Appearance
Cyber-Kinetic Systems
The aircraft fights the airbase before it fights the aircraft. These systems put that fight into the player's hands without turning the game into a hacking minigame.
Related: Cyber-Kinetic Warfare (lore) · MINOZIS Encounter Design · Progression and Hangar
1. Principle
The player never "hacks back." The player defends by refusing to trust any single source: cross-checking instruments, using narrow links, inspecting parts and feeding the enemy decoys. This mirrors the doctrine: out-computing the system fails; denying it a pattern works.
2. HUD Integrity
During cyber-active encounters the aircraft can make the player's own instruments lie.
| Lie | Example |
|---|---|
| Position drift | A wingman's datalink position 300 m from where he visibly is |
| Phantom warning | A missile-launch warning with no launch |
| Fuel disagreement | Fuel state inconsistent with time aloft |
| Track injection | A contact on radar that does not exist |
| Heading drift (protected assets) | A transport's reported heading diverging from its actual heading |
Cross-check
When the HUD integrity indicator flickers (Normal difficulty and below), the player can cross-check:
- Visual: look at the thing in question (wingman, transport, missile trail).
- MADL: compare against the narrow-beam datalink, which the aircraft cannot spoof.
- Wingman call: ask a wingman to confirm (Asano is most reliable).
Accepting a lie has consequences: wasted countermeasures, a wingman out of position, a transport herded toward an ambush. Repeatedly accepting lies in M04 compromises Albatross's real network and fails the mission.
On Ace difficulty, the integrity indicator is disabled; the player must notice lies unaided.
3. Datalinks
| Link | Property |
|---|---|
| Legacy Link 16-derived | Full data; vulnerable to injection |
| MADL-class narrow beam | Limited data; cannot be spoofed; requires line of sight between flight members |
Switching to MADL removes some HUD aids (shared targeting at range) in exchange for trustworthiness. In EMCON (M09 Phase 1), MADL is the only link.
4. Honeypots
In M04 and M09, Task Force decoy networks run alongside real ones. The player flies emission profiles that make the decoys credible. A well-flown profile means the aircraft spends its reconnaissance cycles on the decoy, which reduces HUD integrity attacks later in the mission.
5. Compromised Parts
Case Delta showed the aircraft can poison manufacturing files so that printed parts fail under load. In the hangar, parts printed aboard Albatross carry a small risk of compromise from Act II onward.
| Hangar choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Inspect (X-ray / ultrasonic) | Costs Readiness; eliminates the risk |
| Fly uninspected | Free; a compromised part fails at a random moment under high G (one per mission at most) |
| Signed technical data packages (Ledger unlock) | Reduces risk for all printed parts |
A failed part never causes mission failure on its own. It forces an emergency (lost control surface, degraded gear on landing) that the player must handle.
6. Network Probing as Mission Pressure
When the aircraft is probing a network (M04, M09 Phase 1), the mission UI shows a probing indicator on the protected network. It increases the frequency of HUD integrity events and reduces the effectiveness of non-MADL sensors. It is countered by flying the honeypot profile well and maintaining EMCON.