USEA Today: Voices of AC3 Development Staff Part 4 “I'm obsessed with fighters that can only be seen for a split-second.” Graphics Director / Takumi Kudō

My name is Kudō and I was in charge of graphic direction.
Are you all having fun, flying in the sky?
I'll be talking about graphics, but I can't talk just about graphics this time because there are many new challenges in various aspects.
Anyway, this time I'll talk mainly about the fighters, the stars of this game.
The shape and operational philosophy of fighters vary greatly depending on the time period and circumstances. So, shouldn't there be some change in the fighters that fly in this world of the electrosphere？ From that point, development started.
And as the world setting gradually materialized, so did the fundamental objectives for the fighter planes of each organization.

General Resource's fighters are designed with the concept of How would the forces that have exclusive control of a world where large-scale wars have not happened for a long time evolve?
For example, in the real world, in the era when the Cold War rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union increasingly escalated, various new aircraft developed at an unthinkable pace, but in the past 30 years or so, the development of new aircraft has slowed down to a crawl.
I thought about getting to such a point, where expensive new research is not conducted due to disarmament, would we continue to update old design and make new variations of fighter aircraft like with products?
In addition, how about including projects that have been hidden in the world, depending on the situation?

Regarding the UPEO, it is basically the same as General, but from a political standpoint, it cannot make its own armaments, and proceeds on its own path in the heyday of General.
For this reason, as the war situation intensifies during the game, there is an aspect that their equipment is decided by political bargaining, such as purchasing fighters from both General and Neucom.
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For Neucom, it was decided to make a bold design with the concept of "a company that favors innovation through advanced technology." The concept of Isn't it more important for a company called Neucom to convey its corporate philosophy than to fly?
A design completely different from the streamlined "Pastfuture" lines was adopted, some of which also appear in the design of the cities, inorganic and biological lines, such as those found on some stealth planes, that is kind of creepy.
In addition, the idea of Coffin（Nerve Connection Cockpit）was incorporated in order to bring together the world where they present-day aircraft and fictional aircraft fly in the same sky.
Would they have a HUD design that makes their body appear to be in the air? The core part of various ideas and story was born from here, from the technology of nerve connection.
Based on these various ideas, mockups were made with CG as drafts of the aircraft.
In order to put these ideas together in one world, Mr. Atsushi Takeuchi, who was in charge of Mechanical Design on "Ghost in the Shell," designed them。
From there, the session was repeated in a way that could be presented during the

game. In fact, due to limitations such as the number of polygons, both the staff and Mr. Takeuchi had many ideas that sadly they had to discard. After that, the fighters of this time period emerged.
To be honest, a fighter plane that can only be seen as an enemy plane or as an enemy aircraft that can only be seen for a split-second seems like a waste of effort.
However, the consensus of the staff was that in this game, the fighter plane is the interface that connects the user and the fictional world, and in order to enjoy this world it could not be neglected.
I want everyone to become a pilot flying in the sky, connected to the "electrosphere."
And if possible、not just from the HUD point of view, but sometimes from the external point of view, if you can enjoy dogfigthing while holding down the △ button, then as a developer I'm happy.
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