Scouts are scouts, scout mk2s are short range interceptors The thing is that GSF does not have clear cut roles. A Sting can defend a node just as much as it can assault one, same as a Quell. Yeah scouts (especially mk 1s) have an advantage in capturing due to their speed and strikers have an edge in defence due to their increased toughness, but every ship can more or less do anything to varying degrees of efficiency given a good enough pilot, appropriate upgrades and proper communication.

I don't think this would work. Imps lose 90% of the time so the skilled pilots on their side would inevitably wind up with the less skilled, and probably 9 out of 10 fights would turn out to be Pub - Pub and Imp - Imp simulations regardless of actual pilot skill "level" Winning in GSF is less about individual skill and more about coordination and proper team play - which favors the organized groups but not the typical PUG. It's hard to be an Imp on GSF The only thing that would help would be cross server queuing IMO, I think there are just not enough concurrent queuers for the matchmaking system to work as intended.

Nice video OP, keep 'em coming... The Sting/Flashfire is my favorite ship and I must say I'm slowly becoming halfway decent with it. I don't do too well in the way of kills like you do but I do get in some assists and usually end up high on the objectives score. As for GSF... Yeah I resubbed just for this and I'm glad I did, it's great fun and I'm looking forward to the new ships/game modes! I play this game for the class (and planet!) stories and the space combat exclusively, I dislike PvP in general but still have a blast in GSF, it's the kind of PvP I enjoy I'm jealous of you though... Pubs have the best looking ships and win most of the time to boot!

Theoretically as solo players we shouldn't bump into those headset groups, but when matchmaking fails I guess we have to make do... More power to them of course for being organized but it does sting (ship pun intended)! Again, try out the cluster missiles. 1,5 second lock time, less when upgraded. They should at the very least net you some assists if not kills. Gotta go to work... Best of luck to you man

Responses in red!!

Watch GSF vids from skilled players like IDL (I think that was his name) and swallow your words.

Sounds like an l2p issue (I automatically assume that when I'm taken down - and that's a lot of times - it's an l2p issue on my behalf so no, I'm not trying to turn this into an e-peen thing as I'm an average player at best) - but with some good points nevertheless. The only thing that could be considered OP about scout type 2's is the evasion stat, which should be removed from the game period. I say this as a person who loves the Sting and whose play would suffer from this. The reason it's OP is because it kills the point of the ship - it's supposed to combine the nimbleness of a scout and firepower of a striker, with survivability being entirely up to the pilot's skill... Having evasion takes away from that as it really adds a second layer of shielding, in an off-hand way. I disagree about the cluster missiles. Take that away and you're left with nothing but a watered down striker without a clear role (which is close combat interceptor in this case). Cluster missiles are powerful due to their short lock-on time but they are more of an annoyance given their relatively low damage and short range. Any base ship can survive a number of cluster missiles to the face. The only thing that could maybe be slightly nerfed would be the targeting arc, which I feel is a bit excessive for the small lock-on time. The Sting's strengths are: - Good firepower - Good agility It's weaknesses should be: - Poor damage absorption - Short range Removing the evasion and crit stats from the game - and lowering the cluster missile targeting arc a bit - would be enough IMO. Firepower would still be good but the skill cap for the ship would go up.

Alrik - he's having problems with the strike fighter type 2, not the gunship. Though I do think that your gunship tips are actually quite pertinent for the Quell/Pike ships. They do seem to favor opportunistic attacks and constant relocation as well.

I agree with this. It is very frustrating to see a well-lined up shot wasted because of RNG.

The more game modes the merrier!

It's annoying when that happens. I break off the fight myself if I find myself straying too far from the satellite. Defending isn't a glamorous job but someone's gotta do it!

Not much of an MMO person myself, but I think that a good "supplement" MMO for you would be free to play or buy to play (as you're already spending a lot on subbing for SWTOR), and maybe fantasy instead of sci-fi. I played Guild Wars 2 quite a bit (quit eventually as I didn't like the setting, story or characters) and it's a pretty decent game. You could maybe try Neverwinter, which is f2p and seems like it has a better setting than GW2. Elder Scrolls Online will be out on April 4 but it will be a sub game (seems very good though). I've heard that The Secret World is a pretty good MMO in terms of story and setting, and it apparently has very interesting questing.

If you're into space sims, Elite: Dangerous will be out in 2014 and will feature an online persistent universe, online private servers as well as offline play. Also Star Citizen (out in 20??) could be considered a sandbox, or at least it will feature a lot of sandbox elements and an open universe.

I support this.

I did the same thing, I wanted to see which ship suited my playstyle more - turned out it was the Sting. Now I'm focusing on upgrading it as much as possible. And since I only recently discovered the daily and weekly quests like the doofus that I am I can actually begin upgrading my ships faster now

I think you got plonked into matches with people with superior upgrades - were you focusing on upgrading a single ship, or spreading the upgrades around? And if so, were you directly upgrading specific components or simply unlocking them to try them out? Because your experience reflects mine to an extent - though after those next few games where I did badly again, things improved and I am usually high up in the objectives ranks at the very least. As far as getting shot at goes - use the "who's targeting me" function thingy (I think the default is C) - as well targeting the closest ship that's targeting you. Use the environment to break LoS, try not to panic as it can lead you into freezing up, or crashing into an asteroid. Use the minimap and be ready to switch targets on the fly - even if I'm sitting on an objective I target the nearest enemy every two seconds and have my eyes on the minimap at all times.

The Sting is an awesome ship, I love it! It packs a good punch with its weapon choices + cluster missiles and is pretty nimble to boot. You can still capture objectives pretty quickly with it and pull your weight in a firefight. I think it fits my playstyle better as I've had my best games with it.

I agree that gunships the way they are don't thematically fit the "starfighter" aspect. I imagined them more as long range, heavy weapons platforms rather than all-out snipers. Lumbering, lots of shields and armor, with long-range heavy weapons and short range light turrets or something for self-defense (short range and low damage but huge arc of fire and computer-assisted targeting requiring less precision, or maybe "flak" style small AoE bursts). I'm not against gunships or anything, I will try them out myself when I can get my hands on them as I resubbed after Nov 1. But I'd have preferred a different style to them is all.

I think they mentioned that they are going to implement an actual hangar later on.

You mean you've never even scored a kill assist, let alone a kill? How is that even possible... I suck bad at GSF still but even I've scored some kills and assists, and often end up high in the objectives score. Do you bother with objectives, or are you just trying to rack up kills? I can understand not liking the expansion, it's very different to the ground game in every way and requires a different skillset, but even the starter ships with their starter gear can be competitive. Granted the matchmaking doesn't seem to work as intended sometimes - though that could simply be because there are not enough concurrent players to make it work.

***WARNING!!! BOOK AND MOVIE SPOILERS!!!*** ***ALSO HUGE WALL OF TEXT!!!*** To start with, I am not wrapping anything in spoiler tags given that I just made a rather clear spoiler warning. So be warned! I doubt any spoilers will show in the mouse-over preview of the thread link anyway. Also, apologies for the long rant but I really need to get this off my chest. So with that out of the way... I just came back from watching this, and I am very, very torn about how I feel. The side of me that enjoys action movies with great VFX (I studied 3D animation so I do like well done CG even though I much prefer practical effects with CG used only when necessary) was highly entertained. But the Tolkien fan in me is screaming, and given the fact that I'm past the "fanboy" phase in my life and understand why things that work in the book won't work in the film and vice versa, it's quite a big thing. I'll start with the negatives as I prefer to get unpleasant stuff out of the way quickly. My most generalized problem is... I rarely felt like I was watching a movie in Tolkien's world. Mostly, it was like watching a huge, generic, flashy fantasy blockbuster with videogame combat and a big dollop of fan service and shoehorning. So much mindless filler action, to the point that it got boring despite it being well made. I know that the Hobbit being turned into a trilogy was meant to milk people and that they needed lots of padding to fill the three hours per movie they required... But Jesus people. What really irritated me was not only shoehorning Legolas in, but also shoehorning the most stupid and insulting romance subplot to appeal to the Twilight crowd. When I saw Legolas in the trailers I groaned audibly because I knew that it would mean more improbable dancy action and "Legolas moments"... Ugh. And I groaned when I saw the Tauriel character because I knew it was a way to shoehorn a romance in. Oh look, Leggy has a girlfriend. Whoopty do. But what I saw was worse, and I really felt that it was a huge dump on Tolkien's grave. The made her fall for one of the dwarves. Yep, a Legolas - Tauriel - Kili love triangle. WHAT THE ****??? I cannot begin to describe my annoyance. I am all for romantic sub-plots in movies when they makes sense and when they're well done. But this was just mind-bogglingly ridiculous, and not to mention a complete ****-up of the lore... I actually find it to be a huge, huge disrespect towards the author, and I won't go into why this is - I'm sure Tolkien fans would at least understand my anger whether they agree or not, and I don't expect anyone who is not a Tolkien fan to be reading this far after my spoiler warnings. At the very least a) they didn't screw up an existing important person from the book and actually Tauriel was a very solid character, b) they get to develop one of the dwarf characters through this and c) at least it kind of goes with the "mortal and elf love is always star-crossed" motif Tolkien followed, since Kili will die in the Battle of Five Armies anyway. And why do dwarves need to be pretty boys anyway? Oh, and Thranduil looked like a creepy weirdo. However, the movie itself did have a lot of good stuff going for it. Obviously the effects are top notch, and the movie does manage to draw you in even when its flaws are screaming at you. Technically the movie is incredible, and there's no question as to how much effort and love has been poured into it. Martin Freeman (I think I got that right) is excellent as Bilbo as always, and in general I did get the feeling that the cast were really into it, loving every moment. The Mirkwood spider scenes were awesome, I loved how they handled them talking (Bilbo only hears their speech with the Ring on, it suggests their evil nature and loyalty). I like the fact that they focused more on different dwarves (as far as I remember) this time round as they're more than the secondary characters they were in the book and it works in favor of the movies as we do grow to care for them more. But what made the entire entry fee worth it three times over despite some of the crap they pulled was the conversation with Smaug. The dragon itself was astoundingly awesome... And the scene itself was masterfully done, it was the one time I actually felt "Yeah! This is the Tolkien movie moment I know and love'. In fact, I was so enthralled by the scene that I forgot that I needed to pee and only remembered it after the movie. Just impeccable! I think I've gone on too long. I am so torn. I want to love this movie as I have a huge respect for Peter Jackson - he not only achieved the impossible with the LotR trilogy, he also made his childhood dreams come true (to make LotR into films and a King Kong remake). Respect... And despite my Legolas rant I do like Orlando bloom and I'm happy that he got to reprise his role - I'm sure he got even more joy from being back in the old stomping grounds than from his pay. But I feel that PJ is following in George Lucas' footsteps and creating his own "Prequel Trilogy", and whilst the Hobbit movies are miles better than the Star Wars PT... They still feel like they were movies that didn't really need to be made. And it makes me very, very sad to think that. Again, I apologize for this huge rant. I just want to add this extra comment: As a movie it is a blast, very entertaining and to one not familiar with the source material it should be an extra special treat with a cliffhanger ending. But even though I understand and accept changes to the source material in any adaptation, the aforementioned dislikes really left me feeling confused in how I feel. I saw a number of glowing reviews for it and I'm truly happy to see people enjoying it as much as they did.

When using cluster missiles, I did see my target get hit by one or two of the salvo during a barrel roll. Maybe the engine maneuvers can't shake off more than a certain amount of missiles?

You could have simply not opened the boxes you know.

My sentiments exactly! I've posted my peeves a number of times already so there's no reason to spoil the mood here And I have found a lot of fun in it. It's the fun gameplay element that SWTOR lacked to go with the great setting and class stories in my eyes. Speaking of which... Maybe I should go for a bout of GSF now before work Time to get steamrolled, lol!

I am a huge fan of blasting people with guns in space sims, but I mostly resort to missiles in GSF. Two reasons: Firstly, the guns feel like they have no impact and secondly, the RPG trope of evasion. Granted missiles can be evaded too, but it's frustrating to see a stream of shots that should be hitting an enemy missing because of "x% evasion"... And I say this as a Sting player. There's just not enough oomph behind gunfire and evasion makes it feel even less fun.