Space Missions getting VERY tough...

[Walkiry]

What is the difference between using the WAD keys and just strafing with the mouse? I find that moving the mouse to the left & right is the same as using A & D. Or am I wrong?

 

Partly. The way it works is that your ship will chase the mouse cursor, but WASD will let you move the ship around the cursor itself.

 

So, for simplicity's sake, imagine this is the screen:

 

____________________________________
|                                                            |
|                 ________                             |
|                 |           |                              |
|                 |     x    |                              |
|                 |______|                              |
|                                                            |
|__________________________________|

 

The X represents the cursor, and the small square represent the area which you can move your ship through with WASD, which is smaller than the whole screen.

[JoeGotBored]

I have never needed the power converter or the target immunity to get through the missions.

 

When you don't have important targets, stop shooting, you will regenerate shields. This is not obvious and i only learned it recently, it makes many of the tougher missions easier.

[Andyonme]

Its very easy. Recharge your shileds as said above. Edited February 22, 2012 by Andyonme

[swtorSoCal]

It sucks I have to rebind my keys for missions as I dont have turn L/R on my keyboard.... please sign me up for the let straf=L/R for space missions club.

[Tuhalu]

I didn't know about WASD movement during missions before this. Just chased the cursor around the screen and did fine. Some of the later missions do take some practise to get good at. But once you've done them enough, they're pretty much unfailable.

[Sirsri]

Pro tip: At high levels the missile launcher is lower dps than your blasters + power conversion module. Only use missiles on 'hard' targets (shield generators). I did all the missions without an EMP or electronic warfare pod, and only the starter 50 missile launcher, and had an easier time of it than people trying to use piles of missiles.

 

Also, don't take the proton torpedo launcher. Ever*.

 

 

 

There are a few basic general tips. First of all, since the missions never change you can learn where enemies will come from and lead the damage. Kill things before they shoot at you, have a full load of missiles ready for shield generator passes, that sort of thing. You also know when the lulls in bad guys are, use that to boost shield regen, and get your shields up to full fast.

 

None of the missions are particularly challenging, thought ascendancy barrier is 7 minutes of boredom followed by 1 minute of dodging mines, destroying a minelayer, and picking off one heavy fighter all very quickly.

 

 

 

*Advice subject to change based on future patching or content of 1.14 that I haven't seen.

[jimmybob]

Use WASD.

 

I could NOT get past any of the final missions until I read about this. The WASD keys are 100% unnecessary before lvl 45, then for some reason, they become 100% necessary out of the blue, with no warning. Zigzag maneuver your heart out and you'll do ten times better.

[GnatB]

Tips I haven't yet seen:

 

Any time enemies are flying away from you: Power converter to shields, and take 'em out with missiles. Missile damage doesn't seem to be reduced, and they have plenty of time to hit the target before it turns around and comes at you.

 

Missiles are almost useless on enemies flying towards you though. Even if you fire at a distance, the missiles travel slow enough that they'll do damage before they die. Better to take 'em out from farther away with blasters.

 

You can r-click directly on enemies or target points to fire single missile shots at them as opposed to dragging across them. This is especially useful against anything that takes multiple missiles to destroy such as targetting computers (at least, I think that's what they are... could be placebo but taking out the more durable target point on the imp frigates noses seems to dramatically reduce their accuracy.. and there's always some quip about "who needs targetting computers"...)