In order that I think would be coolest? 1.) Devaronian - because the gender dimorphism between males and females would be really cool to see 2.) Faleen - because changing skin colors would be an interesting social ability 3.) Kaleesh - because their bone masks are cool. I know reasons why we picked these species aren't needed, I just felt like sharing them anyways.

1.) No Railguns. I'm a terrible shot with them. I could try and shoot an asteroid 500M away and still miss. If it was just a point and click with a super long CD I think I'd be fine, but the whole charge up while trying to keep a target in my crosshairs is a bit more challenging. Or give me a laser beam that I can just hold down the trigger and trace damage over people, that would work better in my own opinion too. 2.) No scouts. I took all of the scouts off my bar because I began to feel like I was depending on them and judging my flying in other ships by comparing it to scout performance. Anytime I thought the coming battle might be challenging in some way or another, out came my scouts. I didn't like that so I pulled them from my lineup. Now I fly the three strikes, missile Jurg and Dodger bomber. I'm a lot happier with my flying. 3.) Protorps are pretty? Don't know if it really defines my flying style but protorps sure are pretty when they hit. They're a pain to get a lock and super challenging to score a hit with so many missile breaks in play but I can't deny the satisfaction I feel when I successfully land a hit from one.

http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/85r6j

Should have commented earlier but got sidetracked. I think having identical twins masquerade as one sith was a brilliant idea. Now I need to go back and read through it to see if the other siphon is always present in disguise, a'la the Borden Brothers from The Prestige. Also, Vestral's continued death and survival due to his frozen corpses is somewhat reminiscent of Angiers and his "The Real Transported Man" (from the same film). It will definitely be interesting to read the epilogue and see what happens next since one of the Siphon's survived. Furthermore, Quen and Rend both are kind of...without anything at all? Everything they had, has been completely destroyed afterall. Plus, there's still all of Orthas's followers left over, though if they follow typical sith attitudes, they would fall into internal power struggles now that Orthas is dead. Excellent story though.

Hmmm, color me intrigued. I've got some theories on parts of the story but I think I will withhold them for now and wait to see how things develop. Collect more evidence so to speak. Keep up the good work, looking forward to the rest.

Okay fair point that it would create some redundancy...but why say they wouldn't be strike anymore? I mean I wasn't suggesting to change the chassis for them and Strikes are generally more mobile than gunships and certainly more mobile than bombers. Also, thank you for taking time to respond. Much appreciated.

You know...there was a multi-colored post in here, many hundreds of pages ago, where someone was talking about how Strikes can't do a multi-role position because it doesn't have access to the other classes special abilities. So that got me thinking? What if you just added some of those weapon components to some of the strikes. They wouldn't be as effective with them as the actual ship class (presumably, I'm not an actual theory crafter) but they would be much more of a multi-role/support ship. I mean let's look at the Scouts, bombers and gunships. Scouts have a systems component, bombers have mines/drones, and gunships have railguns. So what would it be like if you gave one strike, access to one of those special components? For example, what if you gave the Rycer the ability to swap to a railgun and the Quell the ability to swap to a mine? The rycer could use its railgun to support a GS and would be able to mix it up in a dogfight a little bit better than the GS could. The quell could use its mine to support a bomber on defense, but then mix it up a little bit better in a dogfight than a bomber could/can. I've no idea if this idea has already been discussed or what it would actually do to game balance but I feel like this would definitely make strikes more of a dedicated support/multi-role than they currently are. Just my opinion though. And if anyone wants to poke hole in the idea, please do. As I said, I'm not a theorycrafter, if this is a bad idea, please explain it to me.

Once I ended up in a TDM match on shipyards, where the other team rolled out four dreaded T1 GS. Ion and slug shots began flying within a minute of the match and shortly after that, the score was 6 to 17. Seeing that my team was losing it was clear something needed to be done. So I hopped in my blackbolt (this was when I was still flying scouts) and went racing up the side of the map, up high. Then, just before I engaged the gunships, I popped my offensive cooldowns and then hit the line from the flank. The first two gunships exploded before they knew what was happening. The third, tried to turn and engage me with his BLCs but blew up too. The fourth, barrel rolled away into the furball where he was quickly torn apart by the rest of my team. After that a Flashfire jumped on me and blew me up but the damage was done. The gunship line was broken. The four GS pilots tried to reform their line, but the rest of my team began focusing them, flanking and crashing the line. Eventually I think three of the four GS pilots swapped to scouts. It was a moot point. The end score flipped from 6 - 17 to 50 - 26. Now these four were not the best GS pilots out there and they didn't have anyone covering them. But I told this story to emphasize that the gunship line can be broken. Numerous pilots have posted and discussed in game hundreds of dozens of times on the strategies to fight gunships and gunship lines. They are by no means invincible, and in my opinion, gunships are better balanced than the Type 2 scout. Furthermore I would also argue that these are not the easy mode ships some folks claim. I personally have a ridiculously hard time with mechanics of firing a railgun itself. For me, knowing when to charge the railgun and then hold that charge until I have the optimal shot without draining my weapon power is very difficult. I would be much happier if railguns were a point and click weapon with a 6 second cooldown between shots or somesuch. Because I have so much trouble with railguns, I don't even equip them on my GS. To me, other than strike fighters and a few other tweaks, GSF is in a pretty balanced shape right now. And honestly, I'm actually fairly comfortable with strike fighters too. I love to troll people in my quell by cluster spamming them until they've blown their missile breaks and then hitting them with a protorp; it is incredibly satisfying watching a protorp hit with that difficult four second lock and launch, even if the target survives. So my point in this rambling post? I think GSF is in a good place balance wise. I would love to see people stop posting about how certain ship types are overpowered and focus on other issues. GSF needs a lot of things, and in my opinion the biggest thing we need is attention from the Devs; more than just acknowledgement that we exist. I would love to see new game modes, more customizations, more CM ships (and maybe even that fabled fifth ship type), better tutorials, better rewards, etc. So let's stop the never ending circular debate about which ship's are overpowered and instead focus on getting the devs to actually do some work on GSF. And yes, I know that there's not going to really be anything new for anything but the game's story until after KotFE launches but we need to push now if we want them to make us a priority after KotFE launches. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Thanks for taking the time to read, have a great weekend.

Heh,it's sir, and you're welcome. Happy to help.

I don't know if this is the story you're looking for, but this is the one I consider the best Mandalorian story. I read it before the site change, and I don't think (or know) if the author ever finished re-posting it. Memoirs of a Mandalorian by Gestahlt

HYPE TRAIN!!! WOOOH-WOOOH!!! My most optimistic guess is that we'll get a new wave of CM ship skins for the remaining fighters, plus some more cosmetic customization stuff so that people are more incline to spend CC. Shark teeth/Rancor grin on the nose of my strike fighters would be...the bomb. At the extreme edge of my optimism, maybe we'll get Denon TDM but I don't think that's likely either. As far as game balance, I'm indifferent. Personally (key word personally) I'm fine with current balance and skeptical that any tweaks will change anything other than throwing the current meta completely out of whack (which isn't in itself a bad thing in my opinion, just very unlikely to happen.) The only way I would get remotely interested in game balance is if they said that they were finally releasing the Fifth ship type and then I would be super hyped (Because yes, I am still carrying the torch for a fifth ship type). Likewise I'm indifferent on the old space game. They'd have to be doing something super crazy with it to pique my interest. EDIT: I have deleted this section and wanted to apologize for my negative attitude. I really do hope that the Devs have something planned for GSF and that we will learn more about those plans soon. Sincerely, a GSF pilot.

Yes! Very excited to see a brand new post, welcome back!

Yes please. Personally, I hate asymmetry when it comes to starships, can't stand it. The TZ ship models have always bugged me for their stubby side wing so I have never bothered to purchase them. But if the Devs stuck this model in the game as a fighter, I would be more than happy to shill out the cartel coins for it. It's similar to the TZ but bigger, beefier, more heavily armed and symmetrical; everything I could want in a cartel strike fighter. (I'd also be more than happy to shill out the coins for a banana boat)

Bombers called, they'd like to have a word with you.

My apologies if my last post came across as rude or insensitive in any way, my intent with all of my contributions is never to cause harm of any kind. I'm sorry to see that you also are declining to continue our debate as I found the discussion to be both civil and amusing. Finally, while I disagree with you on the belief that a bolster system would help the rooks I respect your intent to try and improve their experience so that they can learn and will continue playing the game. If ever we meet on the battlefield of that onyx bird, the Ebon Hawk, then best of luck to you and may it be a sporting fight.

Heh, been wanting to get back into ground PvP, a test like that seems as good a reason as any. I understand the theory behind your argument, that by living longer a new player has better chances of learning how to fly and fight, but that's (in my opinion) over simplifying the game play. Being able to live longer in of itself, is not going to teach me anything. Take the ground game example. Being able to run from point A to point B before dying hasn't taught me anything other than how far I can make it before a more experienced player can kill me. What if he stuns me? What if I try to stun him but he uses a stun break? What if I go to hit him with one of my big powerful channeling attacks but he uses an interrupt? Learning what an interrupt or a stun are and how to respond to them/use them are very important parts of ground PvP. Fortunately, I have the whole ground game of leveling experience to learn the basics before I jump into a PvP match. I will still probably get destroyed because I don't have PvP gear yet and I don't know the tips and tricks for fighting the other classes or the strategies and tactics for various maps...but I know what my abilities are and what they do. Compared to the ground game, GSF would be akin to taking a brand new player to SWTOR, instaleveling them to 60 and then throwing them into a match with minimal instruction. Sure he has bolster so he'll live longer, but he has no idea what any of his abilities are or what to do with them, and he's definitely not going to understand anything that the opponent is doing. At best he'll figure out how to move and he can spend the whole match running from the opponent, trying to learn how to use his abilities. Right now, in GSF, the only way for a player to get the basic knowledge of the game is by playing the tutorial, which is a shoddy system and teaches you a tiny bit of the game at best. Bolster is useful in Ground PvP where players have the basics and they need just a tiny edge to stay in the game with the more experienced and skilled players (discounting gear difference). They (now) have 60 levels to learn those basics. GSF has a five minute tutorial. Bolster would do nothing for a new GSF player. This is why another popular suggestion to help new players is the creation of a "free fly zone" where pilots can go and just test and practice their abilities. Its because right now there is no place for new pilots to learn the basics. New players to GSF need someway to learn the basics, and right now the only place is the tutorial which we can all agree is lousy. Until there is a place where new players can learn the basics of the game, they will continue to be easy targets for more experienced players and bolstering them would do nothing to change that. (That is of course all my opinion). EDIT: Also, I just saw you added another comparison so my apologies for editing. I did want to point out that comparing a mastered sting against a stock rycer is truthfully comparing two different classes from the ground game, like an operative to a sorceror. Better comparison would be in a stock rycer against an upgraded Rycer. Sadly I'll probably get the same distance. Ion will leave me frozen in space for the follow up slug. Arguably I will get further but it's not much maybe a couple hundred meters.

I'm still going to have to disagree with you on this. I've tried the PvP ground game. I've talked to players about strategies and experience and other than getting a free set of recruit gear, I've never really own a single set of PvP gear on any of my characters. Even when I've been bolstered, I've still had more experience players completely wreck my character. The reason they wrecked me is that they had more experience and more skill, they knew how to use their abilities to exploit my cooldowns and take me out. The only times I ever felt like I was improving where when I asked another player for advice. Being able to take more damage didn't help me at all, it just meant the other team and players had to devote a little more time to burn me down than they normally did. It's the same thing in GSF. A new player with his health and stats padded is still not going to know any of the skills needed to fight and survive. He may have more hull and shields, but he's not going to understand why his lasers didn't do any damage to that evasion scout, or why his missile hit that charge plating bomber and only did 8 damage. Being able to eat a little more damage than normal doesn't actually teach them anything about the game. As for the baby in lebron james body analogy...well, having lebron's body means physically in theory he'd be able to keep up and compete with the rest of the team...but he doesn't know anything about the game or how its played. The only way he's going to learn and improve is by getting lessons from his coach or teammates. The game is far more than just physically being able to keep up with his teammates, physically being able to keep up with them doesn't mean anything if he doesn't know how to dribble, block, shoot or pass. ...weird analogy...

Iiezl, I don't have an answer for why Bolster is ever implemented in a ground game. Hell, I don't even understand the purpose of separate PvP gear or stats, I would much rather see players just have to use one set of gear and just deal with that. I am however firmly in the belief that a bolster system will not work in GSF because a bolster will not actually teach them anything about the combat. Unlike the ground game, where when you tab to your target and all of your attacks home in on them, GSF is incredibly dependent on how well you can keep your crosshairs on the lead indicator, and how well you can keep that enemy lead indicator focused in the center of your screen so that you have the most accuracy. Missiles are dependent upon keeping a target in small faintly visible circle inside another circle until you can get a lock and release (and even then your missiles might not hit if they use a missile break). Add in that people are trying to do the same things to you and so you are trying to dodge and avoid them as much as possible, and it becomes even more challenging. A bolster would pad their stats, make them a little tougher, live longer etc. But it doesn't actually teach a new player the skills to fight or survive. It wont teach them about tracking penalties or missile breaks, it won't teach them about evasion or armor or the importance of crew skills. Without these skills their still going to die to the veterans and aces of GSF and not understand why or what happened. In my opinion, the best thing Devs could do for new players is to expand and improve upon the existing Tutorial so that it covers more of the gameplay and information; to teach them the skills they need, not just how to fire their lasers with the left mouse button.

Have you joined your server's GSF channel? If not, I highly recommend doing so, so that you may talk with the other pilots of your server and discuss strategy and builds between matches. Furthermore, if you feel you are getting destroyed or shot down a lot, try to pay attention to who's really gunning you down. Then try and talk to that person (hop to the other side if need be) and ask if they wouldn't mind flying with you for a few matches so you can see how they do things and they can see what you're doing and give tips. Most of the high level pilots are friendly people who want other's to succeed so that they have a challenge and will be happy to talk to other players. There are quite a few high level pilots here on the forums who are sometimes willing to take others out and help train them up it's just a matter of asking around. Anyways, hope this was helpful, unfortunately I don't have much else to offer right now. Keep flying though. A lot of the skill is just trial by error; learning what works and doesn't work and then repeating until you have it down.

This is pretty much my code, though I will admit, I judge my guildmates when they shoot my poor quell with ion rail or blcs. Then I judge them very harshly...with protorps.

Hello Alex First let me say thank you for creating this thread and getting this dialogue going. For me it's great to see such a flurry of activity over one of my favorite parts of SWTOR. Now as to Strike Fighters, these are my favorite ships to fly. On my main, Cynfor Cinderheart, my hanger is all three strike fighters, plus the Jurgoran (armed with missiles, no railgun. Missile-jurg!) and the decimus (or as I like to call it, the dodger bomber). Now while I love flying these fighters, I am not a theory crafter or an expert on game balance and design and as such I would like to stress that the following is my opinion and should not be taken as fact or a representation of the GSF community as a whole. If I was to change one thing about strike fighters, it would be their secondary weapons. Only having access to missiles means that they have some of the weakest damage out there. While a missile completely ignores evasion, multiple missile breaks and the inability to keep a target within their sights for locks upwards of two seconds means that actual damage from missiles is very low. Scouts are able to get around this problem by using their superior speed and mobility to enable their primary weapons more effectively. Gunships have railguns, and while they still require time to charge and are affected by evasion; when they hit they do far more damage than any of the available missiles. Bombers have their mines and drones; mines (except for seekers) apply their damage instantaneously when you enter their trigger radius while drones fire on their targets (or apply debuff in the Interdiction Drone's case) without any kind of warning and are unaffected by accuracy. In comparison against these ships, where they can use their primary weapons for burst damage or their secondary weapons deal instantaneous damage, relying on missiles for that sudden burst of damage means that strike fighters cannot compete. In summary, in my opinion improving a strike's secondary weapons by in general improving missiles would go a long way to making them more reliable fighters to fly. I will also put some additional thoughts in spoilers below. Again, this has all been my opinion. Thank you for your time and for reading, if I think of anything else I will return to add more. On adding some components to strikes On Evasion and Damage Resistance

Passing along the sharing: http://www.swtor.com/user/ce/85r6f

Nem, Just want to say great job and thank you for talking to the devs about this. It may not do anything but at least we had a voice. Thanks.

Not to be the skeptic but are we absolutely sure those are A-wings and B-wings? For starters there are EU ships that look similar; the R-22 Spearhead and the H-60 Tempest Bomber. The rebel fighters we see in the trailer could possibly be these ships. That said, I do think it's a B-wing prototype which to me means that the Rebels are probably testing it out and trying to decide if it would be worth their limited resources to put into production. This could also explain why the ship doesn't appear until RotJ, if the Rebs couldn't afford it they probably would have decided to look elsewhere for ships, and if X-Wings and Y-Wings are cheaper to get a hold of and easier to outfit then that would make them a natural choice. As for the "A-Wings?" I'm inclined to think that they're R-22 Spearheads, and after Darth Vader trashes them they undergo a refit to become the RZ-1 A-Wing interceptor. And again, due to limited resources, they have to put that refit on the way side, which is why they don't show up until RotJ. At least that's my thought process on the whole thing.

I actually watched all those scenes again when I was writing that post to make sure I wasn't just blowing smoke and it's a TIE fighter that does the pinballing, not an interceptor. Sorry, wasn't saying I disagree with your assessment of the scene and that the Imps had not trained at all to fly into their own battlestation, that's a very valid and logical point. I just wanted to point out that it's a TIE fighter that crashes, not an Interceptor. Interceptor pilots be cool, TIE fighter pilots be scrubs.