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 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 unfortunately expensive, take a long time to build and can be costly to maintain. 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.
One of the Avenger's advantage ends up becoming one of its biggest disadvantages: Its high hit points. Though more hit points are desirable for the ship to survive battles, 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, in order to 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.
It is presently unconfirmed whether enemy UFOs actually split their shots evenly among multiple targets, or if individual ships are fired at equal intervals adjusted by the distance between the UFO and the ship.
To make absolutely certain that the damage is split evenly, 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.
As with any elerium fueled aircraft, an Avenger has very limited air time available to it. Even though this is made up with its impressive acceleration, it is not suitable and very costly for general patrol or for hunting potential alien base locations. The Interceptor or Skyranger are better suited to this task.
In addition to that, 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
Avenger Level 0
Avenger Level 1
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 |
