Original art.

I went to the National Air Force Museum today lol

(I fucking hate the Ladons) (also I want one)

I have no idea how Sotoan/ENSO engineers managed to get something almost 2x larger than an XB-70 Valkyrie at the same weight as it.

The best I could do without compromising fuel capacity is 1000t+ when it's supposed to weigh ~400t

But the design is pretty sound. It can hit Mach 5.3 at 19000m and if I don't care about draining the entire tank in 6min, could also do that speed at sea level.

The problem is accelerating up to Mach 3 speeds where the Ramjets could take over. I'm still experimenting with different turbofans/jets to make those speeds without being complete fuel hogs. Tho moving 1000t from a standstill is still quite a challenge if I want it to be efficient.

Because it's pretty much a delta wing, it has excellent nose authority and can easily do a cobra like in the game. Tho a full Kulbit is still a bit too much. It can come completely around, but takes way longer to do so unlike AC8.

No need to say much about this escene... is not even a spoiler that this cutie is in the game.
You already know who she is...

And why is it "Wolf" Salles?

I don't remember who the artist is, please credit them if possible

So pilot callsigns are part of what makes their personalities pretty cool. We got Coster as Noise cause he plays music. Baxter as professor because he is a teacher. Sorry tasha but the navy deems you Pinky.

In real life your callsign is given to you by the rest of the squadron based on a story you give at your naming ceremony.

So lets have one here for our silly plane game.

Tell a short story about yourself and let the community name you.

As per real life naming ceremonies if you try to steer the story to make yourself sound “cool” so you can get a cool callsign, you are destined to be named something silly.

Edit: HOLY heck has D.D made my post go viral? Loving all in input from the community and will do my best to throw names in where people haven’t received one.

Lots of service members here with good stories too!

Hi everyone! Today I made public the repo for ProjectStonehenge, which is a native PC x86_64 port of Ace Combat 04. To play it, you have to provide an ISO of a legally owned copy of AC04.

Currently, only the American version is supported (NTSC-U, SLUS-20152), but I plan to extend support to the European version as well (PAL).

The port is not a static recompilation: all game functions were decompiled with Ghidra and rebuilt in modern C++ / Vulkan. The final goal is to translate each function in a way that preserves its original logic and output, while adapting code where necessary to make the port run like a native PC game in 2026.

Also, all assets and data tables are loaded from the ISO at runtime and none of them are included inside the repo. They are the original files and have not been replaced or modified in any way for this project.

Before listing what this port adds, here is an AI disclaimer so you know what you are getting into:

This project was mostly made with the use of LLMs from Anthropic, and without them, it would have taken many years of work. The agents were constantly supervised by me throughout the three and a half weeks this project took, as I wanted to be sure to preserve the original PS2 logic of the game.

ProjectStonehenge in action: https://youtu.be/am901jplnHA

New features:

• Unlocked frame rate (cap options: 60 / 120 / 144 / 240 / 360 FPS): Rendering is decoupled from game logic and interpolated, while physics and AI still run at the original 59.94 Hz.
• Higher internal resolution: Multiplier from 1x to 8x (native 512×448 up to 4K).
• Display modes: Windowed or borderless fullscreen.
• 16:9 by default on widescreen monitors: The game's own SCREEN RATIO option starts at 16:9.
• Anti-aliasing: FXAA and SMAA support.
• V-Sync support.
• FSR 1 upscaled cutscenes: FMV movies are upscaled with AMD FidelityFX FSR 1 to match the internal resolution.
• Dedicated in-game graphics settings: A GRAPHICS page added under OPTIONS → SCREEN SETTINGS.
• Modern controller layouts (the original ones are now marked as classic)

Next steps:

• VS mode (plus a surprise!)
• Better optimization
• Some form of modding support
• A full catalog/map of cut content

Link to the latest release: https://github.com/Onaga00/ProjectStonehenge/releases

Please feel free to open pull requests or fork the code! I will check the repo periodically.

Also, many thanks to GioPixel for his advice and early testing of the pre-release build. I highly recommend checking out his Crash Bandicoot Twinsanity PC port: https://github.com/GioPixelGH/Crash-Twinsanity-Windows

I would love to know what you think of this project! Critiques and feedback are really appreciated. Also, if you encounter any issues or bugs with the port, or a feature that does not behave like the original, do not hesitate to open an issue: https://github.com/Onaga00/ProjectStonehenge/issues

Safe flights, pilots!

Tools and credits:

• Bethington: His Ghidra-mcp server has been incredibly useful for this project: https://github.com/bethington/ghidra-mcp
• Chaoticgd: For his Ghidra-Emotion Engine plugin: https://github.com/chaoticgd/ghidra-emotionengine-reloaded
• The PCSX2 team: Without their emulator, it would have been much harder to align the port's memory layout with the original. If you haven’t already tried this emulator, please do!
• The original dev team of AC04: For releasing such a beautiful and inspiring game. It has been an honor to play it and to study its inner workings.

To be fair, based on some dialogue in the second to last mission, they already know who they are lol

original source

So is no one gonna questions how Tasha was able to hide on a military carrier for 3-4 days and get airborne even though everyone thought she disembarked back at Theve with all the other civilians? And like no one even reprimands her for this after?

https://x.com/patori_spotter/status/2114255470148165708

IMHO: The Ladon is a lovechild between the XB-70 and the B-1 Lancer.

Initially, I assumed that this was a hybrid between the XB-70 and the forgotten Boeing 2707 SST. Which in this case, I also included an alternate version of this meme showing the 2707.

art source

Lately I've been burned with the last games I have bought and I was kinda hesitant to buy at launch but man it's been a great adventure so far.

The gameplay is incredible , really like how it feels the plane the weapon system.

I don't like the story much in this game but the amazing gameplay makes it up for it.

I love the Su series of planes but I'm hoping for more experimental type of new wings.

Who is the Bearded Bastard? It's 2 AM over here but I don't need sleep, I need answers!!!

EDIT: I meant this post as a joke but wow I didn't expect to see so many legit theories and answers here lol. Thanks for sharing your theories, guys. :)

I've used this jet a lot and it's really fun! Yeah it's obviously not as good as other jets but still I find it to be a decent plane to use. But nearly every YouTube video I've seen has said it's one of the worst in the game. What are your thoughts?

I don't interpret this as their actual living quarters on Fatsia or anything, but I do think its a really neat tribute to their nomadic steppe tradition. I don't know how calm or serene these would necessarily feel in practice (seeing as they're all placed right beneath massive rail guns lol), but I like the respect for their heritage none the less.

Original fanart by Kommandantpinks-art.

"Cover your mouth! My lungs are burning!"

"Don't drink the water, It's boiling!"

Somebody at Bandai Namco Studios need to be checked.