Unmentioned Previously Aircraft Warfare Tactics

[EclipseDog]

* Twin weapons (The same weapon mounted on both wings) always fires in a single burst, whereas weapons that are different will fire independantly of each other.

 

* In cautious attack mode, your fighter moves to the outer edge needed to shoot using whichever weapon has the farthest range of the two, then after all ammo is used up for that arm, it moves in to the second one.

 

* Using that knowledge, a fighter can have one arm mounting an avalanche while the other mounts a plasma cannon. This makes your fighter hover at 60 km to shoot the 3 ava missiles, perfect for your smaller craft with less chance of insta-killing every one, then finally moves in to plasma range to finish off bigger game.

 

* Upon reaching 0 ammo for both arms the fighter will immediately return to the standoff position, where it is safe from UFO attacks.

 

-=- Now I'm going to add 2 old airwarfare bits of info, since my last new one builds upon them.

 

A) UFO's only can fire at one ship at a time and will only fire once per ship before switching to the next target in order.

 

B) UFO reloads take time and does not start from scratch with each new craft it fires upon.

 

* Using that knowledge listed above a fullproof tactic can be waged against even the toughest of battleship gunnery crews, while not allowing a single Avenger to be damaged or destroyed. It requires multiple decoys/scrap metal (ie: empty skyrangers are ideal) and the use of the standoff breaking off alien return fire. It also will only work with the 1-weapon skyrangers found in the xcom alterring utility, otherwise you will have to replace the skyrangers with some other aircraft instead.

 

Once you have an Avenger and multiple skyrangers in standoff, have one sky attack in cautious (avalanche or similar long distance weap is best), followed immeditately by your Avenger in cautious.. They each take one shot while letting the battle take one shot at the skyranger before withdrawing back to standoff.

 

Once all are in standby mode again, attack again with a skyranger (a different one if it got damaged at all last time) and the avenger following immediately in its tracks. Again each takes one shot while the battle takes one shot again... at the skyranger even if it is the same one from last time... leaving your Avenger unharmed. Again withdraw to standby.

 

Repeat that last paragraph again (over and over again until the battle is down or you run out of scrap metal) but this with a different skyranger if the last got damaged... always use your least damaged skyranger since a repair bill is a lot cheaper than a whole new plane.

 

Now it's possible that this only worked in my version I suppose but that wouldn't make any sense logically... but just in case I would test this out in an experimental test directory before using that scheme in any game you care about, just in case through some flook it won't work on other's machines that it won't inconvenience anyone who used it.

[cyrus]

* Twin weapons (The same weapon mounted on both wings) always fires in a single burst, whereas weapons that are different will fire independantly of each other.

That's because each weapon has it's own rate of fire, so for the same weapons this rate will be the same and the shots will go off simultaneously. This can be exploited to increase the chances of hitting UFO before it will escape (when fighting with Interceptors). Also, I've used that to bring down even large UFOs with single Interceptor (well, in fact two in a row and they never got shot because the range of Avalanche is greater than that of an alien weapon, mounted on the large UFOs (but not the battleships - haven't yet figured what was this type)).

 

It also will only work with the 1-weapon skyrangers found in the xcom alterring utility, otherwise you will have to replace the skyrangers with some other aircraft instead.

I think, it will work with normal Skyrangers also. You should switch to aggressive with the Sky and it will try to get as close as possible to the UFO. Meanwhile, attack with your Avenger, then retreat both crafts to the safe distance. Skys can be replaced by Firestorms though it takes far more time to repair Fire.

 

Well, actually I haven't used that tactic, but instead attacked simultaneously by 3-4 crafts. In TFTD, I was able to bring down the large USO with 3 Barracudas (this USO had long range weapons that outranged even the DUPpers).

[NKF]

Actually, you could substitute the XComutil Skyrangers for plain Lightnings. The Lightning has one weapon hardpoint, and is the next ship with the best armour and hull hit points from the Avenger - though it lacks the acceleration of the firestorms. On the other hand, while it lacks the reach, it can still get about rather swiftly and intercept nearby UFOs, which is a bit more difficult with the ol' reliables.

 

By the way, you may want to note that when the interceptor spends all of its rockets (a problem with the avalanche, mainly) and it decides to return to stand-off range, the last rocket will not have reached the UFO yet, and by pulling out of range, the rocket will never reach its target. A brief display of agression can help.

 

- NKF

[EclipseDog]

Cy -

 

Yes, it'll work like that... however going into aggressive almost assures that at least one of your skys is going to go down since it'll be so close that the battleship will get a second shot off before it leaves range.

 

As for the reason for the multiple shots coming at once, yep, I knew that but tried to cut down on the amount of words in my post since I was running late. I figured stating they always fire together was enough said but thanks for giving the explanation in case anyone was confused as to why it did work.

 

NKF -

 

Yeah, but the Lightnings use up Elerium plus if the battleship kills them it hurts a lot more than if it kills a Skyranger which can be replaced in three days without any wait to build it, which also would prevent you from building something else. So you'd either need to use an Interceptor or a Skyranger and a Skyranger is far more likely to survive a single shot of the two plus can stay up in the air long enough for every ship to home in on their target.

 

As for the rocket problem, agreed. The thing is that I've found that leaving the skyranger or even the interceptor in range until that missile hits allows the battle to get a second or even a third shot off before your ship returns to safety range due to their slower speed and acceleration, especially if the battle attempts to chase... which will virtually doom those ancient pair. That's why I basically use the rockets on the skyranger not for actual damage but just as a decoy tactic in this scheme I mentioned. If you actually want them to do damage it probably would be smarter to use something like a plasma cannon but then you'll be close enough that the battle will probably get several shots in while you maneuver in, fire, retreat. At least 3 shots in that time range I'd imagine...

[Stewart]

4 interceptors armed with dual Fusion balls will smash a battleship if they stack and attack together. The likely result is the loss of one interceptor. You can lose two but it's rare and more than once I have lost none but that is also rare.

[cyrus]

Yes, it'll work like that... however going into aggressive almost assures that at least one of your skys is going to go down since it'll be so close that the battleship will get a second shot off before it leaves range.

When I said about switching the Sky to aggressive, I hadn't ment going all the way down the enemy. I'd just said that it will TRY to close. And when the Avenger has fired it's shot, you can retreat with that Sky. In this manner the Sky will behave as it has a weapon (well, if it get to close just hit retreat, then aggressive again and so on - just hang around the hypothetical firing range of the Sky weapon).