Also a question, from the way you guys are talking you fly very regularly. Here is the question: How many people are in a game performing on a level comparable to your performance?

Funfact: If the enemy has a premade of 4 it means that 4 newbs get a win! YAY That aside. I usualy only fly in a PREMADE of 2. The results in one evening ca 6-8 games: 7 wins that are easy/lopsided where we win easily even if i go afk and maybe 1 fun and interesting game that maybe is a loss (which is good cause i like to loose). So I think even this premade of 2 would count as robbing the normal GSF players of their fun. (while carrying 6 of them to victory)

First and foremost hello there! I have been playing GSF for a while now and have unlocked nearly all legacy challenges (except playing 500 games as a gunship because well i dont want to xD). The first thing I can tell you is that bioware cares very little about GSF. You can easily see that about the update frequency. I think it got a small update between 2.5 and 3.0 then it went dry for a couple of years till 5.5 and since then nothing... So yeah they care a lot and the game is what it is. At least it is somewhat balanced with multiple working game modes and multiple playstyles unlike other Star Fighter games (yes I am looking at you Squadrons). Personally I like it and i always find my way back to GSF. The next thing is, what do you want? Personally I could possibly find an explanation for most of the things you ranted about. I think all the other vets can do the same. If you want to I can give them to you, but these are only assumptions since I haven't seen you fly in those situations or the damage logs, so my explanations might fit or might not fit. If you want help to improve a bit or to understand GSF better I and multiple other Vets can help too. A lot of us are always open for questions and you can just ask away in the ingame GSF chat (/cjoin GSF) or in the discord I am certain people will answer. I get that ranting helps dealing with the accumulated frustration But in the end what do you want?

Hey, sorry to hear that your GSF matches recently have been difficult. Just out of curiosity I would like to ask though where in the scorebored you usually are placed. Since the scoreboard can be roughly translated to your experience in GSF I would have several tips for you. If you are in the bottom third... If you are in the middle third... If you are in the top third... I hope these tips will help you to get over some of the flaws in GSF that you have pointed out ;D But generally speaking a good matchmaker would be difficult to make for GSF. The reason is simply that it is severly pilot and ship dependend. Sure you could rank the pilots by a certain category and try to have equally strong groups overall, but you never know for sure which ship the aces and veterans will fly. You can never expect a pilot getting the same amount of kills no matter whether he flies gunship or bomber. This and also the strategy or even just if the pilot has a good or bad day can heavily impact how good they are playing and how good they can carry. This is one problem that the MM has to face. The other problem is the amount of people. Same times there aren't enough people available that can outbalance aces, veterans or even groups of them. Sure the difference between the groups can always be reduced, but a perfect balance will always be impossible and is heavily dependend on the available weights. 4v4 or 2v2 ranked would be a nice addition though. maybe a smaller map and less satelites. And I would never say no to the devs uphgrading the matchmaker. Heck even a GSF ground PVP comby might be fun xD (like 2 linked matches where capping sth affects the other match). Seriously though the Devs don't seem to be too interested in GSF so updates will be rare like usual. So I guess finding your way to survive is the way you have to go.

Well essentially you kind of have that with the challenge system... But yeah a trainingmode with more options also for solo people would be awesom

Yeah the parser is not perfect, but it marks when you die, shows what kills you and how many. From this you can at least get enough info to see if it is possible or not and understand what happened to you.

Firstly I don't know how good the usual opposition you fly with is so I can only estimate. But in my experience as long as there are no vet pilots around it is a walk in the park to get these stats. Every vet can attest to that. Second as for the pilots accusing people of hacks: If you encounter someone in a game that does sth that you can't there are two answers someone can derive at, which depending on the personality of the pilot: a) he is just better than me b) he is hacking. The second is especially true if the pilot has no idea what happened to him. In GSF that happens easily since the game is fast past and not really self explanatory in most regards. Just as a reference a firend I know is accusted of cheating regularly but I am really shure that he isn't cheating. Additionally a few years back I was flying with a talented newby from my guild against some aces. He was in a fight with said ace and shot down quickly. He immidiately said he was cheating without looking at it in depth. And just like this we have the accusations. The higher the ego of the loosing pilot the likelier it is in my opinion. On another note: IF you have no idea what happend activate the combat log and use red's parser to see what happened to you and if it is possible. Please DO this efore accusing people of cheating.

As far as I understood your main concern is having balaced matches? Being able to block people from matches would definitely enable you to adjust the teams the matchmaker proposes. But what would happen with this? Let's take my char for an example: I just checked my average stats after nearly 2000 games recently: Kills ~5 Assissts ~8 Deaths ~2-3 (each per match) These stats look average for 2000 games. especially since I have been flying a lot of T1 Bomber with seismic and interdiction. Not much kills and assissts there. But depending on the opposition I had a game yesterday where I was K/D/A 23/0/9 or sth similar. If the blocking would be available ther probably would be around 14 people that would have blocked me. So as long as even one of them queues I would not be able to play. Out of my perspective that is sth really bad since that would destroy my free time activity since I mainly play GSF in my freetime... Additionally it wouldn't really make things better. Due you have an idea how many people there are that can get 20+ kills in TDM? Well you can block everyone after identifying them manually. Have fun ;D That aside yeah the matchmaker is really crapy from time to time. Yesterday for example we had a close game, good job matchmaker. Next game all the good people from the previous match are on the same team... So sth like a better matching system would be good. I even can see people on ignore being not put in your match or on your team and friends preferably in your team as a preference. But only as a preferance, so that both parties have the chance to play this game. On another node what I would favor would be if the matchmaker would look for similar strong teams with a better distinction. So that it can distinguish between how good people are, gives them a value and makes teams so that the teams have roughly a similar value. A lot of people have discussed about this already and there are several threads about "how the matchmaker could be better" Edit: Yeah if you have enough friends that want to fly (just for fun) going to the custom matches can definitely be worthwhile. Though you need a few friends for that. Aside from that you can also avoid aces by adding them to your friendlist to see when they are in a game and only queue when they are in on or if they are offline. In general most of the aces only fly in the evening and morning / afternoon is normally a pretty good time to find other newer pilots.

Just talking about the capital ship attack. At the moment I know of 2 ways to attack the cap ship: a) Attack from out of their range b) Get close with 99% DR and kill them from their dead angle (like buzz droids) If you would use the same capital ships we have at the moment, I think bombers would play an important key role for this. They can get to the cap ship and place a !Safe! hyperspace beacon ON the ship, so that the other ships can also join the frey.

Strikes are definitely a good ship class. Personally I would recommend everyone to start in one. Bombers are surely good at defending, I can attest to that. Also GSF is a very fast paced game so dying fast and in moments after a bad decision is also kind of normal and it happens to the best of us. But now to the point: Strikes aren't unbeatable! In comparison to a bomber the have less hull, more shields and better turning. Which makes them more offensive since they also have good weapons. (especially the build DarthTyranid mentioned can burst a lot of damage) Just out of curiosity was it always the same person which you can't evade from? But how to tackle this problem: 1) As a bomber: your choice of weapon is important in this case. Stuff like seekers will help little. Also a direct head on blaster battle will leave you outgunned. WHich leaves you the bombers speciallity their mines and drones. Railgun sentry drone is good due to shield piercing, same as Interdiction drone and mine due to the slow and also partially seismic. (Interdiction mine + seismic can snare the target) Important is the evading so the mines can work. This can be difficult and hard to learn. Sadly the simple circling the satelite is not good enough. In general the more eratic the better. You can handle them this way in theory but it takes time to whittle them down. 2) As a Gunship: This is actually pretty easysince gunships also pack loads of damage. Though you need to keep distcance and fully charge those shots and hit them. Ion really takes a punch on them with the energy drain. The weapon drain is especially annoying for the Rycer / starguard. The engine drain is also always annoying. In combo with slug railgun you can wreack a lot of havoc on strikes. 3) As a Scout: The T2S still has a lot of attack potential though it is hard to use, but with scouts in general you can win turn wars against strikes. (Assuming you don't boost too much in turning battles) The T1S can also limit the strike with locking it's missile break and System swap. Well you also could play as a strike too and do the things to them that they do to you. In general Shield piercing stuff and torpedoes are always a good bet these days. I hope that helped a bit ^^ Just out of curiosity which server are we talking about?

In theory you are right: It would be possible to press the key for swapping every 10ms, which isn't physically possible. There is also a small lag till the weapons are swapped like Drako mentioned it. (Luckily it was reduced making Directionals easier to use). There is also the limit of the blasters themself: Quads CD: 370ms (162 RPM) Freq: 184,5 RPM / 325,2 ms CD Ion CD: 370ms (162 RPM) Freq: 184,5 RPM / 325,2 ms CD Rapids CD: 250ms (240 RPM) Freq: 276 RPM / 217,39 ms CD Heavies CD: 500ms (120 RPM) Freq: 138 RPM / 434,78 ms CD As you can see the smallest CD with Frequencies is 217ms. AT least for musicians I think it is possible to play that fast. It is possible physically, e.g. with spamming, though an AHK would make it easier, I have to grant you that. Nice you can switch lasers that fast and if you keep pressing the left mouse button to shot continuously you are able to fire 2 lasers at once. BUT these shots aren't guaranteed to hit. For once hitting continuously in itself is already difficult, as the accuracy ratings and or a test run with full speed rapids will show. In here though depending on your lasers the targeting is even more difficult since the reticule moves slightly when you switch lasers. So yeah having an AHK to switch weapons is possible might make things easier, but it is still possible without a AHK and you still have to be able to land the shots.

Hello Asten_ The only active GSF guild at the moment that comes to my mind is Vermillion (pub) or Task Force Gestalt (imp). As far as I remember they fly more or less regularly on both sides. Though I am not sure if they fly in a full squad that often at the moment. They definetly use voice though ;D Aside from that most groups are made of old friends that fly together though not in the same guild and just over GSF chat. This is only concerning the more experienced pilots, so there might be guilds that regularly do GSF. Though these are not purely dedicated to GSF. What I can recommend you is the depending of what you want: Do you just want a group of friends to fly with regularly or do you want a larger guild sized group? If it is the first I can recommend joining the GSF chat ingame or the GSF discord and maybe even the Darth Malgus discord if you haven't already. There you can ask around for groups and I am sure that over the time you will find a group of friends and might even fly regularly with them over voice. I for one would definitely love to fly with you. The other recommendation would be to join a larger guild and ask around there. Due to their size there normally are some people around that fly ;D Also since you are German like me there is a GSF affine guild on Tulak that some times fly on DM. What you want is your choice, though if you want to fly I will gladly join =)

Another question that has to be considered: You mentioned outdamaging everyone. What numbers are we talking about? Because 70k damage isn't sth impossible for me in a Rycer and there are people that are way better with it than me.

Sorry for the late reply, I wanted to write earlier xD What EmilmcUgly said is true in my opinion. People will definitely prefer one ship over the other and be better at the ships they prefer and thus help the team more. Until they are good enough to contribute in most ships. Though I think you will only contribute this way once you have a rough understanding of how stuff works in this game. (Like better at shooting - a scout that can't hit will never be helpfull even if you enjoy it) So about my personal recommendations for these ships. I won't go into detail about complete builds since you can find some in the forums like here http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=752217 Components that I would recommend in the beginning since they are rather easy to use and learn are the following: T2strike (Pike / Quell): With this ship I would go for EMP missile and Cluster Missile in the beginning since they have a rather big firing arc and a fast lock on. Definetly stay with Quick-Charge shield since it is really good these days. Efficient target s also sth I would recommend. With this you can first work on your ability to lock on missiles and once you are good with that you can slowly try to incorporate more and more laser hits in it. Also on a side notice people always try to evade missiles no matter how experienced the attacker is. T3 Strike (Clarion / Imperium): Later on Remote Slicing is a really good option on this ship. In the beginning I think a combi with Repair Probes, Directionals, Power Dive and Hydrospanner is a good option. This way it can be very tanky and it can heal a lot. Making it easier to work on your survival skills. Options like LLCs and Torps (or maybe EMP) are also good tools. T1 Bomber Rampart / Razorwire: A good start with this ship is getting seismic mines and interdiction mines, get the upgrades that reduce their Cooldown. Basically you are set with that. The advantage of bombers is that they can do damage via mines / drones that work on autopilot basically. Good option would be Hyperspace beacon to get your teammates close to you and Overcharged Shield or Charged Plating (only if you can reach 99% DR while activating the ability). T2 Bomber Legion / Warcarrier: Here I would recommend interdiction sentry drone and seeker mines in the beginning. Same as above, except that this bomber is always a welcome sight in TDM if it has a repair drone. Especially if it also refills ammo. What also might be an idea if you are newer and still struggle with not crashing or engine maneuvers use Charged Plating (Shield active + Armor Component + Crew). It gives you 99% Damage reductiuon. This basically means that when you crash into a surface you don't take damage. The same is true when you use engine maneuvers ;D (You can get the set up on the T2 + 3 Strike and the T1 Bomber). The downside is that this shield is useless against weapons that ignore Damage reduction. I hope this helps a bit. But the first step in really contributing is getting more familiar with GSF. In my opinion these things can give you a better entry. After you feel comfortable in your skills you should try out the different ships and pic your favorite ;D

I am not so sure about the objective score and drako probably knows more about it, but here is what I know: As far as I remember the thing that gives the most objective points is staying close to a satelite hat you own. Though honestly if you want a messure of skill or objectives done I would look at the medals instead. They represent all the other stuff like kills assists, capturing satelites and so on. As for your problem with F3, I can somehow relate to that (as in controls going haywire). In my case though I either press 3 and F3 depending on the keyboard or my hand is one key to the side. I don't know if that explains your experience too though I kind of doubt it. If it is only on a specific character you could also check your keybindings.

There is still a problem with the lurning curve in my opinion. There is a smother entry into it with the strikes, especially the T2F, but not everyone knows about this. But about the main topic. I think that the matchmaker is doing better before the update. The cross-faction did wonders and also the rough sorting by quality works quite often. There have been tons of matches where I have seen some better pilots on my side and thought like this will be easy, which ended up in a loss. Most of my solo-queue games have been like that on my ship test characters. So overall I think the match maker is doing an okay job. Except one thing: larger premades. A few days ago I was soloqueueing while a group of scout aces were in a premade together. The matchmaker rankes them weaker than they are or isn't able to balance them, which ends up with them completely dominating the games. With there is sth to balance them with it can work out fine, e.g. the friday rounds against Drak, or the splitting up of vermillion, just to name some. Personally I am against splitting them up since that would break communications and you can't plan anything, wether flying against another premade or strategies. The group queue function is there for a reason and sth wonderfull for firends to fly with together or help new friends. I favor the second option mentioned by Shariva: Just not giving the premade a game if they can't be outbalanced. I think this is acceptable and might give premades in these scenario an incentive to splitt up into 2 groups. Also there is definetly a need to adjust the match making system. Since it apparently counts players after a rather small amount of matches as equally good. I think the best option would be to increase the limit and try to build teams with an equal amount of matches played in average (or as close as possible). I think this is one of the view ways that could work, since the other available statistics are completely up to the match mode and the ships used. 1) A bomber will never get as many kills as a Gunship 2) There are people that can carry games in TDM with 20 kills on them, which doesn't work that well in Domination 3) People can just be lucky with win chance and thus can be possibly judged wrongly Another way to judge might be the average number of deaths, since that doesn't depend as much on the ship and matchmode than other variables.

A Rycer or Starguard with Ion Cannons is definetly viable in my opinion. As far as I know the damage output and time to kill is comparable with the classic piledriver build. I think the weapon energy consumption is also a bit better than the piledriver (correct me if I am wrong) and you get additional bonus effects. The downside is being stuck with ions when sliced or EMPed. Also the other missiles are still usable in a Rycer / Starguard. Additionally I think this build is easier to use than the piledriver. As for flying against Strikes in a bomber: If it is a Starguard / Rycer I would recommend staying close to structures and your mines. Try to turn a lot so that you aren't in his center since his Damaging LCs like HLCs and Quads have a small arc and a high tracking penalty. As for the missiles try to break the lock or use a missile break if available (e.g. Engine power converter). Another trick for survival is to use Charged Plating in the T1 Bomber if you are sure they aren't using armor penetration. The most effective thing is evasive flying through or close to your mines and drones. If you are attacked by a Pike or Quell the missiles are most dangerous normally, which means again using line of sight not staying in the open or using missile breaks if available. If the Pike or Quell is not using HLCs Charged Plating is again an option against Blaster fire. If they are using HLCs try decreasing his accuracy e.g. Suppression (crew) or by forcing him to take off center shots at you. If you are attacked by a Clarion or Imperium it is basically the same. Though Charged Plating is way more reliable since RFLCs are pretty uncommon these days. The only note is RS which takes away some of your engine power and mostlikely will stop you from using system and engine/shield abilities. Since you normally don't use your afterburner much the loss of engine power is not as a sever restriction especially if you are close to cover. As for the lockouts don't be afraid! If you are using drones your drones are most likely on cooldown anyway. If you use mines they are already deployed or you just loose a few seconds of usage (though you still have your main mine). Since your shields or engines can also have a large cooldown and are partially deployable the restriction isn't as sever. In general try to use your stuff if you see a RS strike fighter closing in. If you are using an EMPf sledgehammer or decimus EMP them ;D TL;DR - Use things that interdict or slow the strike (Interdiction Mine / Drone, seismic Mine) - Use missile breaks and other defensives if available (E2S, CP, OCS, Suppression) - Fly evasively P.S. If you use a T2B you can also try to scare them off with a proton in a missile battle. (Which you can win with E2S or at least get a draw)

I will start streaming in a bit first some matches on Darth Malgus followed by Star Forge https://www.twitch.tv/lordalbere Enjoy =) Edit: thx for watching guys

Streaming a bit on star forge https://www.twitch.tv/lordalbere Edit: thx for watching guys =3

Just to chime in. You don't need perfect english to communicate with the team. In ops chat if there are any messages it is most often stuff like: beacon b/c, tensor top, inc a, DO B2, repair C3 or stuff like that. Only sometimes you find stuff like don't engage too much or attack this or that node. Because honestly most often you don't have enough time to write sth more specific. Also you can read a lot of what your team is trying to do on the minimap. Since you can see where your teammates are you can also guess what they are doing there and act accordingly. And a message that might make you happy: Dogfights don't happen that often and can be evaded. There are also people complaining about there being not enough dogfights, so don't worry. Bomber is relaxed for sure, but they can be hard to fly since they are quite clunky and if you fly a good T2 bomber with repairs in TDM you can easily find yourself outside of the action just sitting around. Also they are not as bulky as the name indicates. In my experience some Strike Fighters are more endurant than bombers. Ships that I can recommend you in the beginning would be the following: T2 Strike Fighter Pyke / Quell: With Quick-Charge Shield in F2 (Power to Shields you have really strong shields) and missiles are easier to aim than laser cannons in the beginning. T3F Clarion / Imperium: This ship can be really difficult to kill with its Repair probes. Though its shields aren't that beginner friendly. CP can be nice but can be basically ignored if your enemy has armor ignore and Directional shields can be quite tricky for new pilots (though quite rewarding once mastered). T1B Rampart / Razowire: This is the classical bomber for domination normally used with a hyperspace beacon. Like all bomber it is quite slow and clunky and its defenses aren't as good as you might think they are. (less shields than Strike fighters but a bit more hull) T2B Warcarrier / Legion: Kind of the typical TDM bomber though also used in DOM. Here you have drones that can help and normally repair drones (please go for ammo refill, since it helps a lot of people). Its defenses are even weaker since you have repair drone as a shield which doesn't give you any boni besides a drone that can heal you. What you also might consider is a Gunship since they have a max range of 15km with their railgun they normally stay outside of the enemy attack range. Anyway like catsi said play for the objective. In DOM stay on the satelites either to cap them or to defend them and in TDM go for kills or try to deny them by staying alive. Additionally in the beginning I can recommend Hydrospanner as a crew ability for more heals =)

Forget the spoiler, reading twice helps clearing misunderstandings ^^

Awesome to know these numbers! Have you by chance also tested the shield color coding or other things concerning the shields?

As for Pub and Imp differences I haven't really bothered up till now since I wasn't flying the ships where it was more of an issue. Also I kind of made it work on both sides, so well... No real preferences here xD. Maybe I will find some during my really ambitious OTP project xD. As for EMP I understand the team related aspects of it when you hit multiple foes. If I would fly in a group I definetly would be willing to use EMPm for them. The problem is i don't fly much in groups these days. Even if I fly in groups there is no "definite" job distribution. Thus the ability to utilize the EMPm effects is purely random depending on multiple things like the quality, ships and location of your PUGs. In these cases I feel like I can get a more consistent and better performance with other missiles. As for the DPS and AoE effects I must say that if I hear your experience I am really tempted to use it in DOM. If I am in satelite fights or small nests it really sounds awesome. I guess I decided against EMPm atm since I am doing several One ship games to figure out what works best. This brings me in the difficult position to kind of balance TDM and DOM with it being kind of viable in both modes. Up till now an EMPm that only hit a single target didn't have that much of an appeal to me in TDM and sometimes in DOM. The damage is true damage, but the amount is still not able to significantly impact a battle, especially since it doesn't lock out the systems. As for the shield / engine suppression. Engine suppression: I see the upsides to a 100% no engine regime either by the debuff or using an engine ability to break the lock. But when you fired the EMPm what missile do you follow up with if you are not in a T2F? This leaves you again up to pugs to use your EMP. They might deliver with missiles, they might deliver with railguns, mines, blaster, ... or not. And if he evades with the engine ability your attack on him most likely ends either way if you only have EMPm. Also Scouts and GS can still use Disto... Shield Suppression: Honestly atm I kind of like the notion of disabling shields. You can stop the activation of CP (good if you have LLCs), QCS (no more shield spikes), Feedback and most importantly you can stop shield cycling of directionals. If they evade the missile they are still unable to avoid further missiles, giving a 10s window of no missile breaks for other people. Disabling the shields and especially locking Directionals could help a build with only one missile independently of other pilots. Especially thinking about T3F I kind of enjoy the notion of shield suppression at the moment. Either you keep them vulnerable in directionals for 10s (Sth all of you see as a major problem for directionals, which actually isn't a problem at all since shield suppression is non meta) or he uses his missile break which gives a 9s? window to lock missiles. This is only in theory but I will try it out from time to time. Just so we are clear, if there is definite support engine disable is definitely a good choice. In solo situations where no follow up is guaranteed shield suppression might also be an option though.

Also another question that came up while watching your videos: What is your opinion on the upgrades of EMP missile. I have trouble liking this missile since it does minimal damage, doesn't stop the systems of primary target (in a lot of cases the only target) and people normally evade the missile with their engine ability thus making the engine lock-out in most cases redundant. How do you see these problems?

Hey Drak, a short question: Is there a faction you prefer at the moment? And if yes for what reasons?