Air Combat (LWR)

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Rewrite Needed The contents of this article are outdated, missing key info, confusing or constructed in a discussion format. Possibly due to EXALT sabotage. Please help fight the alien menace by updating or correcting the information on this page.

Overview

UFOs are tougher, faster, and much deadlier in Long War. Along with that, your crafts and armaments are significantly less potent, at least at first. You will need to cycle your craft regularly like your soldiers. UFO kills will grant experience to your pilots and provide a bonus to accuracy. Your pilots will learn UFO flight patterns and weaknesses, therefore they will become much better at shooting down alien craft: sortie experience provides +3% to hit per kill (up to + 30%) and +1% damage per kill (with no top limit). Also, you will find that both your craft and UFOs may sometimes get 'critical hits', with UFOs being downed in a few hits, or your undamaged Interceptor immediately going into near-full red damage indicator.

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.

There are Research and Engineering projects that will assist in aerial sorties. There are multiple foundry projects to improve your interceptors. There are also three consumables that remain from Vanilla.

As you progress, each type of UFO's statistics also increase, from general 'health' to firing rates, as to keep you on your toes; so don't expect to ever truly dominate the skies. Plus with the added variables to air-interception, there is no clear-cut "UFO X can be brought down by Interceptor Y" table. As such, the Long War's UFO page will be your general guide for how--- or if-- to attempt to engage these potent UFOs.

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 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 is 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 UFO at 50% health will typically fail the mission it was sent on.

Long War mod brings back a mechanic from previous generations of XCOM: UFOs can now have full DOA crashes (with minimal Alloy recovery, and no corpses or other artifacts), so in some cases you may want to pull your punches. To compensate, the Council will give cash rewards for UFOs obliterated in flight. The harder hitting weapons have a greater chance of reducing UFOs to a pile of smelted alloys: specifically, it is the strength of the killshot that determines the UFO's survival.

According to johnnylump on the Nexus Forums,

• When a UFO lands it is either conducting a harvest mission (gain resources) or a research mission (gain research). Research missions happen only in countries with satellites -- this is an alien recon-in-force that's a direct attempt to engage XCOM.

• Harvest missions try to avoid countries with satellites, with a greater chance when alien aggro is high, but they pay a resource penalty when they do (representing a second-best, safer option.)

• Damage to UFOs, or losses on the ground, have no bearing on research points or resources gained from the mission ... if the UFO survives, it gets full value.

• Damage to UFOs in the air does deduct resources as a repair cost, which is calculated separately from harvest gains.

Interceptor Weapons and Stances

Air-to-air weapons now have three main damage statistics - Damage, Rate of Fire, and Armor Penetration. UFOs have different armor levels, which reduces the damage done by a weapon if its armor penetration isn't high enough. For example, you start with a choice between Avalanche missiles (medium damage, low armor penetration) and Stingray missiles (low damage, high armor penetration). Avalanches will be better against unarmored and very lightly armored UFOs, while Stingrays will be better against more armored UFOs.

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

• Lead position gives +10% to hit for you and +50% to hit for the UFO. You may not use the dodge consumable when aggressive.
• Mid position plays out like normal, no bonus or negative for the Interceptor or UFO.
• Rear position gives -10% to hit for you and -33% for the UFO. You may not use the auto-hit consumable when defensive.

Mathematically and not accounting for interception time, this means that Aggressive is the most efficient stance when your Interceptor aim is lower than UFO aim, while Defensive is strongest when your Interceptor aim is higher than UFO aim. These effects are stronger the bigger the difference.

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 a UFO type, either landed or crash landed, you can research that craft for a damage bonus against it in future.

Strategic Plan

• You start with the Avalanche and Stingray missiles. These will work for small and medium craft for a while until Aliens research better upgrades for their craft.
• After some time, sticking with conventional weapons will leave you totally outgunned. Next you'll want to upgrade to Laser and Phoenix cannons: Laser Cannons are built for accuracy, so a pilot can still reliably hit UFOs on Mid or Rear positions, while the Phoenix Cannon is built for armor penetration and higher rate of fire. You would likely need multiple interceptions with frequent use of boost modules to reliably bring down larger UFOs.
• Eventually, you may be able to purchase the Guass/Coilgun and Supercapacitor Foundry projects for the Phoenix and Laser Cannon: these vastly upgrade every aspect of these mid-level aerial weapons

Interception Strategy

• Choose an appropriate stance based on your equipped weapon, researched upgrades, and UFO type.
• Always be prepared to cancel an interception if the engagement is not going well for you. Losing an aircraft with an expensive weapons can be devastating to your resources.
• Pressing escape instantly after aborting, reselecting mission control and the UFO will allow you to send a new interceptor out without having to wait for the first one to fly back to base. If the interceptor you aborted with wasn't damaged, you can even send the same interceptor back mid-air and instantly re-engage, without having to fly back & forth and refuel.
• Consider aborting when a satellite hunter displays explosion effects. You have prevented the destruction of the satellite, so you might not want to risk additional damage.
• Use modules in tough situations when you need an extra boost to get the job done.
• Have an idea of how many interceptions are possible before UFO completes its mission or attempts to escape. For example Scouts usually can only be engaged twice with Ravens.
• If/once you get enough EMP Cannons to be distributed throughout each continent's squadron, remember that higher damage weapons have a greater chance to outright destroy enemy craft. Plan your engagements around that fact and consider which ground tactical missions you would rather go on.
• The aliens will most often focus their efforts on wherever they have the greatest foothold: expect Terror Ships and Assault Carriers on any country that's in the red, as the aliens commit Terror Missions in order to send a country over the edge to withdraw from the Council.

By swatting UFOs out of the sky, you may be able to keep Panic tempered down: a UFO brought crashing to the ground is a pack of aliens not completing missions in the cities, and a smoking impact crater is a mission your soldiers don't need to get fatigued/injured on: heavy weapons obliterating the smaller UFOs may be desirable, at least to avoid the 'Fatigue Spiral.' If you've managed to take by the sky for a month, you may have a easier time in the next, as the aliens recoup their losses... unless you've managed to really piss them off. In which case, expect them to come a-knockin' on your base's door soon...

Tables

UFO Types

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.

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	200 (300)			0 (7)		25 days (12.5 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

Interceptor Weapons

Name	Hit chance	Damage	Penetration	Firing cooldown	Prerequisites		Cost						Sell value
											Other
Avalanche Missiles	36% / 40% / 44%	160 (80 per second) (32 dmg/s realised)		2.0 second	XCOM starts with an unlimited supply
Stingray Missiles	27% / 30% / 33%	900 (90 per second) (27 dmg/s realised)	75%	10.0 second	XCOM starts with an unlimited supply
Phoenix Cannon	27% / 30% / 33%	360 (120 per second) (36 dmg/s realised)	50%	3.0 second	Alien Materials	15	300 (450)	10 (15)		0 (5)		13 days (6.5 days)	48
Phoenix Coilgun		360 (120 per second) (36 dmg/s realised)	50%		Phoenix Coilguns (Foundry)
Laser Cannon	40.5% / 45% / 49.5%	300 (120 per second) (54 dmg/s realised)		2.5 second	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)		2.5 second	Supercapacitors (Foundry)
Plasma Cannon	18% / 20% / 22%	1500 (750 per second) (150 dmg/s realised)	100%	2.0 second	Vehicular Plasma Weapons	95	1200 (1800)	55 (82)	55 (82)	xx (xx)	XX	28 days (16.6 days)	200
EMP Cannon	36% / 40% / 44%	420 (120 per second) (48dmg/s realised)	150%	3.5 second	Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons	100	800 (1200)	15 (22)	75 (112)	xx (xx)	XX	20 days (14.0 days)	230
Fusion Lance	13.5% / 15% / 16.5%	5000 (1667 per second) (250 dmg/s realised)	150%	3.0 second	Fusion Weapons	120	1800 (2700)	90 (135)	90 (135)	xx (xx)	1 Fusion Core	49 days (24.5 days)	320

Modules

Name	Special properties	Prerequisites		Cost						Sell value
								Other
UFO Tracking (Boost)	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
Defense Matrix (Dodge)	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
Uplink Targeting (Aim)	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