I have used Suppression on and off on bombers for a while and even experimented with it a bit on scouts. I guess I'll go back to one of these three.

Today's question is regarding offensive co-pilot abilities that benefit drones/mines (if any). My focus is not so much on lining myself up for shots with my laser in my bomber - if something's in front of me, I'll shoot at it, but I don't think I get a ton of benefit from how I play in a bomber from Wingman (obviously, nearby teammates would). In my Rampart, I've been using Nullify to complement its innate damage reduction plus charged plating. Finding a co-pilot ability that I love in my Legion/Warcarrier is something I've been experimenting with. Unlike Stasie, I've ditched light armoring to go with reinforced armor in my drone bomber, the reasoning being that since I am usually going to be near my own repair drone that the extra health will be worth the loss of evasion. I've been using Bypass lately on the hope that it benefits railgun/missile drones and mines, but I don't know whether that is absolutely the case.

I guess I'd apologize, but as I have a life outside of reading this forum, which I do infrequently at best, I was just playing the game, saw you, and was chasing you around in whatever the hell ship I was flying at the time. My vague recollection is that my side had a horrible advantage over your side and so I did what I usually do, which is get in a junk ship (pretty sure it was a Quell, which I'm terrible in). I didn't realize I was interfering in an internet pissing contest to determine who was the best pilot in a virtual reality, although the person you were dogfighting mentioned something about ignoring you (but as I didn't read the forum, I had no idea what that was about). Anyhow, since I make no claim to be better than you or anyone else, I'm not too concerned.

A note to anyone who feels like the original poster. I've played this game seriously for probably about a year. In that year, my ability to fly my ships has grown immensely, along with my understanding of the mechanics of the game, why shots hit, why they don't, why I die. On the particular server I play on (Harbinger) there are many good players who play ranging from "so good that when I see these 2-4 people grouped, I know my team will either definitely win or definitely lose" to "good player, but I can be competitive against them". Not a day goes by, even a year later, where the thought doesn't cross my mind "God - I still suck so much at this game." And then a few matches later, I put up double digit assists and something over 5 kills (hardly dominant stats, but enough to make you feel like you really contributed, and you feel better about yourself. This game takes a while to get used to. If you are a Harbinger player and are struggling to get used to the game and want some assistance, feel free to PM me or send me an in-game e-mail and we can set up a time for us to go through the tutorial where I can help you go through some very basic things to practice that the tutorial doesn't explicitly tell you to do that will help. I definitely still remember how confusing everything was at first very vividly and, as I say, I still have those days where I wonder why I'm not better at the game, so I understand the frustration. And as people say, join the GSF chat by typing /cjoin gsf in your chat window. Even if no one is talking at the moment, post something in the chat and you'll almost assuredly get a response. In my experience, the people who play GSF are among the most helpful people in the entire game and you'll almost assuredly find someone who can give you a video, a guide, or just a few tips that will accelerate your learning curve. If I can become semi-competent at this game, anyone can.

Looks like Firebrand set off some anarchy in software Q&A

Die of heart failure due to shock

I ran into that problem with C2-N2 on the Republic side after I played through KOTFE. Got tired of waiting for them to solve it and it was on a toon where I'd already bought all the ships with my fleet req, so I just repurchased that one NPC rather than wait for tech support to ever do anything about it. For NPC's that are part of your crew for Chapters 1-3, go to the terminal in the base on Odessan to get them back. For NPC's that are not part of your crew for your particular character, you're gonna have to file a bug report/ticket.

Here are my feelings on it, coming from the perspective of someone who is OK at the game and sometimes puts up good stats, but will get rolled by the really good teams. However good the single ship pilots are and many of them are quite good, I consider them to be poor team players for the most part that are focused on getting kills, regardless of whether it's a TDM or Domination match. And for the purposes of this discussion, I consider a single ship pilot to be someone that always flies the same ship regardless of how many they have on their bar. If you have five ships in your hangar, but you only ever fly a Mangler/Quarrel or Sting/Flashfire (and there are several who fall into that category) even if it becomes apparent two minutes into a match that what your team needs more than anything else is a properly placed Hyperspace Beacon, then you are a single ship pilot. I'm personally most effective in Bombers, occasionally OK in gunships, and probably the worst scout/striker pilot on the planet (even counting people who have never played the game). But I'll still fly all of the ships. I'll tensor the beginning of a Domination match and try to cap a sat really quickly and then switch to a bomber or a gunship depending on what it seems like we need. But that's also going in knowing that I am very rarely going to lead a team in kills (unless my team just isn't very good or the opposing team doesn't punish me for my flaws, so my purpose in most matches is to help better pilots help the team win. The guys that really impress me are the ones that tear me up in their battle scouts and their gunships and then switch to their strikers and still do really well. That's a level that I am a long long way away from.

Rapid Laser Cannon. I don't see this one listed on a lot of builds, probably because it's only all that effective up close, but not in a BLC kind of way, but I've been thinking of trying it out on a couple of ships. What are your thoughts on it?

I have all eleven of the ships you can buy with fleet comms on three different characters and somewhere between 5-7 on 2-3 others. A bunch of characters with just the T-1 strike/scout that I didn't play GSF on much.

Also, what are the current stat priorities? Are accuracy, defense, and crit more important now that surge is out of the game or the first two still irrelevant in PVP?

https://torrentfreak.com/blizzard-stole-our-source-code-bot-maker-says-151119/

Standardize the PVP gear, make it unmodifiable and unaugmentable. Then it will be more about skill than gear. Then you can address the class imbalances.

Where do you get schematics for gear past around Level 50?

I read that a lot of people had bad experiences on stock night, which I'm sorry to hear, but I personally had a very good time and most of the matches I was in were very close. I think the easiest solution there is to fly stock night in your main character, but have one ship that you normally don't fly that you can unequip your upgraded components from. And then, if it seems like the other team is flying in their mastered ships, switch to whatever you consider to be your best ship and focus on those people in the match, while leaving the stock ships to fight among themselves.

1) I tend to use multiple ships in the same match a lot. For example, at the start of a Domination match, I'm almost always in my tensor scout trying to cap satellites ASAP. Unfortunately, I'm a terrible offensive scout, so this usually means I usually end up dead soon. Then I usally transition to whatever bomber seems to be less in use - if there's a bunch of hyperspace beacons out there, then I'm in my healing bomber, if there aren't, I look to see which satellites we're assaulting and try to get a hyperspace beacon between the two or near the one with the most action. 2) I fly gunships sometimes, but I'm really not good at them at all. 3) I don't play for kills at all. Even with my gunships, I tend to spend most of my time trying to debuff other ships with ion railgun, so I tend to get more assists than kills. But in a Domination match, I'm usually the guy guarding the satellite with no action because that's not a job people generally want to do and it's a pretty crucial job if you care more about winning than stats. Generally speaking, I'm more of a support guy than a killer and tend to gravitate towards those type of ships. I aim like a Stormtrooper.

And if so, what is the sweet spot for non-PVP gear (used to be item rating 162 when the max level was 60)?

Well said. And there are a lot of leaders on both sides. My larger point (not that certain people care to actually take the time to comprehend it) is this. Events like Solo Queue and Stock Saturdays are a heck of a lot of fun. Much more fun than a game full of mastered ships vs unmastered ships. And I think that a lot of other people find it fun too. I get the impression that for some people, it's just another way for them to say "I'm still better than the rest of you", which to me utterly goes against the point of the events in the first place, unless that was the point all along. But regardless of what the point is, I and a lot of other people are having a lot of fun in those events. I would like to see more of them. I think they're good for the community, I think they're good for creating an inviting space for new players to try out the game, and frankly, they're just more fun. And anything that creates more fun is inherently good as far as I'm concerned.

That seems like an obvious point, but people seem to be going out of their way to pretend that it isn't.

Well, in every winning stomp match I participate in, I'm going to ask that people not stomp them when it's obvious they have no chance. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't care. When they don't care, I may or may not make a comment about their sportsmanship. After all, nobody can force me not to. If they're in a weak or stock ship, yeah it's the new player's problem. There's a big difference between stomping them in a mastered ship and stomping them in a stock ship. I'm sorry, but I can't take responsibility for your lack of reading comprehension. I've stated my position quite clearly. If you wish to misconstrue it, it's your own problem. By the way, I incorporate your philosophy in a match yesterday. Since nobody can stop anybody from enjoying the game how they want, I enjoyed the game by making a special effort to kill your ship as many times as possible in a game where we clearly had the better team. I know you didn't mind it because nobody should tell me that that's not a valid way to enjoy the game. Hopefully you enjoyed all the other activities you engaged in yesterday. All people should seek as much happiness as they can find.

It's the colloquial you, but good for you. The only groups I participate in are the ones where I'm invited. I never go asking for a group in the GSF channel. Some people have been doing that lately. It really pisses off the stacked team. My suicides are all accidental, so it isn't me doing it. That's just an excuse. Plenty of good players self-police. Just not enough of them. Well, that's their problem. But anyway, I'm not concerned about the new players. They aren't going to be able to take advantage without help from people like you anyway. They can just fly to the best of their ability and if that results in a win, good for them. It's the mastered ship people that are the issue. Why not switch factions?

That isn't obvious and if you're going to go that route, perhaps I should start some new threads.

No, it shows how much of an advantage voice chat gives to premade groups. I thought it was a terrific event and nearly every match went down to the wire.

I learned that in spades, which is why I stopped contributing. Well, the only way that the undermanned side can punish the offenders is to exit the battle en masse, which ends the wargame. That's true, but here is what is your fault. Only playing with four/eight man groups comprised of people with multiple mastered ships, often using voice chat to help coordinate. That's all fine and good when you come up against another team that is that stacked and also using voice chat, but there are way more matches that are not that way. But people say "I want to play with my friends." Fine, you want to play with your friends. Here's a simple solution that I use when I'm on the winning side of a clownstomping. I get in my worst ship and fly. Gives me a chance to earn more requisition than I would otherwise earn in that ship because the majority of requisition comes from winning and double requisition and I can try to improve my skills on that ship in relative peace. Also, I tend to only target people that I either recognize or that have demonstrated in the match that they are good pilots. There are many people on this server who never get out of their Flashfire/Stings or their Manglers, regardless of the competition and love targeting new players. Well, if you know the game could use improvement and you know that Bioware isn't going to put any effort into changing the mechanics of the game, it's up to the people that play it to self-police. My understanding from Drakolich is that the only people who can see what's said in the /say channel are ships in your immediate vicinity. But yeah, you should fly lesser ships when you realize it's a stomping. Some people never will. Some might. Changing the subject, I love the Saturday night events. I love Solo Queue Saturday and Stock Saturday. The games I played in that night were all close scores right down to the wire. Now you still had your people who had to be in their gunships and Flashfire/Stings and there were people who weren't playing stock ships either because they weren't participating or because they were getting frustrated about losing and switching to better ships mid-game, but all in all those events are the most fun I have playing the game, even moreso than having the fortune to play with a good team against another good team and beating them without the benefit of voice chat. I would like to see those events happen twice a week if possible. I think they're good for the game and good for the community.

This is all extremely fascinating. Thank you for being willing to share your detailed thoughts about this build, which I just loved to death.