Armored Core V News

[NiX]

Hrm. I missed the meat of the video. Will have to wait for the VOD on ustream. =/

The Operator's job seems pretty tedious. I'd rather not do that.

I hope they get their shit together by October.

[Rexzo]

The Operator's job seems pretty tedious. I'd rather not do that.

Well depends how you approach it especially if you have a mic or not.

btw if you guys need Operator in AC5 and the server has a good connection from here to where you are I'll be glad to fill that part in even though I'm really good at tactics, I've never really done real time tactics like this but i figure things out usually the first time it comes my way

[clonezero]

wait till everyone sees operators calling in airstrikes and mt/raven reinforcements and see them line up for the job

Edit: watching the live stream and saw what seems to be an alternative to the hangar system. You can place extra weapons on what looks like a shoulder rack and interchange weapons on the fly.

hate the player keep on pressing refresh by accident

[NiX]

http://ravenrepublic.net/2011/05/14/armo...live-demo/

For those who missed it, you can still watch the video there.

---

In all honesty, I was hoping for a much slower, more tactical game. It all looked super amazing until the point where the pro demo dude started doing mach 654432 overboosts, quickboosts, and wall jumps. At this point, it still definitely looks better than FA, but I'm still kinda worried it might head into the realm of QB spam.

I'm now just hoping that it was simply a case of the demo guy having unlimited energy at his disposal. Maybe with energy supplies readjusted after beta, the game will become more grounded.

[atdsutm]

good thing i wasnt expecting a lot from this and expected the worse case scenario.

FROM is still shitty it seems, makes wanna stop playing their games.

[Mjting]

I was really hyped till I saw the epic movement with QB.

All this "tactical" play will go straight out the window once players make frames that can QB indefinitely. Why take "cover" when you can just zoom around the map Fa style?

If QB energy usage will be epicly big to the point of unspammable, great then, but I still don't like the fact that the game still gives players a "get out of jail free card" when they want to avoid a bunch of stuff(QB). It makes players ignore the importance of positioning, angles, range, and cover.

[J.E_Magog]

I agree. meh.

[clonezero]

meeh I'll only accept the wall jump if there is AC hand to hand combat >>

[Zefyr]

Armored Core is Armored Core. Getting this no matter what, am very excitedddd XD

But yeah Quickboosts should be nerfed, and holy crap hand to hand AC combat. Giant Lance for me please~

[Niji]

Courtesy of Griffon from Armored Core Garage and the crazy anonymous person from 4Chan. Much love for saving me the work mssr. crazy anonymous person. Griffon posted this on ACU just a bit ago. I have quoted his entire post. It seems like they released bonus info on the Famitsu site right after the live demo and no one noticed, haha. Whoever saw it translated it before I could get my hands on it to translate it myself. Either way, enjoy.

This was posted on 4chan.

New Info from Famitsunet that wasn't on the livestream a few days ago: Link

There are 11 categories for parts, with a total of more than 500 parts featured in the game.


- Head:
Contains the FCS, allows the use of scan mode, and affects properties such as lock on ability and scan distance.

- Core:
Contains the cockpit and is connected to all of the other parts that make up the AC.

- Arms:
Manipulators which control and carry all kinds of weapons. Each arm can hold one weapon, and the shoulders can carry weapons as well (shoulder unit). The shoulder unit has 3 types, not equipped/single shoulder/dual shoulder. (Does not seem to mention Weapon Arms. They may not exist anymore.)

- Legs:
Determines the mobility and carrying capacity. How your AC moves around greatly depends on this part. They are separated into 2 legged (light, medium, heavy), reverse joint, quad and tank categories. So, nothing changed there.

- Core Parts:
The FCS, which determines the lock distance and speed, boosters which are related to mobility, small-type reconnaissance machines (recon unit), and the generator which provides energy to the machine.

- Arm Unit L/R:
All kinds of hand-held weapons, like guns and canons. Many weapon types from the previous series has had their abilities and names changed, as well as new types are in the game.

- Shoulder Unit:
Equipped onto the hard point on the shoulder. Missiles and Rocket Launchers are divided into the standard, automatic attack and support types.

- Hangar Unit L/R:
An arm unit which hangs off the sholders. This allows you to change your weapons when needed, and allows the player to have 4 arm units at any one time.

- The damage attributes of the weapons have been separated into 3 types! Unlike the previous series, where there was only the "physical" and "energy" damage types, we now have KE (Kinetic Energy, weapons that use bullets and is related to physical impact of these bullets), CE (Chemical Energy, weapons which utilise chemical reactions to create energy, utilises chemical cartridges. Possible a fancy way of saying "explosives") and TE (Thermal Energy, weapons which use optical science to create heat energy. EN damage, basically.)

- Autocannon:
A machine cannon composed of many barrels. Can instantly turn enemies to dust with its high fire rate. Cannon-type weapons have a stabilising motion, and the screen will change to first person view. While in this motion they cannot move. Tank-type legs can move while as there is no stabilising motion. (Only tanks? So quads lost their cannon mobility? WTF FROM, why do you hate quads so much? This has potentially killed the game for me.)

- The rail cannon uses magnetic force to accelerate a projectile. Since it is a cannon type, there is a stabilising motion when used. The energy used to fire the shot can be charged, which changes the damage and range of the weapon.

- Battle Rifle:
The bazooka has had a name change to battle rifle. Uses CE ammo. Damage decreases with distance, so is best used as a mid-range weapon. (I think there may heve been a transation problem here, because the whole bazooka thing makes no sense. Why call the bazooka a rifle? It's not anything remotely resembling a rifle.)

- Missile:
Missiles have been relocated as shoulder units. Auto-tracking, forward moving and vertical types exist, along with a variety of special movements.

- Rocket:
Rockets have been relocated to the shoulder units. Are hard to use as they cannot lock on, but has an explosion effect when it hits something. Contains the ability to fire many shots at once.

- Glide Boost ⇒ Boost Charge:
A Glide Boost allows the player to quickly close distance, and with that speed is able to unleash a powerful Boost Charge. The Glide Boost can only be used when landed, and is similar to Overed Boost from the previous games. However, this can be used in all directions. The charge is an attack that's dependent on weight and speed of the attacking AC (either a kick or a tackle)

- Hi-Boost ⇒ Jump ⇒ Boost Drive
Hi-Boosting is a short distance acceleration, used for speedy maneuvers and is similar to Quick Boost from the previous series. Boost Drive is the ability to bound off of a wall after jumping onto it, resulting in a triangle-like motion. Can be used repeatedly. Used other than a technique to gain height, can immediately be changed to a forward leap to allow for tricky movements. After evading an enemy's attack with the hi-boost and jumping, then using the boost drive to jump off a building to get above and attack the enemy. By combining actions together like this, it opens a world of techniques which can be used.

- Drift
When landing, you can choose to glide along the ground. Can also turn the machine while doing so. The same principle as drifting with a car. (Not entirely clear what this means)

- Stabilised Shooting (First Person Shooting)
When utilising cannon type weapons, the mech will need to be stabilised. The camera will then change to first person view. While in this position, the mech cannot move, but allows for precision firing. If possible, the leg armor will unfold to provide extra defense.

- Hangar Shift (Weapon Shift)
In the previous series, the only way to change arm weapons was to purge the already equipped part. Now you can put weapons onto the shoulder and regularly change between weapons, allowing many ways to attack.

- Purge
Purges the weapon. Purging away weapons that you no longer need reduces the weight of your machine and increases its speed.


To recap from last week's ACV Live Event, for those of us who missed the previous thread:

-Garage follows the same style as the previous AC series, but with a full screen free-viewer, can view certain actions in the viewer (walking, boosting, weapon changing)
-Shoulder weapons are either single or dual shouldered, which implies that you won't be able to equip 2 different shoulder weapons
-Boosting is now a toggle command instead of a held-down command. (booster on/off instead of holding down for on and releasing for off)
-Jumping has its dedicated button
-Shoulder missiles won't fire unless there's an enemy around, though this might just be limited to the equipped shoulder missile in the demo
-The player can switch between battle and scan modes. While in scan mode, the player cannot attack, but gains the ability to detect and view information on enemies within the scan range. The player can also drop recon pods which detect enemies within a certain radius, which then shows up as an outline on the player's screen, even through buildings. There is no radar in the game.
-Hi-Boost, Glide Boost (called Flight Boost in the live show) and Drive Boost were introduced.
-In the HUD, the left number in the circle is the AP, right number is the remaining energy in %, and the top left and right quarters of the ring the ammo count, the number appears when the weapon is in use.
-In the multiplayer segment, it was confirmed that a team can have up to 20 players, with 5 playing a single match at any one time (4 pilots and 1 operator). Of course, it is possible to have single player teams.
-The role of the Operator was introduced. Prior to the mission, the operator can brief the team on attack routes and a mission plan with coloured, numbered markers. During the mission, the operator can place markers on the map (whether the players can see these is unknown at the moment, they probably can), view the camera from each of the allied players, as well as enemy players in range of your scan. Teammates in scan mode show a radius on the map for the operator which allows the operator to see incoming enemies, dropped recon pods also have this effect, although the pods time out after a while. The operator can also use a large-area scan with a cooldown anywhere on the map.
-The multiplayer is friendly to weak as well as strong players as you can develop strategies which utilise the weak player as a decoy or have them snipe targets while the stronger players on the team fight the enemy.
-The strongest team from a region will represent the region on the multiplayer world map, providing a competitive environment.
-Overed Weapons are confirmed to be in the game, but different from the initial AC5 teaser movie to include more teamwork aspects.
-The game will have a special edition which includes a special ACV headset, the game is stated for an October release date.
-The game will soon have a closed beta test consisting of 5000 teams of 2 (10 000 players total) in order to stress test the server, improve the latency between players, quickly test game balance and to improve communication with the community. It is unknown whether this closed beta will be limited to Japan, but it was brought up as a joke in the live show that the developers wanted to turn the game into an "international war," which implies the game will come out overseas.

Much love RR!


PS: Expect more posts from me soon, too! I'm working on ACU Wiki and Gallery and need help. I want to make the ACU Wiki more collobaritive among my preferred AC sites. (Yah, I'm an ass like that.) Haha. I won't be trying to steal members or anything, though. I'll have to explain how it all works later, though. Really busy right now! See you guys soon.

=3

[NiX]

Hey thanks again Niji. No worries about member stealing or whatnot. RR's demographic is very specific, anyway. Just let us know how we can help. It's all for the greater good of AC, after all.

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http://ravenrepublic.net/2011/05/17/armo...e-details/

Post featuring the information provided by Niji but in a more readable format.

[Niji]

This is a direct copy/paste from the ACV summary topic here on ACU. This is all of the confirmed information that I know of in regards to ACV. The ACV write-up, speculated information, and online resources have been removed to keep this post from being erroneously enormous and to prevent misleading people. I have also spaced the major sections out so that it is easier to read the confirmed information here in this post.

Everyone should read this over once or twice to get a solid of grasp of what we currently know of ACV.

If I am missing anything, feel free to tell me.

Enjoy and incredible thanks to Griffon of ACG for helping provide at least half of this information.

Armored Core V Confirmed Information

- The name has been officially changed from Armored Core 5 to Armored Core V.

- ACV will be for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 consoles.
- ACV will be released in Japan sometime in October of 2011 with a price of 7,800 Yen ($95), tax included.
- ACV will be released in North America sometime in January of 2012. (Tentative)
- ACV will be published by Namco Bandai outside of Japan.
- ACV will have a special release edition that comes with a free headset in Japan.
- ACV will have a closed beta sometime before it is released in Japan.

- DLC based on player feedback is expected to help extend the lifecycle of the game.
- Some special DLC material will be for player vanity but will not alter the balance of the game.
- People who pre-ordered a JP release copy of LRp will receive a special DLC code two weeks before ACV is released in Japan.

- ACs are now, on average, five meters tall. This is compared to their previous average height of ten meters.
- ACs appear far more aggressive and fantastic than in previous installments.

- ACV's controls have been simplified as much as possible.
- ACV's mechanics have been made more detailed and difficult.
- The lockbox from previous AC games has returned in a new reincarnation: Lockcan
- The HUD in ACV has been renovated. Much of the HUD has been removed to allow for a simpler, more centered UI. It is completely focused around the lockcan.
- The left side of the lockcan now displays remaining AP. The right side of the lockcan displays remaining EN capacity. The top left and right of the lockcan display remaining ammo, respective of the arm units currently in use.

- A form of story mode and vs mode still exist.
- New story arc. ACV's storyline is not related to any previous AC games.
- Missions will be more detailed in objectives, story, cinematics, and in visual appearances.
- Missions are, on average, about five to ten times greater in duration.
- There are also about 70 special "Order" missions in ACV, which are significantly shorter than standard missions.

- A new MMO-style persistant world multiplayer mode has been incorporated as the focus of the game.
- ACV will be using dedicated host servers for its online features.
- Control of territory is the main focus of the MMO portion of ACV. Players can gain and lose territory by fighting over it in a persistant world.
- Player controlled territory in ACV can have defensive weaponry and units installed on it to help defend it against other players, even when the players who own the territory are offline.

- Players may form teams in ACV consisting of up to 20 people.
- Only five players can participate in a battle at once. This team can consist of up to four AC pilots and one operator. It may also consist of a single pilot and no operator.
- Players can be hired as mercenaries, much like Ravens in older AC games, for territorial combat.
- The strongest team that occupies any specific region of the ACV world will be displayed as the ruling party of that region on the world map. This should help promote competitivity among teams, so they may be recognized as a regions most powerful team.
- All AC classes, AC roles, and parts are balanced with the team based multiplayer in mind, though solo play is still quite viable for the high calibur players.

- The operator role is a special non-combat role which allows one player to view a large amount of information and act as a central point of team organization during combat.
- Teams may have a single operator, though it is not required.
- The operator has the ability to debrief a team before a territorial war begins and set markers on the map to help players set up efficient routes of attack.
- During territorial war, operators have the ability to change the marker placement on the map, have access to a third person view of both their team's pilots and the enemy team's pilots that are in scan range, and they have the ability to scan any part of the map at any time with a large radius scan.
- Operator scan abilities have a short cooldown.
- Operators receive highly detailed information on enemies after a scan. Since operators are not in the midst of combat, they can accurately gauge opponents and relay any weaknesses they find to the team in a short period of time.

- 500+ brand new AC parts are available to experiment with and use to build an ultimate AC, with more being made.
- There are 11 major part categories: Head, Core, Arms, Legs, FCS, Booster, Recon Unit, Generator, Arm Unit, Shoulder Unit, Hangar Unit
- There are four major leg types: Bipedal, Reverse Joint, Quadruped, Tank
- There is a new class of weapon known as the Overed Weapon.
- Overed Weapons are incredibly powerful weapons that can potentially one-hit kill an opponent. OWs are very hard to use and will require teamwork to function properly.
- There are additional new part types that remain unannounced.
- Damage has been changed from the old shell/energy system to three different new types. KE (Kinetic Damage), TE (Thermic Damage), and CE (Chemical Damage).
- Cannons will require ACs to kneel and get into a highly stabilized position before they can be fired. This position will also place the AC pilot into first-person mode. Tanks are not subject to the kneeling requirement.
- Missiles and Rockets can only be mounted on an AC's Shoulder slot.
- Shoulder Units come in two varieties, single and dual shoulder. You may not equip two single shoulder units.
- Hangar Shift is a new feature that allows an AC to swap its current weapon with a weapon in its hangar slot without purging the original weapon.
- You can still purge/jettison weapons.

- Boosting is now a toggleable command.
- Jumping has its own dedicated button in the control scheme.
- Speciality booster movements (Glide, Charge, High, Jump, Drive, and Drift) have been introduced in ACV.
- Glide Boost can only be used when you are near the ground and is very similar to the PS2-style Overed Boost.
- When in Glide Boost mode you can perform a Boost Charge, which is a form of special attack such as the Jumping Knee technique featured in the ACV live demo.
- High Boost is a short distance acceleration boost feature, much like the Quick Boost ability of AC4/fA ACs.
- Boost Drive is the ability ACV ACs have to jump off of walls using their boosters. This can be used repeatedly as a tool to both gain flight height rapidly and to fool enemy FCSs. You may perform a forward leap off any wall at any time to gain further angle/flanking abuse.
- Drift Boost allows a player to glide and drift when they land, as seen in many AC game intro movies. The AC will land and continue to move in the direction it landed in while retaining the ability to turn around without ever changing boosting direction.

- ACV ACs no longer possess a radar function like ACs from previous games.
- ACs now have a special scan mode, which replaces the old radar system. It allows a pilot to receive highly detailed information on nearby enemies after scanning them.
- Players may switch between battle mode and scan mode at any time during combat.
- While an AC is in scan mode is does not have the ability to fight, though it may still move freely.
- ACs can drop Scan Pods, which enable the AC to see enemies that are behind walls out to a specific range for a limited amount of time. Enemies are highlighted with a special outline when they enter the Scan Pod range.
- All AC vision and AC Scan Pod vision from the team is shared with the operator at all times, granting them limited map vision without the need to use their speciality scanning ability.

- The AC garage view is now customizable as well to allow for unique backgrounds for your ACs as you edit them.
- The AC garage now allows for the ACs to be put into special positions and even allow walking or boosting in place. This should allow for very high quality screenshots.

[NiX]

Yeah saw this info over at ACU. But thanks so much for sharing it here, too.

[adiyel]

saw the ustream demo, and i must say.... i am not getting this. sorry FROM, but you all just can't seem to let the QB crap go...

[Niji]

After a bit of work trying to read some kanji and a little guesswork, I managed to translate these AC screenshots. The translations are not perfect, because of this I decided to list both the japanese kanji in the pictures as well as the translations for the kanji I think are most correct. You will need japanese language packs installed on your computer or you'll only see boxes in place of kanji characters. I am 100% sure that the kanji I listed in the translation sections and the kanji in the images are the same everywhere.

Anyway, much thanks to Renketsu0 for helping me out with that kanji radical search engine he showed me, which saved me a bunch of time, as well as helping me translate a few of these. Even more importantly, I probably wouldn't have bothered translating more than a few stats if his drive to translate them hadn't been so strong that it inspired me a bit to actually get off my butt and do more work.

Note: I will not translate the descriptions. They're just junk filler text.

Bipedal Legs (Medium) - ULG-10/A DENALI
--------------------------------------------------

AP [18,400]
------------------------- AP
防御力 : KE [1,320]
------------------------- Defensive Power : KE
防御力 : TE [400]
------------------------- Defensive Power : TE
防御力 : CE [280]
------------------------- Defensive Power : CE
積載量 [5,600]
------------------------- Load Capacity
消費EN [1,100]
------------------------- Energy Drain

--------------------------------------------------

総積載量
------------------------- Total Load
総消費EN
------------------------- Total Energy Drain

Howitzer - KO-6K/PAUKI
--------------------------------------------------

攻撃力 : KE [9,000]
------------------------- Attack Power: KE
衝撃力 [3,800]
------------------------- Stun Power
装弾数 [30]
------------------------- Ammunition
リロード時間 [160]
------------------------- Reload Rate
発射速度 [900]
------------------------- Bullet Velocity
威力保障距離 [290]
------------------------- Optimal Range
減衰率 [70]
------------------------- Decay Rate
射撃安定率 [89]
------------------------- Accuracy
弾単価 [250]
------------------------- Ammunition Price
スコープ倍率 [24]
------------------------- Scope Magnification
爆発力 : KE [3,500]
------------------------- Explosion Attack Power: KE
爆発衝撃 [1,800]
------------------------- Explosion Stun
爆発範囲 [30]
------------------------- Explosion Range

重量 [1,250]
------------------------- Weight
消費EN [330]
------------------------- Energy Drain

--------------------------------------------------

総重量 [7,330]
------------------------- Total AC Weight
安定性能 [960]
------------------------- Stability Rating
対反動性能 [799]
------------------------- Versus Impact Rating
旋回性能 [6,930]
------------------------- Turning Ability
EN回復力 [4,490]
------------------------- EN Recovery Power
修理費 [321,980]
------------------------- Repair Cost
総積載量 [5,730]
------------------------- Total Load Weight
積載限界 [7,200]
------------------------- Maximum Load Capacity
総消費EN [10,740]
------------------------- Total Energy Drain
EN出力 [15,800]
------------------------- Energy Output
総AP [37,600]
------------------------- Total AP

It seems as though this howitzer, or maybe all howitzers, are considered cannons. I am not 100% sure of this, but the reason I think this is because it has a Scope Magnification rating and the previous weapon does not have one. It seems like the designer is switching from some rifle-like weapon to to the howitzer. Since the scope stat and explosions stats aren't blue/red that means the previous weapon lacked those stats. A scope magnification (zoom-in) feature would make sense for cannons since they must be used in first person mode. Don't treat this as confirmed information, though. I could be wrong.

Yes, howitzers have an explosion radius.

The Optimal Range stat is a funky translation. The actual stat doesn't make any real sense to me. The literal translation "Power Security Range" is nonsensical at best. Optimal range was about as accurate of a translation as I could get. As far as I can tell, the optimal range stat is the range in which your weapon will do maximum damage. After this range your damage will decrease over distance. This is purely speculation from me. I'm not really even sure that the stat means what I think it means.

I believe Decay Rate kicks in after the weapon has exited its Optimal Range and entered into its falloff range, where damage decreases over distance.

Enjoy!