Talk:Avenger

It does seem like the Avenger is the ultimate craft. The only thing it doesn't seem to be best at is loiter time -- the Skyranger can patrol an area for much longer looking for an enemy base or watching an area that doesn't have radar coverage. In addition to being faster, tougher, heavily armed, and transporting more soliders, the Avneger also seems to have better fuel-efficiency -- being faster, it can intercept a UFO in less time and thus burn less Elerium-115. Being faster, it can transport a squad to a crash site using less Elerium-115 than a Lightning.

Is there any reason NOT to replace all my Firestorms with Avengers? Should I have nothing but Avengers for air-superiority and transport, and only keep a couple Skyrangers around for specialized tasks?

Eric 22:56, 6 January 2007 (PST)

Well, I suppose there's the long downtime the Avengers tend to have if you like to go on frequent agressive attacks on Battleships. And if you don't recover the amount of elerium you use for fuel in the missions, you'll end up with lots of pretty and expensive Hangar ornaments.

Otherwise, if you've got the elerium stocks to support them, there's no reason not to convert your attackers to Avengers. If you've got a supply ship farm nearby, maintaining an Avenger fleet is certainly viable.

I'd actually replace the Firestorms with Interceptors and keep a few emergency Avengers on standby - but that's only how I'd approach it if I were faced with that scenario. -NKF

Right. So the Avenger is the ultimate UFO-tech craft, but as you say, Interceptors still have their uses.

But, what really surprised me was that the Avenger isn't more of an Elerium-115 hog than the Firestorm or Lightning. If you're intercepting something, the Avenger will spend less time in the air = less fuel used. If I were to mod the game, that's something I would change... those twin nacelles with their respective power sources would consume twice the Elerium-115 per hour of the smaller single-engined craft like the Firestorm/Lighting.

Eric 06:58, 9 January 2007 (PST)

Yeah, I have to say its always been one of the weak spots of the game for me, you shouldnt really have one weapon system that makes everything else almost entirely redundant. The firestorm should have been the fastest, and elerium efficient, but a bit weak for taking on anything too tough, and of course no crew space as now (or maybe at most have a 2 man crew, so you could have used them on small/tiny mop ups), the Lightning should have been the same basically - just a jack of all trades in between the other two Hybrids extremes in each area, so it can fill in whatever is needed in an area, and the avenger should have still been big, tough, heavy, but slower that the other two and more fuel hungry due to its size, so you would really prefer only to send it out when needed.

Making the old human tech either superfluous, or having a very much niche role is fine of course, fits in with the games theme/scenario. Developing technologies that are almost entirely redundant 6 or 7 days later in some cases is just silly.

--Sfnhltb 15:33, 1 March 2007 (PST)

Damage repair rate exactly equal?

Comparing with the Firestorm article, it says there the repair rate is 4.8% per day (not 5% as it says here). This suggests that the repair rate of Firestorm and Avenger is not "approximately" equal but exactly equal - 24 points per day (1 point per hour?). Should we change the main article? Also, I tested damage on an Interceptor (100 points) and it repairs at 1%/hour, so also = 1 pt/hr, 24pts/day. Sounds like all aircraft repair at 1pt/hr? Spike 09:16, 5 April 2008 (PDT)

I must've missed the "Approximately" when I corrected the article(It used to claim that the Firestorm repaired at 5% per day, which is close enough to the actual 4.8% to it have been an honest error). It was finally determined in late October last year that, indeed, all craft repair at 1 HP/hour. Talk:Repairs is the relevant discussion. Feel free to remove that word at your leisure. Arrow Quivershaft 17:22, 5 April 2008 (PDT)

You are correct concerning the 1 point per hour: the engine decreases the damage level (CRAFT.DAT, offset 0xA) by one hourly for all xcom ships in 'repairing' state (offset 0x2A set to 2). I can provide you with an 'instant ship repair' patch if you don't believe me ;-) Seb76 07:17, 6 April 2008 (PDT)

Changes made; thanks guys. Spike 10:49, 6 April 2008 (PDT)

Multiple Avengers

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. 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. -Jasonred 23:24, 18 March 2009(PDT)

Just thought I'd move this bit for a moment. I don't think we've confirmed whether the UFOs do indeed split attacks amongst the individual ships, since return fire rates vary depending on the individual ships' range to the UFO. One at aggressive rang would be under attack more frequently than one in cautious range.

Myself, I find one or two Avengers is enough as you can rely more on Interceptors for non-battleship encounters, which would offer it plenty of time to rest between sorties, however I won't dispute that multiple Avengers will take down the battleship faster, resulting in less attacks on the ships, thus less damage overall.

Now, two Avengers is the absolute minimum if you MUST take down a battleship with cannons. Though I don't think that deserves any mention - as these are words of a madman. Mad I say! -NKF 06:46, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

I've come to the *temporary* conclusion that it does NOT split it's attacks... which is not THAT bad, as there are ways around this problem.

If UFOs DID split their attacks, it would make sending in multiple ships 16 times as good, not 4 times. Let me give an example scenario, using round numbers to make things easier

A) 1 UFO with 1000 HP, shoots for 10 damage. 1 Xcraft, 2000 HP, shoots for 10 damage, same rate of fire as UFO. Xcraft shoots 100 times, UFO shoots 100 times, Xcraft takes 1000 damage.

B) 1 UFO, 4 Xcraft. UFO gets to shoot at all Xcraft at same time. Xcraft shoot 25 times each, UFO shoots 25 times at each Xcraft. Each Xcraft takes 250 damage, total 1000.

C) 1 UFO, 4 Xcraft. UFO splits it's shots. Xcraft shoot 25 times each, UFO shoots 25 times total. Each Xcraft takes 62.5 damage average, 250 total.

As we can see, if Battleships really did split their shots, Avengers should end up taking 1/16th as much damage as they normally do... which I'm pretty sure they don't.

I think that the coding merely says "If using Aggresive Attack, make UFO fire with X frequency on this engaging craft"... nothing about having to split shots among targets.

I'm going to test this once I have 4 avengers... basically, my test will be to send out UNARMED avengers. Then I will time how long it takes a *Medium Scout* (the lower damage will give smoother average times than the battleship) to destroy 1 avenger, repeat a few times, take the average, then compare this vs 4 avengers. My money is on non-splitting. - Jasonred 01:48, 19 March 2009 (PDT)

My guess is that each interception window is independent - whatever happens in each one will behave like a separate interception. The only common thing shared between the intercept panels would be the hitpoints and the movement of the UFO should it choose to flee (from a slower ship). So when one ship is at Aggressive range (1km), it'll fight it out at its own pace and not influence the battle of combat for another ship that's fighting at 55km range. Basically the battleship will be firing at equal intervals at each X-COM ship as if it were in one-on-one combat with each one, but receiving more damage in return due to the large number of ships attacking it at the same time. Best theory I have anyway. Would be nice if we could pause the game and activate all set all the attack modes at the same time to allow simultaneous approaches to get a more accurate test. As it is, we have to account for the short gap of time as you move the cursor between the intercept panels! -NKF 02:30, 19 March 2009 (EDT)

You can reduce the affect of that gap of time by arming the avengers with weaker weapons... as the total combat time increases, that little gap of time becomes less significant. Anyhow, good way of putting it... each window is independant, only affecting the total hitpoints. Jasonred 03:40, 19 March 2009 (EDT)