Overview:
Estimated achievement difficulty: 4/10
Offline: 22/36 (630/1000)
Online: 14/36 (370/1000)
Approximate amount of time to 1000: 8-10 hours
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1, but 2 is recommended to avoid frustration.
Missable achievements: None
Does difficulty affect achievements?: Yes
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: None
Extra equipment needed?: None
Introduction:
Jane's Advanced Strike Fighters is an arcade style flight simulator that licenses its aircraft information from Jane's Information Group, publishers of world military capability books such as Jane's Fighting Ships and Jane's Fighter Aircraft. While much about the aircraft look very genuine, there are odd glitches such as the lack of cockpit glass that detract from the experience. Also, as an arcade simulator, you never run out of gas or ammunition, so the realism factor is not really there. Overall, however, for a reasonably well done experience with no glitches, this is well worth playing.
Abbreviated Walkthrough:
If you have a co-op partner, you can likely start on Hard and simply play through the campaign that way. However, most likely you will be playing solo so start on Easy and simply get to the end of the campaign so that you unlock the PAK-FA with Swarm, Eagle, and Wyrm missiles. This gives you stand off combat capability against ground targets with the Wyrm missiles and against air targets with the Eagle missiles. For close combat you have the Swarm and your cannon, plus the PAK-FA is fast, stealthy, agile, and well armored, and is arguably the best plane in the game. The F-22A Raptor is almost as good, but lacks the long range anti-air capabilities of the PAK-FA. At the end of your Easy playthrough you should have at least 10 achievements for 280 , and possibly 100-200 more. This should take roughly four hours.
Now, play the game on hard using the PAK-FA. Most missions do not have a time element, so you can fire from maximum range and then turn away to let your missiles regenerate without ever having to get in range of the enemy. This makes most missions much easier. If you do happen to lose a mission, the checkpoints are pretty generous and you can retry without penalty. This will unlock two achievements for 110 , and should take 2-2.5 hours.
Cooperative Mode:
There are three achievements that require a second player to assist you in cooperative mode. This must be done over Xbox Live as there is no support for split-screen. You must host a mission ("Blitzkrieg"), be a guest in a mission ("Teamblitz"), and kill an enemy locked onto your partner ("Be My Wingman"). This should take less than 30 minutes.
Multiplayer:
There are 11 online multiplayer achievements, all of which can be unlocked with a single partner. The 11 take about 60-90 minutes to earn, so roughly three hours if both you and your partner need them. When creating the multiplayer matches, always set the victory conditions to the lowest points possible, matches to one, and the respawn timer to 5 seconds. This will speed up the multiplayer considerably from the default settings.
Mop-Up:
Now it is time to mop up any single player campaign achievements you didn't unlock through normal gameplay, such as completing a mission with only using your cannons, completing a mission without taking damage, etc. Check the individual achievements to see how best to unlock them.
Conclusion:
This is a reasonably easy 1000 with no glitched achievements. The campaign is not unreasonably difficult, and since it can be done in co-op there is help available if you do end up getting stuck at some point.
[x360a would like to thank Creech for this Roadmap]