Craft Armaments
Interception craft would be useless if they had no means of neutralising enemy aircraft. To this end, there are a number of craft armaments, or craft weapons, that you can be fit to interception craft for use in combat. Some of these weapons are immediately available to you to purchase, others have to be researched and manufactured in your workshops.
The weapons systems that can be purchased throughout the course of your conflict with the alien menace are:
The weapons that can be manufactured after you have researched them are:
Quick Comparison Table
| Armament | Damage | Range (km) | Accuracy | Reload Time (gs) | Shots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cannon | 10 | 10 | 25% | 2 | 200 |
| Stingray | 70 | 30 | 70% | 16/24/32 | 6 |
| Avalanche | 100 | 60 | 80% | 24/36/48 | 3 |
| Laser Cannon | 70 | 21 | 35% | 12 | 99 |
| Plasma Beam | 140 | 52 | 50% | 12 | 100 |
| Fusion Ball Launcher | 230 | 65 | 100% | 16/24/32 | 2 |
gs = game seconds
Reload Time for launched weapons is given as Aggressive/Standard/Cautious
For all weapons the stated nominal Reload Time is the minimum (fastest). Maximum (slowest) is 2x nominal. Average is 1.5x nominal. Alternatively, if you take the Standard reload time as the base, Aggressive is 1/3 faster and Cautious is 1/3 slower.
As a general guide to the available weapons, 70km is the standoff range when you first get the dogfight screen (the maximum range on the screen is 75km). If a weapon has close to 70km range the weapon will start firing soon after you press cautious attack, where weapons with around 30km range will require you to close in quite a lot. These ranges are also shown graphically on the interception screen.
See Weapons vs. UFOs for advice on which armaments to use against which UFOs. To summarise: Use Avalanche Missiles against Medium or smaller enemies and use 2 interceptors with Avalanche Missiles against Terror Ships, until you get Plasma Beams. Thereafter, stick to Plasma Beams. If attacking Battleships with Interceptors, use Fusion Ball Launchers if available, to reduce casualties.
Note that the Accuracies given in the in-game UFOPaedia are incorrect; two independent code digs have confirmed these are the correct accuracies for the craft weaponry. Similarly the UFOPaedia reload times are wrong; the times here are taken from empirical measurement, though based on the assumption that the nominal Cannon reload time really is 2gs.
