Air battle balance

[Emily_F]

I think the air battle balance is WAY off at the moment.  I can send up three Phantoms armed with fusion torpedos and missiles (with maybe a gauss cannon thrown in) up against a single medium UFO and they usually lose miserably.  I have never won against the three UFO Interceptors or wherever there is a main UFO with an escort.  This happens whether I auto-resolve (my preference as I don't like the minigame) or try the minigame where I come off even worse. 

[Chris]

3 minutes ago, Emily_F said:

I think the air battle balance is WAY off at the moment.  I can send up three Phantoms armed with fusion torpedos and missiles (with maybe a gauss cannon thrown in) up against a single medium UFO and they usually lose miserably.  I have never won against the three UFO Interceptors or wherever there is a main UFO with an escort.  This happens whether I auto-resolve (my preference as I don't like the minigame) or try the minigame where I come off even worse. 

Hmmm. Can you post up some save games for me to experiment with?

I think I might have set things up incorrectly if you're able to put missiles in the cannon slot on aircraft. Cannons and Lances are meant to be the main damage dealers, with missiles / torpedoes as one-off utility items that can pick off escorts or break armour. But to be honest I've been knee-deep in the writing recently so I can't remember how I set things up.

Happy to take a look though.

[Emily_F]

I don't have recent ones I'm afraid.  I've attached a few for you to play with

user_day_211_manual_save-22.json user_day_168_manual_save-16.json user_day_125_manual_save-11.json auto_strategy_before_intercept-141.json auto_strategy_before_intercept-136.json

[Pawel_PAK]

I confirm, currently you can insert missiles into cannon hardpoint. I'm attaching a savegame in which you should see both my X-25s armed with 3 Skylance torpedoes each. BTW, is air battle winnable early game? I've hit the Scout UFO with 6 Skylances with no effect. Guns also seem completely ineffective.

user_day_19_arming_save-12.json

Edited July 21, 2023 by Pawel_PAK

[Novadea]

Missiles seem pretty useless overall, just set up phantoms with best cannons you have access to and they'll do much better. Also better to do the air battles yourself, selecting where your interceptors start from (I find the from sides to be most effective usually) and using the maneuvers. I've been able to take down every UFO in the game, even with escorts with two phantoms with gauss (granted one of them got destroyed when taking down bomber + two interceptors).

Eg. If you attack with two interceptors (I1 & I2) from the sides a single UFO the combat for me goes usually like this:
1. The UFO will start to turn towards one of interceptors eg. I1
2. Activate afterburners on I2 to close in faster
3. After a bit the UFO switches target to I2 and starts turning back
4. Turn on afterburner on I1 and turn it off on I2
5. After a bit the UFO should switch direction again
6. Usually the UFO will now stick to I1 as the target so start spamming dodge maneuver away from the front of the UFO
7. Keep dodging on I1 as it engages first
8. As soon as I2 is in range stop afterburners so it starts shooting
9. Keep dodging with I1

Something like that should allow you to take down even the largest UFO's in the game with minimal damage to your interceptors as you can avoid the main front facing weapons almost completely.

E: As for auto resolving battles against UFO's with escorts/three interceptors, nope, not even three phantoms with gauss resolves in victory, but they're easily handled manually with said three interceptors. So in that sense yes the auto resolve could probably use a bit more fine tuning for people that'd prefer to skip the air battle (me included, I just do it since the auto resolve results are far inferior to what I can accomplish myself, which surely is part of the point but the gap is just too large).

Edited July 21, 2023 by Novadea

[Skyfire]

9 hours ago, Pawel_PAK said:

BTW, is air battle winnable early game? I've hit the Scout UFO with 6 Skylances with no effect. Guns also seem completely ineffective.

Skylances are the lowest damage weapon, so no surprise you're not winning if that's all you're using (they're not necessarily bad weapons, but they're a debuff, not DPS). The loadout you want for dealing with scouts early is 2xmissile+gun.

Manual flying an Angel with day-1 gear can 1v1 a scout using that loadout:

 

I dodged a couple of shots using evasive roll, but other than that I basically just charged straight in from the front and kept shooting till it died. With a squadron of 2 Angels it should be close to impossible to lose against a scout as long as you don't replace the guns.

Example:

I used 'manual combat' there but literally didn't touch the controls: just press play and let the AI go. The basic loadout your planes have one day one will stat-check scouts quite comfortably.

[Novadea]

Since we're on the topic might as well give out another tidbit... currently you can take down observers with just one interceptor with laser cannon, they'll be heading one direction eg. right, in which case just start from the left, afterburner until you get close enough for your weapons to reach but still outside of the observers range, drop speed to 1500kph, ???, profit.

[Pawel_PAK]

On 7/22/2023 at 5:20 AM, Skyfire said:

Skylances are the lowest damage weapon, so no surprise you're not winning if that's all you're using (they're not necessarily bad weapons, but they're a debuff, not DPS). The loadout you want for dealing with scouts early is 2xmissile+gun.

Manual flying an Angel with day-1 gear can 1v1 a scout using that loadout:

 

I dodged a couple of shots using evasive roll, but other than that I basically just charged straight in from the front and kept shooting till it died. With a squadron of 2 Angels it should be close to impossible to lose against a scout as long as you don't replace the guns.

Example:

I used 'manual combat' there but literally didn't touch the controls: just press play and let the AI go. The basic loadout your planes have one day one will stat-check scouts quite comfortably.

Damn, got the Skylance description wrong. :-D Although, it is not entirely clear. Anyway, thx for guidance!

[Rynar]

3 Phantoms all with 2 gaus cannons are the sweet spot for me.