Avenger

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

This craft appears in UFO: Enemy Unknown. For the Terror from the Deep equivalent, refer to the Leviathan.

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 has a very large damage capacity. 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 - if necessary, though is not recommended as will become apparent shortly.

It has sufficient room 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. To get around this, bring some HWPs , don't fill the Avenger to full capacity, or get your unarmed troops to pick up weapons off fallen enemies.

The Avenger is unfortunately expensive and takes a long time to build. Many players find it easier to employ cheaper or more readily available ships and have only a few Avengers to supplement them in times of great need.

There is a common misconception that an Avenger will be in the repairshop for longer than other craft. This is mostly untrue. An Avenger that received 400 damage will take exactly the same time to repair as a Firestorm that takes 400 damage. Admittedly, if you Firestorm is destroyed, you do not have to repair it at all, but losing a ship and letting the battleship complete its mission seems silly, it would have been better not to engage it at all in that case.

The Avenger's high hit points frequently trick inexperienced commanders into making an Avenger solo a Battleship. A Plasma Beam armed Avenger will always beat a Battleship, since it has many more Health than a Firestorm. However, even though the damage might look small, it actually took the same amount of damage as a Firestorm would have, the only difference being the Firestorm might have been destroyed, but the Avenger always survives, albeit with several hundred damage received. Since damage is repaired at the same rate as other aircraft at 1 hitpoint per hour, a very badly damaged Avenger could be in repair for over a month.

Therefore, when engaging a Battleship, it is more or less imperative to send in multiple Avengers at once. The best is to ALWAYS send in four Avengers at once. Firstly,this will bring it down quicker. The faster it is shot down, the less return fire will be received. Every additional Avenger, or any other ship armed with plasma beams, that join the dogfight will potentially reduce the length of battle to one half, one third or one quarter of the length of a normal air skirmish respectively. Secondly, it has been unconfirmed that enemy UFOs have a fixed firing rate, which is distributed among all intercept craft. However, be warned that the UFOs will attempt to concentrate fire on your intercept craft one by one!!! To be precise, when clicking the Aggresive Attack button in order of Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right, the Battleship was observed to fire almost exclusively at the Top Left ship, once that was destroyed, the Top Right, then Bottom Left, then Bottom Right.

To summarise, damage received seem to indicate an average result of: 1 Avenger, solo, receives 740 damage (1 free shot from Battleship as you close in + 7 more shots) 4 Avengers, simultaneous, receive damage distribution of 150, 60, 50, 0 based on which ship attacks first. Where 1 point of damage = 1 hour being repaired.

Note that intercepting with 4 avengers at once uses up 4 times as much Elerium as intercepting with 1 avenger. Also note that, if you have a very large workshop base, it is faster to just send in 1 Avenger to solo, then decommission it upon return. Just replace the Plasma Beams with Stingray Launchers and sell your Avenger. Manufacture a new Avenger to replace it... this will take only 6.5 days using 250 engineers working in 6 workshops. Expensive (3.5 million per Avenger), but time saving.

Due to its acceleration and speed, the Avenger is the most fuel efficient Hybrid craft. Despite its size, the Avenger uses Elerium fuel at the same 1 per 10 minute rate as the Firestorm and Lightning, however it will reach its destinations much faster and return faster, thus it uses less fuel overall. This acceleration and top speed also make it the best craft to hunt down and engage UFOs. However, as with any elerium fueled aircraft, an Avenger has very limited fuel capacity, and shares the same design flaw as the Firestorm and the Lightning that forces it to return to base after depleting half of its fuel, cutting its air time even further. This makes it unsuitable (and the fact that it uses Elerium as fuel makes it very costly) for general patrol or for hunting potential alien base locations. The Interceptor or Skyranger are better suited to this task.

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. In fact, 60% damage to an Avenger is 720 damage, which would have utterly destroyed a Firestorm, leaving nothing to repair. 60% damage for a Firestorm is only 300. So, comparing damage % between an Avenger and Firestorm is just being silly... UFOs do damage in damage capacity points, not in percentage terms. The correct analysis is to compare a Firestorm which receives 300 damage to an Avenger which receives 300 damage... and the result is that they both spend the exact same time in the workshop. The only difference is when a Battleship manages to inflict over 499 points of damage in which case the Avenger spends a long time being repaired, and in the Firestorm's case, you would have to manufacture a new Firestorm and 2 Plasma Beams.

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
Construction Requirements
Work Space Required:	36
Man hours:	34000
Alien Alloys:	120
UFO Power Source:	2
UFO Navigation:	1