In skyrogue, there are a significant number of potential enemies. One thing to keep in mind however, is since each mission is randomly generated, you may not actually encounter all of the enemies in the guide.

Another thing to keep in mind, especially if you're just starting off, is that equipment can very heavily influence the difficulty in engaging some targets, especially the heavier ones, like corvettes or command centres. There's another guide out there that deals with that, so I'll try to keep weapon advice to a minimum.

Found at one point or another in all islands, are the small, immobile turrets. While they're also found by themselves, a number of the large enemy vehicles types also mount turrets, which means you're bound to encounter them at one point or another.

Thankfully, by themselves they're not very impressive or much of a threat, but they do tend to make up for it by being quite numerous later on and the immobility means that they're universally grouped together.

AAA
HP ~40
The basic turret that you'll encounter from island 1 onwards, up until they start getting replaced by later variants, and also easily the weakest enemy that can attack you in the game. With short range gun (about 400 or so) and poor damage, they can technically hurt you, but unless you linger around them, they're not likely to rack up any serious damage.

They also happen to have what amounts for paper for armor, so a single pair of micro-missiles will kill them, making them easy to dispatch as well. Generally, you'll want to take out the other, more threatening targets before you even bother dealing with these turrets, and only really if they're protecting a target you need to kill. Otherwise, you can pretty much ignore them with no consequence.

AAA-Hyper
The rapid fire version of the AAA guns. In the normal mode, these start popping up once you're in the yellow/orange region. Just like the AAA, the things have poor range, but their higher rate of fire means that they actually pose a pretty significant threat if you're planning on sticking around long enough for them to shoot you. Just like the normal AAA, they're also pretty glassy, so its not too hard to dispatch them anyway.

Railgun
The most advanced "Machinegun" turret, the railgun serves the same role that the two previous AAA variants do, but is pretty much only encountered during the icy islands, but instead shoots cool blueish shots. As with all machinegun turrets, it'll shred you up pretty quickly if you're foolish/slow enough to stick around.

SAM
HP ~80
The arguably most common turret type you'll encounter, at least from day 2 onwards, though later replaced by their improved variants, the SAM turrets have a pair of 500 range lock-on missiles that will deal a decent amount of damage to you if they connect. This makes them a threat that should be dealt with prior to engaging a lingering around ground structures that you aren’t going to kill in one pass.

On the other hand, while they're not as weak as AAA, they're still quite fragile. Two micro missiles, or a short burst from the gun will quickly dispatch them, as will the air-to-ground missile. The best way to deal with them is to just make multiple passes, firing missiles before pulling off to avoid the incoming missiles, killing one or two till there’s none left. Of course, if you’re just going to bomb stuff from out of their range, there’s no need to kill them.

SAM-Burst
Shoots more missiles at once than a conventional SAM, meaning more damage. On the other hand, they're all still launched at once, so in general they're not really that much harder to evade than the normal variant. Same risks as the original pretty much, don't sit around, and if you're making a close pass, be ready to avoid the missiles on the way out.

SAM-Stream
The third tier missile turret, SAM Stream turrets, as their name implies, will launch a continuous stream of missiles towards you. This'd probably be dangerous if you're sitting around, but overall their rate of fire (not to mention needing to track you as you fly around) isn't particularly impressive. Not to mention that by the time you're encountering these, you're also probably flying around in an upgraded aero, meaning the per missile damage isn't too high. Honestly, these are probably the least of your worries in terms of turrets by the time you encounter them.

SAM-LR
HP ~120
The bigger, heavier cousin of the SAM, encountered around day 3 and onwards, the SAM-LR has a few defining traits that make it a larger threat than the normal SAM. The first is the increased range of the missile they launch, locking on at a more noticeable 750 range, meaning they'll pretty much always get a missile off if you're trying to attack them with any of the lock on weapons. The other trait is that while they only launch one missile, the missile will deal a pretty significant amount of hurt to an un-upgraded aero.

Thankfully, the missile is somewhat slower and more poorly guided than that of the normal SAM site, making them easier to avoid. Dealing with them is important when attacking ground targets up close, as their increased range means that they can potentially fire from adjacent ground targets, which will make them significantly more annoying to avoid. They're relatively durable as well, and will take 6 normal micros to destroy, meaning you'll have to take them out one at a time if you don't have anti-ground weapons. The best way to deal with them is just like SAM sites, however, usually you'll have to be a bit more careful dodging the missile, since it will generally be closer to you than those of normal SAM sites will, and if there’s FLAK around, they’ll get to pelt you for additional damage.

FLAK
Flak is the bigger, angrier version of the AAA. With the capability to start shooting out at 1000 range, and respectable damage, they’re by far the deadliest of ground based turrets, thanks to their relatively high chance of scoring hits. While the projectiles will detonate near your aero for splash damage and the turret will lead in an attempt to score hits, the slow projectile speed and rate of fire means it is easy to avoid as long as you aren’t flying in a straight line directly towards or away from them.
Just like AAA/SAM/SAM-LR, they’re not exactly that durable, so guns or micro-missiles can dispatch them with ease. Doing so with a gun will generally let them peg you once or twice, so it’s not a great idea if there’s a lot around.

FLAK-Burst
A flak turret that fires a burst of shots rather than single rounds. These things are pretty much what will end your runs if you don't pay close attention to them during ground attacks, as they dish out quite a significant amount of damage, and have a nasty tendency to hit quite frequently. On the bright side, they're still launching flak shots, so while they can lob shells out quite far, they also don't really tend to hit at those distances anyway.

Thankfully, they only appear quite late in a play through, meaning you'll generally be well equipped to deal with them by the time they start popping up.

TORO
The most uncommon of the ground turrets and the only type not usually found as a defensive armament on larger targets, TOROs are ground based mechs that will fire at you with a pair of guns and a dual missile launcher. They can rack up a good amount of damage on your aero if you're not careful, but like AAA, the guns aren't exactly a huge threat. The fact they're also essentially a SAM site means that you'll still need to pay caution to them out at longer ranges, though not as far as the SAM-LR.

Unlike AAA however, they're actually fairly durable, something that seriously sets them apart from other AA defences. Since you'll encounter them only on later days, they're almost always encountered in large numbers along with other AA defences. Though by this point you should be pretty experienced with dealing with ground targets if you encounter them, generally you can just treat them like somewhat more threatening SAM site.

Largely harmless by themselves (though you can arguably crash into them), there are a number of ground targets present in Sky Rogue that you can missile, gun or bomb to gain addtional points. They also happen to be a common mission target type, but most are just good for addtional scrap/tech points, with the Aerodome as the only really threatening type.

Cargo
Small and found in groups of four, the cargo is the weakest stationary target. Indeed, they’re weak enough that you probably don’t want to waste bombs on them unless there’s nothing else around. They’re not exactly vital to destroy, but they’re easy points on early days.

Dome/Radar
The weak, but larget ground targets. They’re both pretty big targets, but are still quite weak. Guns or Rockets are entirely fine to use against them, as it’ll still only take one good pass to kill them. Larger profile means you can crash into them if you’re not paying attention, but you really shouldn’t.

Barracks/Hangar Small/Hangar
Pretty common, these three structures all sit around the midpoint durability wise, meaning you probably don’t want to use exclusively guns against these. Rockets and bombs will still make quick work of them, and in later days they tend to come in clusters along with cargo, making them a great target pop a few bombs at every now and then.
The fact that they’re not too durable and that they are worth a decent amount of points, they make a great target for boosting your score so you can upgrade your gear.

Aero Lab/X-Lab
The weakest of the stationary ground targets, X-Labs are easily succeptable to rockets, though a gun will work in a pinch if the ground defences are gone or you're using one other than the basic one. Aerolabs are the non-mission vital variant, and go down just as quickly.

These are probably the first structure you'll want to consider bombs for, as the cluster has more than enough power to level them from a higher altitude if you dive. The hammer bomb will easily take them out as long as you land them on point.

Rig
The only sea-based structure, the Rig is, like the Hangar, a sort of mid-way point in durabillity. Thankfully, the rig has a weakpoint, the drilling shaft, which can be hit with rockets/guns to deal heavy damage and usually destroy it in one good pass. Just make sure not to crash into the rig on the way out, as you have to get quite low to hit the weak point. Worth a fair bit of points too, so they’re good targets for building up your upgrades early on.

Factory/Foundry
Durable and often difficult to destroy, Factories are probably the first target you'll notice rockets and guns doing nothing to. Their durabillity isn't offset by a weakspot either, so the only way to take them out is to just keep hammering at them. Just make sure to take out any hostiles in the area first, as without bombs you'll have to make a few passes before it's gone.

Plant
Just like the factories, plants are rather durable. Fortunately, they're not ever found as mission targets, so it's really up to your discretion if you actually want to engage them, or just head on to the next mission, considering their durabillity. Just like the factory type structures, they’re worth quite a bit of points, so if you’ve got the time and need the points, it’s worth squashing them.

Command
The most durable of the ground based structures, and really of any targets in the game, the command can take up to around 1500 points worth of damage or so, meaning you'll need about 7 bombs landing on target to put one down. Thankfully, they have structural weak point, near the base, that can make the task more doable with lighter armaments, though it'll usually still be a slog without bombs.

Remember, it's important to take out the defences and any other aeros around the command before engaging it in any manner other than bombing, as their high durability tends to give hostiles a good amount of time to target you.

Aerodome
The final ground structure, and one of the few you'll want to take out if you're not focusing on non-mission vital targets, Aerodomes are a surfaced based Aero launcher, meaning they'll keep launching more aeros for you to fight unless you destroy them or keep your distance. It's important to take them out if they're remotely near the mission target, especially on later days where they'll launch the more difficult fighters which can give you a hard time.

There is also a friendly variant that will be painted in your current colours and look slightly different. You can land at these and they'll allow you to repair/rearm. Just keep in mind that unlike the carrier, there can be enemy defences quite close to it, making landing a risk if you don't take them out first. They'll also launch you upwards a little, giving you a bit of altitude when taking off.

Found in both the sea and the air, the hostile 'Ships' in Sky Rogue are largely immobile, but often pose a threat to your Aero in the form of turrets or their own launched Aeros. Often the best way to engage them is with bombs, even the airbourne variants, however, your loadout might not always permit this. Thankfully the majority of them also possess weakspots that can be used to deal heavy damage quickly without the bombs.

Hover
One of the two mobile sea units, Hovers possess a pair of turret mounts and a moderate amount of durabillity. The turrets can pose a threat and can be taken out individually, or the entire craft can be destroyed at once with heavier weapons. Generally, you'll want to hit the bridge, located at the front of the craft, which will allow you to take it out in one pass with even the basic rockets, though their movement will tend to make this a bit of a chore to do reliably

Cutter
The other mobile sea unit, the cutter is a likewise, annoying target to bomb. Just like the hover, using missiles or guns is generally easiest way to deal with them, and unlike the hover they only mount a single turret, making them far less of a risk to engage.

Frigate
With a slimmer profile, but lacking the movement of other naval units, the frigate is probably the easiest of the three to deal with. With 3 turret mounts, they're quite a bit more threatening than Hovers or Cutters. However, just like all turreted ships, it's possible to eliminate the turrets seperately, leaving the ship unprotected and vunerable, at which point you can hit the bridge located at the centre of the ship to sink it rapidly, and their lack of movement makes them feasible targets to bomb.

Carrier
Just like the carrier you launch from, the enemy carriers are capable of launching Aeros. Unlike your carrier however, they'll continue to launch multiple aeros, whereas you'll on get one (or two if you're playing co-op). They'll start launching them from about 1000 range out, as long as you stay within that range. Eliminating them is important, but you'll need either a lot of firepower, or a lot of time, during which they can continue launching more Aeros. Bombs are pretty much a must if you want to take them out quick, with a single cluster bomb hitting the bridge immediatly taking it out.

If you're not packing bombs, you can either try and focus on the bridge with weapons in order to try and kill it with critical hits, or you can eliminate the four engines (Which are individually a lot weaker than the carrier), which will also destroy it.

Unsurprisingly, as an air target, the air-to-ground missile cannot be utilised against them, though the air-to-air missiles can be, however, oddly enough the engines are ground targets. Keep in mind, you can land at your own carrier before you've cleared all mission targets to rearm and reload, which is good to do take too much damage or run out of flares.

Corvette
The largest and most threatening mission target, the Corvette is the most dangerious stationary hostile in the game. With six defense turrets and a pair of flight decks to launch aeros, you'll generally want to take them out as fast as possible. Unfortunately, they're also exceptionally durable. Since they launch two aeros at once, it's important to make individual strikes against them, as lingering will generally result in 4 or more aeros to deal with in short order.

While the bridge at the top of the ship is a weakpoint, you'll only take it out in one pass if you manage to land a hit with a bomb or a number of cluster bombs. Without bombs, it's important to take out the defense turrets and work on landing hits on the bridge. While the aeros can crash into the corvette when attacking you, it's wise to make an attack run once, then immediately deal with the launched aeros. At later days, you'll generally want to pull them away from the corvette first, as shooting them down will often take longer than the corvette will take to launch another pair.

If you're in the base Aero, a corvette as a mission target is usually a death sentence, as generally it'll be your mission 4 target. That being said, it's not impossible, so with a bit of luck it's quite possible you can take it out. Just keep in mind you'll really have to grind it down, as none of your weapons will do a great deal of damage to it.

Mobile and almost always armed, Aeros will generally be the primary threat throughout your missions. You'll encounter three primary varieties, Drones, Enemy Aeroframes and AWACS. Generally, trying to bomb them is a stupid idea, though you can hit the AWACS craft with a bit of luck, while rockets are largely only useful against AWACS. Missiles/Guns will pretty much be your bread 'n' butter here.

All enemies will follow the same basic attack pattern when they fight you. They'll fly towards you until they hit lock-on/attack range, fire an attack, then fly in a straight line till they hit about 500 range away from you or a certain amount of time passes, then repeat the process, turning back towards you. If you catch them on the turn, they'll continue trying to get you in their sights for a certain amount of time, generally more for more difficult enemies, before giving up and trying to make some distance again.

Drones
Drones come in four variants, and will generally be encountered early on during their respective regions mostly, though it isn't impossible to see them later on. Once vets are flying around though, you won't see them. There are three variants of gun drone, the normal, the T and the H variants, roughly mirroring the normal, turbo and heavy gun variants you can mount on your aero, and a missile variant enountered only early on that is pretty much a flying target.

The Gun variety will generally fly towards you, shoot for as long as it can, then will pull off and turn back around after some time or it gets far enough away. Normal gun drones, with their lower rate of fire and low damage don't really pose a threat, but the Turbo and heavy variants can rack up some serious damage if you're not paying attention to them.The bomber aeroframes can take some surprisingly high damage from them, as the larger profile makes it easier to track and hit for them, but overall, Gun drones are fairly harmless alone, and not much more of a threat in groups, due to their overall poor flight statistics.

Missile drones will on the other hand, launch a single missile then pull off. This means they'll attack more frequently then gun drones usually, but the missile is still quite easy to dodge and doesn't do huge amounts of damage. Just like the gun variant, they're almost harmless alone, though getting swarmed by them can result in damage if you don't keep up with evasion.

Thankfully, all drone types are pitifully fragile, and a pair of normal micromissiles will shoot them down. Most other missiles will only take a single hit to kill them, and their slow speed and low agility leaves them vulnerable to attack.

Aeroframes
Flying some of the same craft you can, hostile aeroframes are arguably the most dangerous enemies in the game. Their current craft selection includes the six fixed wing figher and interceptor aeroframes, so the Rogue, Falke, Schwable,Vector, Drakon and Orca. Of these, they come in three ranks, Normal, which launch 2 micromissiles at a time, Veteran, who launch 4 missiles, and Ace, who will launch a full barrage of 6 micromissiles when attacking. There are further differences, which I will discuss below.

For regulars and veterans, enemy craft are largely the same as your own available craft, in general this means you can match up the damage to weapon damage to see how much you'll need to kill them. In general, Schwable's will only require 4 std. micros, while Falkes will require 7 or so, Rogues and Vectors will need about 8 to take out, so having secondary A2A weapons can rapidly increase the rate you can kill them. Upgrading your weapons can make eliminating tougher aeros possible on a single pass.

Normal rank pilots will appear in any of the standard aeroframes, so the Rogue, Falke, Schwable, Vector, Drakon or Orca. They will launch 2 missiles on an attack run, then break off. Unlike higher rank pilots, they'll actually fly the craft at slower than normal speeds, meaning you can catch up to them in slower craft. Generally you will want to engage them with missiles, as guns will be too time consuming most of the time, and rockets will have a hard time hitting. Missiles are the way to go here, and in particular, IRMR and Heavy Micro can quickly dispatch normal hostiles who are quite slow.

Veteran rank pilots will have a different loadout depending on what catergory of aero they are flying. Fighter type Aeros (i.e. the Schwable and Rogue) will use a pair of IR missiles, dealing out 120 damage if both score hits, meaning they can swat lighter aeroes right out of the sky with a single attack run. Addtionally they have a larger angle of attack than an regular, thanks to the wide lock radius. On the downside, they also can only actually lock onto you from behind.

Interceptor type aeroes will instead use the AA-MR, meaning they can lock onto you from quite a ways a way and will hit exceptionally hard with a single missile. In order to effectively uitilise this, they will need to fly out a fair amount, and because of the smaller lock radius, it's not uncommon for them to completely waste their attack runs at closer ranges.

Outside of this, since they follow the same flight tactics as normal pilots, you can also catch them as they turn to start a new attack run or head to head them, the latter being quite viable against fighter types which will be unable to retaliate if you do so, but a poor choice against interceptor types.

Ace rank pilots are found in the Rogue, Vector, Orca and Drakon. . Also, unlike the normal and veteran rank pilots, Aces will lazily perform evasive manoeuvres that can occasionally shake off missiles, and their upgraded medium and heavy aeroframes means they’re generally quite durable.

Just like veteran pilots, aces have a different equipment loadout based on whether they're a fighter frame or an interceptor frame. Fighters mount the ever popular MIRV, which while threatening damage wise, isn't specifically too hard to avoid. Interceptors mount the AA-S "Meteor", meaning they can lob missiles at you regardless of which way they are facing, so it's very important to keep track of when they last launched their missile, or engage them from longer ranges.

In any category, it’s worth noting the Orca is a bit of an easy target, as the AI doesn’t do much with the increased max speed, it turns like a brick, and it still goes down very quickly to any attacks. Poor Orca.

AWACS
Much larger jets with a huge wingspan and pitifully low speed, they're one of three types of Aeros that are encountered as a mission target at the moment. Unlike other aeros, they also possess a weakpoint, as hitting the cockpit will result in more damage. While possessing no threat themselves (bar as a hazard which you can crash into), they possess escorts that will engage you as you near the AWACS. On earlier days, when the escorts are drones, they can be a non-issue, but as you get on to later missions, the higher ranked Aero pilots can be a significant threat.

Generally, missiles will deal some damage, but you'll want to use a gun or rockets to deal more sustained damage to the craft, as they're much more durable than most aeroframes. Just make sure to consider the hostiles in the region. Given high enough numbers of AWACS craft and enough time, they're quite liable to fly into each other, killing themselves

Bomber Aeros
Like the AWACS craft, Bomber Aeros do not possess any direct combat capabillities, and like the AWACS craft, they are solely encountered as mission targets. Unlike the AWACS, they consist of two potential craft, both of which you can unlock, the Kondor and the Zulu.

Unsurprisingly, both are quite durable, with 200 HP on the Kondor and 250 HP on the Zulu. While on early days, the number encountered will range from 3-10, later days can have numbers in excess of 20 or more, resulting in a huge time investment to destroy all of them and complete the mission. Because of this, it is vital that any supporting hostiles are eliminated first and foremost before engaging the bomber formation. Unlike AWACS craft, they also can’t thin themselves out via collisions.

I'll add pictures to the relevant things when I bother to crop them and upload them, which shold be soon.

Unlocking gear is also very important, and while you can actually make it up to day 7 reasonably with the base gear, expecting to easily get there on the first flight is a bit unreasonable. Gear upgrades very much help, especially when engaging heavier targets like corvettes or carriers, which can otherwise take what feels like an eternity to kill. And sadly, at the moment, the only way to research new gear is to die.

It's good to keep in mind that while each sucessive day gets harder, day 4 does tend to be harder for most people, as it's when the veterans are generally introduced into the enemy pool. Not only that, but most of the time it'll also coencide with a double corvette mission. Still, I'd suggest to not be discouraged. Just keep on working on your flight skills, and before you know it, you'll be able to deal with the more difficult hostiles, and you'll find yourself facing the greater challenges that await at later days.

With the latest update, Day 10 will now spike the difficulty significantly, so its advisable to build up at least a few aero upgrades by that point so you've got more HP to play around with. Otherwise the high number of Veteran and Ace enemies can pretty quickly shred you if you make any mistakes.

Finally, remember, while more targets means more research points and scrap, you don't actually have to eliminate anything other than the mission targets. While commands and corvettes can be quite time consuming, some other targets can be quite easy to kill, so you can kill them quickly and proceed onto harder missions where there's more of a challenge. Just make sure you don't get followed to your carrier and pegged to death while on the landing strip.

Spoilered just in case you're worried about it. I had a larger writeup, but forgot to save, so short version for now.


Bunker Phase
There's a ring of turrets comprised par of each of the max tier varieties (i.e. two railguns, two Stream missiles, two Burst Flaks), and three support beams linking the ring to the main structure. Taking out the support beams will start the boss battle proper, so it's advisable to take out the turrets and the accompanying aeroes before you blow up the supports.

Land Phase
Armed with a Mass Driver and Hydra missile, the boss will track your aero with both from a stationary position and try to shoot you down. The mass driver is pretty much a gigantic flak cannon that has audio and visual cues of it charging before it fires. Does a lot of damage and has a fast shot that explodes like a flak round. At longer ranges, it's easier to avoid, but you can't really counter attack. A fully upgraded medium or heavy aero can fairly reasonably tank one shot, but you really don't want to and a second hit is probably not something you want. Hydra missile launcher is its close range weapon, and launces sets of three micromissiles quite rapidly, which will rip you up if you stay in range.

The torso will track you, moving the weapons around, so if you're using slow munitions you'll need to account for or take advantage of that in order to hit the weapons reliably. Once both weapons are down, it'll move to the next phase.

Air Phase
Once the two primary weapons are destroyed, it will detach its upper section and take off, as well as activate its upper Hyper-Flak mount. The hyper flak is a quad flak mount that will cause some serious damage to you at close range if you do not take the turret out quickly. In addition to that, it will periodically try to ram you, pointing itself towards you and then boosting forwards, before stopping in its new position and hovering for a bit while tracking you.

In order to damage it, you'll need to hit the cockpit, the blue section at the front. Guns/bombs/rockets are the order of the day here, as AA missiles annoyingly enough can't actually target it. Takes a bit to wear down with guns, but it will eventually die.

Given the Flak is very good at finishing you off if you're damaged, it's really advisable to try and take that out as soon as possible, which will let you wear it down at a fairly leisurely pace. You used to be able to bomb it with the super-bomb, though it's now locked until you've cleared a play through and I'm not sure that still works anyway.