Avenger

The Avenger is the ultimate replication of Alien technology. It is both the best troop transporter and best interceptor available in the game.

How to use it

The Avenger is the fastest craft available to X-COM, capable of reaching any point on earth within three hours and intercepting any UFO. With enough fuel for ten hours of flight, it can still patrol a bit and/or follow UFOs around. It's has a very large damage capacity (however, it receives the same total amount of damage as any other aircraft, and is repaired at the same constant rate of 1 health per hour). When armed with dual Plasma Beams, the Avenger is the only craft available to X-COM that can reliably intercept an alien battleship single-handedly without risk of complete destruction (which is actually not recommended as it will then spend months of repair, since losing 600 HP = 600 hours/ 25 days of repair).

On top of that, it has a huge amount of room in the cargo holds, enough to carry 26 soldiers (or a mix of soldiers and up to four Heavy Weapons Platforms). Due to the 80 item limit, 26 soldiers will cause difficulties in inventory juggling, so it is recommended to bring some HWPs along, or just not to fill the Avenger to full capacity.

The downside is that an Avenger is expensive and takes a long time to build, so many players find it more convenient to employ numerous cheap Firestorms all over the world, and have only a few Avengers to supplement them in times of great need.

When engaging a battleship, it is more or less imperative to send in 4 Avengers at once, in order to bring it down quicker (so it get's off fewer shots), and also to hopefully share out the damage which will shorten the repair time. It is unconfirmed whether enemy UFOs actually split their shots among targets, or whether they get to shoot at EACH X-com craft. In any case, 4 avengers will crash a battleship in 1/4 the time taken by 1 avenger, meaning that a battleship should only get to fire off 1/4 the total number of shots. To make absolutely certain that the damage is split up, you can have the Avengers engage 1 by 1, disengaging each time they take more than 10% damage. 600 damage distributed to 4 craft, which are EACH repaired at 1 HP per hour will complete in 4 times faster than the time of 600 HP on 1 craft.

An Avenger also has a very short airtime, making it TERRIBLE for detecting alien bases. You will need at least 1 Skyranger or Interceptor to perform patrol duties to find these bases.

The Avenger, for all its glory, shares the same design flaw as the Firestorm and the Lightning that forces it to return to base after depleting half of it's fuel.

Battlescape Graphics

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  Avenger Level 0

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  Avenger Level 1

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  Avenger Level 2

Special Requirements

The "Avenger" craft is fueled by Elerium-115. Before manufacturing this craft, ensure that you have sufficient stocks of Elerium in your general stores.

While airborne, the Avenger consumes 1 fuel unit (1/5th unit of Elerium-115, 1.66% total fuel) every ten minutes, regardless of the speed of the craft. The Avenger has a maximum (radial) range of 27,000 nautical miles, while being airborne for 5 hours. Its maximum (distance) range is 54,000 nautical miles for a total fly time of 10 hours. Patrolling has no effect on fuel consumption.

One Avenger requires 12 units of Elerium for refueling. When refueling, the Avenger receives 8.33% more fuel (one unit of Elerium) every half hour, on the half hour. So it can take up to six hours to refuel, and will be finished fueling precisely on the turn of a half hour.

If Plasma Beams have been fired, it will take 3 hours to re-arm, regardless of how many PB shots were used. At the turn of the first hour after refueling (measured by hour on the clock, straight up), your left Plasma Beam goes to 100 ammo. Turn of second hour, right one goes to 100. Turn of third hour: Craft drops out of REARMING status and is ready to fly. Even if your craft has not fired (ammo=100), it will still wait until the next hour (straight up) going through that last REARM phase after refueling.

Avengers are repaired at the rate of 2% damage per day. Thus it can take e.g. THIRTY DAYS to fix a 60% damaged Avenger. A Firestorm would recover from 60% in just over 12 days (4.8%%/day). However, what's really happening here is that they both repair exactly the same Damage Capacity (i.e., "hit points") per day... 2% of 1200 equals 24/day for Avenger, and 4.8% of 500 equals 24/day for Firestorm.

Service is done in this order: Repairs, refueling, rearming. If you transfer an Avenger between bases, it will still need refueling and rearming when it arrives even though 12+ hours have passed (if it needed them before it left).

Vital Statistics

Maximum Speed:	5,400
Acceleration:	10
Fuel Capacity:	60
Weapon Pods:	2
Damage Capacity:	1,200
Cargo Space:	26
HWP Capacity:	4
Work Space Required:	36