcing the player to try new set ups to beat that spamming fuck.

It's part of the wrapper used for the game's port. Apparently the bleach PSP ports have the same problem. Some piece of PS2 code or something that the PSP knows to ignore but the emulator doesn't. Too few games require the workaround for them to put it into the actual emulator, since it might mess with other games, so they just expect you to figure it out yourself.

That's the last time I take advice from my little sister on how much Pam to use.
But then again, maybe it's more appropriate this way.
Nicely done.
Now get on with clearing all the missions so you can get the secret bonus mission.

A C 6 W H E N.

armored core is like driving my own asshole to walmart and forgetting the keys

I've beaten the Evangel ending and the Leviathan endings already, gonna start the Jack-O one tonight.

Damn it Ahab, right in the feels

If I recorded a FM4 playthrough would you guys watch it?

Hell yea

Are you in any way entertaining? I can watch a straight play through anywhere, do you have good banter?

It would be no commentary, just gameplay. It's one of my favorite games ever so I thought I would like to share my experience with people, also I've been dabbling in video editing software and recording so I thought it would be good experience for me.

Then do it for you. Can't be deciding on what you'll do based on if other people like it, unless you want a YouTube career.

I could throw in a dank meme edit into the gameplay though here and there if you wanted it.

youtube.com/watch?v=PECmjB9df0w
But don't do that.
Even after you've got all six endings, it's likely there'll be a mission or two you've missed. Or maybe you can avoid that with extensive tracking and help from a guide, I don't know.

I'll start recording it soon then. Look forward to it guys.

It'll be emulated so if there is fps drops then I apologize ahead of time.

I, for one, welcome the dank meme edits.

recording what?

(ACVD) I decided to try something new today. Getting a string of Ds on my lightweight machinegun AC despite performing pretty well started gritting on my nerves and I decided to go for a completely different builld - that one hi power laser rifle (the one with 12 shots), the toughest shield I could find and that reserve magazine that gives 80 extra shots. Managed to stay under the load limit for the same lightweight frame I always use and tried it out.

Aced a few previously D-ranked missions and had a pretty hilarious time bullying a bunch ACs. It's pretty terrible in non-duel missions, though. It takes about as long to kill a chopper as it does to kill those big shielded MTs.

Trying to figure out how to beat the mission vs Charis with this build - that one sniper that comes with (literally) an aircraft carrier's worth of mooks. Bringing a dumbass UNAC doesn't help much since the repair costs for it alone crash me into the negative hundred thousands.

Fun level: Very

A Front Mission 4 playthrough.

what a coincidence

How so?

Have you tried kicking the copters?

I'm not even at the level of being able to consistently kick those big shielded MTs yet. I'm afraid kicking choppers isn't plausible for now.

im working on a front mission evolved video

I literally had the idea just now to maybe store that 120 ammo handgun as a bay unit. I still had a very slim leeway in load cap, if I remember correctly, and that actually might do the trick, since that would also get the +80 shots.

I must say, I'm a bit miffed that you can't switch a shield with a bay unit whenever you like. That would have made for some interesting hijinks.

Oh shit.

Both of you should post them and we could be all judgemental and shit. It will be a lot of fun.

Idk how much time Xez needs but I might take a few days.

I'll also be a few days, I'll record a gameplay session then edit it and post a video a day.

Alright guys, keep it alive. Good night.

night.

Bump

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diversification is key in ACVD. Each chopper has some pretty big weaknesses you can exploit with smaller weapons.

Use scan mode a lot.

bump.

babump

Reading all the japanese comments asking for a new AC game on their twitter is very comforting

bump

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They'll probably delete the account just to spite the fanbase.

fun things about LR's stats:

Stagger is stored as a small variable (ranging from 1 to 256) and there's some modifier on it, but very low values are enough to exceed even the highest stability in the game. It seems like a value of 13 is what small grenades are set at by default, and anything over ~15 or so will stagger even the highest stability parts. I'm guessing that it's a modifier of 1000, so 13 stagger = 13000 stability to resist.

Muzzle velocity is stored as a floating point value (weird!) and I haven't figured out the conversion yet. Syakatsura missiles (which are super slow, the same speed as the large missiles) fire at 3.5 velocity. Regular rifles are 10.3 velocity, and high velocity weapons are at 13 velocity. But the weird thing is that while 3.5 and 10.3 are a HUGE difference, 10 to 30 seems to not make less of a difference, so I'm assuming it's some multiplicative scale. 30 feels "fast", like VD rifles, so I'm guessing those are going to be around 350-400 m/s. Default speeds feel "slow" and I'm guessing they're around 200-250 m/s. I'm going to need to do more testing to figure out a conversion rate.

Also, setting rifle shots to missile speeds looks absolutely beautiful, with all these slow-moving, brightly colored beams of light arcing forward. I think I might make pulse guns a low-velocity weapon for the sole purpose of showing this effect off.

Shot spread is an interesting one. There's TWO floating point variables for shot spread, which seems to apply to the max vertical and horizontal angles that the shots will fire at. Guns have the same value no matter what for both, implying a circle, but missiles actually have different values, so I'm guessing that's how they control the firing angle of missiles. This means that for missile parts I can affect the firing angle to make them more/less accurate along with the shot speed.

I missed the deadline for the anniversary to show off a gameplay video, but I'm working on one now.

stagger seems to work like dark souls 1 poise too, in that its a modifier that affects the number of frames that you can't perform actions.

I'm guessing that 13 stagger means 13 frames of inaction, sufficient stability "deactivates" all stagger below that threshold.

I think linear guns require ~6000 stability to resist, so I bet if I crack open those files we'll find that their stagger value is 06 or 07, something like that.

So, I got into this general by mistake, but I saw this pic and I remembered I played this exact game, and how hard it was for me
I got stuck in a mission for a boss battle against the mecha on the picture
Anyone know what Im talking about? I promised myself to beat it when I was young, but I eventually stop trying
Any advuce?

The missile launchers on the big extended arms are the weak points (and also the most dangerous thing you have to destroy) but they can only be destroyed when opened and about to fire.

The game really isn't that hard (at least by the franchise's standards) but that mission isn't very well explained where the boss weak points are.

a dab of cheap thermal paste is all that kept me from playing more armored core all those years ago

ok, got it. Gonna dig the game and try it out
by pure curiosity, is that particular mission important for the story? Is not the last mission in the game, right?

It's important to the story and is one of two mandatory major boss battles to finish chapter 1. In that way, it's a noob filter and is the first "real" boss battle of the game, the missions before it are still mostly tutorial style. There's 4 chapters and 37 missions total.

Spoiler image shows the progression path through the missions, if you want to see those, but there are some plot spoilers in terms of what the missions are named.

Oh man, even cooler findings:

So I originally thought that FCS stats would be the average or max lock on, and then modified by weapons. Turns out, Average Capture and Max Capture AREN'T ACTUAL STATS. They're formulas based on each FCS's unique weapon pairing stats, so that means that each FCS has a DIFFERENT penalty for using certain weapons, even if technically those penalties are close enough you don't notice

Murex lists a max capture of 16 with an average of 12, but the real numbers are:
> 366, 14, 13 (standard)
>315, 16 15 (WS)

There's also another number afterward, which I'm not sure of.
>60 (STd)
>34 (WS)
>36 (ND)
>36 (SPC)

I think it might be a lock time modifier, I have no idea though. The FCS in last raven is a lot more sophisticated than I originally gave it credit for, though.

whoops, forgot the whole table

Murex lists a max capture of 16 with an average of 12, but the real numbers are:
> 366, 14, 14, 13, 13 (standard)
> 315, 16, 16, 15, 15, (WS)
> 555, 08, 08, 07, 07, (WS)
> 533, 10, 10, 09, 09, (WS)

it makes the ND penalty even more obvious too, looking at it. ND is nearly a 60% lock size decrease over standard, and is half the size of WS.

This means I can create "horizontal" FCS that are also WS type, instead of special, or a ND FCS with a wide lock on but heavier penalties for using non-ND weapons.

for those slow ass fuckers with shields, just bring rockets. They're pretty slow and easy to hit.

Also watch Symphogeah AXZ bros.

Mah Raven

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sweet, thanks for all the info

Now I know I was a scrub, but weirdly enough, it doesnt hurt

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Bump

bump

>garrison: archangel's magnum barrette
>switch it into gun mode and shoot them from a distance
>switch it to blade mode when they're close and do sick ass combos
godd

I did it. I finished all PS1 Armored Core games 100%, and I did it without H+. I even beat the Master ExArena and all its bullshit. I can finally start playing through AC2 again.

>Been thinking about controls in a PSP sense
>Turning with shoulder buttons
>Using a 360 controller
>Bind the second analog to turning and looking
Idiot. Dumb idiot. Stupid idiot dummy.

...

You're keeping these posts of yours documented somewhere, right? You need to keep that all gathered up so you can submit it for peer review at some point.

>tfw you download a psp iso and unrar it only to get 50 more rars

I finished GX just in time for this and it was as disappointing as you implied it was. I'll probably get episode 2 knocked out today, and I plan on watching all of it, but I have to say that first episode did not instill much confidence.

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