shooting down corvettes with Foxtrots and Condors?

[henri5]

How do you shoot down a Corvette with Condors and Foxtrots? I have 2 Foxtrots and 3 Condors. Suddenly a bunch of UFOs appear just before the end of October. Two of them are mediums and others are fighters, and one of the mediums is escorted. I havew never seen a medium alien ship before. So I send a Foxtrot and 2 Condors after the unescorted medium. The Corvette goes for my condors, so I send the Foxtrot to the side and the 2 Condors right at the Corvette. The latter shoots a missile and the Condor dodges it, he shoots a missile at the second Condor who also dodges it. My Condors arrive at range and shoots a missile which is dodged. I shoot the rest of my Condor missiles which hit, and the Corvette shoots back. I have no more dodges left and one of my Condors is destroyed. The other runs away having no more missiles.

In the meantime, my Foxtrot comes in from the side, shoots a missile which is dodged then hits with the other missile, but the Corvette shoots down the Foxtrot which has no dodge ability. My surviving but damaged condor gets away, but I have lost a Foxtrot and a Condor and the Corvette is still flying.

So how the heck does one down an alien medium ship? Maybe I should have sent two Foxtrots and 3 Condors? There are still 3 alien fleets flying around and a terror base to boot, and sending Charlie there is asking for them to be shot down by all the fighters swarming around...

Henri

[GizmoGomez]

You need to equip your foxtrots with torpedoes. Making sure to have the proper timing (and it can be difficult), fire a missile from a Condor at the corvette, making it dodge, and have the torpedoes from the Foxtrots hit the corvette just after it dodges (because the dodge has a cool down).

As for a corvette with two fighter escorts, use the same method: a bait missile to make them dodge, and other missiles/torpedoes (it's small, I'd use another missile for the added maneuverability) to destroy it.

You can send up a flight to take out the fighters, and another flight to take out the corvette; damage and stuff carries over into the next air combat with the same UFO squadron.

[henri5]

I managed finally to down the Corvette with a Firefox and two Condors, but so far I have never managed to fight 3 alien fighters without losing at least one plane. To make things worse, within 3 days my base was invaded twice, and once again a week later, but contrary to my expectations, I managed to survive with only minor damage to my soldiers.

Now that I have Alenium missiles, I can send up a single Condor to take on a single alien small fighter since a single missile can take down the alien fighter after dodging. The laser gun also helps.

The most frustrating of all is when your flight with its missiles spent is ambushed by 3 fighters on the way back to base. It is impossible not to lose at least one plane, but the most frustrating thing is that each time you escape off the screen, it comes back with another battle until you run out of fuel and die. To add insult injury, a screen appears when you are about to run out of fuel asking you if you want to return to base, but whether you answer yes or no, the rigamarole continues until you run out of gas, and there is nothing you can do to shorten the agony, except turn around and sacrifice your planes in a battle where one has no missiles.

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, the "toggling" air combat, where you are trapped in that never-ending loop, is a known issue and they're going to fix it. That kind of stuff shouldn't happen.

[MrPyro]

What version are you playing? I have never seen a Corvette dodge before, but I'm sticking on v18 at the moment so not sure if they've added that to the experimental builds?

[Dranak]

Corvettes don't dodge...

Foxtrots should always use torpedos, and never get close enough to a UFO to take fire, let alone be destroyed. Here's a post with a few tips: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/6307-Air-Combat-A-How-to

[henri5]

You are correct, the Corvette does not dodge, but two torpedoes from a foxtrot cannot take it down (unless I missed something). The hints in that reference are useful, maybe I need to do more and better speed management, because for example when I attack 3 fighters with 1 Foxtrot and 2 Condors, my Foxtrot always gets shot down while it is turning around. This may be because at slowest speed it is faster than the Condors, and the alien fighters have time to shoot it down before the Condors get in range.

Also it would be nice if one were allowed to use more than 3 aircraft (i have 3 condors nd 2 Foxtrots). With 3 aircraft, it is impossible to kill a medium alien escorted by 2 fighters, because 4 missiles are required to kill the 2 escorts, after which the 2 remaining missiles are not enough to kill the medium, not to mention the other flights that are usually nearby and that ambush me on the way back to base with the infamous repeating air battle loop bug.

Although this may yet be fixed, there is a "scheduling problem" for alien infiltrations. In my present game, in November at one point I have 10 days or more without sighting a single enemy, then I am overwhelmed by hordes of 3-fighter flights, escorted bomber flights, base invasions and terror attacks, with the result that some of my aircraft are damaged, half my soldiers are on sick leave, and I am on a downward spiral to defeat.This is compounded by a bug that sometimes prevents me from putting more than 6 soldiers on Charlie (the little screen on the bottom left shows 8 soldiers, but only 6 are on Charlie and I cannot select any more although some are available).

[MrPyro]

If you could have more than 3 aircraft, then the aliens would probably be allowed more than 3 as well, to keep things even.

Remember that your fighters also have cannon; the corvette is pretty easy to flank and bring one of your fighters into cannon range while it chases the other. I have finished off a corvette I damaged with missiles using this.

[incedius420]

You are correct, the Corvette does not dodge, but two torpedoes from a foxtrot cannot take it down (unless I missed something).

I dont know about yours, but my foxtrots carry four torpedoes.

[Dranak]

You are correct, the Corvette does not dodge, but two torpedoes from a foxtrot cannot take it down (unless I missed something).

I dont know about yours, but my foxtrots carry four torpedoes.

They only have 2 in the experimental builds.

[henri5]

Wow, with 4 torpedoes, the foxtrots must be mighty...mighty!

[MrPyro]

A slight modification to the question; how do you take down landing craft? I've hit one with 4 torpedoes, 2 missiles (all Alenium) and some cannon fire, and they pretty much shrug the whole lot off.

[thothkins]

If that's the case, get your craft out in one piece...refuel...reload.. and go back for round two. The Landing Ship will be as damaged as you left it. Hopefully you'll get back in time to finish it off before it completes it's mission. Especially if the mission is to attack your base.

Note: If you zoom into the UFO combat, you'll see how damaged the UFO is, just in case this wasn't well known.

[MrPyro]

Yeah, after asking I had a look around and found that advice. Will give it a shot when I next get a chance to play; might have to go back to an older save as I suspect I've fallen too far behind the curve now.

[Dranak]

A slight modification to the question; how do you take down landing craft? I've hit one with 4 torpedoes, 2 missiles (all Alenium) and some cannon fire, and they pretty much shrug the whole lot off.

It takes either 6 or 8 alenium torpedos to kill a landing ship.

[henri5]

Problem is the landing ship always seems to appear escorted by two heavy fighters and two other flights of one or three heavy fighters. The one time I managed to shoot one down with a Firefox and two Condors, they were ambushed by three fighters on the way back to base and ran out of fuel trying to get away. Losing a plane is this game after October is game over, considering the repair time, because the alien ships always seem to appear at least three flights at a time.

And Dranak, if you are right, this means taking on a landing ship requires at least four Firefoxes (not counting two other ones for the two escorting heavy fighters), and I have only two, and forget about the strategy of going home to rearm, because as I say above, they are always ambushed and killed on the way back by an accompanying flight.

And Condors are useless against heavy fighters, because their two missiles are not enough to down one, and I have never managed to get one without losing at least one condor.

One fix around this would be to fix the "easy" level so that there is never more than one alien flight around the base, or else not to allow alien flights to ambush planes returning to base. I haved just spent half a day trying to get around these 3 alien flights that eventually attack my base if I don't neutralize them - very frustrating!

Edited July 22, 2013 by henri5

[Dranak]

Yeah, currently you need to prioritize building aircraft above all else. That should get better in future builds.

[henri5]

This is what I noticed, but the problem with that is that I cannot research the new aircraft in time to meet the improved alien ships (heavy fighters and medium ships), and although Firefoxes and Condors can occasionally pull off a victory in a 3 vs 3, they are no match for up to 3 simultaneous appearences of enemy flights.

I understand that this is still a beta, but....

[thothkins]

I think the idea is that you're not supposed to be able to get near all of the UFOs on a wave. The last wave in my game was 9 UFOs. Now I have three bases, and most of the UFOs are a little beyond my capabilities.

So, I'm looking forward to a base attack in Europe, followed by a visit to that landed UFO next door to it. Then it's off to the terror site in London. Hopefully before returning to base.

That 3 of the 9. 2 are beatable easily. 2 Will take two shots (if it goes well) and the remaining 2 have nasty escorts so I'm just leaving them alone.

[Dranak]

This is what I noticed, but the problem with that is that I cannot research the new aircraft in time to meet the improved alien ships (heavy fighters and medium ships), and although Firefoxes and Condors can occasionally pull off a victory in a 3 vs 3, they are no match for up to 3 simultaneous appearences of enemy flights.

I understand that this is still a beta, but....

Foxtrots (currently) kill Heavy Fighters 1v1, without ever taking fire if they are properly controlled. They also tend to be the best tool for downing medium craft, but yes the air balance is wonky currently.