It's even simpler than that in a scout, depending on build. Talking from an evasion build standpoint, I'll get within 18K, let my engines power back up, then boost right at. Watch the target directional display to make sure where it's targeting. I've got two tactics, depending which way he's facing. Facing me: Hard boost with engines full. When he starts glowing, count three ticks, hit Distortion Field (about 9K away at this point). Missile lock at range, blasters at max range, transfer power to weapons. Stop boosting at 2K, throttle back, just in case they're stupid and still trying to fire at me and not running. Offensive cooldowns are saved, in case they do try to flee. Not facing me: Hard boost to 3K, then throttle back. Power transfer to weapons, offensive cooldowns, fire blasters at 1.5K. Three shot kill. Immediately after next target before cooldowns wear off.

I do that on a very rare occasion anymore. Mostly it's when the game's opening up, and I'll K-Turn instead of powering to the engines, which sits right below the K-turn on my gamepad. What gets me is misjudging just how much headroom I have skimming between tight spaces, which will sometimes result in me scratching my canopy when I could swear I had enough room.

1) What are you flying? 2) What's your weapon setup? 3) What's your accuracy? 4) Are you able to even get an enemy into your sights in a dogfight? 5) Are you putting your target reticule in their leading reticule? 6) Are you trying to fire when the leading reticule is still grey? 7) Are you trying to shoot at extremely close range? (less than 100m) 8) Are you trying to shoot at the extreme edges of your firing arc? 9) Are you adjusting your fire slightly if you miss your first shot? 10) How's your latency?

Err, I've had absolutely no problem queuing for GSF and PvE content. Not sure about ground PvP, I don't get into that too often. But yeah, GSF and PvE queues play nicely together. But when you accept one, you lose your queue for the other, and that's just a general functionality of the queue system.

PvP requires all three, folks. Teamwork, skill, gear. If you've got two, you're doing alright. If you've got a team full of 2-and-3-shippers, probably not. Because it isn't just your gear and skill, it's everyone else on your side. I've sat there topping the chart, gold medal at the end, accounting for half of my side's total medals. Obviously, it's a loss. One person, no matter how good, cannot carry an entire match. What they can do is tip the balance of the fight. And most of the time, that's all that's needed.

It's actually worse for imp side, as Jaesa's passives are pretty much mandatory for top scout builds. Meanwhile Scourge is... optional nicety.

Gotcha on the other two parts. I certainly wouldn't argue that tracking blasters is a bit odd, but you're also talking a relatively minimal area that they can track inside of. I just attribute it to a slight mechanical adjustment. But, fixing the weapons to a specific point would allow for roll, not yaw, to be the base right/left movement. Which does make more sense for a flight sim. As for the engine ability/chaff, well... there'd be some mechanics to work out there. I could see leaving the engine ability in to break a lock-on before the missile is fired, and chaff (in limited quantity) to handle post-fired missiles. As for the quoted part... gunships aren't easy to evade at all if they've got you locked in their sights. It takes a good bit of piloting skill and ducking behind cover, if it's available. Open field, you're a sitting duck. The only recourse is Distortion Field kicking evasion past the 100% mark. Even at that, if they're boosted for accuracy, they've still got a good chance of nailing you. But you can at least survive one shot of that. However, a good gunship pilot will quickly switch to blasters and fry you while your forward shields are down. A bad gunship pilot will be heading back to their respawn point after trying to snap off an uncharged rail shot. But if you take out evasion/accuracy, good or bad gunship pilot, that leaves no recourse for closing on the gunship when you're in their scope and closing through open space.

What you're basically asking is for gunships to be the undisputed champions of the map with this list. 1. The reason why it's there, mainly, is to help counter the overwhelming firepower of the gunships, because they have no real tracking penalty if you've got even halfway decent aim and patience. If that got taken away, their shots hit 100% of the time. Not so with the other ships. 2. You don't need to take away the tracking reticule for solid joystick support. The weapons don't need to be locked to the immediate fore of the ship for solid joystick support. It's simply incorporating joystick control into the current operation of the game. Now, if you want to talk about the way the controls work, there's an issue. I dislike that the roll of the ship is controlled separately. That's the part that really doesn't translate well into a flight sim with joystick. However, locking weapons forward really only impacts fighters and scouts, who are usually in turning wars and barely have a moment of having a ship in their extreme sights, let alone dead center. Gunship, meanwhile, the main weapon is scoped. Lock the weapons forward, there's absolutely no tracking penalty, and as long as you can turn that lug with the target, you will hit it. Especially if 1 were implemented. 3 (4 as well, really). Why? Seems like a lot of work just to rework a mechanic of the game. Besides, engine upgrades make sense. How does chaff upgrades tie into increasing your speed or turn rate? Or do you want those upgrades to be reworked as well into something fitting to chaff? Which again, works to the benefit of gunships over the other ships, making everything a little less maneuverable. The other reason it benefits gunships over everyone else is that now, there's no jerky movements when ships use their lock break abilities, meaning less problem targeting them in the scope. The ONLY hindrance to gunships is because they have enough problems getting away as it is with Barrel Roll. However, with everything else on this list, no one would really be able to get close enough to them to be a threat.

Try it sometime after you've made a name for yourself in GSF, and have people 4-manning you with missile locks. There's not enough lock breaks to handle that firepower of that magnitude.

Don't worry... that would require them to go outside.

I think you mean the F6 Hellcat... I prefer to use US aircraft for drawing comparisons. I'm more familiar with them, and... well, I'm on enough watchlists as it is, I don't need to be on any more as a "Ruskie sympathizer", heh.

He had a good teacher. Then again, a ship is only as good as the pilot at the controls, and Knickers rocks that dogfighting very well. We've also got a number of pilots that are coming up and becoming forces to be reckoned with. It's going to be very interesting once the pool size gets even larger.

It's fun, isn't it?! I love the challenge involved, flying through tight obstructions. Boost-chasing around/through things, as well. One misstep, and it's back to the respawn point, and that disgraceful message for all to see!

You already sort of do have an inherent class bonus... your companion crew. Depending what your companion bonuses are, they'll lend more toward a certain ship type. Don't need classes further pigeonholed into a specific ship type than that.

You're forgetting one thing. Primary weapons for scouts have a significantly lower accuracy rating (except the Quad Laser) than that of the strike fighters' primary weapons (except Rapid Fire) or the gunships' rail guns (yes, I know, secondary weapons, their primaries are about equal to the scouts'). This is to make a distinguishable difference between taking Blaster Overcharge or Targeting Telemetry... in order to max your damage potential, you have to sacrifice accuracy. Even then, it's an active ability, so your accuracy normally sits in the low-to-mid-90s as a scout depending what your primary weapon is, and if you have an offensive crew with 6% increased accuracy (which is a must-have for a scout). The thing is, people like to distinguish the "build" of their ship. It's evasion build, or it's accuracy build, or it's pew pew build, or it's speed build... there's multiple build types on all ships. You can focus, sure, but you sacrifice something in turn. I run heavy evasion, heavy accuracy, heavy CCM. Three builds, because the components and upgrades don't conflict. I don't have to drop my accuracy to beef my turn rate. I do sacrifice damage to increase accuracy. Best way to say it, there's three main build categories for each ship... the offensive build, the defensive build, and the power build. So it's not out of the way that you have an evasion and an accuracy build for scouts... that's just their defensive and offensive builds.

Well first, you realize Early Access is still going on, right? Second, what type of ship are you flying? Third, to answer you a bit more, there are many maxed ships out there that people are flying, it's going to be an uphill climb for you individually. It's going to be worse if you consistently get crap teams. However, when the Preferred get into the game, there's going to be a lot more fresh fliers out there. Also, your daily and weekly missions are not tied to wins specifically. So even if you take losses, you'll still fill out the requirements and be able to upgrade your ship. In the meantime, even if you can't make kills, work on your aim. Work on your capping skills. Help your team out as best you can. You'll find you can actually make a dent in things.

Just going to voice opinions on the "Do Withouts" here... 1. Domination style is a bread-and-butter PvP game type, right along with Capture the Flag. Personally, I'd love to see an objective capture game, not unlike Voidstar in ground PvP (granted with space-appropriate style gating systems). I also wouldn't mind seeing attrition as a victory condition being more than it already is (awarding 1 victory point per kill). But it's still early. There's plenty of time for them to make more game style maps, and make them right. In the meantime, hone your skills. 2) I love the upgrade system. Like every MMO, it isn't just about the grind... it's the sense of accomplishment when you hit that top tier. By the same token as you stated, why even have a leveling system in the game? Just start everyone at 55, give them top tier equipment, and let them have at. Because it defeats the purpose of playing the game, that's why. Besides, we're getting a benefit as subscribers because we give them money every month to continue funding this game. I don't mind that we're going to have an edge over the freeloade... I mean, free-to-players when they get access. 3) Wait, sorry, I misread that. I'm mixed feelings about that. But isn't ground PvP the same way, only standard 4-person groups can queue together? Same reason and that, I'm sure... to not let overwhelmingly good teams queue full together. You can still hit the queue button together and sometimes get the same match.

There's a reason why I call my Flashfire the "A-wing". 1) It looks like the A-wing, especially if you use Barrel Roll on it. 2) Because that's what the A-wing's role was... an interceptor. It's basically the F-18 of SWTOR.

I do this in my scout sometimes when I'm guarding a node (hey, don't look at me like that, even I like to take it easy from time to time). In Lost Shipyards, I'll typically sit on the the sat at C, just racking up defense points, and watch my map for a blip headed my way. Quick target, wait out of LOS for them, line up the shot for when they clear the obstruction, and start firing. In Kuat Mesas, I'll actually bury up in a nook of the scaffolding and wait for someone to come in, then boost on after them. It's just fun ambushing people. I started out much the same as you, but man... that list. You DON'T fly through the "solar arms" of the sats? That's like, one of those psychological things, when you slip between them and turn back on someone following you. Just like weaving through the scaffolding of Kuat Mesas' B node. Flying straight at gunships works, if you have the right upgrades. So does head-to-head with a strike fighter in a scout. Key is having the right build for it. People think "oh, a squishy scout is flying right at me, easy *BOOM!*.... f***." Start locking missiles while chasing someone around a sat. Why? It makes people panic, especially if you get that lock established. They hit their lock break, which sometimes makes them crash into that sat. Or they crash themselves as they try to fly tighter or faster. Play mind games with them, psychological warfare is FUN! For clarification, when I said flying between the "solar arms" (my name for the light panels that show the objective status... because that's what they remind me of in a realistic sense), I didn't mean flying between two of those arms. I meant what I'm sure NomineImperator meant... that little gap in each of those arms.

Pro-tip: If you're aiming dead center of the reticule and the numbers aren't flying, and you are at a dead stop, adjust slightly above the target. If you're moving (turn war), aim slightly between the center of the reticule and the target. You'll start to see numbers.

If you're in a gunship and see my Flashfire making a head-on run at you, and you think I'm going to be an easy kill because you can shoot first, you're going to be rethinking your strategy as you're waiting to respawn. This isn't idle boasting, I've made too many kills in a head-on with gunships that left them scratching their heads as to why they couldn't hit me.

Actually, no... I was mistakenly adding the increase modifiers to the 10% after I maxed it out. I didn't see that it increased the component's description when those got added. That explains a few things. /facepalm

You have chosen... wisely. Seriously, yes, evasion does not work against missile weapons, except rocket pods. That said, most missiles don't do well against scouts, who benefit the most from evasion. Everyone else, it works to some effect, but an evasion build is mainly for the scout ships. It keeps us from getting squished by anything except upgraded gunships.

+10% (+16% maxed) to evade in my scout. My evasion bonus is massive, over the 100% mark when I pop Distortion Field. It's very useful when you have a gunship drawing a bead on you as a scout.

It's called situational awareness. You check the skies around you. You check every sensor echo being relayed to you from friendly ships. If you get popped by a gunship during a dogfight, that's bad luck, but it happens. You respawn and get back in the fight. You track that SOB down and kill it. It's a tactical game. Gunships sniping scouts that are in CCM is part of those tactics, since scouts are squishy and lots of damage can make them go *pop!*. Scouts hunting down gunships so they never get that chance is also part of those tactics. Is that to say there aren't balancing issues? Sure, there are. And they will be worked out over time. GSF's only been live for 2 weeks. It's a common problem with people complaining about a multitude of things. "The game doesn't have enough content." "Balance the classes now." "Add more stuff." "There's so little game compared to that other game that's been out for 10 years." This stuff takes time to do, to make sure the coding works, that it doesn't break something else, that it does what it was intended to do. In the meantime, work around it. Gunships are not the monstrosity that everyone makes them out to be. Neither are scouts. Both can be defeated, if you can outfly and outthink the other pilot.