I'd suggest that the extra booster time from boost recharger would more than make up for lacking the 8% evasion, if that's what you're going for.

If you are running a scout with 33% base evasion and press nothing else, the 8% evasion reduces your damage taken by around 12%. If you press it during, say, distortion field, the 8% evasion reduces your damage taken by 20%. If you press it during running interference and distortion field, it's a 40%+ reduction.

I don't see that as a valid comparison. Those two things are pretty orthogonal.

I like how when I asked for a tl;dr of your rapid fire thread your response was something along the lines of "this isn't *********** twitter", but you've obviously not read my BO/TT thread.

But you don't. Here's are two relevant formulas you list:

Damage done by ship with targeting telemetry and lock-on weapons = (b * 1.224 * (h + 0.1)) + (m * 1.224 * EHM)

Damage done by ship with blaster overcharge = (b * 1.468 * h) + (m * EHM)

You reduce the m damage (missile) by an effective hit for missiles (your EHM), pointing out that many opponents will dodge your missiles or break them. That's a fair factor. Where is the ACC factor for b? The factor representing user aim, you know, the same factor you included for missiles? More importantly, where is the factor representing all the time lost when an opponent may be out of blaster range but in missile range, or off of exact center, where blasters take an increasingly large accuracy penalty (a much smaller h)? You totally ignore this. Your math models a case where you are dpsing a stationary target with a ludicrous amount of health. If that ever happened, then blaster overcharge would be essentially mandatory.

But it doesn't.

Oh, your multipliers? The 1.468 and the 1.224? Incorrect.

Here's your line:

"Blaster overcharge increases the damage of your lasers by a whopping +52.2%. Factoring in uptime, you get +15.6% blaster damage over a 40 second period (again, assuming you're firing about as much when it's up as when it's down). Over a 120 second period, you get three uses, or +46.8% damage."

Your last step is incorrect. You can't multiply by uses without dividing by time. The 15.6% blaster damage increase over 40 seconds is where you should stop. You get a 15.6% increase over a 40 second period. Over an 80 second period, you ALSO get a 15.6% damage increase. Over a 120 second period, you ALSO get a 15.60% damage increase. In fact, at anything divided by 40 (stopping the moment the cooldown comes back up in all cases) it's 15.6%. At anything not divided by 40, the value is a bit higher. You choose 120 as a value where both cooldowns are coming off cooldown (TT for the fifth time, BO for the fourth time, having gained four uses of TT and three uses of BO).

If you aren't following, pretend that instead of a 120 second period, we modeled a 1200 second period. Would you argue that blaster overcharge was giving you a 468% damage increase over that time, but targeting telemetry was at 224% increase? It should be obvious that this is incorrect.

If you are averaging over time- which is a HUGE abstraction- then blaster overcharge is around 15% and targeting telemetry is around... I'm not sure where you get your number, which is 5.6%. I see it as more around 6%, more if the weapon in question actually has a crit rate that isn't 0% base.

Damage done by ship with targeting telemetry and lock-on weapons = (b * 1.06 * (h + 0.05) * ACC) + (m * 1.06 * EHM)

Damage done by ship with blaster overcharge = (b * 1.15 * h * ACC) + (m * EHM)

This changes many of your conclusions. Or it should, at least. h matters a lot, especially when it sub 20%, which it OFTEN is, but it doesn't take very much for it to be the dominant factor now that you don't have a really large and false multiplier on b.

But the whole thing here is still averaged over time. In practice, much more of your time in combat has the cooldowns up than down, and the evasive boost is quite valuable during that time. More importantly, your enemies also blow cooldowns, and targeting telemetry reduces the value of these in a way blaster overcharge does not.

I'm not saying don't use blaster overcharge. I am saying that Stasie's OP is correct to recommend it as the baseline default.

<strike fighter builds>

Awesome! Thanks for the contribution and the formatting! I'll have to try this particular setup, I haven't played my Pike/Quell often enough because lately I've been working on additional GSF achievements.

... use of retro thrusters and boost can minimize your damage taken.

That's something I actually use as well and neglected to mention, thank you for the heads up. I will add this in! It's definitely useful information.

I read the t2 scout section... I think you don't do enough justice to other builds...

I definitely don't list them all, as I mentioned that could take an awfully long time and I don't specialize more in one ship than the others. I gave an alternative build at the start of the Sting/Flashfire section, but it certainly doesn't encompass all possible specs. This is where I could use additional help from savvy T2 scouts like yourself! Ramalina's contribution with strike fighter builds definitely helps add variety to the thread and gives readers more options and logic. I think I'll link builds here in the appropriate sections.

The only time telemetry pulls ahead in DPS is when your relative accuracy (i.e. weapon accuracy minus target's evasion) is under 70%, which is pretty rare given actual accuracy and evasion values (especially with precision and post-nerf dfield etc).

I guess that really depends on who/what you're fighting. I don't believe there's any ideal build that covers all situations and I think I mentioned as much (if not, I just did right now). With Burst Laser Cannons, you're not likely to have too much trouble handling strikes if you stay on their tail. I don't feel like Retro Thrusters would ever be optimal for killing gunships, I listed a gunship-killer build for the T1 scout (and gave reasons as to why above it).

T2 scouts are another matter. 33% evasion base on a T2 scout + 35% (DF) + either 30% (Retro) or 15% (Running Inter) is 98% or 83% evasion. That's not even counting the additional evasion from TT if you were to spec that way. Even at best-case scenario shots at 500m or less (which is DEFINITELY not every shot), you have less than 70% accuracy (123% BLC at 500m or less + let's say 20% Servo Jammer or In Your Sights = 143%. 143% - worst case 83% = 60% accuracy.). Based on your statement, you'll run into this situation against my T2 scout build pretty much every time. If I did the math wrong or don't understand it properly, I hope I at least conveyed the thought well enough. I definitely don't think it's worthless, though I agree it might not be as useful in games that are horribly skewed in your favor.

Couple of odd choices on the Razorwire. But nonetheless a good read.

Thank you! What about the Razorwire did you find odd? Maybe you could suggest some alternatives? I went with damage reduction on it to make it a bit more distinct in flavor to the Legion/Warcarrier, though I've run a pretty typical build on it as well.

Oh, and coming at it from a sim player's perspective, if you're not flying as part of a well coordinated team you are by definition an incompetent pilot.

I tend to agree with this sentiment and generally enjoy playing with friends much more than solo queues where every enemy is out for my blood. Having a buddy makes it easier to coordinate and play as a real team (I know, no brainer).

Like many component choices in GSF it's nuanced and situational with no single choice guaranteed to be a global optimum.

100% agree here, which ties in to my reply for the next quote...

I haven't read the whole guide, but at first sight it looks more like a personal build suggestion than a guide to me, but not everything that works great for you, does work great for others.

This is why I've listed what I use and why, rather than analyze each component in the game and say "don't use this because so and so." If someone else wishes to do that or becomes a popular request (which I haven't seen quite yet, this was mostly done because of the frequent whispers I get) I'd be willing to work on something to that effect. I agree that each player has their own playing style (look at Ramalina's strike fighter builds, quite different!), and hopefully more contributions will reflect that and give readers more variety.

I would argue that those are the situations you're supposed to be putting yourself in. Bombers and gunships are a huge threat, and sneaking up behind people is obviously the best way to kill them ("don't fight fair, fight to win").

Love the quote, I think I referenced something to this effect somewhere in that long mess of posts I made.

As soon as I saw he had recommendations for the new ships I called ********. No one had had any time in them but devs, at least enough to make solid choices on systems and gameplay.

I did mention that it's theoretical, you can call it whatever you like. I'd challenge you to add something useful to the thread, but I can't force you to.

I guess I'll make those changes/additions, now. Keep the feedback and commentary coming!

Great Post! I have had some great fun playing against you and your friends/guild-mates -- very challenging and skilled you are. Some comments:

DIRECTIONAL SHIELDING: In theory, I agree with most people on these forums that directional shielding is the most beneficial and useful option there is. However, I don't use it for 2 main reasons:

1) I hate that you have one button to toggle between forward/backward/shared. Typically I want to switch in the heat of the moment, and there is usually little time for toggling nonsense. Imagine how annoying it would be if we only had one button to toggle between power options (weapons/shields/thrusters/shared). Admittedly, I've never tried them for very long, and maybe it's not so bad when you get used to it.

2) Directional shields are great if you're in a pre-made, but their usefulness drastically declines when you're in a random PUG. I spend most of my time PUGing (I don't like playing with premades tbh, 90% of the fights on Bastion are one-sided, and I usually prefer the challenging side vs the cakewalk). Anyways, I've found that with directional shield and multiple people shooting at you...you just die that much quicker vs having a recharge option.

MISSILES/LASERS: I appreciate your insight regarding what to use and when. This is one of the things I struggle with the most when I begin to engage somebody on my SF...."Should I open up with Heavies...or risk a missile lock right away?" I seem to have the best luck when I just start with heavy canons and shift to missiles if/when weapon power is low. That being said, I still regret my choice about 1/3 of the time and wish I had acted differently.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

Thank you to the players and pilots from both factions on The Bastion for offering your opinions, challenges and discussions. .... I feel our community on The Bastion is extraordinary and for the most part, very friendly.

LIES! This one time I was in a same-faction gsf with Phytia/Drak on the other team, and they were both fortified around satellite B. They sent out a message saying that there was free punch and cookies at said satellite, and upon arrival, I found their claim to be extremely falsified. Not only was there a lack of snacks/refreshments, but I was openly met with hostile actions.

Long story short -- the community on Bastion is the most one-sided, manipulative, and malicious of any TOR server!!! Newcomers be warned.....

-Kalphitis/Kalphuggler

 

Remember: this isn't "stuff one guy built and likes". And it most certainly isn't "stuff that doesn't work for GOOD pilots".

 

Stasie has so many games with every ship and so many components that it is a resource not really seen on these forums- add that to his discussions with other pilots, and it's easily the best guide on the forums. You are free to dismiss it, but to do so is an almost laughable waste. But definitely don't give bad advice to other folks based on nowhere near as much playtime and discussion.

A few items. First, "Stuff one guy built and likes," is exactly what it is. The guy has spent a lot of time playing, and talked with other active players, but that doesn't change the nature of the content. There's a introduction that is pretty clear on that. It's quite different from doing a math model based on tooltips, a statistical math model from combat logs, or breaking the EULA by decompiling the software to get quantitative info on how things work.

It's a great service to the community, because while it is opinion, it's pretty well informed opinion, and it aggregates a lot of info that has previously been very scattered. It really does deserve a sticky.

Secondly read a bit slower, it may improve your comprehension. I said that TT offered more to good pilots than to poor pilots. I also said that in optimal conditions BO has more DPS potential. Or possibly you should just not mix up what I wrote and what Armonddd wrote.

Thirdly, I find your post to come across as annoying and disrespectful in tone. Though that may be partly because I need to eat lunch, and am reading more tone out of it than you put into it. Your posts are normally pretty good so I'll go with that as a provisional hypothesis and look at it again after I've eaten.

If you are running a scout with 33% base evasion and press nothing else, the 8% evasion reduces your damage taken by around 12%. If you press it during, say, distortion field, the 8% evasion reduces your damage taken by 20%. If you press it during running interference and distortion field, it's a 40%+ reduction.

 

I don't see that as a valid comparison. Those two things are pretty orthogonal.

Well, it clearly depends on player skill and playstyle, but I personally am more comfortable using boost to get out of peoples' crosshairs than I am relying on an extra 8% evasion. That's not at all mathematical, though.

You reduce the m damage (missile) by an effective hit for missiles (your EHM), pointing out that many opponents will dodge your missiles or break them. That's a fair factor. Where is the ACC factor for b? The factor representing user aim, you know, the same factor you included for missiles? More importantly, where is the factor representing all the time lost when an opponent may be out of blaster range but in missile range, or off of exact center, where blasters take an increasingly large accuracy penalty (a much smaller h)? You totally ignore this. Your math models a case where you are dpsing a stationary target with a ludicrous amount of health.

I believe I said in the disclaimer that my model isn't perfect because there's too many variables I'm not accounting for (enemy skill, boost time, etc). I dunno about you, but I'm not super willing to code up an observation/analysis bot to watch my matches and give me all the data I'd need to improve the match much farther than what's there.

I agree that it's an issue, and I deal with it by arbitrarily deciding that the pilot does 10,000 base damage (e.g. the pilot fires twenty perfectly aimed shots for 500 damage each, before crits, misses, and buffs, and any number of shots that are not properly lined up with the lead indicator) during the skill's uptime. If there's a better model I could make than "what would happen in this specific situation if you had BO as opposed to TT, or vice versa", please let me know so I can do that for next time. Otherwise, I have to use a "control" situation for my mathing.

I don't think it's reasonable to say that either skill will make you a better shot (i.e. physical aiming) for the duration, so I don't think it's fair to say my conclusions are wrong because they don't take that into account -- whether you get off five, twenty, or fifty perfectly lined up shots during the duration, the game's engine is still only going to apply +x% damage, +y% accuracy, +z% surge. I will grant you the assumption that +33% ROF assumes +33% shots landed, and that's probably wrong in practical situations.

Looking back, though, it's kind of odd that I half-accounted for that. I probably should have done two lines of formulae, one accounting for physical accuracy and one not. I'd update the topic if it weren't old and dead.

Oh, your multipliers? The 1.468 and the 1.224? Incorrect.

You're totally right, I completely derped that up. I guess I multiplied by additional uses but forgot to divide by additional time? Whatever it was, it was pretty dumb. So instead of using +46.8% and +22.4%, I should have been using +15.6% and +5.6%... which gives a stronger advantage to BO, but only before accuracy and missiles are accounted for. Running the math for accuracy with the correct multipliers favors TT's accuracy buff like you would not believe. (Well, maybe you would.) And that chart is before the t4 upgrade -- in the formula box to the right, change (x+0.1) to (x+0.15) to see how much more of a difference that upgrade makes.

So, at this point, I'll rescind my comment about BO being objectively better than TT. It would seem that TT is better for flat damage over a long period of time (30 seconds is long in GSF, we'll all agree), but BO's rate of fire increase can more reliably guarantee a kill in extremely short periods of time where you only get a few shots off (for example, when sneaking up on a gunship, or chasing an enemy that's chasing your ally). Not that TT can't also perform in these situations -- you just have to rely on RNG crits instead of hard-coded fire rates.

I'm honestly shocked that such a huge damage and rate of fire increase loses out in the long run to what seems a comparatively piddly crit and surge buff (because TT beats BO even at 100% relative accuracy), but math doesn't lie, so I have no choice but to do as Darwin did (when considering the human eye and his theory of evolution) and accept my findings even when they seem crazy.

If you are averaging over time- which is a HUGE abstraction-

As above, I'm more averaging over a specific scenario than I am over time. If you hit with, say, a hundred shots over sixty seconds, how much more damage will you do with TT? How much more damage will you do with BO? Again, I don't really know how else I could analyze the situation without massive amounts of statistics and in-game observations, and the lack of a combat log makes that difficult, to say the least.

then blaster overcharge is around 15% and targeting telemetry is around... I'm not sure where you get your number, which is 5.6%. I see it as more around 6%, more if the weapon in question actually has a crit rate that isn't 0% base.

That number comes from assuming 0% base crit chance and rounding to two decimal places. Here's the formula. (Reminder to the reader that both the 15.6% and 5.6% numbers are before accuracy.)

Here is a chart with base crit chance on the X-axis and percent damage increase from using TT (as opposed to not using anything) on the Y-axis. You're absolutely right that TT's damage bonus will increase as base crit increases, but the scale is pretty small. The "usual case" of upgrading from 0% base crit to 5% or 8% base crit (depending on weapon) only increases the damage buff from 5.6% to 6.1% or 6.4%. The accuracy buff and evasion debuff is significantly more important here.

As is to be expected, there's an exception: at significantly higher x-values (change the window settings below the graph to 0 < x < 0.5 or so), you get significantly more mileage out of TT. As an example, with an 8% crit weapon and concentrated fire up, TT would be providing you with +9.1% damage instead of +5.6%. That's significant, but this tactic comes with the downside of not having your cooldown available in another situation.

In practice, much more of your time in combat has the cooldowns up than down, and the evasive boost is quite valuable during that time.

That's a fair consideration (and one that I agree with), but it's not a mathematical one. I can tell you that I land more shots when I have BO/CF/TT/bypass up than when I do not (because I want to take advantage of my cooldowns), but I could not tell you how many more shots I land, nor how long I wait after a cooldown expires before using it. You also need to include powerups for TDM -- I dunno about you, but I've never used a +damage cooldown with DO up, and of course there's the whole thing about time spent engaging vs time spent hunting powerups vs number of powerups found.

I would love to be able to adjust the numbers for cooldown uptime/downtime and damage dealt during cooldown uptime/downtime, but I flat out don't have any reliable data to go on. I could pull something out of my rear, but that's really not science at all.

Again, all I can do is say "in this arbitrary situation where you used neither TT nor BO, how much more damage would you have done with them?" Unless, of course, you can help me figure out a better model. I can, however, say that in practical situations, TT will grant more total damage than BO because its cooldown can be used more efficiently -- but possibly at the cost of some kills.

More importantly, your enemies also blow cooldowns, and targeting telemetry reduces the value of these in a way blaster overcharge does not.

Well, I dunno. Bursting people down in a second and a half is a pretty good way to negate their cooldowns, and TT flat out can't guarantee that.

This changes many of your conclusions. Or it should, at least.

It definitely does. That accuracy buff is more potent than I gave it credit for (and I'll admit that when I first did the math, I was surprised that the accuracy buff wasn't contributing as much as I'd expected it to). The rate of fire increase is still pretty scary, but the average damage increase from TT just outdoes it in the long run.

I tentatively conclude that TT is better for getting big numbers on the leaderboard, while BO is better for guaranteeing a kill when you need one. Do you agree?

Thanks for pointing out the errors. You keep me honest, and I feel like I understand things better now than I did before. <3

I definitely don't list them all, as I mentioned that could take an awfully long time and I don't specialize more in one ship than the others. I gave an alternative build at the start of the Sting/Flashfire section, but it certainly doesn't encompass all possible specs. This is where I could use additional help from savvy T2 scouts like yourself! Ramalina's contribution with strike fighter builds definitely helps add variety to the thread and gives readers more options and logic. I think I'll link builds here in the appropriate sections.

I don't think of my Flashfire as having any one build; rather, it has a whole bunch of components that can be used with various levels of synergy for various purposes.

Burst cannons, clusters, and retro thrusters are all great to have around a satellite or asteroid. If you have retro, you don't have the mobility boost of barrel roll, so you should probably have booster recharge... unless you're planning to just go to B and defend it for the entire match, in which case you can take an offensive CD instead.

Quads and pods combined give pretty good burst, and an offensive cooldown or two makes the build pretty scary good at doing big damage from decent range while maintaining a lot of mobility.

I honestly don't think any scout should be running without at least one mobility button, and on a T2 scout, you're looking at barrel roll and booster recharge as your major options. Quick-charge shields can help here, but I feel like they're a tier below where they should be (and the decreased bulk hurts).

Sab probe is questionable, and IMO works better on T1 scouts because of EMP field, but T2 scouts can still use it effectively with lights (highest DPS laser while you have a bead on the target). Again, you need to choose between retro + BR (for locks and general mobility) and barrel roll + TT/BO (for more damage in between locks and the ability to exit bad situations, but at the cost of fewer locks and less mobility overall).

Directional shields, quick-charge shields, and distortion field all have their strengths and weaknesses. I tend to favor distortion field even though it decreases my bulkiness because the lock break lets me win head to heads, among other things. I don't know many pilots that run the other two on their scouts, but they're theoretically viable, if nothing else. It's worth noting that both of them have synergy with your reactor that distortion field doesn't.

Lightweight armor is the obvious choice, as you say. Percentage increases to not a lot will not give you a lot.

Frequency capacitor is more DPS and better burst DPS (if you do 1000 damage per shot and the target has 2500 health remaining, frequency is going to decrease the time to get that third shot off and damage is going to do... nothing), but damage capacitor is better when the target is taking advantage of LoS or zooming past you. I've gotten some pretty sweet 1.4k crits on someone who thought he could boost past me and be safe. (Spoiler: he wasn't.) Between its advantages with small firing opportunities and the lack of increased power draw, I give a slight edge to damage capacitor.

Edit: Since the devs have confirmed that damage scales linearly with range, the range capacitor will a slight damage increase while also allowing you to deal with seeker mines and targets at the very edge of your range.

I think turning thrusters are completely viable if you want to sneak around obstructions. I do so a lot (mostly to break missile locks), so I use them over regen thrusters. Besides, with boost recharger, it's rare that I'm out of engine power (I actually run +20% turning rate because of this). I'd definitely take regen thrusters on a barrel roll build, though.

I agree that large reactor is the best general purpose reactor because it increases your bulk and decreases your vulnerability to burst damage. That said, directional shields with turbo reactor all but eliminates the wait for shields to begin regenning, and quick-charge shields with +60% constant regen combines well with regen reactor for constant regen (though there's a period of time from 1.7 to 4.8 seconds after you're hit where turbo reactor will outperform regen reactor -- which can be very useful when circling satellites). Again, though, both of these are long-term solutions; RNG evasion from distortion field can save your life against a series of shots that would otherwise kill you in a second or so. (Or you could go with directional shields and large reactor to throw up a wall between you and that gunship.)

I tentatively conclude that TT is better for getting big numbers on the leaderboard, while BO is better for guaranteeing a kill when you need one. Do you agree?

Mostly! I personally prefer DO because of how good it is against the fortified targets with a narrow kill window, such as gunships and bombers. I would say that TT allows for a different and generally superior style for dogfighting, especially if you are the defensive and offensive focus of the enemies, and BO is better for nailing clutch kills on high value targets.

Great guide. I would like to add my two cents to this topic. For those who disagree with what is posted that is fine. It does seem that (in my opinion) that you haven't read the explanation to why each component was chosen. For those new Pilots do not look for a TL;DR version of this guide. Do yourself a favor and READ this guide, and therefore improve not only what to do but why you are doing it. If you do that you will see that as a pilot you will improve drastically. This is coming from someone who queues solo and as a group.

TL;DR -- READ THE GUIDE

All of your Table of Contents links go to the Bombers post.

Very nice work, by the way.

I play my starguard reasonably standard- heavies, ions, concussion missiles. But my Gladiator... lets call it a whiskey build. If you are drinking Johnny Walker Black, I recommend this ship. It plays a bit like a scout, and you will survive longer than a scout. It is also very fun. I would not claim it is exactly exceptional, except in the strictest definition of that term.

WHISKEY TZ-24 GLADIATOR TIPS

• Since you won't remember directional shields, or at worst you will actively redirect them away from the incoming damage source, you should use Quick Charge Shields. Press the button whenever you remember to. Because your shields are always charging, you should quickly toggle to F2 while you are trying to reacquire target, which will be constantly. Obviously, F1 for firing, F3 for if you need to juke or dash yourself into an asteroid accidentally, and F4 because man, it's like, right there.

• Make sure to randomly pick a target and glue yourself to it, but try to peel off before minefields and cap ship turrets.

• Focus on enemies vastly inferior to you.

• Cluster missiles still work even if you are pretty far gone.

WHISKEY FUELED TZ-24 GLADIATOR

This ship is a close ranged combatant. No one told him he couldn't be a battle scout, so he's worked at it hard his whole life. Remember to switch off of ion cannons whenever you want to actually kill anyone, ever.

:: COMPONENTS

Primary Weapon:Rapid Fire Laser Cannon (T4 Accuracy, T5 Hull Damage)

When you begin with Rapid Fire Lasers, you will find an underpowered cannon that requires intense skill and a constant bead to do reasonable damage. The damage falls off quickly with distance, and the tracking penalty is not great compared to other short range weapons. It's ok, the Gladiator can't equip those. Make the blasters your favorite color. If that's not available, your favorite color is now purple. Purple is pleasing because it's an illusory color- it's not on the spectrum. It's a glitch of our visual system that some purples look like spectral violet, so exploit this by creating pretty amazing fans of beatiful purple in the vastness of space.

Once you have this weapon mastered, you'll notice that it has bloomed into an underpowered cannon that requires intense skill and a constant bead to do reasonable damage, but it deals 16% extra hull damage and is even cheaper to fire than before, which never mattered and now matters even less. This is easily your best gun. Fire it at everything, and nothing can go wrong.

Primary Weapon: Ion Cannon (T4 Increased Range, T5 Drain Shield Power)

This will strip shields amazingly quickly, and then produce tiny amounts of hull damage, your signal to press the 1 button and immediately repress the mouse button (this ship would be so improved if the firing continued with the new weapon). The ion cannon's damage falls off fast with range, and it makes a really funny noise. If you choose a black core weapon, you'll be distracted by the strange ghost bolts you fire, so don't do that! The ion cannon ensures that no one comes close to this ship without losing their shields. At least, on one side of their ship. Remember to switch off of this weapon when the numbers become two digit! You will really find this weapon satisfactory.

Secondary Weapon:Cluster Missiles (T4 Increased Range, T5 Double Volley)

This weapon is capable of scoring damage even against opponents who use engine maneuvers and do not have a high blood alcohol content, so it's pretty much going to be all of your damage in a typical match, being that your blasters are both remedial. If your opponent is afk or something, your ions will strip their shields in just about the time it takes to lock on and fire this, guaranteeing that all the damage goes to hull, but expect this combo to work out as typed about once a game. Mostly your games will consist of a pretty fan of thirty to forty purple lasers, one of which hits for 200ish, and then a cluster volley, one of which connects for about 400 as the opponent runs away. The devs are planning to fix this glitch, which is pretty much the worst thing ever, as it will be a 60% damage reduction.

Engine: Barrel Roll (T3 Increased Turning Rate)

This engine component allows you to get back into the action, or to catch up to the action after it left, which it often does as most pilots don't want to be around a buzzed gladiator with nothing but ludicrous trolly melee weapons. Every time you barrel roll into an asteroid, take a drink. If you barrel roll INTO cap ship turret range, take two drinks.

Shields: Quick Charge Shields (T3 Constant Regen)

Since you won't do the right thing with directional shields, take these. Remember to run and hide when you take damage, something you do instinctively. You coward! You only need a couple seconds to take these shields from low to max, which is good, because they have the thickness of Trojan Super Ultra Thins. A nice trick is to press F2 when you don't have an enemy under your sites, as the extra boost will immediately begin charging your shields slightly faster- but lets be honest, there's no way you are going to remember that. Just remember to press 2 when you take damage. That should be good enough. You won't die, or at least, you won't stay dead for long.

Reactor: Large Reactor

I mean, why not? What were you gonna pick? You can do the regeneration one, but it takes a very long time for it to outrace the large reactor, and honestly, this ship doesn't need to be any weaker.

Thruster: Turning Thrusters

You're a scout in the body of a strike fighter. But ship roles are just a social construct. Let your inner scout shine through with these thrusters.

Capacitor: Frequency Capacitor

Both of your weapons fire very fast and are mostly for entertainment value instead of dps, and neither really uses weapon power, which you are too hammered to watch anyway. So there's no reason not to take this, which increases the density of the fan of purple fireworks you spew into space by 15%, an excellent tradeoff with no possible disadvantages.

Magazine: Munitions Capacity Extender

You can't run out of anything except clusters and whiskey, so this magazine fixes half of your problems right there. It also counts the pre-double volley number, so it's an even better deal.

:: CREW

Copilot: Scorpio (Sexy Voice, Suppression)

It's clear that this is the superior copilot, because she is a murderbot that gets off when you kill your enemies. There is really no other possible choice now that this has been established. She also offers "Suppression", which is an interesting metagame call in a game that often features pilots of vastly different skills. Ideally, you will put this on an opponent who represents a real threat, as a -25% accuracy penalty is devastating to the few pilots in any match that can actually hit moving targets with their lasers. However, given the playstyle, you probably just press this on cooldown on anything that isn't a bomber.

Offensive: Jaesa Willsaam(2 degrees to firing arc & 6% accuracy)

Your puny weapons need all the help that they can get. Jaesa offers tiger pills that enhance the length of your rapid fire's accuracy and boost the girth of your ion's firing arc. She's also kind of hot so you can picture her and Scorpio up there having a bit of a party, if that's your bag.

Defensive:Writch Hurley (10% shield power pool,15% shield regeneration)

No reason not to go all-in on the quick charge shield thing, right? A bigger shield and it comes back faster, and it's always coming back. Clearly you should ignore that evasion thing. It's too mathy anyway.

Tactical: Scorpio (no clue)

There is no other option.

Engineering:Blizz (10% engine pool, 13% engine efficiency)

The only way you will run out of weapon power using rapids and ions is when you are spinning in circles on a friendly sat with the button held down. That's admirable, but you should instead build towards being able to boost longer, because with nothing but short range weapons, you pretty much are always doing this. Plus it helps you pass in society as a scout, so why wouldn't you?

Every time you barrel roll into an asteroid, take a drink. If you barrel roll INTO cap ship turret range, take two drinks.

My guild uses this a variant of this system for wipes in Ops, we hadn't though to try it for GSF yet.

Might make a good beginners build to get through the GSF learning curve while having fun. Well, as long as you have enough sense to stop taking shots before you get alcohol poisoning.

*snipping a great post on scouts*

I added a link to this in the scout section, because it brings up great points and an alternative view on ship design.

TL;DR -- READ THE GUIDE

Thanks! Maybe I should call this a compendium instead? *shrugs*

All of your Table of Contents links go to the Bombers post.

Fixed, thank you for pointing it out! Does anyone know if there's a way to link to spots in a particular post, like say halfway through? It would allow me to break it down a little better in the initial links.

Nice guide. I like your reasoning for your builds. If I get some time I'll post up some alternative builds that I really enjoy.

Thank you, I'm sure the community would appreciate it.

*snipped TZ-24 build*

Added to the Strike Fighter section with Ramalina's. Thanks for the contribution, though I think I'll pass on the drinking game since I've got a weak stomach.

I was thinking about a section for community/server channels and guilds as well, though the information would be a little tough to gather. For example, pubs on The Bastion use the channel "pubgsf" in-game, and imps use "impgsf". I know there's at least 2 GSF-centralized guilds on our server, with a number of others focusing on both GSF and ground PvP.

I added a link to this in the scout section, because it brings up great points and an alternative view on ship design.

Thanks!

Fixed, thank you for pointing it out! Does anyone know if there's a way to link to spots in a particular post, like say halfway through? It would allow me to break it down a little better in the initial links.

I know how to do that in HTML, but BW's forums limit bbcode significantly, so I'm not sure it's possible here.

Added to the Strike Fighter section with Ramalina's. Thanks for the contribution, though I think I'll pass on the drinking game since I've got a weak stomach.

But that's what makes it more fun!

Hey so overall I really like the guide. Just some feedback regarding the Type 1 strikers (which I primarily fly):

while taking the companion that offers a buff to evasion looks good I think in the case of Type 1 strikers evasion is overrated for several reasons: 1) a Type 1 striker gets a max of 10% evasion, in my experience which is going to have a negligible impact on an opponent's accuracy unless they're already experiencing significant tracking penalties 2) I've found Doc (Republic) blends much better with the reactor minor component of Type 1 strikers by offering both a buff to total shield arc strength and regen rate.

Also I've found that Ion cannons blend very well with a Heavy Cannon/concussion set up. While heavy cannons aren't great for point blank if you first use Ions to strip away an enemy's shields heavy cannons will do serious damage to an enemy's hull. I've sometimes caused an enemy to begin fleeing because they're suddenly without shields and taking heavy damage, which in turn puts them right at the ideal range of heavy cannons.

Combined with retros I've found a good tactic can be to open with heavies, switch to ions once I'm in range, after their shields have been stripped away hit retro to gain some distance to finish them off with heavies and/or missiles.

It's also an ideal bomber killer set up as ions counter the bomber's shields and heavies counter any damage reduction armor. With that set up I'd recommend going with the range capacitor to make the most of heavies and give ions a little more reach.

While I skipped over it in my sarcastic review of my beloved whiskey TZ-24 build, I actually think evasion is overrated on the Type 1 Strikes, but the other crew defensives are so balls it doesn't really matter.

Here's the argument against evasion on the T1 Strike: Broadly, evasion is only really baller at high levels. If you have a 95% chance to be missed, adding 5% evasion takes you from mortal to immortal. Here's more reasonable numbers though:

If you have a 100% chance to be hit, 10% of miss means you are able to tank a little bit more incoming damage- if it took 2000 damage to kill you before, now it will take 2222 damage to kill you, on average. This is an increase of about 11%. If you have that rate of 10% and you gain another 10% evasion for a 20% total, now you need 2500 to kill you- 25% more than base, and a 12.5% increase in survivability over your 10%. Add another 10, and now you need 2875 to kill you- 43% more than base, and a 15% increase over the 20% mark.

It just keeps going up like that. Every point of evasion is worth more and more. This means that anything that can stack evasion gets a lot of benefit from it. 30% evasion is not "20% better" than 10% evasion, it's a 29% increase in survivability. So if you LACK an armor component, as the Type 1 Strike (and the Type 2 Gunship) does, you are missing out on a whole lot more than 9% survival. In fact, the only evasion available to you is the 5% from the crew member. Now, evasion isn't as simple as this- if I have you under my sites at 3000m with heavy laser, your 5% evasion will leave me with 101% chance to hit you- it is worthless (as would be the 9% damage reduction, but both shield options would be helpy). If you had 14% evasion instead, the 92% hit chance would leave you with an 8.6% increase in evasion- hard to justify, but not trash.

Now normally you say "screw it, it's worth it to dodge a railgun". But the railgun accuracy at 7k is 109% with slug, and you have to be well off center before there's a tracking penalty at all. Past 7500 meters it's 104%- is a 1% chance to dodge the slug or ion worth it? Probably not.

So without either distortion field or at the very least the hull component, I do not believe that the 5% evasion adds up to as much when it comes to the REAL reasons you stack evasion. It still helps if you are off center- if someone has big tracking penalty because you are at the edge, and their chance to hit you is only 60%, that 5% boost is a 9% survival increase.

The thing is, Stasie recommends the 5% evasion and the 10% shield power pool. The 10% shield power pool is worth 180 shield. Given you have 1450 hull, and ignoring the 5% hull DR at the moment, and assuming large reactor (+360 shield) that means that you've increased your survivability up to 2520+1450=3970, and 3970-180=3790, you've increased your time to be killed by a mere 4.7%. And 15% shield regeneration will hardly ever matter either unless you have quick charge or something else that really helps with it, and it doesn't exactly win by miles there either. This leaves 9% damage reduction. Against, say, quads, an enemy will need to hit you for 2520 to blow up your shield arc, then an additional 1526 to kill you- 4046 damage. If you have 9% extra damage reduction, that turns into 2520 shields and then 1686 to kill you- 4206. That's right about a 4% survival increase.

So here's your options:

Evasion: A 0% to 9% increase in survival, probably around 4% in general. Better during the 15% crewman evasion boost- then it's pretty much at least a 6% survival boost for the duration.

Shield Size: 10% shield is 180 shield. It doesn't stack multiplicatively with anything- all these values are off your base 1800 shield size, whether you have directional, quick charge, large reactor, turbo reactor. This companion special just gives you 180 shield on a strike fighter. This increases your survivability by nearly 5%, more if you actually regenerate shields (aka, not just burned down from full). But no one is telling you to drop this one!

Shield Regen: 13.5 regen per second when you haven't been attacked for 3 seconds, not even tied with 10% shield size after 10 seconds of not being attacked. There's no way this is more than a 1% increase in survival.

Damage reduction: 4% survival increase, way less if you are able to tank more than one giant burst to the face by escaping and returning with better shields. 0% versus burst laser cannon, heavy laser cannon, and slug railgun.

The T1 Strike is the only place you can really ignore the evasion special- but even here, with nothing to stack with it, it's still very good, because the lesser two abilities (shield regen rate and damage reduction) are just nard munchers full time.

I was thinking of contributing some of the builds I use on the Pike for this, but then I realized I run enough builds on it that it would be to long . Its all dependent on who I see flying and the builds that I see up there already are pretty close to the ones I use, the only interesting choice I occasionally make is running armoring instead of evasion because while many good pilots run Armor piercing there is almost always a few pilots who either aren't or CANT run it with their ship. Because of this against the whole team I feel damage reduction helps against those people while some of the other pilots I don't feel any armor is going to make much of a difference one way or another.

Also I run the Co-pilot ability Lockdown on the Pike on occasions to occasionally drop Proton torps on people after draining their engines to 0 so they cant dodge. Its situational, rare and very aggressive, but has paid off on more then one occasion. Its also worked on scouts trying to flee allowing my strike to stay on their tails.

Verain did a good job on the overall defensive options for a strike fighter, but missed one detail in regards to why even low levels of evasion can be quite valuable.

It rests on two GSF mechanics. First, there is no penalty for non-lethal damage. As long as you don't take another hit, there's no difference between the performance of a ship with 1200 hull and 1400 shields and the same ship with 1 hull and 0 shields. Meaning if you can break LOS, kill the opponent, or otherwise stop taking fire the damage that kills you is much more important than any amount of damage that is not fatal.

Secondly, damage in GSF comes in discrete packages. Meaning that small increases in ability to absorb or reduce damage in many cases will not be enough to turn a killing shot into a non-lethal shot.

Evasion, when it's not overcome by accuracy, is much more effective at turning killing shots into survivable shots because shots that miss do no damage.

With all that said, in the nerf that hit distortion field and evasion overall, Bioware adjusted things so that evasion and shield capacity are now so closely balanced that it's hard to tell if there's any difference in terms of effective survivability.

TL;DR version: Evasion is best if you can stack it, but in GSF at present, evasion is never a bad choice.

while taking the companion that offers a buff to evasion looks good I think in the case of Type 1 strikers evasion is overrated...

I think Ramalina and Verain both summed up (very well, actually) why I choose evasion in the huge majority of builds. I like that you have the options available

Also I've found that Ion cannons blend very well with a Heavy Cannon/concussion set up.

You're definitely not the first person to make mention of Ion Cannon for the Star Guard / Rycer, and I actually do agree that it can be useful! I've tried running it in builds and have been surprised by certain combinations utilizing Ion Cannon to get quick kills (though they're easily countered).

What I don't like about swapping lasers (and I'm sure others can chime in here) is having to click again to fire the newly-swapped primary weapon, especially as frequently as you're suggesting. This is why I tend not to swap often (as in your scenario) during combat. I constantly feel like I'm missing damage by making the choice to switch weaponry so frequently and so I opt to choose a primary weapon that has a much different role from the first. Rapid-fire Lasers are weak but serve a completely different role than Heavy Lasers - they are short-range, have great tracking accuracy and are capable of doing significant hull damage. I feel like it is very difficult to finish off an opponent in close quarters (especially where line of sight is an issue) using Ion Cannon. If an enemy is hugging a mesa/asteroid/satellite trying to evade me, I will switch to Rapid-fire Lasers to finish them off. It's a personal choice, and definitely not for everyone.

One additional problem here is that having a second Primary Weapon just doesn't feel too valuable with how weak the alternatives are. If Ion Cannon had a much larger range or more powerful drain it would be more fun to use in conjunction with Heavy Lasers or Concussion Missile locks. If Rapid-fire Lasers actually dealt real damage instead of feeling like you're tapping someone on the shoulder repeatedly that would be nice too. Verain already has an interesting thread on the topic, though.

It's also an ideal bomber killer set up as ions counter the bomber's shields and heavies counter any damage reduction armor. With that set up I'd recommend going with the range capacitor to make the most of heavies and give ions a little more reach.

I feel like bombers are easy to kill without Ion Cannon. All I tend to require is Heavy Lasers and a missile of one type or another. I standoff at range against bombers because I don't like dealing with their mines in close quarters and it makes anything they drop an easy kill.

As far as Range Capacitor goes, I can see the uses for it but I feel like the trade-off isn't worthwhile when considering my play style and the alternative Capacitor choices. It's great that you bring it up as an option for others to test though - I fully encourage testing any and every component.

I was thinking of contributing some of the builds I use on the Pike for this...

You should! You don't have to submit it in the same format nor provide nearly the amount of explanation I have - I did it just to make it easy to read and provide some insight into my choices.

Also I run the Co-pilot ability Lockdown on the Pike on occasions to occasionally drop Proton torps on people after draining their engines to 0 so they cant dodge. Its situational, rare and very aggressive, but has paid off on more then one occasion. Its also worked on scouts trying to flee allowing my strike to stay on their tails.

I've tried Lockdown and actually do find it useful on the Pike. Lockdown should be even more useful after the upcoming patch since more engine power will be expended avoiding enemies and running away from them. I'll try it out post-patch.

As a final note in this post, I am continuing to add useful information to the respective sections of the guide as I come across them. Thanks for all the input, feedback and commentary!

My Whiskey Gladiator is apparently even "better" than I thought, as I wasn't aware that it boosts engine power recently consumed regeneration rate!

You're definitely not the first person to make mention of Ion Cannon for the Star Guard / Rycer, and I actually do agree that it can be useful! I've tried running it in builds and have been surprised by certain combinations utilizing Ion Cannon to get quick kills (though they're easily countered).

I actually run the Ion Cannon on both my Starguard (next to Concussion and Heavy) and my close range Gladiator (next to Cluster and the mediocre Rapid Fire). But the natural pairing of it is actually Quad specced for armor damage. Heavy is an excellent primary weapon, but it does leave you weak around close objects, so I suspect this was meant to be the peanut butter and jelly of the ship.

Ions are powerful, but their relatively weak range really does make them niche- you won't often acquire a distant target and want to be on Ions. And, as you say, the "reclick" definitely resets at the very least the shot timer or something, and the dps loss is palpable. Also it is very easy to take an extra shot or two at the hull, which is meaningless damage.

On the other hand, if you find yourself in a team fight, it is trivial to strip shields with even mild time on target, and enemies often react to stripped shields- and those that don't can be easily destroyed by friends or dispatched with your more traditional weapon. Still, it's very much a commitment, and locks you in to only one style of shot for your kills.

I added a new section so that important information from other threads deep down in the forums is still easily available for newer players! Links, server information, helpers, twitch streams and more are now available in the new section!

My Whiskey Gladiator is apparently even "better" than I thought, as I wasn't aware that it boosts engine power recently consumed regeneration rate!

I've always thought that was an interesting trade-off: survivability for mobility. I like that it's there, but I prefer the alternatives just because of how good they are. Deaths to burst damage are far more common than being whittled down slowly, and Directional Shields / Distortion Field just handle it better (IMO).

I actually run the Ion Cannon on both my Starguard (next to Concussion and Heavy) and my close range Gladiator (next to Cluster and the mediocre Rapid Fire). But the natural pairing of it is actually Quad specced for armor damage. Heavy is an excellent primary weapon, but it does leave you weak around close objects, so I suspect this was meant to be the peanut butter and jelly of the ship.

Heavy just seems to work so well being the only armor penetration option available for strike fighters. I'd argue it's practically mandatory if you want to kill the armored targets. The only problem I have with Quad Laser Cannons is that while it is great DPS, its range doesn't seem to mesh well with typical strike fighter weaponry/missiles. It isn't that great for very close targets because it has almost double the tracking penalty and a smaller firing arc than the other close-range alternatives. Most [skilled] pilots that close to you probably won't be dead center.

Ions are powerful, but their relatively weak range really does make them niche- you won't often acquire a distant target and want to be on Ions. Also it is very easy to take an extra shot or two at the hull, which is meaningless damage.

What would you suggest to make them more useable/a better option for the type 1 strike? They're the only ship that can use it, it might as well be interesting and a good choice.

You should probably make a drinking game based on how many targets you can kill using only Ion Cannons. I'm game to try it.