Flyer (Q4)

The Flyer  (also known as attack plane) is an enemy unit in Quake 4. There are three versions of this vehicle - troop transport (delivers troops), fighters, and intercepters.

The fighter attacks by launching missiles and dropping bombs, while the interceptor fires blaster bolts. The transport, despite having a gun mounted on it's nose, is harmless.

It is first seen in the second level, where the primary objective is to destroy their hangar base to enable land support and processing of the land site of the USS Hannibal. They will not attack the player until he/she will be riding or driving a vehicle.

Tactics

 * A Flyer is easily to deal with, just keep on shooting until it explodes. This is especially easy (and necessary to do) when you have a mounted machine gun in the truck, hovertank, walker and gondola. You can take them down in no time. However, troop transports are invulnerable, so just focus on the Strogg that it drops off.


 * While fighting against the Network Guardian, some flyers will come to do "strafing run" on the player. Just ignore them and focus on the monster itself. Because it is fast and hard to dodge, it's suggested that you take out the boss quickly to prevent taking too much damage. The Flyer attacks are pretty much hitscan types, and while they don't do too much damage, they will slow you down. Once the Network Guardian is killed, the Flyers will be withdrawn to another hangar never to return again during the rest of the game.

Trivia

 * When fighters are destroyed, the corpse of a Guard will fall out. This shows that the Guards have both infantry and aviation roles.