Hands-on with SWTOR's Galactic Starfighter

[MaximilianPower]

They are quick as hell and you can fly chasers into openings just small enough to fit your ship's profile but too small for theirs. Advanced loadout is pretty smexy too, but they are flash paper. More so than any other craft, managing the blasters/shields/engines balance is critical imho.

 

 

Scouts were my favorite, for the reasons above. Fighters felt like 18 wheelers in comparison.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

This is a great expansion to SWTOR! The stream was incredible and I know I'm going to enjoy this!

[Rafaman]

I missed the stream because I was on the PTS mixing it up. Lol! Ok... so not going into a long list of first impressions.

 

But, do your self a favor and run the tutorial a few times just to get any idea of how it works. It isn't much of a tutorial in that you are doing nothing but targeting drowns, but it will give you and ideal of how flight and targeting works.

 

Also, Starfighter has its on keyboard mappings so check that out. That should get you squared away with a configuration you are comfortable with.

 

Got my xbox 360 controller to work as expected. Everything is there and key mapped via xpadder. So it is an option, but... the keyboard and mouse are more precise in terms of shooting right now for me. So, I don't see any real advantage yet in using a controller. I'm working through several different configs though so I need a little more time.

 

Overall, lots of fun and a thumbs up.

[theUndead]

I missed the stream because I was on the PTS mixing it up. Lol! Ok... so not going into a long list of first impressions.

 

But, do your self a favor and run the tutorial a few times just to get any idea of how it works. It isn't much of a tutorial in that you are doing nothing but targeting drowns, but it will give you and ideal of how flight and targeting works.

 

Also, Starfighter has its on keyboard mappings so check that out. That should get you squared away with a configuration you are comfortable with.

 

Got my xbox 360 controller to work as expected. Everything is there and key mapped via xpadder. So it is an option, but... the keyboard and mouse are more precise in terms of shooting right now for me. So, I don't see any real advantage yet in using a controller. I'm working through several different configs though so I need a little more time.

 

Overall, lots of fun and a thumbs up.

 

Rafa, considering you have played it a bit. Tell me are people who live in Aus who are on the American servers effected by lag at all?

[Mallorik]

Got my xbox 360 controller to work as expected. Everything is there and key mapped via xpadder. So it is an option, but... the keyboard and mouse are more precise in terms of shooting right now for me. So, I don't see any real advantage yet in using a controller. I'm working through several different configs though so I need a little more time.

 

Yeah its easy to get a controller to work but even with a controller you're still just flying the ship with the reticle, not actually flying it.

 

Chasing a target blip on your hud with a mouse pointer just doesn't feel anything like flying. Other than that its really well made, love everything else about it. I dont mind the arena setting, seems large enough. The pvp seems like it would be a blast. And the progression system and load outs seem ike they have a lot of fun diversity. But playing whack a mole with a mouse pointer is a big deal to me, maybe the new battlefront will have flight.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Mallorik

[ZETA_SCORPII]

Yeah its easy to get a controller to work but even with a controller you're still just flying the ship with the reticle, not actually flying it.

 

Chasing a target blip on your hud with a mouse pointer just doesn't feel anything like flying. Other than that its really well made, love everything else about it. I dont mind the arena setting, seems large enough. The pvp seems like it would be a blast. And the progression system and load outs seem ike they have a lot of fun diversity. But playing whack a mole with a mouse pointer is a big deal to me, maybe the new battlefront will have flight.

 

Damn bro, you a TWA pilot or something? I guess I kinda have an idea where you are coming from though, after 2007 and Modern Warfare I've been very picky about the shooters I play.

[LordArtemis]

Well, my initial impressions.....not so good in some ways, fantastic in others.

 

 

Movement - 4

 

Movement using the keyboard and mouse is clunky, feels unnatural as I expected. Gamepad support should have been a given here...disappointed in this respect.

 

Combat - 7

 

Combat is not as fluid as I would like...hold right mouse to lock and release to fire is a bit odd. Other than that small flaw, excellent. Like the simplified abilities, abilities seem useful. Not bad, pretty good actually, but a few points deducted for missile lock and fire.

Graphics and sound - 9

 

Fantastic in almost every way. This was to be expected however, but it is still praise worthy. Sound is incredible, rich, environments are great.

 

Fun factor - 7

 

Lost some points on the control setup and missile lock, but overall pretty good. Not as good as it should be IMO, but very approachable. You have the hang of it pretty quickly. Not as addictive as I had hoped, but better than I expected overall. A VAST improvement over the current space combat feature. One point lost for lack of on foot combat on capital ships, ala BF2.

 

 

Overall a pretty good setup, reasonably fun, control scheme is probably the biggest hit. Having an innate controller scheme was required IMO. I don't think this is going to appeal to much to the hardcore PVP crowd, and that is great news IMO. Should have reasonable appeal to casuals, but will definitely lose a good portion of appeal due to poor control design.

 

Overall I rate it a 7 out of 10.

Edited November 16, 2013 by LordArtemis

[Applicator]

Controls are fine with a mouse as you only need to move to edge of the targeting reticle to move, unlike X-wing or Tie Fighter where you had to continuously scroll your mouse up and down to chase targets. Will try with gamepad, but I'm much more accurate with a mouse.

[Rafaman]

Rafa, considering you have played it a bit. Tell me are people who live in Aus who are on the American servers effected by lag at all?

 

So far, no lag issues with GS, and the matches I have played have been full on 12 vs 12. It bodes well for the release. However, I should point out that the load on the PTS is hardly the load you will see on a real server.

 

My main server is Harbinger and it handles some of the biggest loads in the game as far as I'm aware. And yes at peek hours when there is a full compliment of American and Aussies on simultaneously there can be spikes of latency. GS may suffer from it too, but I don't know if it is the 3D element, space or just improved engine mechanics but latency or lag spikes have not been an issue on the test server.

[Rafaman]

Yeah its easy to get a controller to work but even with a controller you're still just flying the ship with the reticle, not actually flying it.

 

Chasing a target blip on your hud with a mouse pointer just doesn't feel anything like flying. Other than that its really well made, love everything else about it. I dont mind the arena setting, seems large enough. The pvp seems like it would be a blast. And the progression system and load outs seem ike they have a lot of fun diversity. But playing whack a mole with a mouse pointer is a big deal to me, maybe the new battlefront will have flight.

 

Well, technically, the problem I'm facing is that the thumbsticks are too sensitive. So if I push the sticks too much one way or the other I'm spinning out of control. I think I can adjust it, but we will see. Also I think I'm playing with the Mouse Look and strafing setup to minimize the reticle flight. I have a few days to work through it but I'm confident I will find a setup that will give me the flight sim feel. We will see.

[Mallorik]

Well, technically, the problem I'm facing is that the thumbsticks are too sensitive. So if I push the sticks too much one way or the other I'm spinning out of control. I think I can adjust it, but we will see. Also I think I'm playing with the Mouse Look and strafing setup to minimize the reticle flight. I have a few days to work through it but I'm confident I will find a setup that will give me the flight sim feel. We will see.

 

The reason youre spinning out of control is youre trying to map a button to an axis, it never works very well. you can turn down the sensitivity but that usualy just makes it really slow. You just have to bump the axis like its a button to spin, or what I usually find easier, map it to a button on your controller.

 

And what do you mean playing with the mouse look and strafing set up? the only option I can find for mouse look just turns ship control off.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Mallorik

[Hambunctious]

It's pretty amazing that JTL had mouse controls that worked great with a fixed reticule, as reticules should be, yet EA can't make it work the same way. I knew awesome pilots who did not use a joystick/controller in JTL. The one time when they shouldn't try to do something different, they do. It's a tried, and true method that's loved by SW sim fans.

 

One thing I hated about JTL was that gear played a huge part in success, and GS does the same thing. The only reason that was a big deal was because there were outlier parts at one time, and they were never removed from the game if you already had them. Like tier 10 armor plates that only had a 1k mass, and similar things with other parts. Anyone coming along later had no way to get them. Neither did modding of faction ships make much sense.

 

What they have now isn't for me. If you're happy, great, but I won't be partaking. Just like I refuse to play their starfox mess, because it's not fun for me either.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Hambunctious

[LordArtemis]

Well, I would recommend that folks at least try out the tutorial. That gives you a small idea on what it will be like to control the ship. You can get some idea on whether or not it is going to appeal to you that way.

 

You can access the tutorial regardless of your character level to my knowledge.

[The_Grand_Nagus]

Well, I would recommend that folks at least try out the tutorial. That gives you a small idea on what it will be like to control the ship. You can get some idea on whether or not it is going to appeal to you that way.

 

You can access the tutorial regardless of your character level to my knowledge.

 

I didnt see the tutorial; how do you access it?

[Jamus_Divinus]

I didnt see the tutorial; how do you access it?

 

Open up the hanger then top right ? sign is the tutorial.

 

Allows you to free flight and practise without combat. Handy to spend time fine tuning turns imo.

[MustrumRidcully]

Well, I did play the original TIE Fighter and X-Wing with a Mouse and Keyboard, and when one of the later titles (was it Alliance or XvT?) no longer supported it, I disliked it. For a long time, I also played Descent with a Mouse and Keyboard. (In fact, I think I just recently did this gain, a few months back, I re-acquired the games via GOG.) I don't remember how I played the I-War games.

 

The biggest reason to use keyboard and mouse to me seems that these are the controls you use everywhere else in the game, and switching to a joystick for a specific game mode is inherently awkward.

 

If you don't consider this expansion to create a "pure" new game but something you do between all the other leveling, grinding, raiding and PvPing you do, then it might really be the most sensible thing to optimize for this and avoid having barriers to entry for all other players - even if that means that the hardcore space simulation crowd doesn't get its favourite control.

[Mallorik]

The biggest reason to use keyboard and mouse to me seems that these are the controls you use everywhere else in the game, and switching to a joystick for a specific game mode is inherently awkward.

I understand their need to make controls uniform and I even understand if they just didn't have time to build support for sticks and pads but plan to later. But that is no excuse to not give the players the option, and its a terrible idea to put a barrier like that in your game when it is so easy to fix.

 

If you don't consider this expansion to create a "pure" new game but something you do between all the other leveling, grinding, raiding and PvPing you do, then it might really be the most sensible thing to optimize for this and avoid having barriers to entry for all other players - even if that means that the hardcore space simulation crowd doesn't get its favourite control.

 

I didn't think this expansion would be a pure new game, I expected it to fix the screw up that was the idea to have space on rails in the first place. The space crowd pretty much only asked for three things. Freeflight, joysticks and a cockpit view. Free flight from scratch was a great accomplishment, but I cannot fathom why a developer would purposely leave the other two out.

 

Right now space feels more like what pod racing should be.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Mallorik

[Andryah]

Well, technically, the problem I'm facing is that the thumbsticks are too sensitive. So if I push the sticks too much one way or the other I'm spinning out of control. I think I can adjust it, but we will see. Also I think I'm playing with the Mouse Look and strafing setup to minimize the reticle flight. I have a few days to work through it but I'm confident I will find a setup that will give me the flight sim feel. We will see.

 

Yeah, it plays fine for me using the mouse, so I'm not going to even bother setting up the gamepad.

 

I get that some people expect/want it to play like World of Warplanes, but frankly from an RP standpoint I'd expect a ship in the SW universe to not need to be flown like a WWII fighter. I would expect it to be much more like flying your HUD/AI and that's the way it feels to me actually. Technically, in this timeline and universe, we should not even have cockpit windows IMO, but that would just be too foreign an experience for the humans that we are.

 

All in all, it plays great once you settle in to the control system, IMO.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Andryah

[Mallorik]

Yeah, it plays fine for me using the mouse, so I'm not going to even bother setting up the gamepad.

 

I get that some people expect/want it to play like World of Warplanes, but frankly from an RP standpoint I'd expect a ship in the SW universe to not need to be flown like a WWII fighter. I would expect it to be much more like flying your HUD/AI and that's the way it feels to me actually. Technically, in this timeline and universe, we should not even have cockpit windows IMO, but that would just be too foreign an experience for the humans that we are.

 

All in all, it plays great once you settle in to the control system, IMO.

 

So in the SW universe you think ships fly by following your pointer? ever seen a star wars movie? And what does this time line have to do with not sitting in a cockpit? Are we all flying drones? And we want this to play like world of warplanes? ever heard of x-wing vs tie fighter? or maybe Jump to light speed?

 

Ive seen people reach too far trying to justify something but this takes the cake.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

So in the SW universe you think ships fly by following your pointer? ever seen a star wars movie? And what does this time line have to do with not sitting in a cockpit? Are we all flying drones? And we want this to play like world of warplanes? ever heard of x-wing vs tie fighter? or maybe Jump to light speed?

 

Ive seen people reach too far trying to justify something but this takes the cake.

 

I recommend you join the Air Force and leave video games to us idiots who just want to try and enjoy them. You are acting like this new mini game belongs only to one type of gamer, the entire game belongs to everyone and we all make compromises in different areas.

Edited November 17, 2013 by ZETA_SCORPII

[Andryah]

So in the SW universe you think ships fly by following your pointer?

 

I think in the SW universe ships largely fly themselves, courtesy of AI, advanced avionics, and high level instructions from the pilot. The systems are highly automated. Of course such automation defeats the purpose of a game based on cockpit-2-cockpit PvP.

 

ever seen a star wars movie?

 

Yes. I have. I have also read many of the books and other lore based creations. Interestingly enough.. the movies are directly modeled on the cheezy pew-pew space operas of the 1950s that Lucas used to watch in the movie theaters every week. It was a deliberate stylization of cinema on his part. Whereas much of the book based creations follow a more normally defined use of technology.

[Andryah]

I recommend you join the Air Force and leave video games to us idiots who just want to try and enjoy them. You are acting like this new mini game belongs only to one type of gamer, the entire game belongs to everyone and we all make compromises in different areas.

 

/Signed and quoted for truth.

[Mallorik]

I recommend you join the Air Force and leave video games to us idiots who just want to try and enjoy them. You are acting like this new mini game belongs only to one type of gamer, the entire game belongs to everyone and we all make compromises in different areas.

 

Yeah you got me, I think galactic starfighter belongs to one group of gamers because I would like a wider choice of controllers people can use. But atleast we know why you think that way.

[Rafaman]

Ok. I got my gamepad working the way I wanted it. The last little tweak to the thumbsticks was a simple re-calibration through the native Windows 7 Joystick app. Heh. Who would have thunk it.

 

My recommendation? You are still working with a moving reticle so the mouse and keyboard is a very good and accurate option. I'm leaning toward it because aim aka reticle accuracy is very important. However, I seem to maneuver better in tight quarters with the gamepad. I can turn quicker if that makes any sense.

 

Bottom line, the gamepad is a workable option and gives you that joystick feel. I'm going to post my xpadder profile once I've wrung it out a little more. Keyboard and mouse do seem to level the playing field in general. What I mean is, those playing with gamepads do not, at this point, have any substantial advantage over those playing keyboard/mouse. And... that is fine by me.

[Mallorik]

I think in the SW universe ships largely fly themselves, courtesy of AI, advanced avionics, and high level instructions from the pilot. The systems are highly automated. Of course such automation defeats the purpose of a game based on cockpit-2-cockpit PvP.

 

 

 

Yes. I have. I have also read many of the books and other lore based creations. Interestingly enough.. the movies are directly modeled on the cheezy pew-pew space operas of the 1950s that Lucas used to watch in the movie theaters every week. It was a deliberate stylization of cinema on his part. Whereas much of the book based creations follow a more normally defined use of technology.

 

So the books have ships that steer by following pointers and don't have cockpits? cool, sounds like a blast doesn't it!