"Battle" puts you into the low priority solo-queue, and queues only you for the battle even if you are in a group. "Group battle" (If you have a group) Puts you into the higher priority group queue, unless you are not in a group, to which it solo-queues you.

Bastion is considered* "the best" GSF server, as almost all of the best pilots from every other North American server has an alt here, some EU server aces also fly there. This is also where super serious nights tend to be hosted. Note that queues tend to be slow here at certain times of day due to it being a low population server, not due to lack of interest.

Harb is known for quick pops, however it is not known for skilled* players. A guildie of mine refered to it as "An excellent training server." Note, harb has quick pops because it has a higher population.

POT5 is known* for slow pops and a demoralized GSF community. Another guildie of mine switched to bastion from POT5 due to this.

(keep in mind that anything marked with an * is a matter of opinion that many people may or may not hold. This information is accurate to the best of my knowledge, but other people may have more - or more clear - information on the subject)

It depends on what you mean by best. If you mean the largest quantity of high individually skilled pilots, it used to be shadowlands and I hear it's now harbinger. If you mean most likely to get pops at any time of day its Ebon hawk though if you fly solo there you might just feel like you're putting your genitalia in a blender because of how much whining goes on in ops chat when you're losing also both sides tend to give up really really easily, if you mean most fun games its probably Bastion because people there tend to care more for actually winning and try really hard to win despite not really having that high average individual skill.

I'd say all servers have the issue of good pilots all congregating on one-side for various reasons as well, it's a little bit weird, though not unexpected.

Servers that you definitely want to avoid are jung ma(which makes me sad because thats where i started), pot5 and the red eclipse. The former 2 because of low population, the latter because of truly toxic players (i've heard this from more than my own experience). Nobody who posts on the forums, but you're most likely to get hate tells for being too good or too bad there. I rank servers for toxicity based on how long it takes to get a hate-tell/mail when first getting there and how many I've gotten while there.

Most people who play a lot of gsf tend to have characters on multiple servers and rotate.

It depends on what you mean by best. If you mean the largest quantity of high individually skilled pilots, it used to be shadowlands and I hear it's now harbinger.

I'll second this. Harbinger has a lot of high quality pilots flying there, and several coordinated teams. What it has less often (based on my personal experience) is even matches where you have good pilots on both sides. I actually have played there a lot less lately since nearly every match I played in was a steamrolling blowout. Could have just been bad luck on my part to keep drawing those, but it was a long run of them. There are many good pilots and traveling aces that show up there, too.

I've been playing pubside on The Ebon Hawk as Beriss a lot lately, the competition has been decent, though much of that came in wargames. There are fewer aces and mid-level players on TEH than Harbinger. I was pleased to see Yallia from POT5 show up impside on TEH yesterday. It bumped up the level of play all around.

It's sad to hear POT5 has gone downhill. I played about 100 matches there a few months back and though they didn't have a huge GSF community there were quality pilots there. Seems they're migrating now. as Yallia was on TEH and Is'pep has a character or two on Harbinger.

I'd play Bastion more but it never seems to get pops at whatever time I have free to play. Maybe it's just me.

Despon

The red eclipse.

the latter because of truly toxic players (i've heard this from more than my own experience). Nobody who posts on the forums, but you're most likely to get hate tells for being too good or too bad there. I rank servers for toxicity based on how long it takes to get a hate-tell/mail when first getting there and how many I've gotten while there..

Excuse me sir, but you're totally wrong. I play gsf for several month on TRE and never received a hate-mail. TRE has good population and pops (europe evening time).

I'll second this. Harbinger has a lot of high quality pilots flying there, and several coordinated teams. What it has less often (based on my personal experience) is even matches where you have good pilots on both sides. I actually have played there a lot less lately since nearly every match I played in was a steamrolling blowout. Could have just been bad luck on my part to keep drawing those, but it was a long run of them. There are many good pilots and traveling aces that show up there, too.

 

I've been playing pubside on The Ebon Hawk as Beriss a lot lately, the competition has been decent, though much of that came in wargames. There are fewer aces and mid-level players on TEH than Harbinger. I was pleased to see Yallia from POT5 show up impside on TEH yesterday. It bumped up the level of play all around.

 

It's sad to hear POT5 has gone downhill. I played about 100 matches there a few months back and though they didn't have a huge GSF community there were quality pilots there. Seems they're migrating now. as Yallia was on TEH and Is'pep has a character or two on Harbinger.

 

I'd play Bastion more but it never seems to get pops at whatever time I have free to play. Maybe it's just me.

 

Despon

I thought that was you pub side the other day lol. Do you have an imp toon? POT5 is a sad situation, even prime time (7-10 pm est ) on a Friday or Sat it's hard to get pops in under 30 min. Weekdays...it's a nightmare, you need the entire week to get the weekly done. Some of us have taken to traveling, I'm currently on Ebon Hawk imp side, Is'pep and I think Archer are both doing stuff on Harbinger, other less well-known people have also left for different servers

My main server is Harbinger and I enjoy it there. Yes, quite often the matches are one sided, however those happen more often at the "odd" hours of flying and not during "prime" time. Overall, the matches there are usually fair and wins/losses are shared by both factions.

I have also flown on TEH, TRE, Battle Meditation and Shadowlands. The most "toxic" one I've found was TEH. I haven't gotten any hate mails/tells, but what is said in the gsf chat can get quite nasty. It might be because I don't stand out in a flight, but I do what I can, where I can.

Both Battle Meditation and TRE are Republic side dominated. I haven't flown Republic on Battle Meditation, but on TRE, I flew one imp side and then made my pub toon and never looked back.

The most "welcoming" when I was new there was Shadowlands. I'm still not a "known" flyer there as I don't fly there often.

I would like to think Harbinger is the most welcoming to new people. However, so many of these new fliers are not aware of the gsf chat channel and don't know how close our community actually is.

No matter which server or faction, I'm flying, I go out of my way to say "GGs" to somebody that stands out to me and tell them about the gsf channel (if they don't know about it)...ect.

ok, what is GSF chat channel? Like I said I have flown just one mission, but I did enjoy it, and would like to get better... I flew a strike fighter, I read in another thread that that might not be the best one to learn on?

in chat box type /cjoin gsf and also type /cjoin pilot. Most servers use the GSF channel, but sometimes people talk in the Pilot channel.

I thought that was you pub side the other day lol. Do you have an imp toon? POT5 is a sad situation, even prime time (7-10 pm est ) on a Friday or Sat it's hard to get pops in under 30 min. Weekdays...it's a nightmare, you need the entire week to get the weekly done. Some of us have taken to traveling, I'm currently on Ebon Hawk imp side, Is'pep and I think Archer are both doing stuff on Harbinger, other less well-known people have also left for different servers

Yallia, did I drag you into Eclipse Squadron yet?

I've been flying Pub side this week (as Tane, since I'm working on finishing up a 100 match career record for him), but I usually am flying Impside early in the week when Conquest refreshes.

I had switched to Pub side to try and bolster them, as Eclipse Squadron was beginning to dominate too much. But lately it feels like Pub side is stronger again, so I'll be flying more on Imp side.

OP, if you do come to The Ebon Hawk, we have a GSF-focused guild on each side. On Imperial side, we have Eclipse Squadron, which has hundreds of players and a well-outfitted flagship. The only requirement for membership is to be passionate about GSF--even if you aren't yet good at it By flying with us, you'll get to fly with a lot of experienced pilots!

On Republic side, I had started a fledging mirror guild called Nova Squadron. No flagship, and smaller population, but it's still growing. I will likely hand off ownership of it to an interested Republic-focused player soon.

See my sig for details, if interested.

Yallia, did I drag you into Eclipse Squadron yet?

 

I've been flying Pub side this week (as Tane, since I'm working on finishing up a 100 match career record for him), but I usually am flying Impside early in the week when Conquest refreshes.

 

I had switched to Pub side to try and bolster them, as Eclipse Squadron was beginning to dominate too much. But lately it feels like Pub side is stronger again, so I'll be flying more on Imp side.

Not yet. Tane...you were running a Novadive with Pods yesterday? I think I remember that guy . I've been looking for groups on Impside, I'm still learning names and such. What's your impside name? My name has a special character (it's an alt I took from Shadowlands), so it's hard to search for in WHO box. I'll be on tonight, ~7 pm est if you're flying. I also ran into some of those Strike guys you mentioned. Strike-Seven is my favorite so far, I like his style.

Not yet. Tane...you were running a Novadive with Pods yesterday? I think I remember that guy . I've been looking for groups on Impside, I'm still learning names and such. What's your impside name? My name has a special character (it's an alt I took from Shadowlands), so it's hard to search for in WHO box. I'll be on tonight, ~7 pm est if you're flying. I also ran into some of those Strike guys you mentioned. Strike-Seven is my favorite so far, I like his style.

For TDM, I usually run T1 Scout with TT, S2E, PD, LC and Pods. I enjoy the speed and style, and I'm still able to carry in most cases. In fact, though I am good with a traditional DF Scout in TDM, I've yet to be able to top my best T1 S2E performances. I'm close to hitting 100 matches in Tane's NovaDive, and he is running at over 17 average kills per match and 76k average damage. And along the way he has had several 30+ kill and/or 120k+ damage carries.

I figure it is more fun to be the best T1 Scout pilot than to be just another T2 ace

That being said, in Domination that build is crap. In Domination, I tend to use either a Sting with TT/Dir/PD/BLC/Clusters, or a Jurgoran with Feedback/PD/BLC/Clusters/Slug. Though I also use traditional Mangler and Razorwire builds on some alts.

I also have various themed alts. Some who fight in Bombers, some who always use Strikes, etc.

On Imp side I am Shayd, Arkay-forex, Callem, Runet'ryn'trael, and another secret alt

Not yet. Tane...you were running a Novadive with Pods yesterday? I think I remember that guy . I've been looking for groups on Impside, I'm still learning names and such. What's your impside name? My name has a special character (it's an alt I took from Shadowlands), so it's hard to search for in WHO box. I'll be on tonight, ~7 pm est if you're flying. I also ran into some of those Strike guys you mentioned. Strike-Seven is my favorite so far, I like his style.

And 7est is early for me, but just ask on [Gsf] for an Eclipse Squadron member to recruit you. I'll check Impside when I get home.

Excuse me sir, but you're totally wrong. I play gsf for several month on TRE and never received a hate-mail. TRE has good population and pops (europe evening time).

I guess mileage will change by the driver. I got 3 hate-tells in my first few stock games and a friend had a similar experience when he first started there too.

Most other servers it usually takes until I have a halfway decent flashfire til I get my first hate-tells and some servers I just don't even get them on, but on TRE I had somebody come over and rage at me over my heavy laser accuracy and then somebody say that I was moving "too fast for a strike fighter" then I'm not sure if the third guy was the same as the first but I got accuracy again. For example I have yet to get them on Shadowlands or Harbinger, but every other server I've played on I've gotten them in the first week. Though I think I only played like 30 games on Harb.

As for somebody said in the thread TEH, I'd say your probably right for people who would flame the ops team for losing.

Servers that you definitely want to avoid are jung ma(which makes me sad because thats where i started), pot5 and the red eclipse. The former 2 because of low population, the latter because of truly toxic players

If the OP is in North America, I also advise to avoid The Red Eclipse, but for different reasons: worst faction imbalance and highest latency. If you have a really good internet connection and flexibility to fly at different times, maybe these are not concerns for you.

Harbinger was Empire-dominated for a while, but I haven't seen those Empire-premades in a while.

in chat box type /cjoin gsf and also type /cjoin pilot. Most servers use the GSF channel, but sometimes people talk in the Pilot channel.

What about EU players, RE or ToFN?

Progenitor

What about EU players, RE or ToFN?

Eclipse.

Progenitor

yeah, sure

Eclipse.

why?

For early am east coast time the RE is best for q pops and GSF in general. Also Harbinger for late pm east coast time too.

Don't know about bad blood on RE cus I have had nothing but good times and good people on there.

Harbinger has pound for pound the best talent on any server I have played on. That being said may not be the best for any new people unless you can get in a good group.

Anyway that's my 2 cents hehe.

I'm mostly worried about just getting to play... If everybody's good at the game on Harbinger, maybe that will help me get better faster (or maybe not)

If you want to learn and fly with others who can help support you, then I'd recommend coming to The Ebon Hawk and joining Eclipse Squadron. We're a large guild with lots of skilled (and not so skilled) pilots. We try to pair up veterans with newbies, and we have our own forums where you can ask questions or talk about builds without fear of being pounced on.