I was able to get a brand new toon up to level 10 and have a Near Tier 4 Laser upgraded ship with all other components and Crew Members I desired in just about 1 hour. I would say it's extremely possible to have an upgraded ship.

Be warned, however, that simply having an upgraded ship will not improve your aim. Abilities that enhance "accuracy" such as Active Crew Ability Wingman or Passive Crew Ability Pinpointing are crucial in improving chances to hit off-center target shots.

If you're having trouble breaking 1k Damage, perhaps you could tell us where you fly and we can try to assist you working toward some upgrades. You could also watch the numerous streamers or youtube videos of players who fly. There is a lot of content out there if you're looking.

I'd heartily recommend GSF School by Despon. This gives information basics on everything you need to know to start flying with knowledge, which really is more important that some of your upgrades,

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTo5N9w5J_9OeqCvKfWMbQ

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=886319&page=3

So towards the bottom of the page I linked is a nice write up by Siraka of what you can do after the 15000 requisition earned after four days worth of dailies (8 matches, with only 7 needed for the weekly, and wins count twice). Those are upgrades you can purchase to be competitive, and keep in mind that with today's patch upgrades are HALF of what they used to be, and grants are much higher, meaning your ship will be even more upgraded than in that guide.

Regarding feeling comfortable, I have a thousand matches and still only a less than 50% win rate.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=886319&page=3

 

So towards the bottom of the page I linked is a nice write up by Siraka of what you can do after the 15000 requisition earned after four days worth of dailies (8 matches, with only 7 needed for the weekly, and wins count twice). Those are upgrades you can purchase to be competitive, and keep in mind that with today's patch upgrades are HALF of what they used to be, and grants are much higher, meaning your ship will be even more upgraded than in that guide.

 

Regarding feeling comfortable, I have a thousand matches and still only a less than 50% win rate.

This is all entirely different now with the changes to requisition requirements and gains from quests.

OP I strongly recommend you watch this video to learn about hitting with your weapons:

From my perspective, I needed 1-2 months with daily playing to become a helpful member of my teams. I started back in december.

However, with the last patch the requisition you need to buy ships and components was lowered by half and you get way more requisition at start. The Conquest Introduction grants purple ship- and fleet requisition distributions and the starfighter introduction grants a 25000 requisition distribution. With those two, you should be able to buy your first flashfire/sting and your first mangler/quarrel and get them a decent equipment. I would suggst to start with a gun ship in terms of learning how to hit enemies - from >10.000 metres range and without being hunted it is easier to hit, than from 1.000 metres range inside of a battle with other ships, who are shooting on you.

First of all, you should know that if you're only dealing ~1k damage a match the issue isn't upgrades - it's you shooting from out of range, usually. Check out some of the numerous guides around (the one OscardDivine linked definitely works).

About requisition - you now get 25k fleet requisition from completing the introduction mission. Combined with the two extra free ships everyone gets, this allows you to purchase all the ships you don't have yet and still be left with 4k fleet requisition. With that leftover req you should purchase:

On pubside - Lieutenant Iresso, Nadia Grell, M1-4X and C2-N2 (if he's unlocked, get Yuun).

On impside: Gault, Malavi Quinn, Vector and Blizz.

Some of them may be unlocked through your class story, which may make it even cheaper:

As for upgrades, here's how far you can get a ship in one week now. In one week (using the same assumptions Siraka made on his post), you can get:

4x - 1,400 for 2x bonus = 5,600

3x - 700 for the normal 1x games = 2,100

3x - 2,000 daily = 6,000

1x - 4,000 weekly

for a total of 17,700 ship requisition.

For the 5 true meta ships, here's what you can do with that:

Quarrel/Mangler:

4,250 armor ignore on slug railgun

7,500 distortion field mastered

1,750 barrel roll reduced cooldown time

3,000 lightweight armor mastered

1,000 ion railgun increased accuracy and tracking

For a single week, you can be pretty much self-sufficient. The only team utility you'd be missing is ion AoE, but apart for that you're good to go.

Rampart/Razorwire:

2,500 charged plating increased duration

1,500 interdiction mines reduced cooldown

500 seismic mines reduced cooldown

10,250 armor ignore on heavy laser cannons

1,750 deflection armor 2nd upgrade

For one week, you'll have everything important. For another 50 ship req you can get the last upgrade on deflection armor and then any difference between you and a mastered bomber will be negligible.

Flashfire/Sting:

6,750 distortion field mastered

2,500 engine maneuver reduced cooldown time (powerdive/retro thrusters/barrel roll)

1,500 rocket pods ignore armor

5,250 burst laser cannon improved firing arc and tracking

1,000 lightweight armor 1st upgrade

You get armor pen, dogfighting capabilities and your 2nd missile break all for one week. The only upgrade you'll be missing will be armor ignore on BLC, but with rocket pods that is still a small issue.

Warcarrier/Legion:

10,250 heavy laser cannons armor ignore

1,500 seeker mines reduced cooldown

1,750 shield power converter reduced power cost

1,500 railgun sentry drone reduced cooldown

1,250 large reactor 2nd upgrade

This bomber will be competitive after a single week. You'll have armor pen, a full nest-building capacity and quite good survivability too. There is no major upgrade you'll be missing.

Condor/Jurgoran:

4,250 armor ignore on slug railgun

1,750 reduced cooldown on powerdive

1,750 increased shield power on directional shields

1,750 shield piercing on cluster missiles

5,250 burst laser cannon improved firing arc and tracking

1,750 large reactor 2nd upgrade

For 50 extra req you can master your reactor too. The only upgrade missing here is armor pen on BLC, but with slug railgun having it it's less of an issue.

Even assuming before that upgrades were your issue (they weren't, dealing such low damage means you are missing some core game mechanics) they should not be an issue now.

How many matches do I have to waste my time in with sub 1k damage done before the mode becomes playable?

No matter which ship you use, even if you have no upgrades at all, if you're getting less than 10 - 15 k damage per match, gear is not your problem. Lack of skill is.

So the real question is, how fast can you learn the fundamentals of GSF piloting?

The answer is, that mostly depends on you.

If you read the extended tooltips on components so you know what they do, read the in game tutorial pages, read some of the guides here, and best of all, get in /gsf chat channel in game and/or get on the GSF Discord server and ask if any of the many experienced pilots can group with you while you fly and give you some instruction, and then you use all this information to improve your flying, you should see massive improvements in your performance in 1-3 weeks. Say 50 to 100 games or so.

If you just queue into matches, get angry because you're not doing well and take a break from flying while you calm down, figure anywhere from 500 - 1000 + games, or possibly never.

1 on 1 mentoring with an experienced pilot who can watch your flying (it helps if you can stream to twitch or record and post to youtube so that the teacher can see what's going on in your User Interface) and who can talk to you about what's going on is by far the fastest/most OP way to get better in GSF, if you're willing to accept the advice. Once you know what you should be doing then it's just a matter of practicing until you can do it reasonably well, which usually doesn't take all that long.

There's a lot to learn to do well in GSF, but none of it is really super complex or difficult. You have to want to learn it and you have to work at learning it, but if you do then it's possible to make pretty fast progress if you have some help.

4x - 1,400 for 2x bonus = 5,600

3x - 700 for the normal 1x games = 2,100

3x - 2,000 daily = 6,000

1x - 4,000 weekly

 

for a total of 17,700 ship requisition.

Don't forget the Conquest Intro mission reward, which also gives you GSF weekly items. So that's 21,700 ship requisition if you ever complete or have completed a conquest on said character.

Another hint that drakolich gave me after watching a stream I recorded for him was to really practice power level management. Having power to weapons (F1 key by default) really boosts your damage relative to being in, say, power to shields (F2) or engines (F3.). One of my worst habits is being in power to engines F3 to close distance and then forgetting to swap to F1 when I'm ready to fire. It takes practice but it will noticeably improve your output, as well as helping your regeneration rate for the times when you can maintain sustained fire.

Don't waste time shooting at a bomber with charged plating up unless you have an armor piercing blaster.

And, switch to anything other than rapid fire lasers.

Consider using Wingman active crew copilot ability to improve your accuracy stat against targets with high evasion stats. Also changing your offensive crew member to one with accuracy and firing arc bonuses (Qyzen Fess and Jaesa Wilsaam.)

Another hint that drakolich gave me after watching a stream I recorded for him was to really practice power level management. Having power to weapons (F1 key by default) really boosts your damage relative to being in, say, power to shields (F2) or engines (F3.). One of my worst habits is being in power to engines F3 to close distance and then forgetting to swap to F1 when I'm ready to fire. It takes practice but it will noticeably improve your output, as well as helping your regeneration rate for the times when you can maintain sustained fire.

Seconded. This is a critical tip that many folks are unaware of. For whatever reason, power management took me a really, really long time to get the hang of. Or, more specifically - I managed it fairly well on gunships, but regularly forgot (or didn't bother) on scouts. The reason, in large part, is that playing GS is (usually) a slower-moving game, relative to scouting. Typically you'll have time to select a target, tap F1, fire, hit F3, and move on. Because scouts are always moving, it's simply trickier to manage power under those conditions. But it's worth the effort.

I'd also suggest beginning every match with power to engines. Get into the habit of pressing F3 at spawn. Once engaged with the enemy, swap to F1, but be prepared to switch back to F3 (or F2 if you can safely avoid enemy fire long enough for your shields to regenerate).

Before the latest patch it took about 3-4 weeks to completely upgrade my favourite ship ( sting) and have a few strong upgrades on the other ships on my bar. - That was completely on a new server.

With dailies and weeklies and a few odd matches at the weekends.

- I would expect that to be down to somewhere nearer 2-3 weeks just doing the dailies and weeklies now. - And you can always use CCs to transfer req from one ship to another if need be.

But TBH the basic defensive upgrades and defensive crewmembers, and a few 1000 in laser upgrades should be more than competitive. - The rest is down to play-style - to push out front in a scout or be alone in a gunship, or unsupported in a bomber is asking for the enemy to use you as target practice.

If you're having trouble just flying around, go to the tutorial and practice, practice, practice- You'll soon instinctively know how near or far you need to be to obstacles, what you fan fly through ( other people turrets) and what is solid ( rocks, mesas, satellites)

Set your GUI and keybinds/ mouse binds to something you're comfortable with - You can partly mirror your PvE keys if it helps - so same or similar keys for moving/strafing/interrupt, DCD, Offensive CDs etc.

The last advice is to ask other people nicely for help. Once you can fly with them and they can keep an eye out for you, the team will build from there.

In a few weeks you should be regularly scoring mid table and a useful competitor, not an easy kill, and a danger to enemy shipping.

Check out YouTube and read the forums.... Easy to do when no actually in game and flying.

Safe flying , GL OP.

Giving your server and character name will probably help too BTW.

With that leftover req you should purchase:

 

On pubside - Lieutenant Iresso, Nadia Grell, M1-4X and C2-N2 (if he's unlocked, get Yuun).

On impside: Gault, Malavi Quinn, Vector and Blizz.

 

Some of them may be unlocked through your class story, which may make it even cheaper:

I would add to the list:

Republic: Qyzen Fess

Imperial: Jaesa Wilsaam, Xalek

Xalek is the imp mirror of Forex, he has shield power and damage reduction and fits nicely on Type 1 bombers. Qyzen and Jaesa have the accuracy boost and the firing arc boosts, which are great for blasters. I've never tried to use Gault (or his mirror, B-3G9 the droid crew member you get by default just for playing GSF), though I find it intriguing that you've recommended it for a new player and I'm therefore going to try it out. Does Rapid Reload work for railgun shots and mine deployment?

The power-setting tip is an important one. It is also helpful to offload the burden for that input to your right hand, so mapping F1 and F3 to your gaming mouse's extra buttons will help a great deal. Some pilots also like to use F4 as it gives the best turning rate, but I am not as much of an ace as they are - I make do with switching between power to engines and guns.

most setups can use the mouse scroll wheel too. - even if you have a basic 2/3 button wheel.

But a gaming mouse or even 5-button mouse might free up your other hand for more controls.

IMHO the original key-mapping isn't great - but OTOH some pilots swear by it. - Personally I sue my mouse buttons for power settings and my left for steering, abilities and CDs.- But each to their own.

- keeping lasers ( & missiles) on target while flying full speed around sat turrets in the tutorial is a useful practice exercise.

Another important thing is..with your initial 26k in fleet req, I would recommend you buy every ship. By your certain crew members you know you will use. Anything left over, equip as much as you can the ay you like your main ship you will fly.

Buying ALL the ships off the bat will give you extra money for all your ships when you do dailies and weeklies. So, even if you do not use them, the ships gain req. And, if you so choose to, you can convert the ship req to fleet req and use it to upgrade your favorite ship/

Bada-boom.

The only thing that could save GSF at this point is an entire rework/influx of new players (not going to happen with the current design). Until then, you get 15-20+ minute queues. Honestly, all they had to do was copy Battlefront 2's space combat; anything would be better than this insanely unbalanced mess. Its utterly unbearable to play.

Counterpoint: Battlefront's space combat, to me, was a shallow time waster: pretty, but very unsatisfying. GSF has a much deeper gameplay experience, and far more options for what sort of role you want to play in the game.

Queue wait times are very dependent on the server you're on and the time of day you're queuing. As it has been endlessly pointed out, Harbinger and The Red Eclipse get the fastest pops. GSF still happens on JC, TEH, SL to varying degrees at varying times.

There has actually been an enormous influx of new players since the CXP system incentivized people to queue up. Part of what may be making the game 'unbearable' for you now is that many of these new players make no effort to actually learn how to play the game. The game is mechanically well balanced between scout/gunship/bomber play. People are not learning how to use those mechanics, and it results in a lesser gameplay experience for nearly everyone.

The knowledge gap and resultant skill gap between players who have been around for a while and those who do not seem to have an interest in learning makes for very... volatile swings in game condition and lopsided matches.

If only there were somewhere people could learn the game...

- Despon

I'm not sure I'd say enormous influx of new players based on my time on harby thus far. If anything it feels about the same or worse when I left nearly a year ago. The last server status check I did showed all servers light except harby at standard, and I've seen plenty of queue down time even around prime time hours which was really disappointing.

I would say the skill gap is more likely to make this mode "unplayable" more so than upgrades. For example, earlier in the day I had some decent matches and one go 998-1000. Later in the evening I went up against a streamer and co and it was clear that the pilots available were not going to stand a chance against a coordinated team of people on voice com. One match I ended up on the same team, idled toward a sat and killed the one person that tried to shoot me and then proceeded to idle back and forth between the tri cap of sats never to get shot at again despite moving slow and steady in a straight line.

Ultimately this mode's playability depends on how willing one is to deal with lop-sided matches or ability to always fly with capable friends. For me personally, the lop-sided matches both winning or losing really take the fun and motivation out of it given how frequent they are. But after logging in for 3 consecutive days after being gone almost a year I've had at least 3 matches that came down to the final seconds, and in fact my first one back was one.

I'm not sure I'd say enormous influx of new players based on my time on harby thus far. If anything it feels about the same or worse when I left nearly a year ago.

When I posted that, in June, it was still an enormous influx. In the last few weeks it has tapered off rather dramatically. The leading theory for why is that people gritted their teeth and pushed through to the CXP level they needed, rendering the extra rewards for playing GSF useless. Thus, when faced with the prospect of queuing up for a game mode where their sole intent was to AFK and get the non-GSF-points they needed, they opted to find something better to do with their time. GSF was simply a vehicle for getting their CXP, not a game they actually wanted to play.

- Despon

Actually, I think its because school has started back up across much of the country. But, being a father of a school age child and a toddler, I think about these things.

Saturday night (8/12) you were on Roland and the queues were popping like crazy. That's because it was a GSF bonus day. That still draws a lot of participation. I still see non-contributors on bonus days but less so than at the beginning.

Grinding galactic command rank on alts is still a laborious process, Despon, even with the legacy perks, so I think the incentive will continue for a while. When 5.4 comes out, some people will come back to play the new content, as people always do with these types of updates, and they may try some GSF. But more importantly, unranked ground warzones are basically getting a nerf to the number of unassembled components and ranked are getting a huge buff. Thus, GSF will remain a very important pathway for gaining UCs for people who do not want to go through ranked ground pvp to get them. Eventually UCs will be legacy-wide like other currencies but it hasn't been confirmed as actually being part of 5.4, just that they are working on it.

Later in the evening I went up against a streamer and co and it was clear that the pilots available were not going to stand a chance against a coordinated team of people on voice com.

The question that this part evoked in me is : Why do people stream it, then, if they do know that they are completely destroying the other team ? Is it an ego thing ?

I was interpreting the bonus day on a weekend as an "ideal" situation for the GSF queue and while it was the most consistent since I came back it also didn't quite match up to strong nights in 4.0. Sure, summer's ending but the server's decline is apparent even outside of GSF in the rest of Swtor.

Yesterday my matches were really nice, and only had one or two lop-sided ones with the rest being relatively reasonable. I even had at least one really close one that was lost but seemingly well-fought on both sides.

Sometimes its just really nice to have some matches where no side has a massive advantage over the other.