Air Combat Guide (LWR)

• • Work in progress

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Air combat was always difficult, unclear and even unenjoyable part of the game for some Long War players. To fix these issues, LWR has changed air combat significantly and with enough knowledge and experience player can implement different strategies, beat dreaded RNG and enjoy success. The goal of this guide is to introduce and explain how to deal with air game and air combat in LWR and turn this part of the game into enjoyable experience.

Starting steps

First priority of XCOM and player is to take the control of its starting continent and build enough interceptors to control airspace. XCOM starts with 3 interceptors, unless you choose one of starting bonuses that grants extra interceptors. Interceptors are expensive and take long time to build so it is advisable to start building 4th one already early in March. By the end end of the March you should usually start building 5th interceptor, and in the April 6th one. With that done, XCOM will have fully protected starting continent during second month in the game. Money to build air force should not be issue as XCOM has very few things to build in the beginning. If played well you will never lose these starting interceptors and they will turn out to be excellent long term investment.

Fighting first UFOs

Your starting interceptors will by default be armed with Avalanche missiles, which are excellent choice for first two months of the game. First UFOs that alien will be sending are light Scout class ships, that XCOM can shoot down and generate UFO tactical missions on the ground. It is important to shoot down these Scouts as they are important source of the materials needed to build items and research technology. You can (usually) expect 2 Scouts during March and 2 more during April so be prepared to have your interceptors ready for fight.

Unlike in vanilla game, in LWR player can send multiple interceptors to attack UFOs at the same time. Exact numbers depend on pilot's rank, and at the start that would be two. By sending two interceptors at default Mid stance, you will likely be able to crash first Scout quickly. The game has certain dose of RNG built into combat, so if unlucky, you may fail. In that case you can send new interceptors to fight UFO and finish the job. For that reason it is important to build extra interceptors early to make sure that first alien Scouts will be shot down. It is ok to fail to kill UFOs occasionally, but repeated failures will likely lead to resource starvation and may lead to losing the game.