UFO Interception

To attempt a UFO Interception select the global intercept command or click on the base you want the ship to be launched from. The second option only lists the ships at that base, where the general list is good for launching dropships but may be a little too cluttered for launching interceptors once you have a number of them.

While selecting the interceptor's destination, world time is halted. You can continue to scroll the map by way of the controls or the more recommended centre-on-location command (RMB). This is a great way to pause the map in order to survey the globe if there are too many things happening at the same time - and if your Geoscape time is moving too fast for your liking.

• Patrols - ships act as mobile radars.

Interception

• Ship weapons will fire continuously at set intervals (based on weapon speed and range) at an enemy target as long as it's within minimum firing range (represented by the range bars) - until it runs out of ammo.

• Multiple ships (up to 4), can join the battle by way of minimising the controls while in stand-off and waiting for extra friendlies to arrive on the scene. This can be key if you only have interceptors when a battleship turns up.

• The different firing modes have two effects. Firstly it affects the distance of the interceptor and the UFO, and the closer you are, the faster the combat between UFO and interceptor becomes. Note, this controls the exchange of fire between individual interceptors and the UFO only. If you have two ships engaging the UFO at the same time with, the one on cautious will give and receive fire at a slower rate than a ship that's aggressive. The second effect is that it makes it harder to break off, and for the UFO to escape.

• When chasing a ship, if the UFO starts to back off and you minimise the window, you must wait until your interceptor starts to catch up with the UFO before you re-open the intercept window otherwise the interception will break off and will only start again once the UFO is back in stand-off range. If you let the UFO get away, the interception will halt and will only resume when the ship catches up with the UFO again - the net result is the same. The only difference is that the first method keeps the intercept window open while the other mode exits and then enters the intercept screen. There's no real advantage to this, except perhaps in TFTD when your ships are near the coast.

• When intercepting a UFO, you may want to take care where you actually complete the interception - sometimes you might have little choice, but if you shoot down a UFO over water you will not be able to perform a UFO Crash Recovery mission later. In addition shooting down a UFO (and later performing a mission on the crash site) over a sponsor countries airspace will cause increase in XCOM activity for that month (based on the score awarded), which helps keep that country happy and might persuade them to increase their funding at the end of the month.

• Also be aware when intercepting using cautious attack that there is a bug when you fire you final shots that will cause them to always miss.

• Multiple ships take a UFO down faster, and the UFO fires back at all of them that are in range in turn making each of your craft more likely to survive. Try to make it so that all your ships come into firing range at once so you can maximise the advantage of bringing them all together.

Movement

• Elerium based ships have the fastest acceleration but the shortest air time. Conventional fuel based aircraft have the longest air time, but are very slow.

• Your ship autopilot prefers to move along the circumference of the globe for long range travel. You can shorten the distance from two points by making a lot of short range waypoints in a straight line to your destination. This way, you can probably squeeze a little more range out of the Lightning, which has very little air-time.