XCOM Long War - UFO Response Guide

In XCOM: Long War, you don't have the luxury of shooting down every UFO. This short guide will tell you when to shoot, when to wait, and when to run away.

Feel free to skip to Choose the Response section instead of reading the rest of this guide. If this guide is helpful, please vote it up.

Purpose of the Guide

In XCOM: Long War, you will be attacked by many UFOs. You do not have enough Interceptors or powerful enough weapons to attack all of them, much less actually kill them all. This short guide will help you determine when to engage, how long to fight, and when to ignore.

This guide applies to XCOM with the Long War mod, for players in the early and midgame with normal Interceptors equipped with starting weapons and/or Lasers.

You don't have enough ships to attack everything!

Identify the Attack

When a UFO is spotted. your sensors will detect it's size and the height at which it is flying. Additionally, you may recognize it's type. Using this information, you can determine the UFO's likely mission and your appropriate response.

The heights are High, Low, and Nap of the Earth (NoE).
The sizes and types are:
Small: Scout, Fighter
Medium: Raider, Destroyer, Overseer
Large: Abductor, Harvester, Transport, Terror Ship
Very Large: Battleship, Assault Carrier

If your senors do not tell you what type of ship it is, you can also see by engaging the ship and matching it against these images[ufopaedia.org].

A Scout flying Low over Argentina? Bad news - he's going to send a Hunter after my satellite!



A large ship of unknown type coming in Nap of the Earth? I hope all my Assaults are rested up!

Choose the Response

UFOs come buzzing by with a variety of intents. If a craft intends to land, you can choose to allow it to do so without engaging it. You had better be ready to assault it! But you can save your precious Interceptors for those UFOs which are not landing, and must be shot down.

This table tells you what to do when a UFO is sighted. If possible, bring the indicated weapon type to improve your chances of a successful attack.

The text synopsis is as follows:

• Always attack small or medium aircraft that are flying high. Hitting them to 50% health is good enough. 50% health is indicated by little explosion graphics appearing around their ship.
  
• Always attack small or medium aircraft that are flying low.
  
• Attack fighters and destroyers that are flying low, or they will bomb and create terror.
  
• Ignore everyone else. They are either going to land and you can foil their mission tactically, or they are too large to waste Interceptors that would never shoot them down.

The spreadsheet is maintained as a Google Doc here[docs.google.com].

Mission Details

The table shown above tells you what you need to do. This section will tell you why. This content is taken directly from the fine folks at UFOpaedia[ufopaedia.org].

Note that a UFO that is damaged in flight has a chance to fail it's mission, based mainly on the damage you dealt to it. Here are the specifics for the missions.

Research Mission:
A Scout, Raider, Abductor or Terror Ship will land for a while and then fly off. This mission will grant the aliens research if successful. Expect dozens of high-level aliens, even packed into the tiny Scout, especially if you allowed it to land for maximum artifact retrieval.

Scouting Mission
A Scout, Raider, or Battleship will fly around the target area. Successful scouting missions will spawn a satellite hunt mission over the target country.

Harvest Mission
A Transport, Harvester, Raider or Scout will land. An unimpeded mission grants the aliens resources.

Hunt Mission
A Fighter, Raider, Destroyer, or Battleship will fly at high altitude over a satellite-covered country. This mission will destroy the satellite if successful. Damaging the UFO will reduce this chance further, with 50% or less HP leading to an automatic failure.

Bomb Mission
A Fighter, Destroyer or Battleship will fly around the target area bombing civilians. This mission will cause a lot of panic if successful. Damaging the UFO will reduce the amount of panic created at the end of its mission.

Abduction Mission
An Abductor will fly to the target area and generate an Abduction site. A successful abduction will increase panic in the country by 25, and panic across the continent by 20 (in all difficulties but normal). Thwarting the abduction will decrease panic in the country by 2.

Terror Mission
A Terror Ship or Assault Carrier will fly to the target area and generate a Terror site. The aliens will terrorize the most panicked nation roughly 75% of the time. Terror missions increase panic by +2 in the targeted country/+1 continent-wide per civilian killed, so these missions are always likely to see some benefit for the aliens. Losing or ignoring the mission will cause the immediate construction of an Alien Base in the country, and increase panic continent-wide by 20.
If the Terror Ship or Assault Carrier is badly damaged by XCOM interception attempts, it may abort its mission and return to base - though it's not easy without good craft and weapons.

Conclusion

If you are like me, you enjoy the tactical missions, and the UFO interception is mainly a diversion that sucks up your money and resources. Hopefully this little chart will allow you to spend as much time blasting aliens as possible, and less time losing the game because you can't keep a satellite in the sky.

Credits

I would like to thank the folks at UFOpaedia[ufopaedia.org] and their detailed wiki, without which I would still be fielding 6 PFCs on every mission.

[Doctor G]

build a laser, shoot down every one

[SUIK IBUIK]

well i played long war on classic and ive yet to let a single non-terror u.f.o. live, you definitely can shoot down everything else from the game start, just get lucky

oh and to that weirdo down in the comments, PHOENIX CANNONS RULE

[kschnides]

This is so helpful, thank you so much.

[DeadlyDanDaMan]

So basically, just attack ALL small and medium ships, and get Laser Cannons as fast as possible for all your Ravens (stay away from Phoenix Cannons, they are garbage). Don't even try to engage large or very large ships until you have Firestorms with Pulse/EMP/Plasma. And make Aim, Dodge, and Track boosters, you WILL need them. It's really not as complicated as people think.

[Memento64]

My wife just encountered a Low, Medium, Destroyer which turned out to be a Bomber. She just finished building lasers for the interceptors. You might want to add that one to the guide since it is currently blank.

[OsoMoore]

@Stieger. You can obtain it via the following link. You need to create an account, but you don't have to donate any money.

http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?

[Maxwell Sinclair]

@Stieger. It comes with its own installer from the Xcom mod nexus.

[Stieger]

So where do you get the Long War Mod? is it availabe on steam?

[k0r3]

OsoMoore thnx!

[Tentons01]

Thank you! I just beat the game today and installed Long War right after. I'm sure this will help me when I try it out!