UFO
Alien L Rank
Description
The UFO is the playable vehicle in the 2019 April Fool's Day event Earth Thunder. It was added in Update 1.87 "Locked On".
General info
UFO is an extremely powerful craft, which excels at laser warfare. It can fly, swim, and even hover over ground with stunning speed. It's general purpose seems to be similar to human's fighter VTOL planes, but more universal.
Mobility
UFO can move in any direction effortlessly. The only drawback is, it cannot move directly up or down without shutting down it's weapons, so it's only done when situation is hopeless, or when stuck in some debris near to ground. For this reason, dropping down to ground or attempting to emerge from underwater are often done via activation of "hover mode". Whenever near to ground or in Hover mode, UFO latches onto nearest objects and can easily throw itself over, or get stuck onto buildings, or even inside of them. It is also slower in hover mode.
Protection
UFO seems to be able to crash into ground at maximum speed and take no damage. UFO is extremely angled and flat, and it's computer immediately turns the craft towards targeting reticle, minimizing vulnerable surface. The only real weak spot UFO has is the dome in middle of it. It's also believed, that the pilot resides inside of it. This area can only take about 1 second of laser fire or 1 railgun hit. Whenever facing overwhelming odds, UFO can activate hover mode, to also activate active shielding. Shields can take punishment of any energy weapons for substantial amount of time, and prevents UFO from using it's own. However, when attacked by more than 3 UFO's shield can still be overwhelmed over time. Shield also cannot stop railgun shells.
Weapons
Frontal laser beam: Seemingly unlimited range. Seemingly unlimited ammunition. Effective attack range ~3 KM. Cannot damage targets under water. Ceases fire whenever UFO is moving straight up or down. Main rail gun: Whenever UFO activates shields, it's firing railgun instead of laser beam. Railgun has tendency to fire lower, than targeting reticle says. It's not very precise, but one good hit to a weakspot can destroy it's target. Backup rail guns: Whenever UFO submerges is uses shotgun-like railgun battery to attack opponents. These shells can even leave water and damage other UFO's, that hover above water with shields up. Even one hit from this weapon is usually fatal. Torpedo: [REDACTED].
Observed tactics
Laser warfare forces pilots to rely on teamwork a lot. Since UFO automatically aligns towards target, and pilot can dodge in every direction possible, it becomes rather hard to hit your opponent into weakspot.
However, whenever UFO turns towards passing-by opponent, or tracks someone in general, it briefly exposes itself to fire from other directions. This can be easily abused, either by "snipers", or "wings" of 2-3 UFO's. As example, it's easy for UFO to get destroyed in middle of a duel by a beam, that came from ground or space.
For this reason, if UFO is being chased by multiple opponents, they usually choose to retreat underwater, practice roll-less turns, or simply try to activate hover mode and try to lose their interest that way.
