Air Combat (LWR)

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In General

UFOs are tougher, faster, and much stronger in Long War Rebalance than in either Long War 1.0 or Vanilla EU/EW. Along with that, your crafts and armaments are significantly less potent, at least at first. However, in Long War Rebalance you can send up full squadrons of up to 5 aircraft at once, which helps you handle such strong UFOs.

Players should exert caution and pick and choose their air battles carefully. You will not be able to bring down every single enemy UFO. Sometimes attempting high risk interceptions against tough targets would be detrimental to your campaign due to the highly unpredictable nature of the engagements at the start of the game. Your early game goal should be to get experience for some of your pilots and advance your air-warfare technology in order to keep aliens at bay on the battleground for the Earth's skies. In case you overreach too early, you might quickly find yourself crippled with long repair times and unable to stop alien operations.

If the aliens send a UFO and it is damaged, destroyed or lost, the aliens will pay resources for it, limiting their options in the next month.

Damaging and Destroying UFOs

It is not necessary to shoot down enemy UFOs in order to prevent them from completing their mission. Doing damage to them is enough to spoil their plans or reduce their effectiveness. The damage that UFO sustains is stored between interceptions, therefore multiple interception attempts may be a good idea to limit the damage to your own Air Force. When a player does more than 50% damage to a UFO, you will start seeing explosion effects around it. A non-landing UFO at 50% health will fail the mission it was sent on. It is important to consider dealing some damage (even 1) to all UFOs, as this will prevent them from increasing panic in the country below.

UFOs that take a lot of damage beyond their HP total will be destroyed in the air, so in some cases you may want to pull your punches. To compensate, the Council will give cash rewards for UFOs obliterated in flight. Fighters and Destroyers will always be destroyed if their HP is reduced to 0 or less (as they never crash land). Harder hitting weapons have a greater chance of reducing UFOs to a pile of smelted alloys: specifically, it is the amount of damage beyond the UFO's HP total that determines the UFO's survival chance.

Chance of Destruction =  HP overkill divided by 5

Average Chance of Destruction = 1 - 0.5 ^ (WeaponDamage/500)

UFO Shielding

In the first 3 months of the game, UFOs have special shielding that prevents them from being destroyed. In March, a UFO which received enough kill damage to be destroyed in the air will instead be shot down. In April, only 2 thirds of the UFOs will have this shielding. In May, only 1 third.

Fighters and Destroyers never receive this shielding. In June, all UFOs have stopped receiving Shielding.

UFO Flight Patterns

UFOs can fly at three altitudes: "High", "Low" and "NOE" ("Nap of the Earth,"). The altitude is a clue of what mission the UFO is going on - UFOs flying at NOE altitude are most likely to land, are performing bombing runs, or will generate an Abduction or Terror mission immediately upon arriving at their destination. UFOs at high altitude are most likely to be hunting satellites. UFOs at low altitude are likely to be scouting satellites, so they must be dealt with. Unless playing in Ironman, you may want to see if a UFO will land before shooting it down (and reload if it does not): while a landed UFO is always more dangerous, an intact UFO and it's material components is a valuable prize, given how fragile Power Sources and Flight Computers are from being shot down in Long War.

Once you successfully raid, shoot down, or destroy a UFO type, you can research that craft for a damage and resource bonus against it in the future.

Formation

When launching you can set a combat formation position for your interceptors as they launch on a mission:

• LEAD: +10 hit chance (1.5x hit chance for UFO)
• MID: no change
• REAR: -10 hit chance (0.67x hit chance for UFO)

You may not use the aim module when the active aircraft is in the rear of a formation. You may not use the dodge module when the active aircraft is in the lead of a formation.

Mathematically and not accounting for interception time, this means that lead is the most efficient formation position when your Interceptor aim is low, while rear is most efficient when your Interceptor aim is high. However, lead formation positions can lead to too much damage and rear formation positions can lead to too little.

Aircraft Hit Chance

The Hit Chance of a XCOM's aircraft is determined mostly by the aim of the weapon they are using. It can then be modified by their position in the formation, their experience, and the size of their opponent.

• As discussed in the section above, aircraft in the lead of the formation will gain +10 hit chance and aircraft in the rear of the formation will lose 10 hit chance.
• Experienced aircraft pilots will gain +1 hit chance for each UFO they have killed. There is no limit to this increase. This makes them especially effective using aircraft weapons with low aim.
• Larger UFOs are (reasonably) easier to hit. As such, XCOM aircraft will find their hit chance increased by 50% and 100% for medium and large UFOs, respectively.

The Active Aircraft

The active aircraft is chosen randomly from all aircrafts in the lead of the formation. If there are no aircrafts in lead, an aircraft will be randomly select from the mid of the formation. Likewise, if there are no aircrafts in mid, an aircraft will be randomly selected from the rear of the formation.

The active aircraft will take 50% of all shots from the UFO, which makes it the most likely to take damage when there are more than 2 aircraft in a sortie. Support aircraft (non-active aircraft in the squadron) will evenly share the remaining 50% of shots from the UFO.

The active aircraft also dictates which aircraft modules can be used (an active aircraft in lead restricts the use of dodge modules and an active aircraft in rear restricts the use of aim modules).

The active aircraft is also the only aircraft which you can tell to disengage. Supporting aircraft will automatically disengage if their HP has dropped below 25%. The active aircraft will continue to engage until you issue a disengage order.

Note that the disengage order can take a second or two to occur which can give UFOs enough time to destroy the active aircraft before it disengages.

Damaged Aircraft

Damaged aircraft can engage UFOs but will have -20 aim and only 80% of their base speed. The entire sortie will always fly at the speed of the slowest aircraft, so sending in a single damaged aircraft may end up reducing the overall damage of your sortie.

You can speed the repair of aircraft by hiring additional repair crews in the hangar at the cost of 150 credits per crew. This cuts remaining repair time in half, though it cannot go below 1 day.

Refueling

After engaging a UFO, all aircraft will need to refuel. The refuel time is 12 hours which mostly prevents an aircraft from engaging the same UFO more than once.

Combat Patrols

Undamaged interceptors can be sent on Combat Patrols. This will cost 550 credits, but will lower continent panic, alien research, and alien resources. Performing a Combat Patrol will raise Alien Aggression by 12.5%. The aircraft sent on combat patrol will return immediately and will have received 10-90% of it's max HP in damage.

The amount of effect of the Combat Patrol on continent panic reduction, alien research reduction, and alien resource reduction is based on the following:

  Aircraft:
    Interceptor: 2-4
    Firestorm: 4-6

  Weapon:
    Avalanche Missiles: +0
    Stingray Missiles: +0
    Phoenix Coilgun: +1
    Laser Cannon: +1
    EMP Cannon: +2
    Plasma Cannon: +3
    Fusion Lance: +3

  Pilot Rank:
    Rookie: +0
    Lieutenant: +1
    Captain: +1
    Major: +2
    Colonel: +2
    Commander: +3

Damage Calculations

The damage each aircraft deals when it lands a hit is based upon its weapon and the damage resistance of it's target.

To aid the player, the average damage per second of your current aircraft (in its selected formation position) against the current UFO will be displayed on any aircraft you select to join a squadron. As well, the aim of your aircraft and the HP of the UFO will be displayed. This allows for quick calculations of the amount of damage you will be dealing during the engagement.

Air Game Damage Calculation Formula:

• Base Damage = Weapon Damage * (1 - Clamp((DR - Penetration), 0, 0.95)/100)
• Critical Hit Chance [x1.5 damage] = Penetration/10 - DR/10
• All damage is randomized between 80-120%

Example of Phoenix Cannon (360 damage, 3s cooldown, 50% penetration, 5% crit, 30 aim) vs Fighter (HP:400, DR:75%):

Base Damage = 360 * (1 - Clamp((75 - 50)/100, 0, 0.95))
Base Damage = 360 * 0.75
Base Damage = 270
Critical hit Chance = 50/10 - 75/10 = -2.5 = 0%
Base Damage is then randomized between 80% and 120%
Rate of Fire = 3s
Damage per Second = 270/3 = 90 dps

UFOs

UFO Type	Durability	Armor	Firepower	Description
Scout	Low (800)	None	Low	The speedy Scout-class UFO is fortunately within Earth's native capabilities to shoot down ... on occasion. It appears to be used for general reconnaissance, resource-gathering and research.
Fighter	Low (400)	Moderate (75% DR)	Low	The alien Fighter, while similar in outward appearance to the Scout, is much better protected. Armor-piercing weapons like our Stingray Missiles will be helpful in bringing these craft down. This class of craft is used primarily for air raids and anti-satellite operations.
Raider	Moderate (4000)	None	Low	The Raider class of UFO seems to be a multirole craft that thus suffers in combat power. The aliens appear to use it for reconnaissance, research and resource-gathering operations.
Destroyer	Low (1500)	Moderate (75% DR)	Low	The Destroyer presents a much greater threat to our aircraft than its sister class of ships. Armor-piercing weapons are required to defeat this craft. It appears to primarily be used for air raids and anti-satellite operations, although we may see it conduct reconnaissance missions as well. Our analysts note the presence of unused hardpoints on some images of this craft, so we should look out for upgraded versions with even more killing power.
Abductor	High (12000)	Very Heavy (225% DR)	Moderate	Abductors appear to be much better protected than other ships of this size. Perhaps the aliens particularly value the abduction and research missions they are used for.
Harvester	High (8000)	Heavy (100% DR)	Moderate	The Harvester class of UFO seems to have one role - to recover important biological materials and minerals from Earth in support of other alien operations. We should try to interdict alien harvest operations whenever possible to slow the alien advance. These craft may be vulnerable to a concentrated attack.
Transport	High (14000)	Heavy (150% DR)	Moderate	This ponderously slow craft will be a tough nut to crack. It appears to be primarily used in alien terrestrial resource-gathering but could also be used in support of other major alien operations.
Terror Ship	High (10000)	Heavy (125% DR)	High	The rarely encountered Terror Ship appears suited for rapid deployment of alien shock troops. They appear to presage alien terror missions, but they may be used for alien research on XCOM as well.
Assault Carrier	Very High (20000)	Very Heavy (200% DR)	High	The Assault Carrier, while built on a battleship hull, lacks some of its sister's firepower and may be easier to shoot down. Nevertheless, we expect to see the aliens use this craft only against high-value targets, so it should be taken seriously whenever it is detected.
Battleship	Very High (20000)	Heavy (175% DR)	Extremely High	An unbelievably dangerous piece of hardware, these UFOs never appear to land but are used in bombing, anti-satellite and air superiority roles.
Overseer	Moderate (4000)	Heavy (125% DR)	High	This class of ship appears to be used as a airborne command center for the Ethereal race of alien. Only our strongest weapons will be able to penetrate its armor.

UFO Weapons

Weapon	Hit Chance (%)	Fire Rate (s)	Damage	Damage per Second	Average Realized (Hit Chance * Dmg/s)	Penetration
Single Plasma	40	1.0	350	350	140	50
Double Plasma	40	2.0	1500	750	300	100
Fusion Lance	50	3.0	5000	1667	833	150

Aircraft

Name	Health	Damage Resistance	Speed	Prerequisites		Cost						Maintenance
										Other
Skyranger	Can't be damaged or destroyed			XCOM starts with one, unable to produce more								20
Satellite	Increases funding and provides unique bonuses				10	300 (450)			0 (7)		27 days (13.5 days)
Interceptor	2000	0%	10			500					20 days	100
Firestorm	6000	100%	15	Alien Propulsion	75	600 (900)	20 (30)	30 (45)	XX (XX)	X UFO Flight Computers X UFO Power Sources	80 days (40.0 days)	XX

Aircraft Weapons

Name	Hit chance	Damage	Penetration	Firing cooldown	UFO Destruction Chance	Prerequisites		Cost						Sell value
												Other
Avalanche Missiles	30% / 40% / 50%	160 (80 per second) (32 dmg/s realised)	0%	2.0s	19%	XCOM starts with an unlimited supply
Stingray Missiles	20% / 30% / 40%	900 (90 per second) (27 dmg/s realised)	75%	10.0s	71%	XCOM starts with an unlimited supply
Phoenix Cannon	20% / 30% / 40%	360 (120 per second) (36 dmg/s realised)	50%	3.0s	39%	Alien Materials	15	300 (450)	10 (15)		0 (5)		13 days (6.5 days)	48
Phoenix Coilgun			100%			Phoenix Coilguns (Foundry)
Laser Cannon	35% / 45% / 55%	300 (120 per second) (54 dmg/s realised)	0%	2.5s	34%	Advanced Beam Lasers	35	450 (675)	25 (37)		0 (6)		18 days (9.0 days)	64
Pulse Cannon		450 (180 per second) (81 dmg/s realised)			46%	Supercapacitors (Foundry)
EMP Cannon	30% / 40% / 50%	420 (120 per second) (48dmg/s realised)	150%	3.5s	44%	Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons	100	800 (1200)	15 (22)	75 (112)	xx (xx)	XX	20 days (14.0 days)	230
Plasma Cannon	10% / 20% / 30%	1500 (750 per second) (150 dmg/s realised)	100%	2.0s	87%	Vehicular Plasma Weapons	95	1200 (1800)	55 (82)	55 (82)	xx (xx)	XX	28 days (16.6 days)	200
Fusion Lance	5% / 15% / 25%	5000 (1667 per second) (250 dmg/s realised)	150%	3.0s	99%	Fusion Weapons	120	1800 (2700)	90 (135)	90 (135)	xx (xx)	1 Fusion Core	49 days (24.5 days)	320

Note: EMP Cannons increase the chance to retrieve artifacts from shot down UFOs by 50% if they are responsible the fatal hit

Modules

Name	Special properties	Prerequisites		Cost						Sell value
								Other
Aim Module	Increases the duration of this air combat	Alien Materials Aircraft Boosters	12	15 (22)		1 (1)	1 (3)	2 Drone Wrecks	5 days (2.5 days)	6
Dodge Module	Dodges the next two incoming attacks	Cyberdisc Autopsy Aircraft Boosters	50	25 (37)		2 (3)	1 (3)	2 Cyberdisc Wrecks	5 days (2.5 days)	10
Targeting Module	Automatically hits the next two attacks	Floater Autopsy Aircraft Boosters	35	20 (30)	1 (1)	1 (1)	1 (3)	3 Floater Corpses	5 days (2.5 days)	8

See also

• Aerospace Improvements
• Hangar
• UFOs