Now, in Ace Combat 7…the Darkstar is treated as a full on air-to-air combat capable machine.
In Flight Simulator, I’m under the assumption it is a extreme high altitude reconnaissance aircraft…just like it’s predecessor, the SR-71.
I could be wrong, it just seems silly to me in AC7, the Darkstar is making maneuvers like an F-18.
Agree. The DarkStar simply isn’t built for air to air combat.
Manoeuvrability and pilot visibility are both terrible compared to a FXX aircraft and who needs hypersonic Scram-jets to for air to air combat?
100% it’s a reconnaissance aircraft
Yup, that’s the proof AC is completely arcade 
The Darkstar lossely is based on the SR-72 drone concept which is the planned successor of the SR-71.
No armament, just cameras and sensors. Flying this thing in tight curves would let it simply break apart at Mach 9+ 
Yup. Figured as much. I couldn’t even get past the first 5 minutes of AC7. Way to…anime-ish for me. 
Ace Combat is definitely a bit of an acquired taste, and as a simmer you have to shift gears in your head to really enjoy it. I have to do a lot of hand-waving when trying to explain to anybody the main differences between the AC game mechanics compared to things that attempt to be more realistic simulations. (In the Ace Combat games, I probably spend an inordinate amount of time in afterburner to keep the energy state of the aircraft up, which is generally kind of a big no-no in the realistic versions of the same aircraft if you want to avoid fuel starvation.) At least in most of the AC games, the HUD in gun director mode for cannon works close enough to the fighter sims that I’ve messed with for the muscle memory to mostly be able to transfer back and forth.
I think the idea that AC7 is trying to go with for the Darkstar is that it’s a different version basically like the way the YF-12 was to the A-12/SR-71, where the YF-12 was billed as a high-altitude high-speed interceptor (vs. Soviet nuclear bombers) that put a large fire control radar in the nose, IRSTs in the chines, and a missile bay in lieu of the recon gear: Lockheed YF-12 - Wikipedia
As usual, the Ace Combat interpretation would end up being gamified due to the relatively small size of the maps, which would make it impossible to maneuver such an aircraft realistically, and so forth, as well as adding weapons that would be useful in closer range air-to-air combat even if the actual aircraft isn’t really designed for it (like everything in Ace Combat games has to have a gun of some sort; where you can fly an A-6 Intruder in AC5 for example, IIRC it has a couple gun pods mounted on the wing pylons).
Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I would absolutely love another combat flight sim.
There’s “Project Wingman” on Xbox GamePass, but it’s $15 budget price puts me off.
But, I also grew up with MS Combat Flight Simulator 3 and Jane’s WWII Fighters, so I’m spoiled. Heck, I even gave up on Star Wars: Squadrons (I did play the trial) because nothing will ever beat Star Wars: X-Wing.
I may give PW a try and Squadrons. I’ve gor my HOTAS One coming this Sunday and I’m planning on buying a few Marketplace items in the sim shortly after.
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