shooting down fighters with Foxtrots

[henri5]

Can a lone Foxtrot shoot down an alien fighter or other alien? Since the Foxtrot cannot dodge, that seems difficult. The only way I have found so far to win air battles without damage is to go with a Foxtrot and two of the other fighters. I send the Foxtrot off to the side and the alien follows it, while I turn off one of the sidewinders on each of the two other fighters, then I shoot the alien down with my two other fighters after they dodge the first missile.

Seems to me the Foxtrot should be useful for more than serving as a decoy...

Henri

[GizmoGomez]

It has only two missile slots, and one missile will (pretty much) always be dodged, so you need to time it correctly so you fire one missile to make the UFO dodge, and another missile to hit it before it can dodge again.

Since you'll only be hitting the UFO with one missile, you need to be sure that you can destroy it in one hit. So, using a torpedo might be the best bet.

Honestly, though, the MiG isn't a dogfighter, and is more suited to hanging back and firing loads of heavy ordinance at large targets that can't dodge it's attacks. Condors and Corsairs are dogfighters, and are thus better at taking out the other fighter craft.

The comparison that comes to my mind is Vipers and Raptors in Battlestar Galactica. Vipers are the dogfighters, Raptors the "boomers" that fire heavy missiles. You don't want to put a Raptor in a dogfight; it's just not meant for it.

[thothkins]

Alenium torpedo. Foxtrot should be in range first. fire automatically. A moment after it begins it's roll you can fire the second. There's only been a couple of occasions that I didn't like the angle of approach at all. Then crank up the speed and afterburner to get into something I prefer and then go with the above.

[Dranak]

Set speed to minimum, and one torpedo to not fire automatically. Unpause until first torpedo fires and enemy dodges. Fire second torpedo when the enemy craft finishes it's roll. Later, rinse, repeat.

[StellarRat]

Set speed to minimum, and one torpedo to not fire automatically. Unpause until first torpedo fires and enemy dodges. Fire second torpedo when the enemy craft finishes it's roll. Later, rinse, repeat.

Against the three ship groups you would also need three Foxtrots to use this technique, correct? I suppose the Condor could also fire a standard missile as the "bait" followed by a torpedo from a Foxtrot.

[GizmoGomez]

That's what I'd recommend; using the weakest missile available as the bait, and then letting the big ones all fly in home.

[StellarRat]

That's what I'd recommend; using the weakest missile available as the bait, and then letting the big ones all fly in home.

I'll have to try this when the game is a little more stable. Right now, I'm a bit put off by not being able to get very far without a crash. My fault for using the experimentals.

[Dranak]

Against the three ship groups you would also need three Foxtrots to use this technique, correct? I suppose the Condor could also fire a standard missile as the "bait" followed by a torpedo from a Foxtrot.

Yes, but since I build nothing but Foxtrots, that isn't a problem.

[StellarRat]

Yes, but since I build nothing but Foxtrots, that isn't a problem.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do too. I was replacing Condor losses with Foxtrots. With the new immortal fighters I'm actually going to have to scrap the Condors at some point.

[Dranak]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do too. I was replacing Condor losses with Foxtrots. With the new immortal fighters I'm actually going to have to scrap the Condors at some point.

I scrap them when I'm ready to replace them with a Foxtrot to save on hangar build time/cost. (My current playthrough is 1 basing pretty hard to see how that goes, with the idea to expand after being fully lasered/armored for my assault team).

[bullock]

I'm not sure but it seems this strategy ain't working anymore with the latest build.

I'm just starting a new game (and i'm a noob) and i can't manage to land any missile of the foxtrot at all, small fighters have a very low cool down on their dodge skill and the foxtrot's missile seems way slower than it was.

If i recall well i had no issue with older build of the game. Does that mean i need more practice or foxtrot are not fit anymore to shut down small enemy aircraft ?

Edit: build 19 stable

Edited August 24, 2013 by bullock

[EchoFourDelta]

The idea is that you use Conders against nimble alien fighters, and Foxtrots against the slower, heavier ships that can't dodge.

[ViniJones]

I'm not sure but it seems this strategy ain't working anymore with the latest build.

If i recall well i had no issue with older build of the game. Does that mean i need more practice or foxtrot are not fit anymore to shut down small enemy aircraft ?

Both actually...

A Foxtrot(with alenium torpedoes) can 1v1 a light scout or 2v1 a scout/corvette.

You have to approach the light scout approx the range of an alenium MISSILE, before shooting your first torpedo, if you shoot from a longer range, the UFO will dodge both torpedoes. (The barrel roll cooldown was reduced from 4s to 1s)

A Foxtrot is no longer useful against enemy air superiority aircraft(fighter/heavy fighter/interceptor bomber or strike cruisers)

So basicly, I use condors and later corsairs(yea I cant believe it myself) to fight enemy air superiority UFOs (you overpower the fighters, you barrel roll the bombers and strike cruisers)

This really isnt the thread I meant to say this, but here goes:

Migs(foxtrots) got nerfed too much, I agreed that 4 hardpoints is ridiculous, but they got slower torpedoes now AND the barrel roll is now only 1s cooldown. - Youre better off loading the Mig with explosives and RAMMING the damn UFO. (Im serious, it takes a few hrs to assemble a new foxtrot with 4 workshops, so I decommission the crashed one and make a new one.)

I understand that what the devs will make from this(if anything at all mind you, after all its just my opinion). They will propably make the migs take more time to build lol. You have succeeded in making the crosair viable thats true, but you also made the mig MUCH less useful.

Edit: More to the topic, to fight enemy craft with escorts, I found the oldschool 1foxtrot+2condors work best(even with only 2 torpedoes). You just need to make sure the mig gets targeted by the large UFO and not obliterated by the escorts, the ideal outcome is(based on time from top to bottom):

Condors aggro and down the enemy escorts and slow down.

Mig shoots torpedoes, aggros the big guy and disengages to one side.

Condors bend to the other side and proceed to sex the alien craft from behind with their cannons.

While condors are slow as fuck, this works much better than suiciding 3 migs, at least in the first few months. This actually makes the not long ago obsolete laser cannons useful. The more that I think of it, the game takes a turn unfortunate to my tastes, but a rather fruity one towards other strategies.

Thats it Im done crying.

Edited August 25, 2013 by ViniJones

[bullock]

Thks guys, my experience was leading me to the same conclusion about the new strategies.

It seems the air battle getting more & more sophisticated and couldn't be win as easily as i was used too.

Btw awesome avatar Vini lol I'm pretty sure aliens wet their pants when they face him on the battlefield!

[ViniJones]

If he gave them enough time for it, they most likely would.