ACE COMBAT 8 Medals & Achievement Roadmap

Meritorious Service needs 10 medals, not all 29. Start by checking the medals you already own, then choose the remaining challenges around your S-rank and Assault Record runs. A platform achievement, a campaign medal and an Assault Record are different rewards.

The official Steam page lists 55 achievements. PowerPyx's PlayStation list has 56 trophies, including the Wings of Theve Platinum. The 29-medal catalogue below is community sourced, reviewed October 18, 2026; its conditions and player techniques have not been independently tested in-game by this site. Mission-objective spoilers follow.

Jump to completion order, 10-medal planning, combat and rank medals, mission medals, full-campaign medals, or missing rewards. You can also search individual medals.

Plan your completion runs

Use this order to reduce repeated work. It is a planning suggestion, not a promised minimum number of hours or playthroughs.

Finish a campaign you can manage. Learn objectives and build useful equipment. For By the Book, complete the takeoff and aerial-refueling sequences rather than skipping them. Keep a note of any skipped sequence for later review.
Prepare for Ace. PowerPyx's roadmap reports that an Elite campaign clear unlocks Ace. If you started lower, complete Elite when ready. For The Ace, plan a full Ace campaign; use Free Mission afterward to repair missing S ranks for Ace of Aces. Do not assume every campaign-wide requirement can be assembled from isolated replays.
Collect records and improve ranks. Use the 83-record catalogue and S-rank guide to choose the next sortie. Record collection and score runs may need different target orders. Mission 16 and Mission 28 have dedicated routes.
Check medals and inexpensive cleanup before grinding. Use the tables below, try a PSM for Like the Wind, and inspect your platform's remaining requirements. Finish with the outstanding MRP earning target and aircraft-tree purchases.

PowerPyx reports no online trophy requirements for this list. This does not make the campaign medal system part of ACE COMBAT ONLINE progression.

The most easily confused completion goals are:

Goal	What to measure	Useful reference
Meritorious Service	10 medals actually awarded	Medal tables below
A Record of Rivalry	All Assault Records in the game	Named Aces and story records
Ace of Aces	Every required mission S-ranked on Ace; Free Mission is included in the published requirement	S-rank requirements
Need A Bigger Bank / MRP Aplenty	16 million / 25 million MRP earned cumulatively	MRP totals versus wallet balance
Patron of the Parts	Aircraft, special weapons and parts acquired in campaign	Purchase planning

Requirements: Steam and the published trophy list. Our aircraft reference is not a complete parts or purchase checklist, so do not use its 34 rows as proof of Patron of the Parts completion.

For smaller cleanup tasks, the Steam list also names the aircraft viewer, replay viewer, skin/emblem customization, a training mission and a matching aircraft purchase for wingmen. Yes, Sir! involves enemy destruction after the three listed wingman commands; simply opening the command menu is insufficient. All Weapons Free needs a wingman special-weapon kill after authorization. Check your current bindings and the exact platform description before repeating a sortie.

Choose your ten medals

Open Data Viewer → Campaign Data → Campaign Medals, the location documented by PowerPyx. Count awarded medals before planning another run. The database's medal entries are references, not an automatic completion tracker.

The four Wings requirements use progressively higher difficulty floors. If all required missions have Ace S ranks, those results meet all four listed rank conditions; they do not require four separate S-rank campaigns. Example: if your menu already shows four Wings medals and the three Ace kill-total medals, you need three more medals for the ten-medal goal. Choose missing mission challenges you can perform reliably rather than starting a guns-only or no-damage campaign solely for that achievement.

After reaching ten, collecting the remaining 19 medals is a separate completion goal. A Platinum roadmap and an all-medal route should not be treated as the same task.

Combat and rank medals

12 medals: community requirement reference
Medal	Scope	Requirement
Bronze Ace	Cumulative combat	1,000 enemy hostiles destroyed.
Silver Ace	Cumulative combat	2,000 enemy hostiles destroyed.
Gold Ace	Cumulative combat	3,000 enemy hostiles destroyed.
Bronze Marksman	Cumulative combat	50 enemy aircraft downed with machine guns.
Silver Marksman	Cumulative combat	100 enemy aircraft downed with machine guns.
Gold Marksman	Cumulative combat	200 enemy aircraft downed with machine guns.
Raze the Roof	Cumulative combat	1,500 surface targets destroyed; ships excluded.
Ship of Liberty	Cumulative combat	100 enemy ships sunk.
Iron Wings	All-mission ranks	S ranks on every mission at Pilot or higher.
Bronze Wings	All-mission ranks	S ranks on every mission at Veteran or higher.
Silver Wings	All-mission ranks	S ranks on every mission at Elite or higher.
Gold Wings	All-mission ranks	S ranks on every mission at Ace.

Thresholds are cross-checked against Power Up Gaming's cumulative list and the wiki medal catalogue; the table retains the wiki's medal names. Gold Ace counts enemy hostiles; Aircraft Annihilator is a platform achievement for 3,000 aircraft. Surface targets therefore do not establish that the aircraft achievement is complete. The Marksman medals require aircraft kills with guns, not arbitrary gun hits or surface kills.

Mission medals

11 medals: community requirement reference
Medal	Scope	Requirement
Tunnel Specter	Mission 4 · Elder Hand	Pass through the tunnel.
Proud Shoulders	Mission 5 · Long Shot	Evacuate at least four LCACs.
Aegis Penetrator	Mission 9 · Ogre Pitfall	Eliminate all ten Land Aegis ships.
Rapid Dragon Slayer	Mission 12 · Worker Bee	Destroy Rapid Dragon before its cruise-missile launch.
Skillful Escapee	Mission 14 · Homing Pigeon	Finish without a single radar acquisition.
Quick Weasel	Mission 17 · Broncobuster	Joker Flight must destroy every primary-mission target.
Intact Princess	Mission 21 · Dawn Rising	Launch the shuttle with no damage to it.
Land Piscivore	Mission 23 · Rumbling	Destroy every land ship.
Fire the Load	Mission 25 · Paint it Blue	Destroy all four Podarges, including the two on the water.
Titan’s Fall	Mission 27 · Rootbreaker	Use direct pillar hits to collapse a Megafloat section; see the route note. Route note
Perfect Guardian	Mission 30 · Showdown	Intercept every threat to the escort target.

These conditions adapt the wiki catalogue. Mission numbers are cross-checked with operation names in the trophy story list. Proud Shoulders belongs to Mission 5 / Long Shot; one medal list labels it Mission 6, despite its own story section placing Long Shot in Mission 5. Some sources shorten Skillful Escapee to Skillful Escape; both searches lead to the same entry here.

Mission conditions that need care

Mission 4, Tunnel Specter: the tunnel objective overlaps the Auster collection route, but a medal does not certify the ace's separate spawn and record conditions. See the Mission 4 guide for the surrounding sortie.
Mission 5, Proud Shoulders: count surviving LCACs through evacuation, not just their appearance. A finish with fewer than four is not the listed condition. Use the Mission 5 escort guide.
Mission 17, Quick Weasel: the wiki's note emphasizes clearing the opening AA targets before Queen Flight takes them. A later victory does not undo an allied-flight kill in that phase.
Mission 25, Fire the Load: the wiki specifies four Podarges, including two already on the water. Removing weapon subtargets alone is insufficient; the parent craft must be destroyed.
Mission 27, Titan's Fall: TheSlyfwor's successful retry targeted pillars directly with standard missiles before attacking surrounding units. Replies also recommend preventing wingmen from starting unintended explosions. The wiki likewise distinguishes direct pillar destruction from fuel-tank or docked-ship chain reactions. This is a reported route, not a site-verified guarantee; do not substitute an unverified “15 enemies in one explosion” threshold.
Mission 30, Perfect Guardian: watch threats to the escorted target through the whole objective. Completing the mission is not proof that every threat was intercepted.

Full-campaign medals

6 medals: community requirement reference
Medal	Scope	Requirement
Night Owl	Full campaign	Attackers for every campaign mission with aircraft selection.
Raging Falcon	Full campaign	Fighters for every campaign mission with aircraft selection.
Blazing Griffin	Full campaign	Multirole aircraft for every campaign mission with aircraft selection.
Bloody Chiropteran	Full campaign	EW aircraft for every campaign mission with aircraft selection.
Not a Scratch	Full campaign	Finish a damage-free campaign; check each debrief.
Machine Gun Maniac	Full campaign	Complete the campaign with machine guns only; MGP included.

The campaign-medal discussion reports that these restriction runs need an actual campaign, rather than disconnected Free Mission clears. Players who completed the aircraft-class runs report that the restriction applies to your aircraft, not the wingmen's aircraft. The four class conditions exclude missions that do not offer aircraft selection. Match the game's role label using the aircraft-role guide; real-world aircraft labels can differ.

For Not a Scratch, players report that taking damage and reloading a checkpoint does not restore the clean-run bonus. Inspect the debrief's no-damage/perfect result; a repaired aircraft showing 0% damage is not sufficient evidence. If the result lacks that bonus, restart the mission before advancing the intended clean campaign. This guidance reflects the cited reports, not a guarantee about every patch or recovery method.

For Machine Gun Maniac, the wiki includes MGP in the permitted gun category. Do not infer that other special weapons count as guns. Practice difficult phases separately before combining aircraft-class, gun-only and no-damage restrictions; this reduces the chance of discovering an unsuitable setup late in a long run.

When a reward does not unlock

First identify the reward system and exact requirement. Then compare the mission, difficulty, campaign versus replay mode, target ownership, damage history and the final debrief. Record the game version and what happened before diagnosing a bug. Finish the sortie and inspect the in-game award; a momentary HUD event is not the saved result.

For a platform achievement, compare the platform's own list with your campaign data. For MRP, use cumulative earnings; for purchases, check owned equipment; for kills, match the required target and weapon category. My Progress can hold your notes, but neither its score field nor a website checkbox unlocks or verifies a game reward.

Do I need all 29 medals for Meritorious Service?

No. The official Steam requirement is ten medals. Check which ten have actually been awarded; the remaining medals are optional for that specific achievement.

Can I earn every medal through Free Mission?

Do not use that rule for campaign-wide restrictions. Player reports distinguish full campaign runs from individual replays. Ace of Aces explicitly permits Free Mission S ranks, but that does not establish the same behavior for class-only, guns-only or no-damage medals.

Why did a Mission 27 explosion fail to earn Titan’s Fall?

The reviewed wiki and successful player reports emphasize direct attacks on Megafloat pillars, rather than starting with fuel tanks or docked ships. Try the cited pillar-first route, finish the mission and inspect the medal award. The exact trigger has not been independently tested here.

The 29-entry catalogue is adapted, regrouped and translated from Ace Combat Wiki contributors. That adapted material remains under CC BY-SA 4.0; source conflicts and the completion plan are editorial additions.