The Rookie Clarion - How to win at Galactic Starfighter in a week

[StealthNerf]

This thread builds on a few posts in Stasie's detailed guide, where Verain suggested it might belong in its own thread due to its subject - what to do when you just start that's the easiest way to get the experience you need to get good. Right now, you can't hit much with blasters, and you don't want to waste req into dead ends.

 

So this discusses how to do well in Galactic Starfighter in a week or less by using the Clarion (Republic) or Imperium (its Imperial counterpart). Although not part of the top "meta", these ships are, imo, one of the best ship types for a rookie to fly. They're surprisingly tough, yet still capable of landing killing shots. You can fly one of these and focus on learning how to fly and shoot, instead of being killed over and over.

 

This was evidenced for myself when, in my first week, I could reliably earn a positive kill:death ratio in my Clarion, whereas such a thing was just harder in my Star Guard or Pike (and I had no intention of flying a bomber or gunship). The Star Guard got me into dog fights I did not win, and the Pike was way too squishy.

 

To top it off, despite not being top meta ships, Clarion's still have a defined role as a group support ships, so still very much welcome in a team. You won't be "wasting" points in a Clarion, even if it's not a bomber or Flashfire.

 

Disclaimer: I am only in my second week of play right now. So don't take this as gospel, but it did work extremely well for me. I am not topping scoreboards, but I am consistently getting more kills than deaths, contributing utility, and usually in the top half of the scoreboard assuming a reasonably balanced match. Basically feeling like I am doing enough to be worthwhile given my experience level.

 

 

 

1. Get good enough crew (2,500 req)

 

After buying your ship, the next port of call is the crew. In order of importance:

 

1. Offensive crew with Pinpointing and Improved Kill Zone. The first makes blasters easier to hit with and the second makes torpedo locks easier to acquire. Both are important.

 

2. Defensive crew with Power to Shields and Quick Charge. Imperial starter crew comes with this. Alternatively, you can consider Power to Shields and Response Tuning. Your defensive crew choice needs to be matched to your armor choice.

 

3. Tactical crew with Wingman or Running Interference. These are at different ends of the spectrum. Wingman helps you hit things with blasters, Running Interference helps you dodge blasters. Imperials starter tactical crew comes with Wingman, Republic starter comes with Running Interference. Since you're choosing your tactical crew for the active skill, they will be your co-pilot. Tactical crew passives don't do a whole lot so don't worry about them for now.

 

4. Engineering crew with Power to Engines and Efficient Maneuvers. All your agility will come from your engine active ability, so you want lots of engine power for this. If you have a PvE class story ship, you should have unlocked a crew member with these passives.

 

 

Looking at these crew, you should be able to put together a decent crew for 2,500 fleet req at most. While I'm sure you will be able to fine-tune your crew later, you also need points for buying ship components.

 

 

 

2. Upgrade Power Dive (3,500 req)

 

Your first two upgrades should be in Power Dive, getting it down to almost no engine power consumption and a 10 second cooldown. This gives you excellent speed, a 10 second missile lock break, and ability to escape a dogfight.

 

Power Dive works by sending you flying downwards at a 90 degree angle at high speed, and flips you upside down in the process. If you use this mindlessly, you'll probably impact on a nearby asteroid. But you can use it better by angling your nose upwards first, then power diving, so you end up parallel to your original heading, or at least only marginally downward.

 

This serves two purposes. One, you gain a lot of speed, even taking into account the time lost by angling upwards. This can be used to fast travel to satellites, or to escape swarms of angry ships.

 

Starting domination maps, a good tactic is to hit power to engines (F3) as you hyperspace in, orient yourself towards an objective, face upwards and power dive, afterburner as soon as you come out of power dive, and as soon as power dive is off cooldown use it again in a similar manner. You should find yourself quick on the objective and able to contest it (i.e. fly around the satellite with all power to shields hoping not to get hit).

 

If you're feeling really gung ho, you can even power dive towards an enemy gunship, should they be isolated (do not power dive into the whole enemy team). You may be in a rookie ship with the inability to hit much if anything with blasters, but gunships may not expect such sudden movement towards them and you will be really annoying at worst, and get a kill at best. It's like having an angry shopping trolley you thought was flying the other way suddenly coming straight at you.

 

The second purpose of Power Dive--and perhaps more important, is you make it very hard to hit you. The first angle upwards reduces a chaser's distance to you, and then the dash downwards gets you out of their sights, possibly confusing them and making them overshoot. With a 10 second power dive you can become ridiculously annoying to chase, contributing to your survivability if you can convince your attacker that you won't be an easy kill.

 

 

 

3. Ambush and don't get into a turning fight

 

Now that you have Power Dive, you can start to explore the playstyle of this ship more - which is as a patient ambusher. You can go fast in sudden and surprising ways, but you still have the overall maneuverability of a school bus. This means you need to use your range and unconventional movement style to ambush people, and if you ever get into a turning fight, escape it with Power Dive as soon as possible so you can get back to torpedo range (5K - 10K).

 

Be patient. Unless you're deliberately rushing an objective or trying to evade an attacker, don't rush in. Just cruise along, minding your own business until someone strays into your sights. If you think about how a shark hunts, you have a pretty good idea how you should fly.

 

Your torpedoes have a long range, and you can escape with haste if needed, so you don't need to be flying particularly fast when not under threat. Holding back is the best way to learn the situational awareness needed to be a good pilot, and the best way to avoid bumbling into traps.

 

 

 

4. Upgrade Proton Torpedoes (3,500 req)

 

At first, all your kills will come from Proton Torpedoes. Sure, you may land the odd lucky shot with blasters, but at this stage, Proton Torpedoes are your best bet due to their good hitting power.

 

The first two upgrades reduce lock on time of torpedoes and give you +10% crit chance. These two upgrades make your torpedoes quite dangerous against wounded ships. You can expect your torpedoes to finish off most things that aren't a bomber that have 60% or less hull.

 

The proper way to use them at this stage is as you're cruising around, look for people within 5K - 15K range with damaged hulls. If you can get a torpedo off, you'll probably land a kill. If, after a bit of trying, you don't manage to get a lock, be careful of being suckered into a turning fight. Just break it off and go back to cruising. Remember patience. With practice you should get better at attacking from ambush positions that give the best chances of success.

 

Torpedoes can also put pressure on satellites. The Clarion's toughness means that often your best action is to be the annoying ship weaving in and out of the satellite. But if there are others holding the fort, you can try backing off to about 5km directly above or below the node, and going for a torpedo lock. Often ships go very slow around the satellite and are loathe to risk missile breaks in such close quarters.

 

 

5. Quad lasers to level 2 (5,500 req)

 

Occasionally, and with practice, you might start hitting stuff with blasters. Quads are pretty good if you get the opportunity to fire them, and you'll get better at this as you go along. Although this is pretty late to buy quads (you can take them earlier if you want) the mainstay of this ship really does come from its toughness and torpedoes, so quads are an add-on once you get used to hitting things with lasers.

 

There are a lot of tricks you can do, such as maintain the correct range to shoot at (4K), slow down your ship to reduce your turning rate, reduce your mouse sensitivity to avoid mouse jitter, and blow your Wingman buff. But these all come with practice. For now, having the first two upgrades in Quads definitely helps.

 

You might want to give light lasers a go alternatively. Quads are easier to use, but lights I find better for DPS and close quarters fights, but it's a playstyle thing. Both are much better than Rapid Fire Lasers. You should definitely give light lasers a go after buying some other upgrades and before you take quads higher than level 2, to see if you like them.

 

 

6. Directional Shields to level 2 (5,000 req)

 

The Clarion, like all Strike Fighters, has good shields, and Directional Shields are the best shields you can get. These give the best average shield strength with the least drawbacks, and taking them to level 2 gives your shields a nice boost. You don't have to fiddle with the directional controls too much, though with practice you will notice particular situations that benefit one direction over another.

 

Verain's tips:

 

You should have your shields FRONT FIRST if you are:

 

> Cruising around and don't think there's anyone right behind you. This is very common, and this should be a normal thing.

> Flying towards a plasma gunship (charging red).

> Flying towards a slug gunship at less than full shields.

> About to engage in a frontal joust.

> Stopped at a node with your back to the node.

 

 

You should have your shields REAR FIRST if you are:

> Certain that there is no enemy in front of you.

> Being chased while you hug walls, and are sure you won't eat a rail to the face.

> Flying towards an ion gunship (charging blue). You want to take the ion hit to your hull if possible.

> Are power diving

 

 

You should have your shields NEUTRAL if you:

> Are overwhelmed and don't know where your threats are.

> Flying towards a slug gunship (charging yellow).

> Are in a turn fight.

 

 

You should always try to catch incoming missiles with a good shield arc. This is most important for thermite.

 

 

 

Once you have the top (left) upgrade, you can switch F2 to get a bit of power back even if you are taking damage every once in awhlie. It's not as great as quick charge at this, but it's substantially better than distortion here. Remember to only use the F2 power when its correct (if you are under fire, swapping to F2 does nothing).

 

 

That's about all I have on directionals. The front first position is generally better, because you have solid front defenses and are a button press away from solid back defenses. The rear position is also fine. Neutral's big weakness is that you are a whole global away from having solid front defenses, and the first tap takes away the shields completely.

 

 

 

7. Buy Repair Probes and reduce the cooldown (3,000 req)

 

With your main agility and offensive weapon in play, you can start taking a look at group support and toughness. The big reason to fly a Clarion long term is the Repair Probes. For now, you can use them to repair the nicks and scratches you get as you cruise around looking for targets. Later, you can use them to resupply Scout rocket pods.

 

Short term, just get them on your bar and reduce their cooldown to 60 seconds.

 

 

 

8. Armor and Reactor to level 2 (5,000 req)

 

The next biggest upgrades are personal toughness. For an investment of 5,000 req you can upgrade your reinforced armor and large reactor to level 2. Both these components come with the ship and give you a bigger HP pool for shrugging off hits.

 

You should only go with the Reinforced Armor option if you chose a defensive crew with Power to Shields and Quick Charge Shields (Starter Imperial crew or Republic Doc). If you chose a crew with response Tuning ,you are running an evasion build, and so should pick Lightweight Armor for an extra 1,000 requisition.

 

 

9. Capacitor to level 2 (2,500 - 3,500 req)

 

While we're upgrading our blasters, may as well put points in the capacitor. All the capacitor options are OK, though which one I prefer comes down to weapon choice. Range is great for quads, though I like the default Damage Capacitor for light laser cannons. The cheapest and most flexible option (since you both start with it and it works well with all laser types) is damage.

 

 

10. Torpedoes to rank 4 (15,000 req)

 

We've finally got the ship a bit spaceworthy and can start thinking about easing off the small upgrades and invest the big bucks to improve our Killing Power. Rank 4 Proton Torpedoes with the 4 degrees fire arc are really great since they have a huger lock on radius. You'll get much less frustrated at things flying out of your fire arc.

 

Alternatively you can try the torpedo speed increase, though you'll find locks harder to acquire, especially before buying increased turn speed.

 

 

11. Power Dive to rank 3 (10,000 req)

 

Rank 3 power dive lets you take +10% turn rate, which is great for both easier torpedo locking and easier blaster tracking. You still don't want to get into a turning fight, but for 10,000 req you will be a slightly more agile shopping trolley and land a few more torpedoes per match as a result. You already have great straight line speed with Power Dive's active use, so you don't really need even more, so can safely ignore the +10% speed option.

 

 

12. Capacitor, Reactor and Armor to rank 3 (7,500 req)

 

This investment of 7,500 req to master your three minor components is handy now to give you a bit of a boost to both damage and toughness.

 

 

13. Repair Probes to rank 5 (lots of req)

 

You now have a ship that performs pretty good, so can think about what you can do other than power diving and flinging torpedoes. A straight-up investment in ammo supplying Repair Probes lets you be a force multiplier, rearming other classes who run out of ammo a lot. I.e. scouts, who can never have enough rockets.

 

 

 

14. Mop up (even more req)

 

Your ship is fully functional now, so you can look at upgrades that make life a bit easier. More torpedo range here, experiment between quads and light lasers there. But by now you should be getting positive kill death ratios in most matches and be contributing to the team.

Edited August 25, 2014 by StealthNerf

[Ryuku-sama]

Good. But for your sec components... Get them to T3 it's 2500 more req but it's worth it.

[Magira]

 

2. Upgrade Power Dive (3,500 req)

 

 

I'm now resigned to the fact that I should use Power Dive and can handle it now also halfway. But still it leads me to some surprising deaths. Now I have quite a bit of flying experience, and do me pretty hard. For beginners, this is certainly not the best flight maneuvers, quite the opposite.

 

Quad laser are due to high energy consumption and need for accurate aiming also not suitable to beginners. The same applies to torpedoes with their high target detection time.

 

Overall, Clarion / Imperium is probably the worst suitable ship for beginners in the whole game.

 

For beginners (I school just a guild member) I would advise:

 

Domination: Rampart / Razorwire

TDM: Quarrel / Mangler

 

And then a ship with an easy-to-learn maneuver such Barell Roll or Retro. Suitable for beginners further: Clusters and Heavy Laser.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Magira

[Armonddd]

Quality thread. Here's some details:

 

Your recommended rew members come out to:

Republic: Qyzen Fess/Nadia Grell/(Kendra Novar[c] or Akaavi Spar[c] or Lieutennant Iresso[c])/C2-N2

Empire: Jaesa Willsaam/Vector/(Salana Rok[c] or Mako[c])/Blizz

 

I would advise players to avoid sensor dampening both on the crew member specifically and on other ships in general (I know of only one build that can adequately take advantage of sensor dampening).

 

Repair probes are amazing support for cluster missiles as well as rocket pods, and a number of ships get clusters whereas only scouts get pods.

 

Long-term, it's worth noting that a turbo reactor has at least as much synergy with directional shields as a large reactor does. Players that already have a turbo reactor shouldn't feel too compelled to switch to a large reactor.

 

I would definitely not recommend frequency reactor for a new player with quads, because it'll drain power like crazy. Range and damage are both fine, but I like your suggestion for range.

 

The value of the faster torpedo upgrade comes not from preventing the torpedo from being outrun, but from denying the target time to react with a missile lock. A slow-flying torpedo gives the target a good three or four seconds to realize he's in danger, wait for an engine ability to come off cooldown, and hit the button to get out of Dodge. On the other hand, you can make up for that by closing distance before launching (which is definitely something you should be practicing with torpedoes especially and lock-on weapons in general). For a new player, there isn't really a bad choice at this tier.

 

 

 

Now, I would recommend a few changes.

 

Responsive turning is honestly not very good on a strike fighter. Strikes don't have the base evasion inherent to scouts, nor do they have access to the passive evasion granted by distortion field. For this reason, a strike gets at most 14% evasion... versus the 116% ideal accuracy of a slug or quads or similar. Even in realistic circumstances, you're really not getting much benefit out of evasion unless the other guy is eating penalties from range, tracking penalties, and/or forgetting to bring Pinpointing, in which case you're probably fine enough anyway. I would suggest ditching Lightweight Armor for Reinforced Armor and trading Responsive Turning for Quick Recharge (Doc for Republic, Writch Hurley for Empire -- and conveniently enough Writch is a default crew member).

 

It's important to remember that the power of evasion scales exponentially as the amount increases linearly -- that is to say, evasion does more for you the more of it you already have. Instead, a strike fighter should focus on making its already-impressive shields even stronger. For the armor slot, there's an argument to be made for deflection armor against bombers, but it'll do you almost no good against gunships, which were the bane of my newbishness.

 

I would recommend, on the engineering crew member, trading power to engines for efficient fire. It's a minor trade, but since new players tend to have a hard time hitting with blasers, it's very easy to run though your power pool. Quads are especially power-hungry, and learning to manage that power pool (both by managing your build and by being more accurate) is crucially important. This would mean trading C2-N2 for Yuun or Blizz for 2V-R8 (a very simple unlock without using precious fleet req!).

 

Verain can tell you good habits to get into with Directional Shields (and maybe he already has as I type this). I can't because I'm not at all good with things that aren't Distortion Field, but the general gist is to keep directionals at anything other neutral for standard flying, which makes it easier to switch to whatever you need at the time.

 

As always, remember to rebind f1-f3 to keys that are easy to hit and use them frequently, turn down your mouse sensitivity so you can hit things (I run mine at 400 DPI), and react immediately when you get hit. Your first goal is to not get hit; your second goal is to not get hit a second time, because a third hit can kill you.

 

 

 

Thank you for writing this up -- new player guides are a crucial resource, especially at a point in the game's life where people are more likely to give GSF a try (for those sweet, sweet conquest points).

Edited August 20, 2014 by Armonddd

[Verain]

I will read this later (running out the door), but I will say this:

 

The starter crew on the Imperial side includes Wingman (Salana). On Republic it includes Running Interference. No one starts with the double engine crewman, both begin with engine efficiency (the truly mandatory one) and +power to blasters.

 

For an Imperial noob, his first purchase should be Jaesa Willsaam. This gets you both your passives, and at that point you are running Jaesa, Aven, Salana, Writch. Then you would want to switch out Writch for Vector, and finally Aven for 2VR8 or Blizz. You can run Salana forever.

 

For a Republic noob, you start with the 6% accuracy already, so you don't need to make that first. I always get Nadia Grell first on pubside- best defensives for most ship builds (including this one), and an active that can be interesting. Also, wow the Oro is horrible. At that point, your copilot choices become Running Interference and Bypass. Second, you'd want your engineering guy- C2N2 or Yuun. Once those two are safe, then grab Qyzen for the better missile targeting, and finally consider a fourth purchase of Akaavi or Lt Iresso.

[Zoom_VI]

As always, remember to rebind f1-f3 to keys that are easy to hit and use them frequently, turn down your mouse sensitivity so you can hit things (I run mine at 400 DPI), and react immediately when you get hit. Your first goal is to not get hit; your second goal is to not get hit a second time, because a third hit can kill you.

 

Am I the only person that finds default keybinds to be the most effective?

[Ryuku-sama]

Am I the only person that finds default keybinds to be the most effective?

 

YES

/5char

[StealthNerf]

I will read this later (running out the door), but I will say this:

 

The starter crew on the Imperial side includes Wingman (Salana). On Republic it includes Running Interference. No one starts with the double engine crewman, both begin with engine efficiency (the truly mandatory one) and +power to blasters.

 

I must have just assumed since I started with C2 due to being at level 20 when I started GSF.

 

Of course I'm fully open to corrections and criticism since I don't know that much myself and any input will probably help me too.

 

And then a ship with an easy-to-learn maneuver such Barell Roll or Retro. Suitable for beginners further: Clusters and Heavy Laser.

 

My experience with heavy lasers / clusters on a star guard in my first week is that so many things escaped me. While I don't have a complete understanding, I have the feeling that clusters require some dogfighting experience to soften the target up before or after, and also benefit hugely more from their tier 5 upgrade for the 30% damage. At low levels they're like throwing tennis balls at people. You might knock someone down but they might just laugh at you.

 

So for me, clusters are a bit of a trap component. As a newbie I found them attractive ("Yay I can lock many missiles!") but soon realized I wasn't killing anything with those locks and switched to Protons and started racking up the kills and assists.

 

Also I didn't like Barrel Roll as an engine maneuver because it didn't allow me to break dogfights. The game that led me to retire my Pike was when a scout was on my tail the entire match and I could do nothing at all. I can evade such situations on my Clarion, but the Pike was dead in the water since it flies so predictably.

 

I don't doubt that the bomber or gunship are decent newbie ships too but they're boring and look awful. I don't want those things in my hanger.

Edited August 21, 2014 by StealthNerf

[StealthNerf]

So I just tried the light laser cannon for the first time. Where have you been these past one and a half weeks.

 

Maybe it's that I play at 300ms latency, but am definitely finding it easier to hit with light lasers than quads and get more kills. So not sure that I'd update the original post. I like lights better, but many people seem to prefer quads.

 

Had a few games today that illustrated just how useful this build can be though. In particular there was one where everyone on our team was a newbie, against a team of vets. The Combat Clarion got 4 out of the team's 5 kills in the match. Just the combination of toughness, being hard to catch, and protons make the Clarion able to hold its own even if your spawn is getting overrun and even when flown with less experience. Is why I recommend at least trying the Clarion to any new player.

Edited August 21, 2014 by StealthNerf

[Verain]

Am I the only person that finds default keybinds to be the most effective?

 

I use the F1-F4 keys.

 

 

What I find is most important with keys is to make sure that if I want to press key X and key Y at the same time, that I can do that. But if I never press X and Y at the same time, then whatever.

 

 

I map my strafe buttons to the bottom of my keyboard. I map roll to A-O (A-S for qwerty using fools). I try to leave some keys to default. I make sure that I can military speed, maximum speed, minimum speed, and kill throttle on the mouse.

 

So this means that when I'm twiddling power settings, I can maneuver just fine, but I can't strafe or roll so easily. That's probably ok. What I wouldn't want would be for these settings to be exclusive with boost or cooldowns, all of which are either on the mouse or close.

[Verain]

LLCs can be unforgiving compared to Quads. I would NOT recommend they become your default recommendation for new players- it's not particularly easy to get and stay in range. They are definitely a very fierce gun, however. They have the top dps in game if you can tunnel someone.

[Armonddd]

Yo Verain, teach us nubs how to directional shields plzkthx. Also, if you still have a link to that thread where you discussed why evasion was bad for strikes, that'd be great. Edited August 21, 2014 by Armonddd

[Kuciwalker]

Am I the only person that finds default keybinds to be the most effective?

 

^^^^^

[StealthNerf]

Quality thread. Here's some details:

 

Your recommended rew members come out to:

Republic: Qyzen Fess/Nadia Grell/(Kendra Novar[c] or Akaavi Spar[c] or Lieutennant Iresso[c])/C2-N2

Empire: Jaesa Willsaam/Vector/(Salana Rok[c] or Mako[c])/Blizz

 

I would advise players to avoid sensor dampening both on the crew member specifically and on other ships in general (I know of only one build that can adequately take advantage of sensor dampening).

 

 

I guess I just don't understand the point of any of the tactical passives - with other ships spotting enemies for you, they all seem bad, so I choose tactical for the active skill.

 

You make a good point about response tuning, though. I may switch armor to HP and defensive to Doc.

Edited August 22, 2014 by StealthNerf

[Armonddd]

I guess I just don't understand the point of any of the tactical passives - with other ships spotting enemies for you, they all seem bad, so I choose tactical for the active skill.

 

There's some minor benefit to upping your sensor focus, sensor radius, and communication ranges, but it's not important for the most part (the biggest deal is probably acting as a spotter for respawning allies, or maaaaybe supporting a daisy-chain of communication from A to C). What is important is that those benefits exist, whereas the benefits from dampening don't (because dampening is disabled under 15 km, and you're going to be within 15 km the vast majority of the time).

 

Besides, school buses aren't sneaky.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Armonddd

[Verain]

You should have your shields FRONT FIRST if you are:

 

> Cruising around and don't think there's anyone right behind you. This is very common, and this should be a normal thing.

> Flying towards a plasma gunship (charging red).

> Flying towards a slug gunship at less than full shields.

> About to engage in a frontal joust.

> Stopped at a node with your back to the node.

 

 

You should have your shields REAR FIRST if you are:

> Certain that there is no enemy in front of you.

> Being chased while you hug walls, and are sure you won't eat a rail to the face.

> Flying towards an ion gunship (charging blue). You want to take the ion hit to your hull if possible.

> Are power diving

 

 

You should have your shields NEUTRAL if you:

> Are overwhelmed and don't know where your threats are.

> Flying towards a slug gunship (charging yellow).

> Are in a turn fight.

 

 

You should always try to catch incoming missiles with a good shield arc. This is most important for thermite.

 

 

 

Once you have the top (left) upgrade, you can switch F2 to get a bit of power back even if you are taking damage every once in awhlie. It's not as great as quick charge at this, but it's substantially better than distortion here. Remember to only use the F2 power when its correct (if you are under fire, swapping to F2 does nothing).

 

 

That's about all I have on directionals. The front first position is generally better, because you have solid front defenses and are a button press away from solid back defenses. The rear position is also fine. Neutral's big weakness is that you are a whole global away from having solid front defenses, and the first tap takes away the shields completely.

[StealthNerf]

That's actually really helpful. Was never too sure where to put them.

[Verain]

Oh, I'll point out that you don't want to take the ion hit to your hull if you on a ship with no heals on a team with no heals. But since this is a repair probe Clarion thread, definitely tank that couple hundred points of hull damage. Once you get in melee range or they begin glowing yellow or red, one button press takes your shields to front. Unsurprisingly, shields are a big resource for you, so you don't want to let some ion just take them away.

[StealthNerf]

Updated this according to feedback...

 

* Smoothed out the upgrade path to include level 3 minor components

* Added Verain's directional shielding tips

* Swapped recommendations for defensive crew and armor to just pure hull HP and shielding following Armonddd's feedback

* Created an Imp to see what kind of crew options they have

 

However, I still like my crew recommendation for engineering (efficient maneuvers and power to engines) and tactical (ignoring passive choice in favor of getting the right active) because:

 

1. If you get the PvE class story ship you should have both of these options unlocked, limiting req spend (just not worth it to spend 1,250 fleet on tactical passives)

2. I really like power to engines in place of efficient fire, mostly because when new most of your kills really will come from torpedo locks, so it doesn't really matter if you run dry on blasters, and it's easy to find yourself out of position.

 

 

Overall I really like how this ship is coming together as I build it up. Less than two weeks playing GSF and only a week in the Clarion, and starting to get scores like this: http://i.imgur.com/IWkLqsQ.jpg (name erased since I'm stealthy). The ship performs well and brings some great utility.

Edited August 23, 2014 by StealthNerf

[Armonddd]

However, I still like my crew recommendation for engineering (efficient maneuvers and power to engines) and tactical (ignoring passive choice in favor of getting the right active) because:

 

Power to engines versus efficient fire isn't a huge deal. I just think it's worth noting for those people who may have one or the other unlocked, but not both.

 

As for the tactical crew members, both wingman and RI are common enough that there are multiple crew members with the right active and not sensor dampening. But, I guess that also is not the hugest of deals.

[StealthNerf]

Yeah, looks like I misread you initially and thought you were saying take passives over Wingman. Sorry aboui that.

[Ramalina]

I like that you list crew as the first upgrade. Partly because crew are a lot more important than a lot of new players realize, and partly because the component build on a stock Clarion is good enough that crew unlocks are a reasonable first choice for buying early.

 

I'm going to go a bit more in depth about the combination of armor and crew passive here. There are two builds that are pretty much equivalent if you pair the right crew passives with the right armor choice.

 

 

You have two choices, the first is an evasion build that uses a crew choice that brings Power to Shields and Response Tuning in combination with Llightweight Armor. The second is an endurance build that pairs a crew member that brings Power to Shields and Quick Recharge and Reinforced Armor.

 

Mathematically the performance of the evasion and endurance builds over the long term are about the same. The thing is, you don't want to mix the crew from one with the armor from the other, as that will noticeably reduce effectiveness.

 

There's also a qualitative difference in how they work.

 

The evasion build gives you 19% evasion when the armor is at tier 3, which is not spectacular, but does make a real difference. Due to the RNG nature of evasion sometimes it will work amazingly well, and other times it will not work at all. Most people don't notice when it prevents damage, but may notice when it doesn't. In the long run it does average out. The key thing about evasion is that it functions at the instant that you're getting shot at, so you always get full value out of it defending against blasters, railguns, and rocket pods. That instant protection is why it's very highly recommended in lots of guides to ship builds. Just a clarification, since in some editions of the thread it seemed like you might not know this, if you evade a shot it does no damage to shields, so in a way it's a bit of a buff to shield power against those weapons that evasion works against. The chief drawback is that evasion is useless against guided missiles and mines.

 

The endurance build gives you more health and the shield regen works against all weapons. The downside to the endurance build is that it takes healing (both shield and hull) to provide the full equivalent effect to an evasion build. That's not that bad because shields heal on their own, and the Clarion usually equips the best hull healing component in the game. Where you run into trouble is in the fact that if you have enough time for the regeneration to have caught up with the benefits provided by the evasion build it means you probably escaped danger well enough that you would have done just fine with the baseline regeneration, so you're not actually gaining much from having the extra regeneration from the crew.

 

In general, evasion tends to be a little more effective over the long term average except under certain very specific conditions. A lot of people consider it the default choice for this reason.

 

The endurance build is more consistent though. The level of protection never varies, and especially for a new player that might be a desirable psychological advantage even if they're only rarely getting full use out of the defenses it provides. Thematically it also fits better with the Clarion as a support style ship. Not to mention that it doesn't require an extra 2k of ship requisition to swap out the way light armor does.

 

 

There's a similar qualitative difference between Large Reactor and Turbo Reactor when paired with directional shields. Turbo can be slightly better under certain very specific conditions, but most people will find it easier to get full use out of Large reactor under normal flying conditions so Large is generally recommended in most guides.

 

 

As far as weapons and flying style go, if you're doing the 'torpedo shark' thing quads are probably the best choice because you really wouldn't want to get close up and personal in that case.

 

On the other hand, if you only do long range missile launching at first and then charge into the fray to use Repair Probes on teammates, LLCs are a good choice because you'll have to spend a fair amount of time up close and personal with enemy ships to get close enough to use Probes on friendlies. As long as there's some cover around to break line of sight the Clarion is durable enough to get in and mix it up pretty well and still survive to get out again. You have to learn a sense of timing (how long can I survive), watch your energy pool (so you can zoom back away from the fight when you need to), and keep an eye on the map so that when it's time to take a break to recharge you know which direction to fly so that you're getting away from enemies and toward friends. The clarion is one of the most forgiving ships when it comes to spending time in an intense dogfight or battle around a domination satellite. It doesn't mass produce kills, but you can get good K/D ratios because it's good at keeping you alive.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Ramalina

[StealthNerf]

Thanks heaps for the detailed reply. The advice from veteran players is really helping. I have ,actually, switched back to quads. Just kinda frustrated sometimes with the 4K range on lights.

 

The clarion is one of the most forgiving ships when it comes to spending time in an intense dogfight or battle around a domination satellite. It doesn't mass produce kills, but you can get good K/D ratios because it's good at keeping you alive.

 

Yeah, this is what I discovered by chance...

Edited August 25, 2014 by StealthNerf

[Verain]

Since this ship has thermites and protons, and landing both is pretty similar, I want to add this:

 

 

These torpedoes have VERY long recharge times. It can be hard (especially as a newbie) to know which opponents will simply evade your missile in flight and which ones just spent their ability to do so.

 

Here's your run down:

 

1)- Type 1 or Type 2 bomber. The type 3 bomber is shaped all strange for both teams, and it's the only one that can break a missile. If you see a type 1 or type 2 bomber in open space, swap to him, he'll get hit by a torp.

2)- Guy who just used his maneuver. This is any strike or type 3 bomber who just used his maneuver.

3)- Anyone you intend to point-blank.

4)- Hold missile lock and use the force to push them into a wall or whatever.

 

 

In case one and two, you begin your lock immediately, and you slow down unless they are flying away from you (or you are under fire, of course- but to land the missile, it's better to slow down). This means you'll be at 9500m and shrinking as you make your lock, and the moment your lock is full, you release. Then you boost towards your enemy with the intention to shoot at him.

 

In case three, which is your most effective use of torps, you begin locking at range, and you set it up such that you'll have your lock at close range- 5km or less- and release closer than that- 1.5km or less. This can score a kill even on a target with multiple missile breaks available. It's defeated by enemies who preemptively break the lock and hide until they have a break back, or enemies who boost directly towards you at some ranges, but it's the most reliable way to land a torp versus good opponents.

 

In case four, you don't release. Unlike other missiles which have very short reload times, even an opponent floundering in open space won't need to fear your next torp for a very long time. So you just hold it on them while quadding them, and if you happen to close to a close, distance, release as in case three. If they LOS you instead, no big deal- you didn't spend your cooldown, after all.

[Ramalina]

Good points from Verain on the missile use.

 

One thing to practice as a strike pilot is keeping an eye out for people using engine maneuvers as they often produce very distinctive flight patterns (retro thrusters are the easiest to spot, but with practice you'll start recognizing the others too). A ship that just maneuvered is an ideal target for a missile lock. Team play is great here, often you can pick up a kill on an enemy ship that just successfully escaped your teammates by using an engine maneuver. So once you feel a bit more comfortable flying in GSF, try to keep an occasional eye on what's happening to your teammates' targets in addition to what's happening with your own target.

 

A refined version of case three is to start your lock at max range, and once it becomes solid boost in as close as you think you can get without loosing the lock before releasing.

 

You can hold a solid missile lock pretty much indefinitely as long as the target stays within valid missile launch parameters (in the targeting arc, in range, no missile break, no LOS, no server-client latency screwing you over).

 

There are a couple of advantages to this. First some people will burn an engine maneuver when the lock goes solid, so you might get a less experienced pilot to waste a missile break, and then hopefully you still have space to restart the lock and actually hit them while their defenses are on cooldown. Second, at max range it's much easier to keep a moving target inside the targeting arc. So while locking you want to be as far away as possible. Missile flight time gives people a chance to use missile defenses, so when launching you want to be as close as possible.

 

Locking at max range, then boosting in before launch is the way to achieve both of these goals. I recommend boosting because the more time you spend closing the distance the more likely it is that your lock will be broken somehow. It helps a great deal if you can anticipate where the target will be flying when trying to keep the targeting circle over them while boosting in. Ideally they will be stationary, or flying toward or away from you, that reduces the rate at which they move across the screen relative to the edge of your targeting arc so keeping them inside the arc is a lot easier.

 

To begin with I'd say try to boost in to a range of between 2 and 4 km to launch, then as you get more skilled you can start going for the 500-2000 m range.

 

At 500 meters you can usually tag even scouts and gunships with double (or triple) missile breaks, because they just won't have time to use them in the interval between launch warning and impact.

 

Also a note on technique 4, which is the missile lock as psychological warfare. Scouts and gunships are very difficult to land the slow missiles on due to their most common ship builds including multiple missile breaks. Despite this, locking them with a torp can be very effective as a pressure tactic because of the ships in GSF scouts and gunships are the ones that can least afford to get hit by a heavy missile due to their weak hulls. So if you're trying to kill one with a torpedo, it is quite difficult, if you want to force them to react to the missile lock it's quite easy.

 

Occasionally you'll also get a cocky pilot who believes that an action bar full of missile breaks makes them immune to torps and they'll just ignore the lock. These are prime candidates for starting with case 4 and switching to case 3 to land a torpedo.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Ramalina