I've been playing GSF since launch, and I am a solid if not amazing pilot. Recently I started a new character, and thanks to the experience I think more than ever that gear is just as important as skill; probably more important, to most of us. When you can easily be killed by anyone with a steady hand, when you run out of engine power in a few seconds of boosting, when you have no weapons that can effectively neutralize enemies... your chances are pretty slim of flying "well" or playing an important role in a match against players of equal or greater skill. I realize that some pilots have demonstrated that they have done quite well in stock ships, but I think this is pretty situational and is the exception rather than the norm. Gear is extremely important, especially to average pilots. A lot of the skill is knowing what to do in a given situation, like you said--but you need the tools to do those things. That said, it doesn't take THAT long to upgrade ships. A fraction as long as it takes to gear for ground PvP. And the fact that people CAN do okay in stock ships really illustrates the difference between ground and space PvP. I mean, I'd rather start a new pilot character than get into ground PvP because of the grind involved... I do think that far, far too many pilots pay too much attention to the leaderboard at the end of the match; most of us do need upgraded ships to get those coveted spots at the top of the board. But you don't need to place high on the leaderboard to enjoy yourself or to help your team win the match, and I think a lot of people see that leaderboard and think they're doing something wrong when they really aren't. I think it's wise to be careful, when dealing with frustrated newcomers, in downplaying the importance of gear. I daresay that pilots like the OP, if they were somehow given fully mastered ships, would have a much better experience.

I will continue to use RFL sometimes. Because freaking laser gatling guns are cool, no other reason. (okay, it's also because I enjoy the challenge of using a weaker weapon) That is a very informative breakdown, Verain. Even if it does illustrate that yet more tooltips are misleading/wrong... (iirc the tooltip on mouseover shows that the dps goes LLC > RFL > BLC when they have the same level of upgrades... I could be mistaken though).

A friend "on the inside" told me they're just waiting for your sub to end before they respond.

Damn, another new pilot throws up their hands in frustration. Sorry to hear about this! Wish there was some way to convince you to keep flying, it really is immensely rewarding once you are able to pilot well.

If you love stylized Star Wars space battle, stick with it! Though the guides and videos and things others have recommended are quite useful, they aren't *necessary* to enjoy the game. I learned through trial and error; never looked up a single thing until I had over 500 matches. If I had taken advantage of available guides before that, I probably would have used my requisition differently. All I'm trying to say is, you can get the hang of it and get good without having to research anything. So don't feel overwhelmed

You know, I can say the same for Jung Ma. I'm just happy when there's a pop! I am nearly always queued for GSF when I'm logged in. I *still* haven't gotten Fleet Admiral on Jung Ma, where my main character lives. On The Ebon Hawk, my ships still aren't too strong but it only took four months for me to get Fleet Admiral. Go figure. Cross-server queues would be wonderful!

That does sound very frustrating. Truth is, no one's quite sure how the (alleged) matchmaking works for GSF. The only thing I could suggest would be to move to one of the servers with a large pool of GSF pilots. Biggest ones seem to be The Ebon Hawk and The Bastion. That, or just stick it out and try to convince other pilots to do the same until matches are more even.

Hey HiddenPalm, I would be thrilled to see those suggestions implemented in SWTOR! But not necessarily for the purposes of competing with other games (I am inclined to agree that the only real competitor for current or potential GSF pilots will be Battlefront.). I'm just tired of seeing the same builds and strategies over and over again. I'm working up to possibly making a new thread about it. Anyway, it's good to see that people are still bringing creative ideas like this to the forum!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Storm-Cutter. Levelling your character to unlock additional crew members is against the Stock Night rules. Participants can only use the four STOCK crew members; the only change permitted is which of these four is the co-pilot. Companions unlocked by levelling are not stock. Here's the rule, with the pertinent phrase bolded and italicized: So unless the rules change, I wouldn't bother levelling a character just for the purposes of Stock Night. Hopefully I can join you all for one of these sometime. I'm tired of the cookie-cutter ship builds.

Seconded. These are things the people want to know!

Not necessarily weak players; but weak targets. Ships that are at low health, ships that are distracted or in the middle of a fight, and so forth. Going for the closest target makes sense, too. If preferring 'weak targets' implies preferring 'targets which require least effort', then distance to travel would be a factor.

Most people who get high kills do so by focusing on weak targets first. If you look, you'll notice that they also tend to fly gunships or type 2 scouts. For the purposes of requisition/xp/medals/whatever, there is no difference between kills and assists.

Okay, then. Eventually everyone will be at the same level of upgrades. Eventually. Yeah, it takes me weeks to get 60k requisition to spend on a single ship. Probably 2 weeks, give or take. Dunno. That $20 I spent seem to give me about a week's worth of progress. I assume that most SWTOR players play less GSF less than I do. I think your estimate for those who just play enough games to do the daily/weekly is probably about right. Gonna have to inspect my ship engines, I must be leaking requisition somewhere.

In the spirit of scientific investigation, I bought $20 worth of cartel coins and used them to convert an alt's ship requisition from unused ships to fleet requisition. Then I used that fleet requisition to upgrade my favorite ships to fly (Jurgoran, Sting, and Bloodmark). I have concluded that my $20 got me perhaps a few days or a week ahead, progression-wise. It did make a pretty significant difference in those ships, and those who are willing to spend cartel coins will "level" their ships quite a bit faster than those who don't. However, time is the great equalizer--after a few weeks, those who didn't spend coins will catch up with those who did. Additionally, most of the ace pilots have all of the upgrades they are interested in and therefore gain no advantage whatsoever from cartel coins. So by no means is Galactic Starfighter pay-to-win or a cash grab. You get better by playing the game, and there's nothing but paint jobs and laser/thruster colors you can't get by playing the game. Even those can be bought for credits off the cartel market. OP, you continue to insist that: 1) The tutorial isn't good enough. 2) New players are too weak in comparison to veteran pilots 3) Galactic Starfighter is little more than a cash grab. No one is arguing with 1). Though I will say that actual matches are more effective learning tools than any tutorial could be. 2) and 3) have been refuted, and suggestions have been made which you blatantly ignore. Players who are starting out in PvP are always at a disadvantage; this is true of all MMO's. If you think all players should be even whether new or not, you might be better off in a different style of game (Call of Duty for example). Your behavior is, at best, trollish; at worst, it is misinformative and deterring to new pilots perusing the forums. If you aren't willing to consider points of view other than your own, then it is pointless for you to invite discussion (posting on discussion forums is inviting discussion). In light of the above, I request that this thread be locked by a forum representative. Failing that, it's time for the thread to die. You've wasted enough of our time, OP. To any new pilots who happen upon this thread, I say: the OP got the wrong impression, don't listen to him.

They may be useless, but I find them fun and still equip them sometimes. They're particularly fun with frequency capacitor, though the damage capacitor is probably the best choice for effectiveness. Like Drakolich said in another thread, it's hard to get the killing blow--but that's what cluster missiles are for! Edit: Using targeting telemetry with rapid-fire lasers will melt a bomber's shields off quite quickly.

I work every Wed. until 11pm-ish EST... >.<

Shout-out to everyone. I've been flying on this server more and more.

That's wrong, end of story. You're starting to seem like a troll now.

If you're less-than-thrilled with ground PVP, how about queueing for Galactic Starfighter and joining us in the third dimension?

I run something very similar to the "Evasion Scout" build. I prefer barrel roll to power dive because it's a better gap closer (or gap maker) and it's easier to aim. But yeah. It's a solid build, and you're right about it being good for hunting gunships. Distortion Field + Running Interference + strafing on approach is fun, especially when multiple gunships are shooting at you and rail shots are zinging by I'm ashamed to admit that I have been using burst laser cannons on my Sting lately. Edit: The Evasion Scout build is pretty good defense against battlescouts with BLC, as well.

No one said that. But the OP is insisting that there is a paygate despite several veteran pilots saying it isn't true. I also get the impression that you're defending the OP.

Bottom line, OP, is that this statement: Is inaccurate. Without paying a single cent, a pilot has access to all non-cosmetic features of GSF. My character Strïx on The Ebon Hawk has strong ships now (not yet fully upgraded, but strong enough now to make a difference), and I've never converted any requisition. Might have taken a while, but this is an RPG after all. Galactic Starfighter is about space combat. The full game mode is playable from level 1, for free. If you're not patient enough to progress your character, that's your issue. But there's no paygate and therefore no P2W. Your position is clear, but I don't think anyone on this forum is going to agree with you.

Read this entire thread and it made me smile. Taken in its entirety, this thread answers the question, "Which components should I upgrade first?" with "All of them." Welcome to GSF.

The S-SC4 Bloodmark is my favorite ship to fly. It's just... fun to fly! It looks cool, and is extremely slippery. I run laser cannons, thermites, power dive, distortion field, and running interference. And tensor field, of course. Survivability is extremely high thanks to the evasion and maneuverability, but it is hard to get kills outside of a group of ships. Still, there's little in the game that's more satisfying than landing a thermite torpedo. And it does work well for de-roosting gunships. That being said, I don't know a way to make the type 3 scout competitive with the other builds listed in this thread. I wish people weren't so competitive in GSF anyway; then maybe we'd see more fun builds that aren't necessarily optimal (looking at you, type 2 scouts with BLC. Shoo.).

I know that groups do get priority in the queue. I've seen a few different explanations of how the matchmaking system works beyond that too, but to me it seems to decide at random who gets into matches and who gets left out.