Multiple interceptors?

[Wayans]

In many places I see sugested i can send more than 1 interceptor to attack, how can i group them?

[cc]

Send them to the target separately. When the first one arrive, don't engage but instead minimize the air combat screen. Rinse and repeat until all interceptors (maximum 4) arrive and then open the screens again by clicking on their symbol on the left of the screen.
It works the same in vanilla and X-Piratez as far as I know.

[ohartenstein23]

Yes, OXCE+ does not change that aspect of interceptions - up to 4 craft can attack the same UFO by minimizing the windows until all are 'tailing' the target.  The exception is hunter-killer UFOs where the interceptors have to be escorting the one being attacked, but those aren't in Piratez.

[AngelicJoker]

If I have craft escorting a main ship, can I send the main ship after a target and have all of them engage at once?  I'm trying to figure out easier ways to coordinate shooting down some larger ships.

[ohartenstein23]

Escort leading into automatic interception only works when one of your craft is under attack by a hunter-killer - you can use escort to make sure all the craft are separately in the same place, but you still need to minimize interception windows and tell each craft to separately intercept for normal attacks.

[AngelicJoker]

Well damn.  There goes that idea.  I have issues when it comes to intercepting with multiple craft.  The shielded craft are slower and harder to have catch up.  And then when I finally get them all engaged, half the time the enemy ship starts to outrun my shielded ship and starts blowing up the attack craft.

[Ethereal_Medic]

Far later in the game you get light shields and heavy shields to mount on the ships.
For now you've to stick with in-built shields.

[Dioxine]

Try leading with the Crab or, if you can pull it off, Kraken. Alternatively use Baracuda or other medium fighter with maxed dodge as the lead. In the end you won't be able to do it without sufficient firepower anyway.

[Ethereal_Medic]

What exactly does "Glancing Hit" means?
I can see that "Bounced off the hull" is something like 0 damage due to armor but I can't put my finger on the meaning of the former mentioned combat-feedback.
Is it something like 1 damage only and it can't cause a crashlanding?

[Meridian]

What exactly does "Glancing Hit" means?

It just means "small damage"... in piratez small damage means less than 5% of UFO's damage capacity done.

E.g. shrine ship has 600 hp, which means 300 damage capacity, so anything below 300 * 5% = 15 is a glancing hit

[Martin]

How much damage is needed to outright blow UFO up nstead of mnaking it crash?

[ohartenstein23]

If a UFO takes 50% of its HP in damage, it crashes, at 100%, it gets destroyed.  Therefore, you need to be able to do at least 50% of its HP in one shot to destroy it.

[khade]

The ship that starts the attack is the one that gets the retaliation hits, so you either need to babysit the ships and disengage when one is damaged enough then send it back in, and/or use one of the tank style ships.  Most things you want to do that for can outrun your tanks, so you have to place the tank where you think the enemy ship will go, having the flight plan helps a lot here.

[KZad Bhat]

It's not precisely the first to start the attack. It's the first to get into range of the UFO's attack that will keep getting hit until destroyed, or out of range. How it picks a target when it leaves range with multiple others in range, I'm not sure, though.

[cc]

How it picks a target when it leaves range with multiple others in range, I'm not sure, though.

By the order they entered range.