Strafing
AircraftTypes can strafe when firing at the target if the projectile's ROT < 2 and Inviso=false.
During a single strafe run, the weapon fires 5 times except either the target was destroyed, or the unit aborts its attack mission. Ammo is deducted only at the end of the strafe run, regardless of the number of shots fired.
Since ROT=1 actually activates the homing missile behavior, it can track the target; otherwise, it lacks tracking capability and instead performs oblique projectile motion using the three-dimensional velocity imparted to the projectile by the aircraft at launch as the initial velocity.
The delay before the aircraft resumes another strafe run or returns to base is calculated as follows:
(Weapon Range * 256 + 1024) / Aircraft Speed
This delay occurs after firing the last shot in the strafing run.
Note that using a short delay for aircraft capable of multiple strafing runs (due to their ammo capacity) may cause undesired behavior—such as erratic movements or orientations—depending on factors like ROF and/or movement speed.
Notes
Once the aircraft enters the strafing state, the weapon lock will no longer check Range, OmniFire=no and AA=no[1]. This means you can even attack the ground, fire the first shot, then switch the target to a distant one to fire the remaining shots. If you change the target to an aerial object while AA=yes, you can attack them even without the Phobos fix. However, if AA=no, the aircraft will flying straight in their current direction.
Bugs/Side-Effects/Unexpected Limitations
Aircraft with Fighter=no or those using a strafing pattern will apply the weapon's Burst to the first shot only, instead of to all shots.
- This bug has been fixed in Phobos Build#12.
Footnotes
- ↑ Requires Ares or under RockPatch use AACombat=yes to remove aircraft's Air-To-Air combat restrictions.
References
Starting from Phobos Build#12, it allows customizing the number of strafing, enabling aircraft to launch only one missile when using weapons with ROT=1 projectile.
Starting from Phobos Build#43, it allows the number of strafing to exceed 5, meaning more strafing runs can be performed. There are many other extensions afterwards; see the Phobos documentation for details.