A Real-Time Strategy unit type. It has two different weapons, functions, or abilities that can be switched between manually, or chosen automatically depending on the target. Sometimes you may have to research the secondary form before the unit can access it.
There's always some kind of trade-off in these cases. Often, a unit must park itself to use its secondary mode, but gains extended range and attack power as a result, or it loses the ability to target ground units for the power to hit air. Sometimes, a unit can even switch from a land form into an air or sea form. Other times, the secondary mode might just be an outright Super Mode, with the catch being some new contrived weakness, a time limit, or even a high resource or XP cost to obtain it.
It's a step up from Crippling Overspecialization, but beware. It may just end up with two different crippling overspecializations. This type of unit might be a Military Mashup Machine, but it doesn't have to be. See also Stance System and Anchored Attack Stance.
Examples:
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Action Games
- The Ninja Warriors (1994): Raiden from The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is a Beat 'em Up example. As a Transforming Mecha, it has a melee- and grapple-based humanoid form, and a Chicken Walker form. The second form has ranged One-Hit Polykill attacks, but all its attacks drain energy that can only be replenished over time in humanoid form.
MMOs
- Dota 2 has a handful of heroes who can swap between separate forms, usually as their ultimate ability and for a limited time.
- Dragon Knight, who can transform from his human form into the Elder Dragon form, gaining a ranged breath weapon, additional movement speed, and an increased range on his stun.
- Lone Druid, who has his True Form. It changes him from a ranged hero to a melee one, while giving him increased health, armor, and the abilities of his Spirit Bear.
- Morphling, who can Morph into enemy (and with Aghanim's Scepter, allied) hereos, gaining their non-ultimate abilities and attributes for a limited time, while letting him swap to and from his regular form on a short cooldown.
- Terrorblade, who can use Metamorphosis to unleash his inner double demon (he's already a demon) to gain ranged attacks and extra damage in exchange for a little of his movement speed. Any of his illusions that are close enough are also affected by Metamorphosis.
- Troll Warlord, who can swap between melee and ranged at will using Berserker's Rage. Melee mode gives him additional movement speed, armor, and attack speed, while also giving his attacks a chance to hold enemies in place by inexplicably producing a net on hit.
- League of Legends:
- Nidalee either serves as an assassin either at-range or close up, shifting between human and cougar form.
- Udyr uses four stances to modify his basic attacks with other effects for rapid single target damage, area-of-effect, tankiness or crowd control.
- Jayce's weapon serves as either a cannon or a hammer, each of which carrying wildly different abilities.
- Gnar has both a frail and nimble ranged form (Mini Gnar) and a tankier melee form with lots of crowd control (Mega Gnar). Each form has a different set of skills, but the catch is that you have almost no control over his transformations thanks to his rage mechanic.
- Kled rides a lizard, called Skaarl, that will flee after receiving enough damage, leaving Kled on foot (who is slow, but moves faster when chasing toward enemy champions) and with only two of his abilities (Pocket Pistol, unique to his unmounted state, and Violent Tendencies). He can mount back on Skaarl after dealing
- Overwatch: Bastion can shift at-will between Recon form, his fairly standard mobile form armed with a rifle, or Turret form, which trades his ability to move for an extremely high-damage, rapid-firing gun.
- PlanetSide: Several vehicles and armor types in both games have multiple modes:
- The Terran Republic's Prowler main battle tank in Planetside 2 is moderately armored, fast, and kitted out with a pair of 120mm cannons. Its primary "utility" ability is Anchored Mode, which causes its wheels to deploy pitons into the ground, locking it in place, and ramping up its dakka potential to a whole new level — when maxed out, Anchored Mode increase the rate of fire by 48% projectile speed by 30%, allowing it to blast vehicles from a kilometer out with its rapid fire Armor-Piercing cannon or swat aircraft out of the sky when parked on a hill, or murder all infantry within half a mile when kitted out with the High Explosive cannons.
- The TR's MAX armor in both games has Lockdown, which like the tank, anchors the MAX into the ground with thigh-mounted pitons, while increasing its rate of fire and reload speed. Lockdown in the original game was significantly more powerful than in the sequel, at the cost of the MAX being the weakest when not locked down.
- The Ancient Tech Flail and Switchblade in the original game could all deploy for alternate abilities. The Switchblade functioned like a weak Hover Tank normally but could deploy into a turret, whereas the Flail was unarmed while mobile but could deploy into an artillery vehicle and fire a shell that would travel for kilometers.
Real-Time Strategy
- Age of Empires III: Artillery units can move while in their firing mode, but do so at about a third normal speed. With the exception of the Iroquois Light Cannon, anyway.
- Battlezone (1998) and its sequel:
- Turrets in both games are completely harmless when mobile, but when anchored down they can fire an incredibly accurate machine gun with a massive pool of ammo and become immune to sniper fire.
- The signature Base on Wheels, the Recycler, and its specialized Factory and Armory support units of the first game are fairly quick, well armored and posses Regenerating Health, but must deploy on top of a geyser to power its vehicle construction mechanism.
- The Howitzers of the first game and the Scion Archer of the second are long-ranged fire support weapons that must anchor down to fire. The Howitzers have very impressive range but are slow and can only hover, whereas the Archer is shorter ranged but can fly.
- Scion Hover Tanks in the sequel possess a Combat and an Assault mode which they can freely morph between. Combat is more agile, has weapons more suited to fighting other tanks and has slight ammo regeneration, while Assault is slightly more durable, minor Regenerating Health and has weapons suited to attacking buildings and assault units either from very long range or point-blank.
- Command & Conquer originally used this sparingly:
- The first example came in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, where Nod's Tick tanks could deploy into a stationary turret (and undeploy into a tank again, if necessary). Nod's Artillery, and in the expansion, GDI's Juggernaut were technically this, though in their case they needed to deploy into stationary mode to attack at all.
- This was expanded upon in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, where Allied GI units (their basic infantry) could deploy behind sandbags to increase their range, power, and defense at the cost of movement, and the IFV, which could carry a single infantryman, and swapped out its missiles for a different weapon depending on which trooper was in it. The Expansion Pack added Guardian GIs, whose deployment allowed them to attack armor and Anti-Air.
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 specifically designed every unit to have a special ability, which often meant an alternate mode. The special abilities range from weapon switches like Conscripts that can switch from assault rifles to molotov cocktails; to units that deploy into expansion structures such as Sputniks and Prospectors. The Empire of the Rising Sun is the real standout, as they are the only faction that does not have an airbase structure because all of their air units are transformed from ground or sea units (Mecha Tengu > Jet Tengu, Striker VX > Chopper VX, Sea Wing > Sky Wing), or infantry with jetpacks such as Rocket Angels (who either shoot photon rockets or unit-disabling beams).
- The Soviet Hammer tank can use its regular gun or the Leech Beam, a life-draining attack with longer range and also lets it steal weapons from its victims. Its main gun and alternate weapon can then be used (but it can't change the new weapon again). The Apocalypse tank can disable its main guns in exchange for a magnetic that drags vehicles into industrial grinders (or vessels ashore).
- The Uprising expansion gave everyone another Dual Mode Unit: The Pacifier FAV (a Siege Tank in all but name, but its mobile form is amphibious) for the Allies, the Giga Fortress (anti-everything floating fortress that turns into a flying siege weapon) for the Empire, and the Reaper (a Stone Wall Spider Tank dedicated to More Dakka, that can jump on enemies to crush them, permanently becoming an immobile turret in the process) for the Soviets.
The Harbinger gunship either flies in a circle around its target shooting what are essentially mini-nukes, or fires a 25mm chaingun. The futuretank was possibly intended to be a Dual Mode Unit based on absent quotes (it fires expanding spheres of energy but can also fire criss-crossing beams), but this alternate mode is instead a cooldown-based ability.
- Dawn of War: Most units have both melee and ranged attacks, and switch between both when ordered. However, they go into melee if attacked by a melee unit, leading to problems with Crippling Overspecialization ranged units.
- The Tau XV88 Broadside Battlesuits will fire their anti-infantry smart missile systems while mobile, but can be entrenched to bring their twin-linked, anti-vehicle railguns to bear.
- The Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons team has laughable damage when mobile, but entrenches itself to become a long-ranged machine gun/laser cannon.
- Age of Empires II:
- Trebuchets need to be manually packed to move and unpacked to fire, and take several seconds to do so. Thankfully, they'll do the latter automatically when they move into range of the target.
- The Definitive Edition adds a few more such units. The Bengali Ratha is a chariot that switches between melee and ranged modes, allowing them to fill the niche of the Knight and Cavalry Archer respectively. The Shu War Chariot can switch between a barrage mode that rains missiles over an area, or a focus fire mode that fires piercing bolts in a straight line.
- Civilization V: Siege unitsnote must "set up" to fire, expending a movement point. After setting up, they may either fire or move, but not both (since moving "repacks" them).
- Dispatch has the humanoid bat Sonar, who transforms into or back from a monstrous bat form after returning from a call. Whenever this happens, his naturally-high Intellect and Charisma swap with his naturally-low Combat and Vigor respectively (his middling Mobility remains the same), swapping him between a Guile Hero in his humanoid form and a Dumb Muscle in his monster form. His Flight School and Hero Power Training upgrades only apply to one of these forms (Flight applying to his monster form, Hero Training potentially applying to either). As such, to use Sonar effectively, you need to send him on missions tailored to his current form.
- Emperor: Battle for Dune: House Ordos' heaviest tank the Kobra has two modes one mobile and one stationary.
- Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus: All units have two functions. The basic infantry freeze in place, but switch from their rifles to a more powerful rocket launcher. The APC switches from an anti-infantry machine gun to a concealment-granting smoke grenade, etc. The Virons are able to Fusion Dance two units into a different one and vice versa. This only applies to playable factions, though. None of the units of the unplayable Terran Empire have a secondary mode, even if the faction is enabled via a mod.
- Rise of Nations: Artillery units can switch modes more and more quickly as you move forward through the Tech Tree — initially it takes quite a few seconds with the catapult, which must be assembled and armed, whereas it takes only a split second with the rocket artillery while the missile launcher is tilted upwards.
- StarCraft:
- StarCraft I really got the ball rolling. Nearly every Terran unit has some kind of special ability, but the one that fits the pattern best is the Siege Tank. It goes from a mobile tank with a decent cannon and no minimum range (a bit lacking in the ability to, well, tank) to a fixed artillery gun with a powerful, long-range attack with Splash Damage. Other units have different attack modes for air or ground targets, but that mode switch is automatic.
- StarCraft II features the Viking, a Transforming Mecha that can switch between a ground-based and aerial unit. StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm introduced a "walker" mode for the Hellion jeep called the Hellbat that makes it slower moving but more durable. StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void adds Liberators, which acts as the aerial counterpart to Siege Tanks, switching between Fighter mode that's mobile and fires anti-air missiles, and a stationary Defender mode that fires powerful shots at ground units within its area.
- Traditionally the Zerg burrow units to hide them from the enemy, but the Lurker — which is completely unarmed in its standard walking mode — turns into a horrible slice-and-mince troop blender when burrowed.
- Supreme Commander:
- Cybran "Salem Class" destroyers at Tech 2 can sprout legs and walk on land. They transform automatically on the coastline, but it takes a significant amount of time and land movement is very slow.
- In the Cybran arsenal, land-based "Sky Slammer" units from Tech 1 and the "Siren Class" cruisers from Tech 2 are armed with homing anti-air nanodarts. They can be switched to attack land targets instead, which costs them their homing capability.
- Seraphim "Usha-Ah" sniper bots have two firing modes: high power and higher power. When the toggle is on, their damage is multiple times higher and their attack range is increased a fair bit, but their firerate drops to three shots per minute.
- Seraphim "Selen" combat scouts can passively enter stealth mode for no energy cost when not moving and not attacking.
- Star Wars: Empire at War: Almost all units, including heroes. Most of the time, this helps to offset Crippling Overspecialization. Artillery units have to deploy to fire their main weapons, AT-AT's can deploy stormtroopers, Airspeeders can use their harpoons and tow cables to trip up AT-AT's (except Blizzard 1, and sometimes the move doesn't work), Immobilizer 418 cruisers (aka Interdictor Star Destroyer's or Interdictor Cruisers) must manually activate their Gravity Well Generators, and also have a missile/torpedo-jamming ability, Crusader-class corvettes can shoot down incoming missiles/torpedoes, etc. etc.
- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: Cannons are helpless unless deployed. When they are, though, they're one of the longest-ranged units in the game, capable of raining incredible destruction on enemy fortresses and turrets.
- Stronghold 2: Knights and lords can be mounted on horses, turning them from the slowest to the fastest regular units in the game.
- Universe at War: The Masari's entire military doctrine relies upon this trope. All units and buildings can switch between Light and Dark Mode. Light Mode increases the damage and sight range of units, while Dark Mode strengthens their armor instead (air units would also be grounded by switching). Even the superweapon of the Masari behaves differently depending on its mode. The catch is that the change is global — all of your units have to be in the same mode.
- Warcraft III has several examples:
- Human:
- The Human Footman unit can go into Defend mode, which basically makes it much tougher against Piercing damage (most ranged attacks), but makes it move much more slowly. The Footman remains the same basic light melee unit in both modes, so it's not a very drastic mode change. The ability can also reflect Piercing attacks, which actually makes it possible for the Footman to kill some air units.
- Whenever the Call To Arms ability is used at the Human Town Hall, nearby Peasants will temporarily turn into Militia, a weak melee unit that loses its ability to harvest resources and build structures. This is primarily used to defend Human bases, by pitting attacking armies against a numerical superiority.
- The Phoenix summon from the Blood Mage is a strange case. It does have two modes, but its second mode is actually its weakness. Whenever the Phoenix dies, it will turn into an egg. If it survives for ten seconds, the Phoenix is reborn, fully healed. If it is defeated as an egg, the unit is destroyed.
- Orc:
- The Tauren Spirit Walker can switch between Ethereal and Corporeal Forms. Although it remains essentially the same unit (a support caster) in both forms, it cannot attack and becomes immune to physical damage in Ethereal Form, although it becomes more vulnerable to magic.
- Undead:
- The Undead Gargoyle is a light flying unit regularly, but a research can unlock the Stone Form. In Stone Form, it cannot move or attack and becomes a ground unit, but becomes extremely tough and regenerates quickly. The Undead Crypt Fiends and Carrion Beetles have a similar ability, Burrow, which makes them incapable of moving or attacking, but makes them invisible and allows them to regenerate quickly.
- The Sacrificial Pit building can turn Acolytes, one of the undead worker units, into Shades, which are invisible ghosts that can scout the enemy unpunished. This process is irreversible and the Shade is technically a completely different unit type.
- The Obsidian Statues in normal form act as mobile mass healers and mana restorers, but can later be switched into Destroyer Form, turning them into powerful flying anti-caster units. Unlike all the other dual-mode units in the game, however, Destroyer Form is a permanent change and a Destroyer cannot be turned back into an Obsidian Statue.
- Night Elf
- The Night Elf Druids can, after you have researched the proper upgrades, transform into animal forms that function as very different units. The Druid of the Claw is a healer and support caster in default Night Elf form, but becomes a powerful heavy melee unit in Bear Form. The Druid of the Talon is a disruptive caster in Night Elf form, but becomes a flying scout and anti-air unit in Crow Form. In the Frozen Throne expansion, they can be upgraded so that even when transformed, Druids of the Claw can use "Roar" to buff up allies with extra damage and Druids of the Talon can keep cursing enemies with "Faerie Fire" to degrade their armor score and marking them so they cannot hide.
- Night Elf Archers are basic ranged units that need to be produced en masse to be useful, Hippogryphs are flying creatures that can only attack other air units. There's an upgrade that allows an Archer to ride a Hippogryph, losing the stronger anti-air attack in favor of attacking both ground and air, not to mention having higher health. In the expansion, it can also be reversed after a cooldown, in case a large force of air units is encountered.
- Some of the Night Elves' buildings are actually sentient trees called Ancients, which can be 'Uprooted', transforming them from buildings into slow-moving melee units. While Uprooted, the Ancients lose their regular building functions(training or upgrading units, harvesting gold, etc.) and lose their Fortified armor type, but gain the ability to move around(very slowly), and eat trees to regenerate their HP. Usually it is used for repairing the Ancients via the Eat Tree function or moving them to a new location, as they are too slow and too valuable to be used as combat units on a regular basis.
- The Ultimate ability from the Night Elf Demon Hunter allows him to temporarily turn into a demon himself, giving him 500 bonus health and a ranged attack dealing Chaos damage.
- Neutral
- The Goblin Tinker, a neutral Hero unit, can gain the ability to enter Robo Goblin mode upon reaching Level 6. Robo Goblin mode is tougher, stronger, gets devastating bonus damage against buildings, and becomes immune to most offensive spells, but it doesn't regenerate like a normal Hero would and cannot be healed by conventional methods, but instead needs to be repaired like a building.
- The neutral Pandaren Brewmaster hero's ultimate ability allows it to temporarily split into three different units with distinct abilities and spells and reform as long as at least one of these is still alive (and one of them can turn invisible).
- Human:
Real-Time Tactics
- World in Conflict: All units have two different secondary abilities, and/or types of ammo. Jeeps can repair other vehicles and change to heavier ammo, infantry can speed up, APC can fire anti-tank rocket etc.
Roguelikes
- Darkest Dungeon: The Abomination is a cursed man who can transform into a beast. In human form he serves as a mid-range debuffer with little direct damage, stunning enemies and stacking blight damage-over-time effects. In beast mode he is a raging brute with powerful close-range attacks. Unlike most examples he can only switch modes back and forth once per battle and transforming takes a toll on the Sanity Meter of both himself and his companions.
Shooters
- Star Control:
- The Mmrnmhrm X-Form is a swing-wing ship with two modes. One is slow but nimble and armed with short range lasers while the other is fast, armed with (very) long range slightly guided rockets and all the nimble turning speed of an anvil.
- The Androsynth Guardian can turn from a slow ship into a destructive comet, trading maneuverability and weapons for speed and the ability to ram.
- Unreal Tournament 2004 brings us the Leviathan, a land-based gunship with a rapid-fire homing missile launcher you really don't need to aim and four individually-controlled turrets. Then it unfolds, revealing a mantis-head turret that fires a beam, producing an explosion larger than even the infamous Redeemer missile. With infinite ammo, no less. The catch is, of course, when unfolded, you're EXTREMELY vulnerable to aerial vehicles like the Raptor and Cicada.
Simulation Games
- MechWarrior: The Long Tom Artillery Tank in the Living Legends mod must be deployed in order to fire its 30 ton high explosive cannon, which can smite an enemy BattleMech (and instagib light mechs) from almost two kilometers away if the pilot has a Target Spotter aiding them.
Tabletop Wargames
- BattleTech: Land-Air Mechs. Not seen much in more recent sourcebooks, as in-universe they became Lost Technology (and were always considered Cool, but Inefficient even before that) and out-of-universe the franchise moved away from being a Spiritual Licensee of various Super Robot Genre works.
- Warhammer: The Old World: Cathayan Dragons can switch between a human form, which is treated as heavy infantry, has the Inspiring Presence morale booster rule, and can cast spells, and a dragon form, which is a behemoth unit with a superior statline that can fly and breathe fire, but has weaker spellcasting and lacks the morale booster.
Tower Defense
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has a few Plants that have different modes depending on circumstances:
- The Red Stinger serves as a strong attacking plant when placed near the lawn, a hybrid offense/defense plant when placed in the middle, and a defensive plant when placed at the far end of the lawn.
- Cactus acts as both as a Spike Shooter (when the zombies are far away) or Spikes of Doom (when they come close).
- Night Shade is a powerful Close-Range Combatant when near, but can fire its petals but for less damage when powered by a Moonflower.
Turn-Based Strategy
- Age of Wonders: Planetfall: The Reaver is the Assembly race's Tier IV unit and is capable of shifting between a large humanoid shape and a swarm of small robots. In its default form it can call down blasts of lightning and has a support ability to purge debuffs and restore action points for friendly units. In swarm form it gains fast movement, evasion, and life-draining melee attacks.
- Civil War Generals: Most units have two formations, typically one for movement and one for combat. Some units (the HQ and artillery units) were immobile in their non-movement formation.
- Nintendo Wars: Quite a few. For example, Tanks and Mechanized Infantry units usually carry an anti-vehicle weapon (Cannons for the Tanks, Bazookas for the Mechs) and an anti-infantry weapon (Machine guns and rifles.) The anti-infantry weapons can be used on vehicles if the anti-vehicle weapon is out of ammo, but it does considerably less damage, and in earlier games in the series, it also has limited ammo.
- Super Robot Wars: Most Transforming Mecha in the series are given dual modes when playable. For example, the Valkryies of Macross, or the Original Generation mecha Cybuster, Real Personal Trooper Type-1 (R-1), and Valhawk, which are often faster in their flying modes, but usually have more attack options as mecha. The Grungust has this, as well as another alt-mode (Gust Lander) that transforms it into a tank. Mecha like Getter Robo, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, or Aquarion are also multi-formed. Most of these will sacrifce power and defence for speed. Usually one form will be MUCH more helpful than the others, but some games will make the differant forms more balanced.
- Might & Magic: Heroes VI: The Necropolis' Fate Spinner unit can choose to take the form of either a Spider Person with a ranged attack, or a woman with multiple arms, losing the ranged attack in favor of stronger melee attacks and counter-attacks.
Turn-Based Tactics
- Atlas Reactor:
- Aurora's gimmick is that most of her moves affect both friends and foes but in opposite ways, healing allies and harming foes with the same move, or shielding allies while weakening foes. This effect is automatic and you can hit both ally and enemy with the same attack, inflicting the opposite effect on both.
- Juno's ultimate is manually activated and removes her ability to move, but grants her a powerful area-of-effect laser instead.
- Isadora's gimmick is based around a personal shield that provides the lion's share (or squirrel's share, to be precise) of her HP pool. When the shield is depleted, Isadora's moves change effect and turn her from a Mighty Glacier to a Glass Cannon until she uses her ultimate to re-activate her shield.
- Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: In the original SNES version, mounted Cavaliers/Social Knights are horse mounted units with Lances that can dismount to travel on difficult terrains or indoors, as well as to switch their weapon type from lance to sword. While it also existed in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and was refined in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, only Seliph can dismount in the former (and it's merely cosmetic to boot) and in the latter forced units to wield swords when dismounted, which happened to be bad news if they didn't possess a high rank in swords. This mechanic wouldn't return until Fire Emblem: Three Houses, where it was further refined due to allowing mounted units to not only wield the same weapons they had while mounted, but also offered some benefits for it; Cavaliers gain a small increase to their speed stat, while airborne units lose their Anti-Air weakness at the cost of a small decrease to speed, and both unmounted Cavaliers and airborne units gain access to Gauntlets.
- Genjuu Ryodan: The raft and air balloon units can switch from on foot to in transport and vice versa, which consumes one turn.
Real Life
- The original concept of an Infantry Fighting Vehicle is this. While carrying passengers it's an up-gunned armored personnel carrier with an emphasis on moving through a combat zone. Once its passengers disembark, it becomes a light tank, able to shrug off small arms fire from enemy infantry while engaging armor with an autocannon.
- Most modern mobile artillery also fit the "siege mode" version of this trope. While mobile they're limited to pintle-mounted machine guns for self defense, but once they reach their target zone and deploy stabilizers, they can bring enormous 150+ mm guns to bear.
- The original concept for "moveable geometry wings" on aircraft was a result of physics necessitating this trope. At low speeds, planes generally need broad, perpendicular wings to allow them to fly, but at supersonic speed those same wings produce too much drag, causing the wings to melt or break. This necessitates a "delta" wing, or swept back wings, but as subsonic speeds these wings don't produce enough lift and the aircraft can't fly. The transforming wings of aircraft like the F-14, F-111, Mi G-23, and SU-24 allow a plane to fly at subsonic speeds and transform to keep flying at supersonic speeds.
- The V-22 Ossprey showcases some of the flaws in this concept in real life. It can transform over the course of twelve seconds between a twin-blade helicopter and a stub-winged propeller plane and back. While in helicopter mode it can VTOL, and thanks to its plane-mode it can fly further and faster than a helicopter. It also has less lift capacity than a plane, a small passenger capacity for its size, produces 150mph winds and melts landing decks with its downdraft in helicopter mode, has all the inherent complexity and vulnerability of a helicopter (only doubled due to its twin engines) and is both too slow to work with planes, too fast to work with helicopters, and has all the weaknesses of both planes and helicopters with few of their strengths due to the position of its rotors.
- The F-35 can also switch between "helicopter" and "plane" modes (specifically the F-35B) but thanks to clever design (and a single engine) it avoids most of the flaws in the V-22. In "helicopter" mode the F-35 can maneuver like a helicopter for precision and loiter needs, while in plane mode it has supersonic speed. And its stealth systems make it nearly invisible to radar while in plane mode. It also is capable of going supersonic from helicopter mode, dropping into plane mode and zipping off.