Indeed I have tried them, first I run reinforced armor (that's why I sometimes got away with red hull when you think you got me ), so ri is worse that it is on other people. I have tried lightweight + ri, I find myself in a constant state of fear, especially in the 40s where ri is on cd, I ran away from anything (isn't that what you already do? yea but in the evasion build I can't even stay and get one or two shoots off), and that makes me useless even though I should have better surviving chances statistically. How about wm? Tried it, it's an offensive cd, so it's already much worse than any dcd for me, and my poor accuracy makes it less useful. Nullify? I don't even run cp, and if I run cp bomber, spanner would actually make sense (to other people), and it's useless against blc and slug. Those single target ones like slicer, lockdown, iys, sj, suppression, just nah, it may be more useful when it's a team play, or if you wanna troll someone. LE? nah, if I want dot, I go plas. CF? I fly gs lol. Finally, bypass, ok, I haven't tried this one yet, but i suspect it's like wm, I would prefer a dcd. And co-pilot skill is one thing, the passives that comes with that crew is another, sometimes they just don't match (for me). So in short, yes I have tried the "optimized" co-pilot skills, but spanner is just better for me psychologically.

Not that my words mean anything, and I am not replying to anyone in particular (I haven't read most of them I find myself much more interested in writing a wall of text than to read one ). Basically just want to share how I started playing gsf. If I am to divide gsf players into 5 tiers, I would go T1: aces (name says it all), T2: above average (know what they are doing, know what their team are doing, know what the other team are doing, have good piloting skills), T3: average player (know what they are doing, kinda know what their team are doing, have some idea of what the other team is doing, have ok piloting skills), T4: below average (kinda know what they are doing, have some idea of what others are doing, have meh piloting skills), T5: noobs (no idea what they are doing, no piloting skills). I would say I am T2~3-ish, I know what people are doing, ok skills, quite poor aim, etc. But the thing is I spent about 100 games to get from T5 to T4~5-ish, my first games were so bad I would get no kill, little assist, low damage and die a lot, I trust many here are much faster learner than I was. By the end of ~100 matches, I understood that a fodder like myself was better off killing stationary objects like turrets, mines, drones instead of chasing ships and be killed, but of course since I was unaware of my surroundings, I still got killed easily. Well I didn't started doing gsf in the best time, SL used to be imp dominate, and I was pub, so it didn't help (baptized in fire huh). At about 300 matches, I'd say I was T4, got my novadive mastered (since I was only doing daily/weekly, I got more req, think req per match for daily vs no daily, but not the actual time), crap build (booster recharge, quick charge shield, deflection armor, stuff like that), but I began to know where I should go, start getting some kills, more assist, some damage, still die a lot. My stubbornness didn't help, I was determined to use only the two stock ships or mastered ships, so I didn't start using gs before I mastered it (guess which one's my first gs... yep comet ). ~500 matches, T3~4-ish, figured that I was much better at comet than novadive, started getting 10 kills in luck matches, 15-ish assist on tdm, 30k damage sometimes, started to understand objectives like guarding nodes, trying to kill threats (and fail) instead of just anyone closest to me (though when you do solo queue in gs, anyone closest to you is probably a threat), started using bomber and fail horribly, etc... ~850 matches, T3-ish, top board when the better players aren't around, having more carry potential instead of a liability, basically know what to do and try to do it, still fail sometimes, switched to better ships/builds (actually start reading guides and asking around, way too late imo, you should do that when you start), etc. And now at ~1.5k matches, T2~3-ish, I go to other servers, learn what people are doing there, trying to communicate with the team, reacting to things, developed a play style (not saying that it's good, but it suits my skills/build/feeling), having a role in the team instead of just another random pug, but I am still not too reliable when it comes to serious stuff. My point is, learning gsf takes time, I would say I am a pretty slow learner at this, but it takes time for everyone, some more than others, but if you don't give up, you will get better eventually. Also, you can contribute to the team no matter how bad you are, kill stationary objects so the better pilots in your team can focus on ships, staying around a node doing nothing is way better than chasing scouts around nowhere. Oh and I almost forgot, my aim is still quite crappy to this day (lol gs pilot who can't aim), 30 ish overall, better in gs (50~55-ish), my excuse is that my lag is terrible 170ish on the best server, 330ish on the worst, that's not counting spikes, i know you can adjust by leading a bit where you aim, but yea lag is bad . Another thing, I believe that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so I would do stuff like edge shots, shooing targets that are using all the evasion buffs (df, ri, engine ability, what more), shooting during br (when I have no time to turn then br). So don't be too unhappy about your accuracy, especially when you are just starting (then some guy go "your accuracy is bad and you should feel bad", no I ignore them). Last thing, builds, again I am still using bad builds (or some may say un-optimized), I still use hydrospanner on all ships. *This pause is intended for you to laugh* *You done?* *There you go* But I feel better and therefore perform better (psychological effect much?) when I am using it, and it suits my hit and run play style (yes ri is a better dcd, thank you for your input). My point is build is a personal thing, optimized or not, it's you flying your ships, not an AI flying optimized ships. Yes I am aware that these may be the reason why I will never become an ace, but I don't care, I play gsf for fun, I know I have my use in most matches, much less useful in aces vs aces (but then why would I be there if it's aces vs aces ), and if you are not going expect yourself to become an ace in a few matches, there are always things you can do to contribute, however minor they are, or even if you can't see the results/improvements, they help the team, just don't give up and you will find gsf to be one of the best things in swtor.

Some nice discussions about 4v4 deathmatch, but how about domination? Personally 1node and 3nodes are both fine for me, there is fun in each of them when it's 4v4. If it's 1node, all the fighting will be there, there will be no ninja capping the off node and such, it will be a true test of node defending and seige. If it's 3nodes, there will be lots of running around, 3capping will be harder. What do you guys think?

Pretty sure many of you have thought of this one, but since I don't see a post about this... Having 4v4 will greatly improve queue time in times when pops are usually dead, and since there are no reliable 8m/12m queue (sync queue/pop are not that reliable) using ops group anyway, 4v4 makes sense. Sure there is the coding and stuff, but I think the gsf community will accept the maps being the same, of course if the timer/score target are lowered for 4v4 that'd be great , but I don't think anyone would mind them staying the same if that means 8 people queuing in total will result in certain pop . I mean it can't be extremely difficult for it to happen right? If you can have 8v8 and 12v12, I don't see a huge barrier for implementing 4v4 . Hopefully this can also help the gsf communities in "dead" servers. By the way, gsf duel would be great as well, perhaps just use the tutorial map, remove the sat, and we can all have fun/do 1 to 1 training while waiting for queue to pop