Anyone else learning to pilot

[Ungodlyomen]

Seems to be a decent learning curve here Im trying to learn! Bear with me guys!

[Lendul]

Just keep flying it will get easier.

[Verain]

Drako has a bunch of stuff. Here's a quick link:

 

tiny url dot com /drakotutorial1

 

But as Lendul says, practice will be your greatest ally!

Edited May 18, 2015 by Verain

[Verain]

Also note:

 

1)- cjoin the gsf channel on any server you are on

2)- Ask questions there, here, or to a streamer (such as Drako) who can normally give decent advice

3)- Remember to buy a type 1 gunship (mangler or quarrel) and a type 1 bomber (razorwire or rampart) with that opening 5000 req token, unless you super know you want to fly a scout (in which case, buy the type 2 scout, flashfire or sting). Ideally get all of those ships quickly. Definitely don't convert that valuable 5000 fleet token into ship req, use it to expand your fleet!

4)- Remember to pick up GSF quests any day you are playing, from the pvp terminal.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Verain

[tommmsunb]

I love you. Never change. Edited May 18, 2015 by tommmsunb

[xyrmagus]

Also note:

 

1)- cjoin the gsf channel on any server you are on

2)- Ask questions there, here, or to a streamer (such as Drako) who can normally give decent advice

3)- Remember to buy a type 1 gunship (mangler or quarrel) and a type 1 bomber (razorwire or rampart) with that opening 5000 req token, unless you super know you want to fly a scout (in which case, buy the type 2 scout, flashfire or sting). Ideally get all of those ships quickly. Definitely don't convert that valuable 5000 fleet token into ship req, use it to expand your fleet!

4)- Remember to pick up GSF quests any day you are playing, from the pvp terminal.

 

So I played GSF in beta + launch for a good bit. Are you saying strike fighters still have no place in GSF? That's really disappointing...

[tommmsunb]

So I played GSF in beta + launch for a good bit. Are you saying strike fighters still have no place in GSF? That's really disappointing...

 

They do, they just have a really really niche place in the meta. They have more of a place than they did at launch for sure though.

[xyrmagus]

They do, they just have a really really niche place in the meta. They have more of a place than they did at launch for sure though.

 

Could you elaborate? Or maybe point me to some kind of guide/write-up that explains the current meta?

[Dademoor]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=729222

 

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/15/swtor-galactic-starfighter-new-player-guide/

 

 

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=737470

 

Enjoy!

[Verain]

Could you elaborate? Or maybe point me to some kind of guide/write-up that explains the current meta?

 

This topic is kind of controversial, so trying to keep it around is not very productive. It normally becomes balance suggestions (instead of those going in those threads). Personally, I just try to make sure new players get good ships to start with and have a bit of play experience in different roles, and that they don't "go all in" with ships when they shouldn't do that yet. We've seen some players be all about, say, the Pike, and become difficult to talk with because they put all this time into mastering a playstyle that is simply not properly rewarded. That is frustrating, but the game even with that flaw has a lot of merit.

 

 

Anyway, the brief version is:

 

The type 2 scout (Flashfire / Sting) is generally the best at all melee roles- he's the top dogfighter, and should be early on anyone's playlist. With a few different styles of play available on the back of his list of top tier components, the type 2 scout is what most players who want to dogfight should be playing as, in almost all games. With distortion field, you can joust better than those without it, and you can shrug off supporting fire of almost all crafts, while having enough engine and turning to get behind or around obstacles when you run out of all that stuff- and all with solid offensive abilities shared by no other ships.

 

The type 1 gunship (Quarrel / Mangler) is the best at railguns, with strong synergy with ion railgun and things that deal hull damage, and top notch node assault. A reasonable assortment of shields, normally centered around distortion field, allows for very long survival times versus all but the most dedicated attacks, and support weapon systems you are almost entirely immune to. Slug railgun's only weakness is versus high evasion targets, but it can absolutely kill any target, and finish off the weak.

 

The type 1 bomber (Razorwire / Rampart) is the premier node defense ship. With two interesting builds that get a lot of press (one based on charged plating making you immune to all enemy mines except the interdiction snare, the other based on the temporary benefit of overcharged shields letting you better survive enemy scouts), and the hugely important hyperbeacon, you are the lynchpin of your team. If you dive a node, your team can take that node, if an enemy type 1 bomber is heading to a node, your other ships need to try to intercept him before he gets there, and the mind games you play with enemies running the similar build are deep and interesting.

 

 

Outside of these three ships, there's less agreement. In general, however, the next three are notable:

 

The type 3 Gunship is capable of switching to a capable dogfighter, and many experimental players have found some seriously effective, but nonstandard builds. We see this ship more and more on serious nights, and I have changed my opinion about it to list it with the other three above- but that's not the community opinion yet. The ability to threaten with the slug railgun and quickly dive or retro out of danger is not to be discounted, and the inability to cover the map like the type 1 gunship, or clear the node with an ion railgun, are disadvantages, but the ship offers compensation here. Double turning, such as Tsuki runs, has proven very effective (the jury is still out on his turbo reactor suggestion, but it seems to have some merit). This ship's ability to turn quickly and swap to unignorable clusters is also very strong.

 

The type 2 Bomber is generally considered a strong support ship, and I would propose at this point that it is a hugely important part of death match, most especially Kuat death match. Offering a slowly mobile defensive nest is huge at map control and regeneration of weapon and engine pools, as well as forcing peels at times. While this ship still falls over to almost any dogfighter, that disadvantage can absolutely be compensated for, and the power offered by this ship means that I would say it is probably the number 3 ship in team death match, and the fact that it doesn't change TDM to the degree that the type 1 bomber changes domination shouldn't be held against it.

 

Finally, the type 3 strike is the paladin, putting up temporary buffs and being very tanky, while not striking nearly as hard as the others. If every game was a hypothetical 10v10, I think you would always want one of these ships on your team. In the 12v12, the Clarion is impressive because it can meaningfully occupy large numbers of opponents, and heal large numbers of allies, while the field is rich for targets to threaten with protons. There are definitely less engine components to go around on your enemies in that environment. Still, it's a niche ship, as most games are 8v8 and the 12v12 games that do happen are often not tight enough for this kind of tuning to matter. In an 8v8 you would normally prefer this ship be something else. We've seen it played well, and we all love it, but it's not quite at that top level.

 

 

There are other playable ships, of course. The type 1 scout is generally a lesser version of the type 2 scout. It does have enough tricks to make it unique, including the objectively overpowered shield-to-engine converter, but it lacks the impact on the meta that the type 2 scout has, and the build diversity as well.

 

The type 3 scout brings the amazing tensor field, and does have decent support tools. With large enough groups of players it would absolutely be played more, or if the weapons it had access to were better, but as it is, you normally only see a few scout players really run with it- often you'll see tensor -> suicide at start of match, or tensor followed by aggresive play and launching into a different ship.

 

 

 

Ranking them strictly is not the goal, and even tune's tier list, while valid, makes for a bad way to think about it, and for odd warping of discussions. It's fair to say that the top three ships are uncontroversially the best at their roles, and that some of the other ships have niches or hybrid powers that makes them anywhere from playable to pretty solid.

 

My personal goals in threads like these:

 

1)- Discourage new players from investing too heavily in strike fighters. As a ship that "feels right", its lack of power and role becomes a trap. I don't want anyone to not play the strikes- they are a really fun ship type- but without needed balancing passes, strikes don't really have a job.

 

2)- Encourage new players to try out all the ship types, most especially the "oh I won't like it" gunship and bomber. Players intuitively understand the scout and strike, but most don't come here expecting to play ranged support or node support. The other big piece is that even a dedicated scout pilot will much more quickly learn how to take down a target after having played as that target.

 

3)- Encourage the spending of fleet req on ships and crewmembers, never converting to ship req. A conversion to ship req is a little pop up. A conversion back to fleet costs money. Which one is going to help your character? With a lot of requisition traps (such as unlocking a good gun costing 2000 req, but upgrading a bad gun costing 1000), players are guided into poor decisions at the ONE point of their GSF careers where they have very little ship req, but a bunch of fleet req delivered in a one-time burst.

 

4)- Encourage the initial purchase of type 1 gunship and type 1 bomber. These ships aren't just top ships, they also cost 2500 fleet req only.

 

5)- Encourage primary fighters, dps queens, and burst kings to all fly the type 2 scout as their primary ship. The type 2 scout lends itself to many playstyles, because it is frankly OP, and has all the good components. We've posted about that: a year ago the devs said they would adjust its burst, then they all turned into trees on moon, where they grow purple apples for winged monkeys. So don't waste time praying to the trees to light the campfire, just tell people how to make fire by rubbing two rocket pods together. Almost everyone who comes here wanting to run a support scout really should be on a battle scout. Almost everyone who comes here wanting to fly an X-Wing really should be on a battle scout. Almost everyone who comes here wanting to dogfight should be on a battle scout. Anyone who complains about gunships should be on a battle scout. Anyone who considers themselves a strike fighter pilot should be on a battle scout.

New players in particular should be on this ship as soon as they decide they don't want to focus on gunship or bomber, because to them their requisition is precious and they should be spending it on a "good ship". Once this ship has some req, other dogfighters will make a lot more sense to the player- both what they have, and what they do not.

 

6)- Everyone can (and should) play ALL the ships. Encourage players to do this once they have their "guaranteed good" ships in their hangar. That way they can switch between them as they like, instead of trying to punch upwards with weaker ships and kicking themselves for not leveling that first. These ships offer really great play diversity, and in some situations totally blow the more meta ships out of the water- but those situations are the exception. The players who focus on one ship are the most likely to leave the game or take huge breaks, as to them the game is "how well can you snipe" or "how well can you scout" or whatever. It's possible to really be great at the game and play just one role, of course, but these players are just missing so much of the game that they are playing.

[Enurrsha]

 

4)- Encourage the initial purchase of type 1 gunship and type 1 bomber. These ships aren't just top ships, they also cost 2500 fleet req only.

 

 

 

I agree with all of your points Verain, but I wanted to mention one thing for the hell of it. It may be subscribers-only (I have always been a subscriber), or due to participation in GSF early access, or for some other reason altogether. Regardless of the reason, any new alt I create has the Quarrel/Mangler (T1 Gunship) already in the hangar ready to fly from the get-go, no 2500 requisition unlock required.

[nyghtrunner]

I agree with all of your points Verain, but I wanted to mention one thing for the hell of it. It may be subscribers-only (I have always been a subscriber), or due to participation in GSF early access, or for some other reason altogether. Regardless of the reason, any new alt I create has the Quarrel/Mangler (T1 Gunship) already in the hangar ready to fly from the get-go, no 2500 requisition unlock required.

That's because you were subbed by a certain date (sometime in Oct '13, wasn't it?). Anyone subbed by that date got the T1 GS as a perk for being a subscriber for the early access and such. I've got it as well, and as a result, I never even knew the T1 GS was only 2500 req for the longest. I assumed that the T1 bomber was just for some random reason only 2500 req, rather than it being in line with the T1 GS.

 

So to your point, it's definitely a subscribers-only thing, but it's a "subscribers by x date" thing as well, and I believe even if you drop your sub, you keep the T1 GS on all toons you create after that because it was an unlock tied to a date, not something directly tied to just being a sub, if that makes sense.

[Enurrsha]

LMBO that explains the bomber price then, which I did wonder about as well.

[nyghtrunner]

LMBO that explains the bomber price then, which I did wonder about as well.

indeed!

[tommmsunb]

As far as I'm concerned I find that the Type 1 strike fighter is the best at catching bombers off of nodes as the game starts. If you fly it such that you are never on a node slightly close to the enemy gunship and constantly go after their bombers then it is completely viable. It does not work on denon at all. Without missing any shots I'm able to kill a bomber in a little less than 2.5 seconds whereas with a burst scout it takes a little less than 5 seconds with no crits, (this is including setup time.) Strike fighters don't need to setup in the same way that burst scouts do to kill bombers, and they can also eat the mines as if its nothing most of the time. The issue with this is that if you're basically the only member of your team who knows what they're doing you're going to run into some issues with the non-bombers killing you. Though you should be able to kill scouts faster than they think you can with retro thrust. Edited May 19, 2015 by tommmsunb

[ALaggyGrunt]

As much as component choices (not rapids fire lasers!) help, the only real way to get good is practice practice practice.

 

General things:

If you see red box in the distance with a glowy cloud around it, turn 90 degrees away from it and boost, much preferably behind cover.

Press tab a lot. It will let you see if there's anyone nearby intent on your destruction, and give you an approximate idea of where.

Your short-range guns work much better at very short (1500m or less) range, and preferably at the center of your screen.

You can fire your guns while your mouse is outside the firing cone. They will fire at max deflection, which makes them shoot with terrible accuracy, so that's usually something to avoid.

Your medium-range guns (quads, medium lasers, heavy lasers) work best at short-to-medium ranges, and dead center. Firing off-center costs you a lot of accuracy. Of all those, the medium lasers (Laser Cannon) on the Novadive is probably the most newbie-friendly: it tracks about like light lasers and has pretty good accuracy out to 5km-but not a lot of damage potential.

If you have the choice, fly out of missile locks. Boosting 90 degrees from someone's flight path or straight at them can do it. If there's terrain nearby, fly around it at very close range. If they lose line of sight, they lose the lock This is especially[/i] important if you're on a striker or a low-tier scout. Save your engine maneuver for when they actually fire.

Power dive is very good at evading missiles, but it takes practice and spatial awareness to not fly into terrain. It usually works like this: hear missile lock tone, point your ship so there's nothing in front of or 'below' you.

In high-speed chases around obstacles, pressing 'x' (stop your ship) is sometimes a legitimate strategy. Whoever's chasing you will sometimes overshoot.

Your ship turns faster vertically than horizontally. If you need to turn toward something, it's usually faster to roll so it's 'above' you and pitch up than to yaw sideways at it. So do everyone else's ships, so learn how to exploit that.

Don't fly into minefields unless your ship is one specifically built for it.

Edited May 19, 2015 by ALaggyGrunt

[Verain]

I agree with all of your points Verain, but I wanted to mention one thing for the hell of it. It may be subscribers-only (I have always been a subscriber), or due to participation in GSF early access, or for some other reason altogether. Regardless of the reason, any new alt I create has the Quarrel/Mangler (T1 Gunship) already in the hangar ready to fly from the get-go, no 2500 requisition unlock required.

 

This was if you were subscribed by a certain date before GSF launch. I have this bonus, and get a free Quarrel/Mangler on every character forever. But most new players do not have this, as a lot of players subscribe only intermittently, and were not subscribed at the time. I figure if you have that, you don't need to go buy it again, as you can't do that anyway

 

 

As far as I'm concerned I find that the Type 1 strike fighter is the best at catching bombers off of nodes as the game starts. If you fly it such that you are never on a node slightly close to the enemy gunship and constantly go after their bombers then it is completely viable.

 

This is terrible advice for new players. It requires high skill, a very specific build of strike (with armor piercing heavies), versus a very specific build of bomber built explicitly for survival versus scouts (overcharged shield, a build specifically flown to counter the battle scout as best it can), AND it also requires a burning desire to not do what you SHOULD do to accomplish this- fly a gunship or a charged plating bomber. A gunship can get in range of a bomber at a similar rate to the starguard, and can prevent it from boosting the rest of the way. While the gunship can be deroosted during this event, the starguard could be swapped to- or even gunshipped himself, as he will have to extend far past where his team is able to protect him.

[tommmsunb]

This was if you were subscribed by a certain date before GSF launch. I have this bonus, and get a free Quarrel/Mangler on every character forever. But most new players do not have this, as a lot of players subscribe only intermittently, and were not subscribed at the time. I figure if you have that, you don't need to go buy it again, as you can't do that anyway

 

 

 

 

This is terrible advice for new players. It requires high skill, a very specific build of strike (with armor piercing heavies), versus a very specific build of bomber built explicitly for survival versus scouts (overcharged shield, a build specifically flown to counter the battle scout as best it can), AND it also requires a burning desire to not do what you SHOULD do to accomplish this- fly a gunship or a charged plating bomber. A gunship can get in range of a bomber at a similar rate to the starguard, and can prevent it from boosting the rest of the way. While the gunship can be deroosted during this event, the starguard could be swapped to- or even gunshipped himself, as he will have to extend far past where his team is able to protect him.

 

 

I agree that its horrible for new players, but I was under the impression the guy asking was a returning launch player. And yo I play gunship too now (I know it's strange but I do it pretty well too) I still find starguard is better at it. As for bombers, I don't see how they're good at interception, but again I don't fly them so I could be missing something.

 

Also it's pretty good against charged plating bombers too. You can clear its shields and a decent chunk of its armor in the time it takes to lock a conc and then it's dead.

Edited May 19, 2015 by tommmsunb

[RickDagles]

I agree with tomm that the Starguard does have a niche purpose in some domination games. It is the best ship in the game at taking a node defended by only one bomber IMO. The problem is that it has trouble against enemy T1 GS and T2 scouts that come to provide support. Edited May 19, 2015 by RickDagles

[Verain]

Tom and Siraka- when you guys are on your bombers, can you name the type 1 strike pilots that just tear you apart?

[Drakkolich]

Tom and Siraka- when you guys are on your bombers, can you name the type 1 strike pilots that just tear you apart?

 

I know I can't name a single one.

[Verain]

Rama played a proton build that could basically deny hellside to the bomber by threatening protons, but it was part of a team assault. Certainly, the careful positioning and weapon choice was not rewarded by the tuning of the components, though it was interesting.

 

The situation described, where a starguard strips the shields with 3km ions and then follows up with two to three concussions, is not one I see.

[tommmsunb]

I don't play bomber, but I know I have yet to have a problem with a bomber in my starguard. I'll level one up on bastion after I get back.

[Verain]

Well I'm glad to hear that. I seriously doubt you'll run into starguards who can take you down.

 

Also, you can play hyperspace bacon soon!

[Ungodlyomen]

Alot of good info here guys. . i will look over it and practice ty all