Air Combat (Long War)

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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), as UFO kills will grant experience to your pilots and provide a bonus to accuracy. Your pilots will learn UFO flight patterns and movements and therefore will become much better at shooting down alien craft. Interceptor 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.

At the start of the game your fresh pilots are equipped with Avalanche Missiles, which now have an abysmal 40% accuracy. While it is still possible to down the first Scout with one Interceptor, this is an incredibly unlikely event, and it's more probable that it would take two, or even three interceptions to bring down even the most basic alien craft. It is also a good idea to switch some of your aircraft armaments to Stingray missiles at the game start, details on that below.

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.

It is not necessary to shoot down enemy UFOs in order to prevent them from completing their mission. Doing damage to them is more than enough to spoil their plans. The damage that UFO sustains is stored between interceptions, therefore multiple interception attempts is a good idea to limit the damage to your Air Force. When a player does more than 50% damage to a UFO, you will start seeing explosion effects around it. Those effects signify that UFO sustained enough damage to prevent it from completing its mission such as an Anti-Satellite hunt mission as one example. Note however that you still have a chance to prevent the UFO's mission while doing less than 50% damage, which works as an increasing percentile chance (UFO abort mission chance: 0% at full health, 100% at 50% health)

UFO Types

UFO Type	Durability	Armor	Description
Scout	Low	None	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.
Raider	Moderate	Very Light	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.
Fighter	Low	Light	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.
Destroyer	Moderate	Moderate	The deadly Destroyer present 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	Heavy	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	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	Very High	Heavy	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	Very High	Heavy	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	Highest	Heavy	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	Highest	Very Heavy	An unbelievably dangerous piece of hardware, these UFOs never appear to land but are used in bombing, anti-satellite and air superiority roles.
Overseer	High	Very Heavy	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.

Air-to-air weapons now have two damage statistics - Damage 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, medium 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 stance for your interceptors as they launch on a mission. Aggressive gives +15% to hit for both you and the UFO, Balanced plays out like normal, and Defensive gives -15% to hit for both you and the UFO. You may not use the dodge consumable when aggressive and you may not use the auto-hit consumable when defensive.

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.

The LW 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. This will most commonly be the case for high altitude UFOs, as the fall from sub-orbital flight will demolish almost all other material of use from a crash.

Satellite-hunting UFOs can be dissuaded by damaging them, even if you can't shoot them down. A satellite hunting UFO has a chance to shoot down your satellite at the completion of its mission based on its damage level, 100% chance at 100% HP down to 0% chance at 50% HP (further modified by the Stealth Satellites upgrade), so any damage you can do to a satellite hunter could save your satellite.

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.

Lastly, there are Research and Engineering projects that will assist in aerial sorties. There are multiple foundry projects to improve your interceptors. The three consumables remain, but with Aim being built from Floater corpses (so you may want to keep a good number on hand, at least to help your less experienced pilots), the Boost device from Drone wrecks, and the useful Dodge module being limited by how many Cyberdiscs you can encounter and destroy.

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.