The need for an in-game communication system for PUG groups is pretty apparent. I'd like to start another post for some suggestions on how BW might go about putting one in Firstly, it should be based on quick keys or a radial menu that would use some kind of experience rank system that'll gate the number of commands available to the player. For example, a fresh player can only call for help and heals. A wing leader can do that as well as call the 4 members of his wing to form up and attack his target or continue to cover his six. Finally the squadron commander can do all of the above as well as direct the wings to attack or defend objectives. HUD elements would be closely tied to these trickle down commands, A squaddie can see HUD indicators directing him to his squad leader ordering them form up, but not from other squad leaders. Similarly, the lowers ranks would not see commands to attack objectives. I feel this is important as to not overwhelm the player with too many instructions from conflicting sources. Next part would be how to motivate the player to use their commands and follow them. Previously I mentioned ranks, obviously, following orders would allow one to improve their rank, as would issuing them. On top of that, awarding requisition points should overwhelmingly favor following and issuing orders, as opposed to individual kills. I would say that even wins and losses not count as much as following commands, but that might be going a bit too far. In additional to this, perhaps titles or gear can gated behind rank levels. The final consideration would be how to stop people from abusing this system. I really don't have any firm ideas for this, a group of people who simply want to game the system are going to find a way. But, at the very least, req and rank points would be awarded only for actively doing something. And of course there's a possibility of the commands being spammed, so perhaps they can be set to a cool down. So please, let me hear your thoughts on this and let BW we're hoping for a more comprehensive system for team play that goes beyond "shoot guys that are boxed in red"

I would love to see custom animations for the various missile locks. For example, unique flare plumes dispensed upon doing a barrel roll, or distortion field http://i.imgur.com/CguITpF.gif I'd also really like to see our own instanced hangar. someplace to walk around and climb all over my fighters. =)

Hmmm. In the single player space game we currently have, each mission is the player-ships doing high speed fly bys, tons of insta-lock missiles, and just wreaking havoc on swarming fighters left and right. If we keep the same scale and functionality of the single player space game and apply that to GSF, then corvette sized player ships could fit in as large weapons platforms that does massive damage, but cannot stop, cannot score objectives and have turning radiuses so large the it would only make sense for them to fly to one end of the map to another, turn around, and make another run. I'm not saying this would be fun. I'm just proposing an idea that would be consistent with what we know of our personal ships vs. star fighters.

Hrmmm... the Pike already has a pretty good selection of missiles and 2 secondary weapon slots. The option of taking more doesn't really differentiate it much from that. A completely different mechanic might be considered. like replacing the primary weapons with rocket pods AND having those missiles at your disposal, or something. Yes, I know, it sounds like total crap to play, but its something different. If I may go on a tangent, I've come to feel that gun ships have taken the bomber's traditional role of long range artillery. My suggestion for missile cruisers would essentially be a slow bomber that deploys player guided missiles that either do large aoe damage or concentrated damage intended to take out one target. The range of the guided missiles will also be about 15000 and the player ship will be vulnerable during the missile's deployment. This new bomber in my ideal dream land would replace gunships and the bombers we have now will be renamed something like "defense carriers"

Mandalorian Basilisk war droid. Or any variation of the walking mechanical mounts mentioned already loaded up with guns and armor plating. maybe even give it some aggressive animal / machine growls since they're supposed to be semi-sentient.

I'd confirm Xi'ao being the bane of the Pub's GSF efforts on the shadowlands. I'm proud to say that I was involved in a deathmatch against Xi'ao and a few other obviously talented Imp pilots last week, and it was one of the funnest matches I've ever participated in. We actually managed to win with a few points ahead when the timer ran out.

I hate to admit it, but gear does make a difference. Going to an unkitted strike fighter I find myself constantly running out of booster juice waiting for what seemed like an ETERNITY for my engine maneuver to cooldown. Fortunately, its a relatively quick grind to get to mid tier upgrades when you really start to feel your ship and play-style come into its own.

I absolutely agree that cross-server tech needs to be implemented, at the very least for PVP. Having never PvP'ed before GSF I had no idea of how useful this can be. In the short run, however, their matchmaking algorithm is something that can be tweaked.

I just started a fresh imp character to do GSF on the Bastion and MY GOD - coming from a pub character on the shadowlands - it is rough going. After a few play throughs I'm trying to break down what exactly is making this experience so tough and what parts are making it tougher than it should be. On the forums the four big reasons are gear difference, player skill / experience, OP ships and weapons, and matchmaking. So far, my cop out observation is that its a crippling combination of player skill (80%) and gear (20%) MULTIPLIED several fold by what is obviously a borked matchmaking. It's something I've noticed as a pub but on the receiving end of things on the Imp side, it is mind boggling demoralizing. A quick look at the pre-game roster of 12 imp with 2 ships vs 12 with 4+ and it's patently obvious which way the game will turn and its no fun for anyone. I'll keep on with this character because, as a veteran, I already know it'll get better. But I wonder by how much? Even if i outfit my Rycer with all the bells and whistles I'd like, If Match making is still throwing me with 10-11 other newbies against 8+ vets, the outcome is still obvious. This is mostly a rant out of frustration, as its very hard to recommend changes to the matchmaking algorithm because all that works under the hood. But I hate to make posts without constructive suggestions so i'll have at it here. 1) Increase rate of Same faction war games. If there are too many newbies on one particular faction, just keep having them fight each other until they've cut their teeth and optimized their play style. Thematically this makes sense as you train your guys as much as possible before throwing them into a real battle. 2) balance by team size. If match making HAS to put a group of vets vs rookies then let the rookies stand a chance by weight of sheer numbers by placing an upper limit on the more experienced team. This also feel right thematically in the starwars universe: A small band of plucky rebels (republic) fighting off waves of empire. Weak suggestions, i know. And complaining about matchmaking is nothing new on these forums. I just hope an additional post further highlights the severity of this problem. Thanks for reading.

I'd also like to point out that your performance is heavily influenced by your team and losing tends to start a downward spiral of more more losses. A prime example of this is when the enemy team has a strong hold on the node. Members of a typical pug will get shot down, respawn and fly back ONE AT A TIME to start the process all over again. An ace pilot will have a hard time flying alone into a fortified position, let alone a rookie. I find, that this can be a huge source of frustration for a new player, as it is easy to lose positional awareness, get singled out and blasted from all directions. So to repeat what Itkovian recommended. Find the largest group and/or find one player and follow them/him. Hang back and wait until someone attacks them first. You might not get a kill but at the very least you'll get an assist and help your team mate out

I like it! I would love it if BW could figure out how to implement multiplayer ships with crews manning engines, defenses and helm. One day, if and when the GSF devs decide to add new ship classes to the mix, I hope they'll consider some of these ideas.

I'm not sure how drone carriers stack up to mine layers from a pure balance perspective. But I just don't like how drones play very much like mines as they are now. They're just different degrees of "samyness". 1) Drop Mine/drone 2) fly away 3) try not to be noticed 4)??? (added in edit) 5) profit I see a serious missed opportunity for the drone carrier to differentiate itself as a MOBILE support vehicle. Something akin to the flying fortresses of WW2 era bombers: Bristling with guns, dangerous if left alone but completely vulnerable once you've picked away its defensive weapons. *edit 1- missed crucial step

For obvious balance issues one wouldn't be allowed to stack so many drones. Just one turret that can cover your front OR back and one support drone, one of which CAN be there for additional DPS. I'd also imagine that the DPS output for the turrets be tuned so that they are on par or slightly exceed the DPS of other classes ONLY when combined with fire from the players primary weapon. In other words, the DPS of a railgun drone will never match up to a GS railgun. I'd imagine that it'll be about 40-50% of a GS weapon I can see potential issues with mobile interdiction spheres. One could limit the radius so that the drone can be focus fired from a distance. maybe just tone down the effectiveness? Or just dump it as a drone entirely. This is more of a detail in fine tuning that can only be measured with testing. Same goes for the self heals. potentially OP. Aside from players quickly learning to target the drones first, I'd also suggest that the repair drone only be allowed to heal one player at a time, with priority given to the host drone carrier. Secondly, repairs should drain energy from primary weapons reserves, so again, playing a drone carrier would require more attention from the player.

I'm not here to argue for or against drone carriers being over powered, I haven't seen enough numbers to make that claim. I do, however, have criticisms on their overall gameplay design in that drones are played more or less like mines: Stationary and autonomous, expect with great range and utility that comes at the cost of cool down time. Please correct me if i've over simplified their uses. As a mental exercise I've been brainstorming ways the drone carrier may be redesigned to greater differentiate itself from mine carriers, while potentially addressing some frustrations that players have when encountering them. The main points of this hypothetical redesign are as follows: 1) Drones will follow the player ship as opposed to being stationary 2) Drones will be classified into two categories, Defense turrets and support drone 3) Drone power and cooldown times scale with weapon subsystem power allocation to expand on these points: 1) Drones will follow the player ship as opposed to being stationary - this is the meat of the redesign. Instead of being mines that are laid and forgotten by the pilot, they are now extension of the player ship managed by the player. and any action taken by the drones draws attention directly to the carrier. This allows the drone carrier to play a more mobile and active play style while alleviating the frustration experienced by other players of being attacked from random directions by small, hard to identify targets. Drones following the player can still be individually targeted and destroyed separate of the player drone carrier 2) Drones will be classified into two categories, Defense turrets and support drone - defense turrets will include the rail gun and standard blaster drone. However, they will now fire in a limited arc fore or aft of the carrier as dictated by the player. Rail guns will have a small firing arc, but long range and lower overall DPS. Alternately the blaster drone will have short range, but greater coverage and higher DPS. The overall intention for these "turrets" will be to either help the carrier player defend his six or add some forward DPS should the opportunity arise. They will not, however, shoot at all things at all angles The other drone slot will now carry 1 of several "support" drones that are omni-directional. Proposed support drones are the repair drone, some kind of debuff drone and the missile drone. Repair and debuff drones are self explanatory and behave as they do in game now, only following the player instead of being stationary. I've included missile drones to this list because they'll act as an option to provide area wide dps support. The drone will have limited missile ammo and the player cannot select targets for the missile support drone 3) Drone power and cooldown times scale with weapon subsystem power allocation - this last caveat is to give drone carrier players and incentive to shuttle energy into weapons and provide a risk/reward mechanic that doesn't favor putting all power to shields. I suppose a 4th possible redesign will be to take player controlled missiles away from the drone carrier given the utility this redesign has given them. I'd like to conclude that I am in no way under the impression that the devs can institute such a radical redesign. I only write this out because i can't sleep and would like some input on the ideas. Thanks for reading this far. Good hunting.

This has probably been suggested already, but what about req bonuses for damaging/killing an enemy player flying with a group? This bonus would scale with the size of the premade.

I think the fastest top speed can go to scouts. But SF should have the longer endurance.

I've never thought of strike fighters like that but this makes a great deal of sense. My initial feelings were that it would make the starter scout obsolete. But considering that that scout still has exceptional sensor packages and an incoming EMP weapon, it definitely will still be able to fill its role. But if we follow this line of reclassification, should the scouts still be classified as scouts? What should the class be referred to as? Light fighters? Skirmishers?

Agreed that Ion rail gun needs a nerf. But overall, I understand the role and function that GS's are meant to fill, that is, long range support and damage. However thats a role I always felt that the bomber should have been filling. This has become more apparent with the announcement of the actual bombers, which will behave much more like minelayers/ defenders then actually bombing anything. If BW could do it again, I would have liked it if they replaced gunships with bombers that fired powerful player guided 'bombs' deployed from a distance. The current iteration of "bombers" can stay as they are but just renamed "minelayers" as that is what they are. But as it stands now, I sincerely doubt they'll shelf a whole class of starships this far into the game.

It's not something that bothers me, personally. Firstly, It's a team effort and kill count is not a big thing on my list of metrics to judge how I'm doing. Secondly, matches tend to be hectic affairs, I never thought that the majority of the teammates that "steal my kill" were ever doing so intentionally.

If they could've done it all again I would have preferred if they replaced Gunships with bombers that fire heavy guided payloads from afar and bombers stay as they are but just called "minelayers" or "area denial vehicles" or something like that. Oh well. The general roles and and strategies would be about the same though. Everything else is semantics, so I can happily deal with what we have assuming that "Bombers" are balanced when they come out.

I would like to believe that OP's theory pans out. Gun ship power has been significantly tweaked since open beta so maybe that might mesh well with whatever nerfing they've done to bombers. Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of relegating my strike fighter to node guard duty. It'll be nice to have a bomber take over. Going off on a tangent: I would really like it if they called the "bomber" something else more fitting to the role its obviously designed for. I can't think of any suggestions right now but if its not lobbing large explosive devices at a target it's not bombing.

Disappointing. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what kind of balancing was done. Understandably, its been a relatively short amount of time since closed beta to do any dramatic design overhauls. I can only hope that damage/ defense values were nerfed since to the beta so that bombers aren't going to be the uncontested juggernauts they were before.

Like others, I don't think its the gear gap that's causing newbies to wipe, but the experience gap. Nonetheless it must be extremely frustrating for new players to be matched up against veterans and subsequently be blown out of the sky. Repeatedly and mercilessly. Every time I see someone get blown away after 5 seconds of flying slow and straight through laser bolts and missiles, I feel a little sad because there's someone out there who's making the hard decision to stick it out and learn from their mistakes or decide that the whole thing isn't for them. Who's to say who's at fault here? Ultimately I'd say the biggest culprit is the lack of players for viable match-making. What percentage of active players are subscribers? What percentage of those really care about space PvP? I hope that once full access is granted then there'll be enough new players so that they can be properly matched with each other.

I've definitely noticed this as well. I always feel much more confident playing against Imp on Shadowlands than against fellow Republic. Unfortunately, pub v. pub matches are definitely on the rise these days. I hope that does not mean that the Imps on the Shadowlands have given up on GSF already. On a brighter note, the Imps that we do play are getting better at holding nodes and team play in general. I wonder how different game modes will affect this balance. From your experiences, Imps might be better at a straight up deathmatch mode.

I pretty much had this experience playing an alt on GSF. While the stock gear on strike fighters is not ideal for my playstyle, I actually found myself doing better than with my main starfighter toon. Maybe this is because of whatever match-making there is now pitted me against novice players. I'm pretty sure we're always going to hear gripes about unfair gearing advantages (Req conversion is just an offshoot of this issue) and the most frustrating part is that it's nearly impossible to quantify how important player skill and experience is.