Thanks Drak, I will make a note to update that in the next revision.

Updates to the manual have been made. original post has been edited and dated to reflect what has been done. As always I encourage as much feedback as I can because that is how I am finding/correcting/refining the manual. Thanks again to everyone who has been contributing to this. ~Rannek/Ravaís

I will dig back into the guide tonight to attempt to find adjust the citations and references to "sriia" into your preferred call-sign from the forums. I will go back and also adjust the definition on Backfilling as my understanding of it has gotten a bit better between yourself, Drakkolich, and Ramalina. I am not sure which inconsistencies you are referring to regarding the citations but I will look at them in more detail. I know I found a "snafu" in the bibliograpjhy I need to address and... since some of this was done at 3am over a cup, or seven, of coffee I may have mis-input something. If you have some specific examples I would be delighted if you could point me in the direction so I can fix them. page numbers can help too. Incidentally I found your guide (Dak) to be one of the best tactical breakdowns and so I incorporated much of it into the "tactics" section. If you have not already checked that section I would deeply value your input on it. Thank you for addressing the issue from in game from several months back... I have actually not Qed since that night. Been sort of armchairing the whole thing. I might come out of retirement now that i have a better understanding of what happened.

Ok, i think I have fixed all instances of the issues listed by Ramalina and Drakkolich. I also discovered that I had forgotten to link the pictures of about half of the fighters to their sections... that has been fixed as well. Continued catches and thoughts are welcomed and appreciated!

Comment: As a devotee of the old Tie Fighter game (I copied the 3.5 in floppies to CD some time ago) I am blown away by this. Verdict: Absolute awesomeness!

Drakkolich, Thanks for the post! I have already started revision II as soon as Ramalina posted. (she noted the obsolete data on the scouts and strikes flavoring text) so that has been updated in the upcoming revision. Your post is very well received and appreciated. I am going to go back through and start by correcting the errors and then I will start adding in the data that you, and others, have graciously put up. I knew when I undertook this project a couple weeks back that some errors were going to be inevitable and so I tried to CMA by making this "version I" (implying I was going to have to revise it). Glad to know that people are reading it and helping me to brush it up. NOTE: In reference to my citing my sources, I would be both ashamed and feeling quite guilty if I did not pay proper respect to the aces and veterans who painstakingly discovered the vast majority of this data before me. All I have sought to do is to organize it into an ergonomic reference. Additionally, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of the aces who have posted and built websites over the years. I wish I had your piloting skills... lol ~Rannek

I will begin editing the errors in the text this evening. ty for the catch!

08/25/2016: Revision IV Notes: Not much has been changed or added since III. I corrected some guild information and locations as per some old requests but the main body of the work remains unchanged. With DvL going on I have not been GSFing much but am determined to revisit the project occasionally. NOTE: Due to a mistake when uploading the update I had to change the link address. I am including two links this time. One to the Dropbox location and one to my personal guild website where I keep a copy uploaded. 11/18/2015: Revision III Notes, Adjusted spellings of some names at the request of originators. Updated and massively expanded general information section with additional information. Minor corrections throughout the revision. Special thanks to both Drakolich, Sriia, Ramalina and all posters for their help and contributions in making this goal a reality. 11/5/2015: I have updated the Manual based on the feedback thus far received. I believe I have found and corrected all instances of the mistakes made but, as always, I appreciate any catches and notifications made on the forum, or through PM. Thanks to those who have posted thus far! Since most of the pertinent information (builds, tips, strategies, maps, etc) is scattered across numerous forum posts and websites I decided I would try and draw a large amount of it together into a single, more ergonomic, format for new and old pilots alike. I have done my best to make sure that all of the source material is codified and cited throughout the text with input from both original posters as well as experienced commentators. I am putting this up not just as a resource but also as an invitation for more experienced pilots to post and help me to make it better. I have a 2nd revision already planned but I would like to expand upon it even more with more thoughts. The continuing input of the community is greatly appreciated and I have continued my work on the overall work to make it more complete. I estimate possibly 1-2 more revisions before 90% of the remaining bugs/gremlins are out of the works and then I will keep a copy for download on my guilds home website. Any enthusiasts are encouraged to download and spread it around... just try and make sure its the most current version. ~Rannek THE LINK: http://files.enjin.com/280404/GSF_Manual_IV.pdf (The guild website location) https://www.dropbox.com/s/gsgos2hik0m16yo/GSF_Manual_IV.pdf?dl=0 (The Dropbox link) NOTE: Due to issues with the hypertext I had to upload the pdf to Dropbox. Its a free service but may have problems viewing the file unless you are logged in. I will update the link as soon as my normal file sharing service stops glitching.

Out of boredom I have decided to take the greater body of information I've accumulated here and compile it into an interactive guide for new and experienced pilots. In order for me to finish this project I would like a few things. 1. Permission from those who have posted guides here to allow me to include their work/data in the new guide. (I have every intention of crediting pilots/posters but as my attempts to contact many of the aces I would like to reference have been less than fruitful I am making the request here) 2. Tactics, established and experimental meta builds. (I'd like some replies to this forum to detail some various load-outs and the tactics/environment they are strongest and weakest in. Ideally this will be far more than just a "use this build and fly" guide. If I am successful and get the input I am seeking I think it would be an excellent breakdown of maps and tactics as well.) 3. Specific Pilots permissions. (in addition to fresh replies to this thread to give me more "zing" to the manual I must admit that I have found the Stasipedia to be indispensable as well as some other information shared by pilots. Some of the pilots I would like permission from to include/reference their work are Anastasie, Sriia, Despon, and Drakolich <if they are willing>) In closing, I think this will be a fun project and fairly reasonable to get together. If noone wants me to go ahead with it tho I will certainly drop the idea. Let me know your thoughts. ~Rannek

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. I have been an avid Rand reader for years, although I have a guild I am very happy with I would not mind an RP situation in game, possibly between guilds, to peruse these concepts. In my own guild we have had several wonderful debates irl and in rp over many philosophical points... all very fun. Drop Rannek a message in game and I'll seek you out sometime.

Thank you, and everyone else, for taking the time to post once again. I understand your position far more than I care to admit. I had sat on that original post, sitting in a word document on my desktop, for a few weeks before I decided to go ahead and put it up on the forums. I have long been of the opinion that no one cares about my thoughts/research regardless of what stats I have so why bother with the post on a subject that, like you, I've seen a hundred times. I was surprised that the conversation tended to focus in on a single aspect so quickly but I did smile that at least it got people talking... and very respectfully... to me that is far more than I ever expected I would see and I sincerely thank everyone who has, and continues to, post. I still personally think that it is a great game, in spite of the flaws many like to point out, but I just cannot bring myself to engage anymore. I guess the Maverick in me is still heartbroken over the loss of Goose... in my case the losses of MANY Gooses. I went ahead and posted my data and thoughts in hopeless hope that the pebble tossed into the river might make some impact. I truly did not expect anyone to answer it... or if they did it would be full of nothing but negatively... so in a way I have been very pleasantly surprised. I have seen the splash of the stone, however small, and maybe a ripple will land somewhere. Thanks again for all of the great insights and thoughts. I may not agree with all of them but I can certainly respect your positions... and at least I can go to sleep at night knowing that the discussion is still out there. Sincerely, Vaedryn

Had I broken down to Q I likely would have laughed my butt off flying a gun-less ship! I am certain that everyone appreciates the prompt PSAs from both yourself and Nem. Happy flying pilots.

I am very happy that my post has generated such vigorous debate but I think, upon reading the last few pages of replies, that the debate has become very one-pointed. I have read some VERY good points about the 3-capping argument, some that I had never fully considered myself, but I want to stress that 3-capping was only one part, a small part, of what my experience bore out as a major reason that many new players tend to drop GSF fairly quickly. Several posts, I have to warrant, have distilled a lot of my argument down to its base components. Rather than single out individual posts I'll just put my thoughts on the matter in a little clearer, and shorter, format. While 3-capping is very discouraging and I "personally" tended to surrender a sat to a losing team I did not mean that this practice should be adopted as policy. There is a GREAT deal of wisdom in pushing for a 3-cap in some situations for a variety of reasons (the spreading a force thin example for one). I also know that a lot of people just "want to get the match done with". I personally was on the losing end of quite a few 3-caps and when that is all it was it really did not bother me much other than to be slightly frustrating and getting me to think strategically for next time... of course, as pointed out, there are some who just consider it unsportsmanlike etc. One cannot please everyone and 3-capping is bound to happen. I just think that if vets are doing it they should consider the long term effects because its their own player base the decision effects. But 3-capping is only a small part of the problem... when it is combined with the other two behaviors my original post mentioned it has a very high, based on my interviews, rate of pushing new players away from clicking the launch button. The second, and arguable more volatile, issue is spawn camping in matches. I have heard many arguments on both sides. To give the proverbial devil his due I, who hate TDM, can definitely understand the draw of spawn camping to end the match fast. It is the same argument as 3-capping in TDM. The logistics of both the map and goal make it a feasible, if somewhat questionable ethically, tactic. While in domination the goal is to get resources fast to end the match the goal in tdm is to get kills fast. Spawn camping in TDM can, but will not always, lead people to spawn in the other drop zones... of course those other drop zones often have a GS waiting to snipe fresh targets. Being blown out of the sky before you can even afterburner can be quite infuriating to veteran players... and downright toxic to the enthusiasm of a brand new player. Although, as I stated earlier, spawn camping to some extent should be expected in TDM. Now... when spawn camping is applied in a domination match where the losing team has been 3-capped and they are getting vaped before they can ever realize whats happening... especially if they are new players... well those players have, based on my statistics (where I polled 35 people across 2 guilds) more than 90% of the new players simply stopped playing GSF in the interest of other, less infuriating, content. (They used far more colorful language by and large). The final point was the community's vocal component. In the GSF channel I noticed that there was a MUCH higher retention rate for new players, or at least extended their longevity before burnout, when the veteran pilots were friendly and openly discussed things with new pilots. It was not uncommon to see vets take new pilots under their wing during certain periods of time and those pilots had great enthusiasm as their skill and load-out improved. However, as great as the coaching moments are in GSF they tend to be few and far between with a great number of pilots adopting a "do this or die" mentality. I have no intention of singling out pilots but I can name several who outright told pilots asking questions about weapons, or just wanting to test a new build, that if they did or said anything about it again they would either ignore them or avoid grouping with them. On other occasions I watched members of the community assume something about a pilot who made an honest mistake, or just had a bad night, and browbeat them in the chat until they left. One pilot I knew with 3 mastered ships deleted his pilot and swore never to play again because he had been accused of afking because his kill score was nil. The pilots berating him did not believe him when he said he was being hunted and, as I was in the match, I could have confirmed that he was being chased down more than once before he could do much. Those who wanted to troll him, all 5 shippers, refused to really talk to him. Now he is gone. Separately NONE of these issues are really that major. Combine two or all three of them, as is common in the community, and you will continue to see new players move on to other content. The GSF community, as it stands, will likely remain either static or slowly shrink further with the present environment and without a player base large enough to deliver the funds it is seriously unlikely that Bioware will devote any significant further development, except over very drawn out wait periods, to the game. There is NO WAY to make everyone happy or to make a perfectly policeable system. The reason for these discussions is to keep pilots thinking about what their decisions may mean to the player across from or next to them. If the community is content with things they way they are and think that nothing needs improvement then there is no reason to consider any of these things. There are enough die hard players to at least sustain the game as it is but there is not enough, in my opinion, consideration given to keeping new pilots in the game. With little developer support, if any, the ONLY thing to draw in and keep new players is a grassroots player pushed movement. Without the new players, just from a dollars and cents perspective, there will be no new content or development. My final thought is this: If you want the community to grow its on the pilots there now to do it. Its been months since I played GSF. While I miss the game greatly I just cannot bring myself to click the launch tab myself. For those of you still keeping the faith... God speed and I hope it makes a comeback.

Nobìlìs Stygìas (alt code 141) & Nobilis Stygias have been in existence since SWTORs release day. Once we were The Stygian Order and The House of Nobles, respectively, until we decided to merge our staff and storylines. With the advent of guild renames we decided to mirror our names and moved forward. Both sides of the guild have been captained by their founding GMs since release with nearly all of the original command staff still gaming away. It is a point of pride for our long term members that we have never faltered, even during long periods of inactivity, in our membership or our mission to enjoy the game and the company of our friends. Our guild has a well established RP as well as regular events which we engage in every week. We also host weekly old world operations and some light PvP initiatives. Our goal is to never consider ourselves limited to any single aspect of the game but, instead, to enjoy each others company and whatever content brings us the most enjoyment. Although we hold many events we have never required or coerced our members to participate. We would rather call an event than force our members to engage in an activity which they do not enjoy. It is all about fun and community/family in the Nobilis Stygias! We welcome any and all questions so feel free to hit either our site or our forum post here and one of us will definitely get in touch with you to answer your questions. Individuals interested in joining the guild, or just checking us out, should start here! http://stygia.enjin.com/application You can also check out our TORcommunity listing at the additional following link!https://torcommunity.com/profiles/guilds/view/details/15/201/nobìlìs-stygìas

I very much agree with your points. As far as building a system to police/enforce things like that would be about as likely as finding an honest RL politician. Meaning about as likely as finding a RL unicorn. That being said I do not believe I said I knew the solution, only that I was pointing out the reasons why I, and several others, pulled up our stakes and left. What I have put here is my own experience and some of my thoughts, its up to the remaining community to make of them what they can. Thanks again for all of the thought and time you have taken in reviewing my post! P.S. Invisible sky fairy. (lol)

I also felt I should clarify, I in no way am saying that veterans should "throw" fights or be anything but what they are, the best pilots they can be. I have never expected the master pilots I flew with, or against, to ever throw a match or give up a game. As a father of three and a small business owner myself I know the value of that limited block of time we gamers squeeze our time into. I only contend that there should be more focus on a basic level of etiquette that should be encouraged more. I've seen a lot of good things in GSF channel. I've seen solid debates and offers to group and mentor new players but I have also seen a lot more elitist comments and practices. I am stunned by how easy it seems to be for so many people to automatically assume the worst about another gamer based on one or two mistakes without ever talking to said player. I've seen players experimenting with an off-meta build verbally flayed for just wanting to explore a theoretical loadout. So, to summarize my thought, its not about veterans flying weaker craft or limiting their wins, nor is it about coddling the whiners, but rather its about the veteran community being able to stand back, accept their win graciously without tearing the guts out of struggling players, and not automatically assuming that every player should know every detail about the mechanics and thus warrant browbeating. The aces can still win all of their games without spawn camping or 3 capping from the start of a match. Similarly it is not that hard, before flying off the handle at someone in chat, to simply whisper them, or openly ask them, if they knew the error or mistake they had made. Maybe I'm too much of an idealist, in fact I know I am, but I think that those two tiny tweaks would inspire a lot of borderline players to stay with GSF and grow the community as a whole. The irony is that all of this talk about GSF makes me really miss it, something about taking a ship to full afterburner and banking left into cover, but as much as I may want to click that icon sometimes its the fear that I might stumble and get verbally assaulted that keeps me from clicking. I know I could close the chat box, I could keep a thicker skin, but I play the game to have fun and enjoy the company other players.

Despon, First I want to thank you for the very well thought out response. I should note that I agree with just about all of your points on how to improve the system and I should clarify that in my experience the helpful and fair veterans usually do outnumber the toxic ones, however I do contend (again based on my own experience) that the loudest and most vocal are the toxic ones. Players with a rigid "I do not want to learn anything but my own way" mentality are unfortunate. I had a few friends who quit the game because they did not like that the game was not focused on just dogfighting to the exclusion of everything else. Even me trying to explain how unrealistic that concept was never really got through. Loss of such players is inevitable. The tragedy is that with such a small player base there is little room for GSF to grow. Most people who join SWTOR do so for the "ground" game and only become aware of GSF as an afterthought. It is am AMAZINGLY well put together game in its own right and I enjoyed it quite a lot. What led me to make my post is that I would often hear the questions about why more people didn't play or why players were leaving so, once I was firmly back in the cockpit, I started logging names and tracking down players and friends who had quit and the result of my findings I posted. You are very correct that there is low, if any, dev support for GSF. The sad fact of the matter is a simple economic math bomb. The GSF community only makes up a tiny fraction of paying accounts. Like any business Bioware has to focus the bulk of its attention where the majority of their paying clients are parked. The vast majority of SWTOR accounts are paid by people who are more focused on lightsabers and blaster content than with starship content. There is enough of a GSF base to warrant occasional tweaking but the bulk of their funds will be spent where they are getting their subs from. I can name no less than a dozen accounts, I won't for privacy reasons, that have reactivated with the announcement of new story content coming in October. The best way to get Dev support for GSF? Get more active players and accounts to engage in it. With active engagement comes a craving for more content/work to be done. Best way to get new players into a part of the game with low content, in my opinion of course, have a community that focuses on many of the elements we have discussed before. Players will engage, enjoy, grow, and begin demanding. If the community keeps allowing toxic outlooks and practices to happen just because they have "learned to tolerate it" or because they just want to keep flying, no matter if they are flying with the toxic ones, then there will continue to be a very small population.... likely too small to warrant any serious work from the devs. That's, once more, just my personal opinion on that and I am VERY open to other views I may not have considered. I would honestly suggest that a partial fix, in addition to the wonderful points you made, is that they release a PvE aspect for GSF. I know that they argued early on that the AI was just not up to par for that task but I would challenge that even if the AI flys with a "derp" level intelligence it would allow many players a less aggressive environment to practice in and would trickle more players, as they became comfortable with the controls, into the PvP game. Anyway, I did not mean to write another long post. Thanks again for the extra time spent reading my post, I know it was exhaustive, and happy flying!

Until I quit GSF I was having fun mastering all of the "useless" equipment on my ships (I had unlocked almost every ship anyway) just for the fun and pleasure of having it unlocked.

Hi Rick! You have a great point there. I meant the critique as a simple basic overview more than an end-all-be-all. As for my character name and server. I can often be found on Rannek (I have around 20 characters) on TEH impside but its not really pertinent. I permanently quit GSF some time back. Happy flying pilot!

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada..... wait... wrong game. I spent nearly a year of my subscription time exploring almost exclusive GSF content in order to truly get a feel for the game and to discover both why so many people love it and why so many people swear they will not ever touch the interface again. What follows is a breakdown of my own views on some of the most debated subjects I have witnessed in GSF and this article concludes with my overall summation of the primary reasons that GSF participation lags behind so many other aspects of the game. First... The great ship debate. I have read, watched, and listened in VOIP to so many debated, heated and otherwise, over which ship is OP and how "broken" the game is. Either someone is complaining about the invincibility of the battle scout or the indestructability of the bomber guarding satellites. Here are the things I have learned about ships and their basic roles. Every ship you start with has a mostly shot build. Beginning pilots have a two-fold problem. First they have no idea how the game moves and will be annihilated often before they realize they are being targeted. The constant beep of missile lock can set many nerves on edge and leave the novices hands shaking. Most ace pilots will tell you "Stay with it, it will get better!" but that is small comfort to the average player and just starting out so far behind the curve is often enough to send many players back to other game content. I will go into that, however, more in my final thoughts. For now let us look at the ship breakdowns and my personal experiences in the various arguments. What Bombers Do: They are "area denial specialists" I almost NEVER have seen a bomber successfully storm a position and hold it. I have seen MANY bombers do exactly what they are designed to do, which is to drop in and, as long as they pilot smartly, hold a position against traditional odds (traditional being strike fighters or most generic to mid-grade scouts). I have also seen fully upgraded bombers with the best meta taken down by clever two man teams. The combination of a gunship and a passable dogfighter is usually all it takes to rip a bomber off of a satellite with extreme prejudice. Note: Bomber was my ship of choice for a long time and I had two fully mastered ships. (I mean I had, out of curiosity, mastered nearly every system available to explore multiple builds). Often when I took a satellite it would stay taken and scouts, even battle scouts (barring VERY good pilots) would vanish under my network of mines depending which bomber and build I was using. My experience is that on the occasions I was dislodged it was a TEAM effort where a GS would hit me with whatever combination they had worked out and was backed up by a close quarter fighter to either get me to withdraw or outright destroy me. Verdict on the Bomber: Not truly over powered, just very specialized. I initially started playing a bomber because I read in several places on the forums that they were "unbeatable" and "indestructible". I can now, with a certain degree of expertise, firmly declare that, even with a fully mastered build, the bomber is VERY far from invincible. What Scouts Do: Honestly I have little direct experience with the scout classes. I unlocked and almost fully mastered every non-cartel scout in the game but I never got the hang of it. That being said... scouts are very fast, they can get to a satellite swiftly and ensure it falls to their force before the enemy's... in domination games every tick helps so that is a major advantage. Those with the bloodmark are also a bombers best friend because tensoring will assist the bomber in getting to the node early and start the lockdown process (notice the emphasis on teamwork built into that strategy). I have also noticed that, for those who have superior piloting skills, a battle scout can and DOES out perform a strike fighter in independent dogfighter tactics. The added extra speed boost conferred to the scout allows it to use "hit and fade" tactics on virtually any target they choose.... essentially becoming some of the most hated targets on any board. Many is the time I was in a GS or bomber, got strafed to red armor (if not outright vaped) and sat there cursing the pilot of said ship. Often times scouts will fly in "wolfpacks" which are dangerous to both themselves and their enemies. A wolfpack has the advantage of being able to essentially speed-kill whole enemy teams... however if an enemy GS has splash damage on their ion cannons it can, and often does, become a turkey shoot in favor of the anti-scout team. Verdict on the Scout: Although the scout builds are very powerful in the right hands it take a special breed of pilot to make them perform properly. I was never one of those pilots. I played them for a long time, upgraded them through multiple engagements... did two separate master builds on my sting/flashfire alone and was never able to hit anywhere CLOSE to the kill scores of some of the aces. That being said... I have seen MANY of those same aces caught in ion webs and vaped by lucky/clever GS pilots and more than a few either vanished in fireballs to bombers or limped away trailing fire. So, although they are a bit of a pain in the arse, I cannot say that the scout is over powered because the right strategy and coordination in a TEAM can, at least, reduce their effectiveness. The only issue I have with the scout is that while most of us end up getting a higher death count they can zip away on high burners and repair to come back in with no ill effects to their overall score card... however if you really think about it that is EXACTLY what we expect from a scout. What Gunships Do: The gunship is the sniper of the stars. The mobile artillery piece of the skies. I have seen the accepted meta (ion and slug) kill countless scores of pilots and turn whole tides of war with a handful of cleverly placed shots. I have also seen metas that many of the aces denigrate perform admirably and add a LOT of spice to a conflict. Several times I saw a plasma cannon ruin a scouts day. The down-shot is that, even with a fully charged slug rail, a beginning GS is not going to single shot many of the pilots they can get a bead on. More on that later... The GS, in my experience, is integral to dislodging bombers from satellites unless you want to send in an entire task force of smaller fighters. In pairs, or larger TEAMS, GSs can do massive damage. A GS with splash ions teamed with another that has upgraded slug rail can "tag team" targets efficiently and become a very hated group in any match very fast. I have even seen the infamous "gunship wall" in TDM. While the wall tactic gets a reputation for being over powered I have seen it overcome more than once by clever team tactics and a variety of ships. Note: The GS was my second ship of choice. I fell in love with the interface of the quarrel/mangler and took it all the way to full mastery. When working in tandem with another GS or a passable pilot of any other ship build I was almost always able to clear satellites and hold my ground in TDM. Even in very challenging matches I found that a little TEAMwork made me infinitely harder to kill... although once a GS starts racking up kills they become a target very swiftly and you should be ready to die more often as your reputation grows. Verdict on the Gunship: I used to despise the GShippers. It seemed that every time I spawned or flew into combat I was suddenly exploding without so much as the courtesy of a missile lock beep. After having flown a GS and seeing first hand how many times they, and my fellow GShippers at the time, die I can say without preamble that they are far from over powered. Like any other ship in GSF they have their roles and if they are played to the hilt and coordinated into their overall TEAM strategy they perform at an extremely high level... without support the GS is a slow moving turkey with a giant target painted on its wings even if it does have dampening maxxed out. In my experience it is not OP. What Strikes Do: This is a more complicated question and one that is hotly debated both on the forums and in the game itself. Strikes are supposed to be the average overall ship for the pilot who wants to do ok in a lot but not specialize in the ways that other ships do. I researched this heavily and have seen strike TEAMS perform amazingly when used in creative ways. For those players who are familiar with the old Magic the Gathering card game I can only liken the strike, very loosely, to the sliver creature. Alone a strike will always be outpaced in some way or other, more specialized, ships. However... with so many abilities which can be passed and shared with fellow ships a team of strikes can, and have, been forces to be reckoned with. The clarion/imperium has a few abilities which, when triggered, are shared with any ship in proximity. This would not seem like a very huge benefit to the novice player but when you consider the advantages of buffs and the fact that instead of having to fly back to a bombers drone for repairs/reload a clarion/imperium can provide all that on-site... well that really ups their usefulness a great deal. In a coordinated TEAM the strike fighter, while not as fast or heavily armed (or even armored) as other ships can do some serious damage to enemy teams and positions. Verdict on the Strike: Definitely not OP but certainly not useless. It takes awhile to loadout a strike where it will be anything but a flying liability for your team but if it is specced right for specific roles it can and will be a benefit but only, in my experience, when used as a TEAM component... but it can be a devastating component. Overall assessment of the GSF system: The mini-game itself is remarkably well put together. Although most ships are at a serious disadvantage until they get both experience and upgrades it can be quite a nice ride as long as you aren't unlucky and constantly being thrown into matches with top-aces (which tends to slant matches rather swiftly). The ships designs are, overall, fair and impartial. I would advise, if you are going to play GSF, that you think of what you enjoy playing most and focus on a ship that plays to those strengths. Note: If all you want is dogfighting then GSF is not for you. Dogfighting is a major component to GSF but it is not the only role. The best way I can describe it is to imagine what it would be like playing the ground game with no companions, zero healing abilities, and only a gun. Might be fun for awhile dancing around blasting things and dodging shots but it would get very old very fast. The reason roles exist in this, or any other, game is to provide players with the ability to build TEAMS which experiment with different strategies and styles in a nearly endless stream of fun ideas. I took great pride in being an area denial specialist just as I had friends who enjoyed being known as great dogfighters, pilots (using terrain to kill), snipers, and healers. A brief look at my history n GSF: I have played SWTOR steadily since release day. I have almost never let my subscription lapse for more than a single month in all of that time. Granted I would take breaks from the game for various periods of time but I have maintained a presence ever since that first night. To say that I like SWTOR in general is not doing the statement justice. When GSF was released I was ecstatic. I was a major fan of the old x-wing and tie-fighter games and, despite complaints to the contrary, I feel like bioware did an admirable job of making a similar system. My initial enthusiasm with GSF was SQUASHED during early release when I ran up against pilots who took advantage of the PTS to hone their skills. (I do not use the PTS because I like exploring the play only when it is released, I'll read about expansions extensively but will not play them until they drop). I quickly became frustrated and, although I had almost mastered my first ship back then, I quit GSF before it moved from early access to standard. It was over a year before I returned to GSF and only because I noticed it was a conquest objective. My first match back I had a similar experience to my last match back in early access and was about to walk away again just out of hand when I was invited to /cjoin GSF. As soon as I joined the channel I was taken aback. While I had just left a match where I had been vaped before taking a single shot (repeatedly) and our team had been 3-capped on the nodes from the start.... here were the players of THE OTHER TEAM debating and discussing the ethics of 3-capping new pilots as well as spawn-camping them. I was stunned. PvPers actually discussing, in a gentlemanly fashion, reasons why they should not be essentially crushing their opponents mercilessly. It was a rare pleasure and I was entrances. It was like watching Socrates and Thrasymachus. I decided right then and there I was coming back to GSF, my reason was that if these were the caliber of people, who were willing to vigorously debate limiting their own power to encourage new players, I would be playing with then this was definitely a place I needed to be. That began my nearly year long hardcore GSF grind/research/build binge. I copied the Stasiepedia and a number of other guides, and pieces of guides, from various sites. I merged them together into a comprehensive word document that was sectioned and easy to read... on my server I began taking to the pilots who would share their wisdom and I streamlined my guide further... I then printed and bound the thing, put it on a stand next to me and set about reassigning my build to the established server meta... from there I flew almost every day and turned away from all other SWTOR content to pursue my renewed love of GSF. Over time I adjusted my builds and flight style to emphasize my own individual playstyle. It was VERY rocky for awhile. I got frustrated because I did not think I was doing well, thought I was without natural talent or skill, and I quit for a few weeks here and there. I always came back tho and I now know why. The problem was not in the game itself, from my perspective, it was in myself and I was determined to figure it out. Gradually, with enough upgrades and experience in how to use them, my performance got better and I began to take a sense of pride in my abilities. I helf supreme gratitude to the few aces who took time to talk t me personally and to the publishers of the guilds that helped me het a grip on the game. My enthusiasm spread to many members of my guild and for awhile the Q was popping like popcorn! Many of my guildies got discouraged and quit, some stayed, but overall I noticed it was livening up a lot. Throughout this whole experience I was watching the GSF channel. That first debate that drew me back in was repeated a couple more times but overall I noticed that the channel was silent except for the occasional snarky comments or mutual self-love statements. Many of the steady top-aces on my server, not all but enough, were very vocal about some, as far as I am concerned, elitist views. Among the views that I found distasteful were as follows. 1. 3-capping in domination from the start, when we outclass our opponents massively, is ok because it will inspire them to be better players and fight harder. 2. Spawn camping on any map is totally fine because they should learn to change spawn locations anyway, it teaches them strategy through hard knocks. (if we camp to of the locations that's ok too because it will MAKE them improve their playstyle.) 3. If you are not using the accepted builds you are useless and I will abandon you. You should just accept that we know what works best and learn to adjust, if you don't then I will drop any group I see you in. These are the overall viewpoints I saw repeated in conversation over time. The problem with many of these aforementioned views is that while for some, a precious few, it will work and inspire them to become better it will crush the interest of most players and they will go back to the many many other content offerings in the game. Many GSF players forget that GSF is only a small fragment of a much larger game. Either that or they do not care. In spite of that myself and many of my friends continued to play and enforce our own code of conduct... if we were in a match where we were 3-capping early we would abandon whatever node we were on in an attempt to give the other players something to shoot for... when we saw spawn camping on a large scale we would quietly drop the group or put all power to engines and do fly-bys to allow the enemy to have a chance to shoot at non-armed targets themselves. It wasn't much but it made us feel like gentlemen/women. Gradually I became aware of other elements in the community tat shocked me. I watched arguments erupt from very innocent questions/comments. Saw a couple genuine mistakes of oversight get two players, who I knew personally, get ostracized by people in the community. One friend of mine, while doing his dailies, accidentally backfilled into a match on the opposing side and the pilots on during that day were convinced that it was his plan all along because his original side was losing. I interviewed him later and learned he had deleted all of his other pilot characters and was going back to focusing on other game content. He has told me that he just cannot play with people who are so cynical and paranoid that they will treat a person like that. I kept flying without him (we used to make a great bomber duo). Another of my friends who flew regularly finally gave up GSF. He had been guarding one of the only 2 nodes his team had been holding onto in the game and they began to use all sorts of 4 letter words on him because he would not move his bomber into an attempt at a 3 cap. He told me later that day that he could no longer stand being around such foul mouthed and unsportsmanlike players. As of the date of this posting he has officially been gone from GSF for over a month. Of the 8-10 friends and guildies who followed me back into GSF almost a year ago there are now none left... of those who followed them in only a couple are still there and from the ones I talked to they do not even fly much anymore at all. I finally gave up the ghost myself. I was not the last to quit GSF, as others continued to leave after I stopped Qing, but I just could not take the way the community treated people after the initial honeymoon phase anymore. After my two best friends in GSF were publicly browbeat on the channel, for making some simple mistakes that the community was convinced were intentional and/or malicious, I started paying a lot more attention to what was going on. The polite and gentlemanly/womanly community I thought I had entered had, in my opinion, revealed itself to be just another general MMO elitist environment. Unlike most elitist environments it has little to keep people interested outside of the game itself (which is amazingly fun) but a fun mini-game can only do so much. Unlike the other times I left the game I have no yen to return. Before I felt like the fault was in me... it was my lack of skill that needed to be honed and sharpened... so I'd keep coming back. This time is different... its... I am disappointed in the community. I am shocked by the paranoia. I am sad that my friends were hurt. I just do not want to fly with people in a community that can behave so callously or brazenly. I repeat that this entire post is based solely on my own experience and the interviews with others who have left the game after a shorter or longer period of time. Most leave quietly and do not visit forums. They don't care to. They join the game to play and have fun not to read endless debates on how to maximize this or that. I am putting this out because I kept hearing people in GSF complain about long Qs any why players would not stay for the long haul. Well here is the best answer that I can give to the question. "If you want to know why people don't want to Q up you have only to look in the mirror. It is not a flaw in the game, rather it is a flaw in the community."