Air combat help

Phoenix Point Hints and Tips
1

So air combat. I suck at it.

Tried a game in in veteran but was having problems with it. So I started a game in Normal difficulty.

Alien flyers are very tough, and I haven’t been able to win a fight. Infested human flyers I have win and lost a few.

Is the trick to attack alien flyers in a series, with several ships one after another? Or are they made tough to not attack them? Or is it an end game thing?

Also, what is the point to fight a an infested human flyer? They appear to just float there with no obvious threat.

Thanks

2

Infested human fliers will attack your bases and other havens.

3

The most important part is using the right countermeasures. The Gift comes with an afterburner. The afterburner makes all visually guided attacks miss your craft while it’s active (once you click it or press E, it will be active for 10 seconds). The first Pandoran flyers have only visually guided weapons. The easiest way to deal with them is to target their hull instead of their weapons and just evade their attacks.

4

Thanks for the tip. I’ll look for a suitable target and try it.

5

And yes, you will often find that you can’t take down an Alien Flyer with one ship. The trick is to do a strafing run with a missile ship, then come in for the kill with a second armed Manticore.

6

In short, utilize disengaging wisely and attack with more than one aircraft :wink:

7

I’ll try grouping aircrafts, though I’ll have to sacrifice patrolling a bit. Thank you

8

Since we are in topic, is there any suggested builds for the aircrafts?

I am aligned with Anu and NJ at the moment, meaning I have a good choice of modules and longs/short range weapons (including a Mutog launcher… :flushed:).

Right now, I tried double missile and Anu shell on Manticore 1 and NJ/Anu machine gun plus shell on Manticore 2.

First build is OK-ish, second one seems weak.

Any thoughts?

Thank you

9

Maybe it is time to tell that. :slight_smile:

Forget about modules like armor or HP. Most important are Afterburner, Flares and ECM (equipped based on enemy weapon setup). If you don’t have them then armor can help a little bit, but not much.

And for the weapons - select these that have high range, attack until enemy is putting your ship in danger, then disengage and repeat. If you do it fast enough enemy ship won’t heal/repair so you will just have to finish it up with another ranged attacks.

This should work until aircraft weapon rebalance, which I hope will happen. If not, then for me air combat is not really interesting.

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10

Thank you, I will try your tips.

Guess it would be helpful then to send, at least, two flyers against an enemy one.

As I am not sure if I can send a damaged flyer again in to battle…

Nevertheless, I agree that air combat should be rebalanced.
All the different modules & weapons that you can unlock sounds really cool, but it is a pity that, in the end, they are almost useless.

11

It’s a rock/paper/scissor/lizard/Spok scenario.

If the enemy flyers have slicked, I use armour. Flares for heat tracing, etc.

Some enemy ships have 6 weapons, so I had to pool all my flying units and sequenced their attack.

In most cases I would target the longest raged weapons they have and which I can’t counter.

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12

Yesterday i followed Yokes tips and I finally managed to down three enemy aircraft.
2 Pandas, including an Abbadon, and one infection Anu flyer.

I had 2 Manticores and one Thunderbird, all with long range weapons: PP missiles plus NJ railgun on a Manticore & Thunderbird, PP missiles plus Any Mutog launcher on another Manticore.
Afterburners in the Manticores, extra plating on TV.

I basically did hit & run, shooting at the enemies with a flyer as much as I could, then disengage and engage with the next.

It took two rounds of shooting from each flyer to take down the Abbadon, but luckily I had a base nearby that could quickly rearm them.

On hindsight, the Mutog launcher is quite good because it does constant biological damage.
The railgun is also very good, long range, high accuracy and good damage.
Might try them together next time.

I also unlocked Synedrion air force, so I might try their lasgun for its long range.
As it seems that shooting at distance is the key to victory at the moment.

The downside is that those engagement were really time consuming, as in the meantime I lost two havens, that I could not protect because my flyers were locked in air combat.

Overall, I got less resources from taking down 2 flying pandas than from defending an haven.
And I needed to use three flyers to do that, while a single one would have been enough to defend an haven or two and get lots of resources.

So, in the end, I am not sure if is really worth investing in air combat given the meager rewards, unless you have a dedicated air force just for it.

13

More thoughts on the subject.

Aircraft are expensive in PP, like they should be.
But, right now, to win against enemy flyers you need a substantial air force.

So either you invest a lot of resources in building aircrafts, neglecting things like base and equipment building, or you steal them like no tomorrow.

As someone else pointed out, stealing aircrafts has waaaay more benefits than reputation costs, so it seems to be the best strategy right now.

I don’t know if this is right or wrong, as I guess it would depend on individuals playstyles.

But i feel it should be rebalanced a bit.

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14

When you don’t have proper faction tech, then yes, using two missiles is what can be considered as preffered way of fighting. But when you get aligned with NJ and Synedrion then prepare 2 ships. One with two lasers. Second with two railguns. And be ready to give them any countermeasure you have.

  • First will be to bring down Charuns and finishing off these flyers which will be alive after engagement with your second aircraft (except Abaddons).
  • Second is for Beriths and Abaddons.

When you will discover advanced lasers you can sweep both laser and railgun for new weapon.

And when you will discover advanced shredding weapons you sweep above for new weapon. End of story.

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15

In my opinion (and experience) you can get both, it is about timmings and priorities, also destroying every flyer you get a lot of resources and reputation.

Maybe my videos help you a bit:

again, that is my playstyle

Edit: stealing aircrafts is too easy, I don’t do that, I did just for my YT channel

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