Alternate title: "Please help me silly anon, i keep dying 5 seconds in battle!" This guide will cover everything from the best ship/ships and weapons for each person to the strategy in battle. Note that this guide isn't about AI fighting, rather it's about PvE fights in S and M ships only and how YOU can improve (at least from my experience) in fighting against one or more targets and survive in the battle. This will include DLC ships too (obviously). 1: Shields and the differences between them The very first section is gonna talk about one of the cheapest pieces of equipment: Shields. Primarily the racial differences between them. Firstly, we have the Argon shield generators. As with most Argon stuff, their shields are average, they're not bad, but they're not THAT good. However, they have the second worst shield delay with it being at 12.1 seconds, so be weary of that. If you find the horrible delay and recharge of the Teladi shields too much while the paranid shields just dont give enough capacity, this is the shield for you (at least until you find out about terran shields.) Next up is the Paranid shield generators. These sacrifice quite a bit of shield capacity to decrease the delay and increase the recharge rate of the shields. Because of the sacrifice, Paranid shields can recharge approx. 2-3 seconds faster than other shields. This shield is really good for Hit and Run tactics and as such is best put into use on faster, nimbler ships. The third shield is the Teladi shield. I believe that most people use this shield because it has the largest capacity of all S shields (ignoring Timelines DLC). But of course, it has the worst delay of all shields with it being at almost 14 seconds which can at times feel like an eternity and it recharges the slowest, requiring about 7.3 seconds to recharge from 0 to full capacity while Argon shields for example requires a bit less (~6.4 seconds) to fully recharge. Still, its very useful and most people will pick this shield for all eternity or at least until they don't find out about terran shields. Thy fourth shaylild (that was intentional) is the Split shield. This shield has only one thing going for it, it's recharge delay of only 8.9 seconds. This makes it really good on ships with good maneuverability and for hit and run tactics. For dogfighting it's kinda fine, but i would recommend some other shield instead. The fifth shield in this category is the Terran shield. It is quite good. It has a delay of 11.5 seconds which is quite good and although it has a slightly lower capacity than the Teladi one (70 MJ difference), it compensates it for better recharge rate, needing about 6 seconds to fully recharge. Most people will probably end up using this shield because of its better delay and recharge rate, at least when compared to the Argon and Teladi shields. And the last shield is the Boron shield. Note that this shield is ONLY compatible with ships that have the "Advanced" compatibility tag on them, so you won't be able to put these on let's say, a paranid fighter. These shields have the best recharge delay of all S shields (8 seconds) and are only 0.2 seconds slower than the Terran ones in recharge time, while its capacity is big enough to combat the Terran shields. If these shields would be able to be put on all ships, it would probably be the best in class, but unfortunately, they are limited to boron ships and boron ships only. Now, for a quick word or two on the M variant of all the shields: First, some general stuff outta the way. M shields, when compared to S shields, have substantially more capacity, and substantially less recharge rate and delay. This is to basically compensate for the size of the M ships, which WILL get hit more because they're so big. The delay here is also substantially less important because no matter the type of shield, it will always be under 1 second, so almost nothing. Also, unlike S shields, these have only 2 tiers, not 3 (Except for TER and BOR, but we'll get to those in a bit). Now we can move onto the actual M shields: ARG: Basically the same as the S variant. Pretty average PAR: Sacrifices a bit of capacity for higher recharge rate TEL: Sacrifices recharge rate for higher capacity SPL: Unlike its S variant, this one is useless as it has the lowest capacity AND recharge rate. And since the delay isn't as important to M shields than in S shields, it is officially the worst and shouldn't be used ever TER: If we ignore the extra tier that they have, their shields are basically TEL shields which have sacrificed a teensy tiny bit of capacity to give a teensy tiny bit of recharge. If we don't ignore the extra tier however... they are the best shields. Period. BOR: Only compatible with ships that have the "Advanced" compatibility tag, otherwise ever so slightly worse TER M shields So that covers up the shields section. Time to move onto engines. 2: Combat and All-Round engines: Standard Section This section is all about engines, both Combat and All-Round. It's gonna be seperated into 2 parts, the Standard and Advanced section. This is based on the compatibility tag each engine has and thus, on what ships can they be installed on. For the Standard engines (AKA all the engines that are in this part), these can be equipped by everyone EXCEPT BOR ships, Cutlass, Odachi, Envoy and Xperimental Shuttle. If you want speed and boost, you should pick Combat engines. However, if you want to sacrifice that speed and boost for extra travel, you should pick the All-Round ones. We're gonna start with Argon engines. The S versions of these provide somewhat sub-par cruise speed, above average max travel speed, below average travel acceleration and have the longest travel charge time of 6 seconds, BUT they have the best boost speed and acceleration of all engines, with acceleration big enough to bring a ship to max boost speed in about 2-4 seconds (which is FAST). Additionally, they have the fastest boost recharge, sitting at a good 1.2 percents every second (around 83 seconds to fully recharge). However, to offset this these engines have the lowest boost capacity which is at only 12 seconds (10 seconds if all-round). This means that you have to be a bit more careful about boost management so that you dont run out of it. Still, the near-instant boost you get is now unlike any other engine. The M version of these is rather similar to the S version, with the most notable changes being: 15 seconds boost capacity and a RIDICULOUS travel charge time of 8 SECONDS!!! So, if you want to evade shots with minimal boost button holding, these engines will NOT betray you (except if your boost management is not that good yet). Next up are Paranid engines. These engines take on the role of the argon engines pre-7.5 and are pretty solid in all areas. The areas where they excel at more though is in cruise speed and travel speed, providing more cruise and travel speed/accel at the cost of a slower and potentially less effective boost. Speaking of boost, this guy has a boost capacity of 14.3 seconds (12 if all-round), gives around 20% less boost speed, around 40% less boost acceleration and 0.8 percents per second recharge with combat ones (125 seconds to fully recharge) or 0.7 %/s with all-round ones(136 seconds to fully recharge). As for the M version, the changes from the S one are barely better travel speed/accel from argon ones, 18 seconds boost capacity (15 if all-round) and a 6-second travel charge time. Overall, these engines are essentially above average all-rounders with exceptional travel speed. you can't really go wrong with these, but if youre looking for something a bit more special, you should keep looking. Third on the list is the Teladi engines. They have the essentially the same cruise speed as Argon engines (there MIGHT be a 1 m/s difference if youre lucky), have even less boost speed than Paranid ones, similar boost acceleration than Paranid ones, slightly faster boost recharge than Paranid (about a 10 second difference) and they have the biggest boost capacity of all engines, a whopping 26.3 seconds of boosting (22 if all-round). Also they have better travel acceleration and 4 seconds of travel charge time at the cost of having worse travel speed. M version has 31.6 seconds boost capacity and a 6-second travel charge time. Overall, Teladi engines provide a reasonably smoother flight performance and have a much more sustainable boost, even though they might not have as much speed. This still does mean that boost management is less of an issue. So, if youre having problems keeping that boost meter above 10%, take these boys. Fourth is the Split engines. These focus all their power to bring the best max speed and boost speed, but as a consequence have horrible travel speed. The boost in question is a right in the middle 17.5 seconds boost capacity (14 if all-round), boost speed in between Paranid and Argon ones, boost accel similar to the Teladi one and a boost recharge similar to Paranid engines. In general, these engines give the absolute highest cruise speed of all engines known to mankind today and give pretty damn reasonable boost at the cost of horrific travel drive and a hidden stat of making the ship drift a fair bit more. If you want the SPEED and dont mind the added drift (or you love the thrill that drift introduces), these will be great engines. The fifth and last engines of this part are the Terran ones. These give the worst speed, similar boost speed as Teladi engines, 2nd biggest boost capacity (S: 22 s, M: 27 s), the worst boost accel, very good boost recharge (Combat: 90 seconds to 100%, Allround: 100 seconds to 100%) and the worst travel speed (but the best travel acceleration and 2nd best travel charge time). With just this it might not be that clear on what these engines excel at except at running away in travel very quickly. This is because, just like with the split engines, there is a hidden stat which is the total opposite of the Split engines AKA these engines noticeably reduce drift. This means that if you put these engines on drifty ships, you will notice that those ships will drift quite a bit less, meaning that you have reasonably more control over the ship's heading. If you combine this perk with its lenghty, but slow boost, you notice that this engine excels at control, agility and manoeuvrability, thus potentially making you a much bigger pain in the ass to your enemies since you'll be a fly. A slow fly, but still a fly. With teeth. That contain poison. And the fly can fire a death beam. And can- Now that we covered all of the Standard engines, we can move on to the Advanced section 2.5: Combat and All-round Engines: Advanced Section So, for the Advanced engines, there are only 2 of them. Yeah, not much diversity here, but at least you HAVE a choice still. The first one of the 2 are the Frontier engines. Available ONLY if you have the Timelines expansion, have completed specific scenarios in said expansion to make the special ships spawn in the sandbox, have claimed the special ships in said sandbox to gain the ability to research them and their equipment AND complete said research to FINALLY have the ability of putting them on a ship... Oh, and you also need to at least have YOUR OWN EQUIPMENT DOCK TO INSTALL THEM! ... yup, you only get these somewhere in the late midgame or early endgame... great... remember what i said about at least having a choice? Yeah, you're not getting that anytime soon. If we ignore the... unlock requirements, they give you decent boost acceleration, speed and recharge, 18 seconds of boosting, 1 second of travel charge time, excellent travel acceleration and... yeah, thats about it really. Overall, pretty good engines with a nice and low travel charge time. The second one of the 2 are the Boron engines. These, when compared to the Frontier engines, have: worse cruise speed, barely better boost speed, HORRIBLE boost acceleration, great boost capacity of 22 seconds, HORRIBLE boost recharge of 0.5 %/s (200 seconds), noticeably better travel speed, pretty bad travel acceleration and no travel charge time. So, these are more for... travelling than combat? I guess so, especially with that very underperforming boost, so yeah. If you want to sacrifice boost as a whole in favour of travel mode OR if you haven't unlocked the Frontier engines yet, take these. Ok, now with that behind us, lets move on to figuring out what weapon will fit the best for you... or weapons, a 'lil diversity is always a good thing... i think. 3: Best weapons for each person: General weapons This section is not gonna go into detail into each weapon. For that, i suggest you check out this site, the Ego wiki: https://wiki.egosoft.com:1337/X4%20Foundations%20Wiki/Manual%20and%20G This section is instead gonna be about what weapons you might find the best and thus help you find your preferred fight style. We will first start with general weapons, these weapons are what i consider to be good in most/all situations. This is most likely because of a fire rate higher than 1, fires a single projectile, has adequate speed, has low enough bullet dispersion etc. 1. Pulse Laser: Most people will not really use this weapon once they get at least one military license from any faction. However, it has some upsides. Firstly, it has a fast projectile speed and tolerable spread, thus it can more reliably hit smaller and nimbler targets than some other weapons. And additionally, it has the one of the lowest heat generation of all weapons, meaning that you can shoot for a VERY long time and still not overheat your weapons. If you find the bolt repeater's decreased projectile speed and increased heat generation too much, this might be a good enough option for you 2. Terran Pulse Laser: This Pulse Laser variant focuses on firing more slowly and having slightly less range so that every projectile is faster, more accurate and hard hitting. For some people this variant will be the better pulse laser, but some would prefer the original because it's damage is spread over multiple projectiles which gives a bit more opportunity to hit your target with at least one of them. Still, you have to see for yourself which pulse laser fits more for you and your fighting style. Also as a last note, this is the only Terran weapon which can be installed on non-Terran ships. 3. Bolt Repeater: You will pick this one if all the other weapons (Other than Terran and Boron ones ofc) just don't quite fit with your preferred fight style. This is because its very average. Good damage, sub-par accuracy and fast ROF. Overall, its a pretty well all-round weapon capable of destroying stuff potentially easily. It's kinda a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" type of weapon. So yeah, very reliable. 4. Neutron Gatling: This is a Split version of the Bolt Repeater which is basically a Flammenwerfer which werfs bullets instead of flammen. In other words, it has a ridiculous ROF of >20 rounds per second and a ridiculous bullet dispersion, being larger than any of the shotguns! (2° as opposed to 1°). It is quite literally the most innacurate weapon in X4 so you gotta treat it as a shotgun instead of a normal weapon. Damage-wise, it is better than the bolt repeater, but the dispersion simply makes the effective damage go way down. And also, it is weaker than the shotguns so i dont know where this weapon even excels at. 5. Proton Barrage: A Terran version of the Bolt Repeater which is basically an advanced version of it. It's increased damage and speed make it more accurate and deadlier than the Bolt Repeater. This weapon is one of the best ones in the game, but of course, some people won't like it that much. Also it can be installed only on terran ships. Pick this if you are using a terran ship and if you are not a good enough pilot for some other weapons. 6. Beam Emitter: One of the only hit-scan weapons that suffers from bad damage. The pros of it are that its hit scan, so 100% accurate and precise. The cons are that its damage is rather low, meaning that you will have to hold that trigger for some time to kill something. Additionally, it's one of the few weapons which has something called "Initial Heat". This is basically the amount of heat that the weapon instantly gets the moment you press down the fire key. This is probably there so there's no aggressive clicking to avoid any heat generation. Pick this weapon if you prefer accuracy and damage over time more than anything. 7. Thermal Disintegrator: This weapon is able to partially phase through shields, meaning part of its damage is dealt directly to the hull, thus completely ignoring shields, and it applies damage over time since it sticks to whatever it has hit for 4 seconds. It's damage is better than that of the Pulse Laser, with its spread also somewhat tolerable. Just note that the spread is big enough that you won't hit most of your shots at max range. Pick this one if the damage over time seems good to you. These last few weapons are available only to the boron and no one else can equip these weapons. 8. Phase Gun: This is the only boron weapon that deals good hull damage, so it is essential to put this weapon alongside other more shield damaging weapons if you want to destroy targets somewhat faster. The M sized variant of this is the Phase cannon which slightly reduces ROF for more damage. 9. Ion Gatling: This weapon fires as fast as a Bolt Repeater and is limited to the S ships, but it is much stronger against shields than on hull. It also comes with a cool effect, with that effect being something called "Light drive disruption". If it hits, it reduces the max speed of the target it hit for a short amount of time, with that effect being most effective on other S ships while weaker on bigger ships. Because of this effect this weapon is cool and i would recommend it alongside a Phase Gun. 10. Arc Gun: This is a slower, but heavier version of the Phase Gun which is slightly more specialised against shields than hull, but it is still pretty good against hull. It also disrupts thrusters AKA makes ships hit by this weapon less maneuverable. You can pick this weapon over the Ion Gatling if you want to make the enemy sluggish and deliver more damage in fewer shots. And if you're in an S ship as there's no M Arc Gun 3.5: Best weapons for each person: Specialised weapons With General weapons done and dusted, we go towards the specialised weapons. These weapons usually excel in certain circumstances and either provide high burst damage and low sustained damage, provide high damage at a specific range or are missile launchers. 1. Shard Battery: This is your neighborhood budget space shotgun. I say budget because it only fires 3 bullets per shot that all are travelling at a random direction that the weapon's spread allows. Luckily, the spread isn't all too horrible, but you still need to be very close to do maximum damage. Also this weapon suffers from a stat that you will rarely see anywhere else, and that stat is called "Ricochet". Basically about 25%-50% of your shots will ALWAYS bounce right off, meaning that the damage is slightly inconsistent, but the inconsistency is luckily too low to hinder the weapon too much. This does mean though that there is always a miniature chance you hit a friendly ship with a shot that ricochet'd. But you shouldn't worry about that. Also also the weapon has potentially high heat generation, so you gotta be careful with that. If you like being PERSONAL... This is then the perfect weapon for you. 2. Tau Accelerator: A Split version of the Shard Battery, this thing gets an extra bullet, a ~3x higher ROF, more DPS, but also higher heat generation (?, lack of Shard Battery experience makes me unsure as i use this shotgun over the other). How i see it, its a straight upgrade from the Shard Battery so i will always pick this one. 3. Plasma Cannon: This weapon is a potentially good support weapon, giving you high alpha damage at longer ranges, but it can also be used as a main weapon to an extent. It lobs a green ball of plasma at 1400 m/s (900 m/s if M size) which deals high damage to whatever it hits. The low speed will make using this weapon at anything further than 1.5 km somewhat pointless, but it can still be used that far out if the target is predictable enough. You can also boost towards the target to give the projectile more speed. Also, you can use it when the enemy is flying towards you in a straight line or some other predictable and static pattern. Overall, good support weapon, fineish main weapon if you can aim better than me. 4. Blast Mortar: In many ways a better Plasma Cannon. First, it has more damage and has AOE damage (if projectile connects: AOE damage+hit damage=total damage against target). Second, it is faster, thus more accuracy. Third, shoot 5 shots instead of 3 before overheat. The only 2 bad things are less range and its only sold by HOP and MIN. Oh, and the weapon gimbat is much slower than that of the Plasma cannon. This does mean that it will be harder to line up your shots so either pick a fortress of a ship or have a very calm and steady hand. If you want more damage and have a very good hand, this is for you. 5. Mass Driver: This is a PAR only, beam-like weapon, and by that i mean that it looks to you like a beam, but it behaves like a projectile. Unlike the meson stream, it is NOT a beam, it just looks like it. Also its perfect for people who like to stay out of direct battle and snipe enemies (i'm referring to snipers) since it has a range that is even larger than capital weaponry (a staggering 12 kilometers!!!) and it also comes with a zoom effect to help snipers snipe. Also instead of clicking to shoot, you have to hold it first to charge the weapon and then you can release the click to deliver heavy damage from another country. Also also this weapon features initial heat, which is low enough to allow you to shoot twice before overheating the weapon. Also also also this weapon has a much smaller gimbal than most other weapons, meaning you have to turn the ship much more to aim the weapon. So if you like sniping or want a dedicated support weapon, this will do just fine. 6. Boson Lance: A Split version of the Mass Driver, this gets rid of the massive range and significantly increases initial heat to make it shoot a single, highly-damaging projectile before overheat. I'd say that this is a better support weapon than the Mass Driver, but that is just my personal opinion. It's most definitely too expensive for what it does, just like with the Mass Driver. 9. Meson Stream: Yet another terran only weapon, this can delete anything smaller than a destroyer in 1-3 seconds, but it has a VERY limited aim assist, meaning that you have to turn the ship much more to aim the weapon. Luckily, it is a beam meaning that you don't need to lead the target. Just point and shoot. However, you should not have only this weapon on your ship because it overheats in 3 seconds, it takes an eternity to cool down and it's correspondingly expensive (like 1 million+ expensive). Around 2 should be enough to delete S ships and heavily cripple M ships or even destroy them too. Pick this if you are gonna shoot it when you are close to the enemy or if you can use it at a distance because you have eagle eyes and a ridiculously calm and steady hand. 10. Burst Ray: This is a weapon highly specialized for deleting surface elements of a capital ship because most of it's damage phases through shields, thus obliterating surface elements within seconds. It is otherwise useless. Pick this if you are going against capital ships in an S sized ship since there is no Burst Ray for medium ships. 11. Missile Launchers/Missiles: Unlike the other weapons, i dont have much experience with missiles, but i do have enough experience to tell you this: Light missiles are much more maneuverable and can deal adequate damage, so they are a bit more like "fire and forget". Heavy missiles give you much more damage, but are much less maneuverable and are slower, BUT you can rectify the speed decrease by boosting, as missiles add in your ship's speed to their own. So, with heavy missiles you can basically use them as spears. The last 2 weapons are Boron only: 15. Ion Atomizer: This weapon is somewhat similar to the Blast Mortar by the fact that it has AOE damage and even though the projectile moves VERY slowly, it can detonate close to the enemy, meaning that you will probably still do damage even if you didn't directly hit the enemy. Also it's only available to M ships. 16. Ion Pulse Railgun: It is exactly what the name says, a strong shield hitting railgun, delivering its shots in pulses. It also has a big range of 8.8 km while other M Boron weaponry has a range of about 4 km and it's projectile speed is 8000 m/s, meaning it's that one flak weapon from X3. Pick this if you want to erase S ships and want to send them uncontrollably rotating cuz this weapon can actually do that. So, hopefully you now know what weapons you will try out and now all you're missing is something to put your engines, shields and weapons on. So, let's take a look at all the combat ships the game gives you, starting with Argon ships. 4: Best ships for each person: Argon ships The next few sections are all about ships and which ships you might like based on your preferred fight style. The first ships are the S ships: We are gonna start with Argon ships. Argon ships, like everything else Argon made, are average except for the Elite, which we will cover first. The Elite is i'd say the definition of an interceptor. It's damage is straight up pitiful to the point where you have to put a weapon stronger and more accurate than a Bolt Repeater, but it is extremely maneuverable, making it a very nimble and agile ship adept at avoiding getting shot at. However, what it's missing is forward speed. It is rather slow for such a nimble ship which can make temporarily escaping and recovering pretty difficult to do as many other ships can catch up to you. Even with SPL engines the Elite is pretty slow. In my opinion, this ship is rather bad because of the lack of damage and speed, so i will always pick some other ship. The Nova can be a straight up menace just because of one feature: rotating engines. This makes the ship's vertical strafe's max speed and acceleration the same as forward movement, meaning you can VERY effectively circle around ANY target and shower them in little pain pills while you are evading 90% of what they throw at you because you are constantly altering your heading by circling your target. This combined with 2 weapons and 1 shield does make it an absolute menace. It is quite literally THE dogfighting king, so yeah. The Eclipse is a ship with which you will for sure be pretty happy with. Pretty responsive for a heavy fighter, great firepower with 4 weapons, drift is pretty manageable and very survivable. Overall, a ship with above average performance. The Quasar is a very fragile heavy fighter with only 1 shield and scout-like hull, but it is very responsive for a heavy fighter, more so than the Eclipse, with the same 4 weapons as the Eclipse. If you want a nimbler version of the Eclipse, this is a very good choice. The Pulsar exists for that sweet sweet dakka. 1 shield, hull integrity like a scout, but oh boy it has weapons. 6 of them! This makes this ship the strongest and one of the most fragile S fighters in the game. Also it is, interestingly enough, slightly faster than the Nova. If you can evade enemy fire like a fly or if you want to mix multiple different weapons together in one ship, pick this ship. you will NOT regret it. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) Now we're gonna look at some Argon M ships, of which are only 2: The Cerberus is a frigate with 3 shields, 2 weapons, 4 turrets and an S dock, meaning it can carry an extra S ship or a couple of defense drones to help it distract the enemy a bit. It is quite on the slow side, but its still a pretty good ship with pretty controllable drift. However, It's pretty big profile makes it a giant bullet sponge for enemy fire, much like most of the other M ships, but this one is especially bigger because of its S dock/hangar, so don't expect to live when up against 10 S ships (I'm not saying its impossible, just don't expect it). The next and last Argon M ship is the Minotaur, a gunboat with 4 turrets put in such a way that the ship has 360 degree coverage all the time and 2 weapons. Basically, it's a Cerberus that sacrifices the S dock, 1 shield generator, a bit of speed and a bit of hull to make the ship constantly fire at the enemy without caring about if the enemy is in front of it or anywhere freaking else. However, the ship is a fair bit more drifty which makes it a really nice target to hit. That is it for the Argon S and M ships. Let's move onto the Paranids. 4.2: Best ships for each person: Paranid and VIG In short, almost all Paranid ships have less shields for more speed and hull integrity. S ships: The Perseus is quite similar to the Nova, but some things are still noticeably different. First, the Perseus doesn't have rotating engines. Instead, it is about 1.5 times faster than the Nova, but it's slightly less maneuverable than the Nova and has more drift than the Nova. Second, it has more hull integrity than the Nova. If you want more speed from a fighter and the extra drift is okay for you, then this ship is for you. Next up is the Theseus heavy fighter, which is a slightly weaker, but more agile Eclipse. It sacrifices 1 shield and 1 weapon for extra speed, steering, responsiveness and potentially less drift. All in all, a more evasive Eclipse with a profile slightly more prone to getting hit. And last but not least is the Ares heavy fighter. This one is only available from the HOP. It sacrifices speed and maneuverability in order to be a powerful fortress. It has 4 weapons and 3 shields, making it very tanky and able to pack a punch. This ship is near perfect for a tactic i like to call the "Spear" tactic in which you receive a lot of enemy fire, but you deal even more damage to the enemy. If you like the idea of becoming a tank, this is one of the best ships for you. M ships: The Gorgon is imo just a better Cerberus. It has the same 3 shields, 2 weapons and 4 turrets, but it increases the hull and speed at the expense of a few degrees less maneuverability. It's just a straight upgrade from the Cerberus so yeah, take this if you want an upgrade from that Cerberus. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) The Nemesis is a pretty good all-round corvette, featuring 2 shields, 5 weapons, 2 turrets and i guess enough hull integrity, BUT with pretty low acceleration. This means that your boost will take longer to ramp up, meaning it will be harder to avoid getting hit AND will make your boost management a much bigger issue. Luckily its drift is pretty manageable so there's that. I personally enjoy fighting in this corvette as it is just a good little boi and is a good ship while i cant get the Katana or Hydra. Take this ship if you can't decide between all the other corvettes that exist since this is a good starter corvette for anyone who rarely tried out corvettes. Now that the Paranid are done let's quickly take a glance at all the fighters from the Vigor Syndicate, which only have S ships, no M ships from these, unfortunately. First is the Kyd, which is THE cheapest combat ship in the game, but it's a little... clunky. Its the least maneuverable and the slowest fighter with quite some drift added in (for a fighter) for good measure. That is what you get with such a low price i guess... The Lux is a Kyd which removed 2 thirds of it's hull to add an extra engine, thus making it faster than the Perseus. But it's still just as clunky as the Kyd. The ship is responsive, but its turn rate is... slow for a fighter, so when you start turning you think you will quickly turn to your target because of the responsiveness, but you end up awkwardly waiting for the ship to turn. If you favor speed over the clunkiness, this is the ship for you. And finally we come to a ship that is quite similar to the Ares... the Shih. Pronounce it how you will, but this ship is a... worse Ares. It has the same 3 shields and 4 weapons, but it has increased hull and speed than the Ares, but it's much less maneuverable, meaning its... clunky yet again. If you like the slight speed increase, i guess you can take the Shih. So, the Paranid favour speed over damage and survivability with the exception of the Ares and the VIG have a clunky array of ships. Anyways, lets move onto the Teladi ships 4.4: Best ship for each person: Teladi and Split In general, Teladi like to be bricks. What i mean by that is that they are quite slow in order to be tankier. Also, they only have 1 fighter and 1 heavy fighter which makes sense because teladi don't like to fight, they like to trade. S ships: The Falcon is one of the only fighters that has 2 shields, alongside the Mamba and Takoba. Other than that, it is essentially a slightly slower version of the Nova with extra survivability. The Falcon also has the rotating engines... but they are for some reason only decoration. They dont serve that function of vertical strafing for some reason, dont ask me why the rotating engines here are pure decoration, while the ones on the Nova are actually functional... So, if you want to live somewhat longer and don't care about speed or the rotating engines, this is for you. The Buzzard is a Theseus with less speed and maneuverability for an extra shield slot. The reason for you wanting this is the same with the Falcon. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) M ships: The Osprey is a ship to which i ask the following question... WHYYY!?! This Tungsten brick of a ship has 2 weapons, 4 turrets, 3 shields and heavily increased hull which in turn makes this ship so freaking, incredibly, ridiculously, straight up horribly sloooooooww... This... thing is twice as slower than a Cerberus with the best engines that exist AND it's travel speed is also horrible, EVEN WITH THE BEST TRAVEL ENGINES. Like, your GRANDPA can outrun this thing.... I'm just so-ho dissapointed... At least it can have repair drones so it lives longer i guess. Now we move on from the horribleness into the somewhat good ship called the Peregrine. Imo it's a straight upgrade from the Minotaur because of more speed and hull. There isn't that much to talk about this ship so we'e just gonna move on. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) Now let's see the Split ships. There are quite a few of them and most of them ditch the 2nd shield slot for more hull, speed and the dakka. S ships: Starting with the Asp. The Asp is a great joy to fight in. Speedy, agile and powerful, this thing will dish out damage AND not get hit a million times. Its only downsides is that it's the driftiest fighter, but it's still a fighter, meaning that even that drift is easily mitigated with very short boosts and clever maneuvering. Overall, a ship that feels great and fights great. Secondly, we have the Asp Raider which is the Asp on steroids. Almost 3 times less hull for a bit more speed, much more turn rate and MUCH less drift. This thing is a contender for THE player ship and it is definitely possible for it to destroy a pack of 20 S ships with clever evasion. After that MENACE of a ship, we have the Mamba. Available from both Split factions, it is the only Split S ship that has 2 shields, but because of this, it only has 2 weapons, so it isn't as strong. It is slightly slower than the Asp so if you are willing to sacrifice a weapon slot for shields or if you want to upgrade from a Nova or a Perseus, this is for you. Next up is the Balaur. Available from the Free Families, it is a very smooth ship to fly. Like, a VERY smooth ship. Better than the Eclipse at dogfighting, that's for sure. With 4 weapons, 1 shield, great speed and good enough steering it is a breeze to fly, decimating everything and everyone who dares challenge it. The best thing about it is the drift, or more precisely, lack thereof. It's got so little drift it's comparable to a Perseus or maybe even the Nova. And that's a FEAT for a heavy fighter. If you want overall smoothness and 4 weapons, this ship will feel great and will be great for you. The 4th S Split ship is the Chimera. It features 5 weapons, 1 shield, a lot more speed and a lot more drift. This means that it's not the best choice for dogfighting, BUT it is still doable if you can control the additional drift of the ship by either equipping TER engines or with certain techniques. While it might not be great for dogfights, it is great for hit and run stuff with heavy hitting, single shot weapons like plasma cannons, blast mortars etc. because with hit and run you dont care about the ship's driftiness as you'll be well out of the enemy's range most of the time. So, if you want to ZOOM in and out or if the DRIFT excites and challenges you, pick this ship. M ships: The Dragon is a Nemesis which ripped it's 2nd shield off, made it's acceleration even worse, added a 6th weapon and introduced more drift. This makes the Dragon a heavier Chimera, essentially making it even more specialised for hit and run tactics and even worse at dogfighting. It is an effective glass cannon which has been lubricated a bit too much and is now spinning uncontrollably towards the sun.. Either way, if you're a fan of the hit and run tactic/s, thes ship is pretty damn good for it. The Cobra is a mix of the Gorgon and Osprey with a sprinkle of Split design and technology. Basically, it has a lot more hull, more speed and an extra weapon slot at the expense of the 3rd shield that most frigates come with. This is a pretty nice ship if you want to fire slightly more missiles and if you want that speed. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) Now we see that the Teladi are bricks and the Split are feathers armed with multiple tank cannons and netherite armor who only have shields for decoration i guess. Onwards to the Terrans! 4.6: Best ship for each person: Terran and Boron. Terran ships are in general slow, more expensive and have sub-par hull integrity, but are the only ships able to put Terran weaponry and as such are very strong. S ships: The first ship is the Kukri. Available from both the Protectorate and the Pioneers, it is a fighter with 1 shield slot, 3 weapons and average hull integrity. Although slow, it is a rather maneuverable fighter with not a lot of drift, but it does have some issues with acceleration. Also, as it is a terran ship, it can mount the special terran weapons which does make it reasonably more powerful than some other, similar ships. If you want the terran weapons on a pretty agile fighter with a nice and small profile, this is for you. Next up is the Takoba, which can be bought from the Pioneers. With it's 2 weapons, 2 shields and excellent speed it is a very nimble fighter with pretty low drift. Yet again, another great contender for dogfights, especially with the terran weapon it gets to equip. If you want an Asp but with more shields and less weapons, terran weapons and steering between it and it's Raider variant, the Takoba is an excellent choice. The third ship is the Gladius. It is a very slow heavy fighter with 2 shields and 4 weapons, but it is also quite a smooth ship to fly. It might not have much turn rate, but it is not a drifty ship at all. (Guess those wings of his really do serve a purpose).And again, terran ship=terran weapons, so really powerful. The last Terran S ship is the Kalis heavy fighter which wants to survive for as long as possible and doesn't want damage. This is because it has 4 shield generators, making it the most shielded S ship in the game. Along with this, it is somehow faster than the Gladius and also has very manageable drift because it has so little of it. This ship is great for long, sustained fights because of it's 4 shields with which it can simply boost away temporarily to regain it's SWAT shield back in 20 seconds and then go right back into battle. M ships: The Falx is an interesting frigate which has... 6 engines. Yeah, that is... a lot. But that unfortunately doesn't mean it's anything fast, it's in fact rather slow. It does mean it has the best acceleration of all M ships though! Other than that, it is a more weapon-focused frigate as it has 4 main weapons and 2 turrets. It is also pretty drifty, meaning you will have to fix your heading a fair bit more. Still, it is a great frigate, especially as it can mount terran weapons. The Katana is a REALLY fast ship which means that you get to drift a lot, even though your strafe acceleration is better than on the Falx. It also has worse yaw and pitch, but better roll than the Falx so do with that what you will. But now, the speed. As i said the Katana is REALLY fast and what i mean by that is that it reaches >600 m/s with the WORST ENGINES!!! and >1000 m/s with the BEST ENGINES!!! This is... ridiculous. Like, REALLY ridiculous. It does make it excellent at hit and run, either with the Mesons or some other single shot weapon. So, if you like hit and run, terran weapons and being on drugs (DISCLAIMER: Drugs are bad, pls dont do drugs you'll be alone and die a miserable death), this is the only ship that you will ever use. The Jian is... a gunboat which, like other gunboats, dies pretty quickly. There's not much else to say except that it's got 6 turrets which are all put on only 1 side of the ship which basically means the ship doesn't have a 360° turret coverage, it has a 180° turret coverage. But that is kinda... okay? Idk, i only use this ship to put 6 additional turrets on a capship with at least 1 M dock. It can have 1 Meson though... (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) Now that the Terrans are done, we can move on to the last race, the Boron. Firstly is the Mako. It is a very responsive, very non-drifty ship with good speed and... horrible boost. Yeah, remember what i said about boron engines? Yeah, that is still relevant. Additionally, the Mako is so maneuverable you actually MIGHT (big might) have more trouble evading shots than if it had less. But that's more subjective, so see for yourself. Still, it's a good ship just because of the special Boron weaponry and shielding, i give it a solid 7/10. And lastly is the Barracuda. This... i'm not happy with. It trades 80% of it's speed so it has 3 weapons and 3 shields. I'm not happy about the speed part and thus, the acceleration part. I'm also not happy about the Boron engine part. This ship does NOT work well when there are more than 3-4 ships firing upon it. This is because your boost has almost no acceleration to get you out in time, meaning you will use up all of your boost capacity before you even know it and even if your weapons are effective at essentially removing any semblance of survivability the enemy might have, they aren't that effective at actually destroying stuff. All this means that the Barracuda could have been great, but it is not because of its "no speed, all shield" mentality. Maybe i'm just not using it correctly, maybe i just dont like fortresses with only half a leg, but what i do know is that this ship doesn't fit for me and it probably won't fit for you if you like your ships to be fast paced in speed and firepower. M ships: The Hydra is a very good competitor to the Katana as the ultimate player ship since it has a gigantic amount of shielding (~27 000 with the best Boron shields) and 4 good weapon slots. If you put 4 Ion Pulse Railguns, you can get rid of anything S and M in under a minute, of course if you have a steady enough aim. If you cant aim that good, you can always either take 4 Atomizers or 2 Phase cannons and 2 Atomizers, that is also gonna work good. Also, it has the turn rate AND the drift of a heavy fighter instead of a corvette (which makes it very maneuverable for a corvette) so yeah. I don't have that much experience with the Thresher since i rarely used a gunboat and why i rarely used a gunboat is because i like to control my weapons, not them being AI controlled. However, i can still give you a brief overview of the ship, so let's do that. The Thresher has 1 weapon slot, 2 shields, slightly larger speed than that of the Hydra and 8 turrets. Yeah, 8. Because of the sheer amount of turrets, it is quite an effective anti-fighter ship, especially if you put Arc turrets. For some, it is the cooler Jian, while for others, they like a different gunboat more than the Thresher. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) So the Boron have a big emphasis on steering and shielding more than anything else. Let's move on to the last part of this section group. 4.8: Best ship for each person: Special ships This last section for ships will cover all the S and M ships that either aren't sold by anyone, you have to complete a plot/DLC to get, you have to capture to get, is a Yasur or a combination of 2 or more. The Yasur: This ship, if you didn't know already, is only available through Ventures, so if you haven't played the Ventures beta or you haven't purchased the Community of Planets Collector's Edition, you're not gonna see this ship anywhere in your game. Anyways, this is a really good player ship since it has special engines which give the Yasur a LOT of speed, both in standard and travel mode, it has 4 weapons (2 of which are special Yasur weapons), a special shield generator which is basically the best S shield generator in the game and incredibly high maneuverability. Yes, this boi is as maneuverable as a Mako which is quite a feat to accomplish. So, if you want to be very fast, strong and durable, pick this ship (if you have it). (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) Timelines ships: S: The Cutlass is an S ship with fine shielding, good maneuverability, basically no drift and 2 pretty good weapons. It is a bit on the slow side, but other than that it's pretty good. Not much else to say soo... The Xperimental Shuttle. The ship that started the entire X series. Many people have fond memories of them playing X: BTF for the first time and what a blast the game was back then... not me though, i didn't even exist back then in any form. At least i played X2... ...Where was i? OH, yeah, the X-Shuttle. Yeah, its a beast. 6 weapons, either put the Gamma HEPT or the EM gum and you're good to go. It's shield is unique and POWERFUL, none quite like it. Steering is EXCELLENT and the speed is also EXCELLENT. Aaand that's it. It's so good that there's no need for further discussion. Just, have fun with it. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) M: The Odachi is a ship that's actually in between an S size and an M size, and that means it's VERY maneouverable for an M ship, VERY small for an M ship and thus VERY evasive for an M ship. This can basically be an oversized Cutlass with very strong EM cannons, basically no drift and great shielding. It does suffer in acceleration, it being pretty low. Still, a great ship for fighting a whole bunch of things. Xenon ships: S: The F is a pretty fine S ship. It's got good hull, fine weapons, enough shielding, good travel speed. Now, do you see a problem here? Its a "meh" ship because its just average, if not less, at almost all aspects except one: its speed. 194 m/s max, which is pretty damn bad. Overall, it is a usable ship and, if you dont have any other ship or just really want to use it, then yeah, take it. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) M: The PE is an interesting corvette which doesnt have an overabundance of weapons as other corvettes. 2 weapons, 2 turrets, ~450 m/s max speed and 1 XEN shield. Now, the weapons it can equip are impulse projectors which, while against S ships it is strong, against M ships it is pretty lackluster. Couple that with only 1 shield and you got a glass cannon, but the cannon is made out of rubber. For me, it isnt really that good of a ship and i would pick something else. (didnt personally fly in 7.5, data might deviate from current ship state) Yaki ships: S: The Moreya is the only Yaki S ship which is a Pegasus made for combat. Most people like this ship very much because it is speedy, has good hull integrity and has 4 weapons. The speed of this thing, the hull and its very controllable drift pretty much overshadow the 1 shield generator this ship has. It's strengths make this ship really good for dogfighting, Hit and Run tactics and other more aggressive tactics. M: The Kuraokami is a Nemesis with more speed and less drift at the expense of less turn rate. The only thing that is on both is the very bad acceleration. Unfortunately nothing much more to say here so if you're fine with the compromise, take it. Now that we're done with all these ships, let us move on and learn a bit about your main tool for positioning, engaging and disengaging in fights, the Boost, shall we? 5: 7.1 Boosting: Why and when to boost THIS SECTION IS ONLY MEANT FOR GAME VERSIONS 7.1 AND LOWER. (also it wont get any of the "fancy" bolding and underlining all other sections get) This section will quickly explain when are the best times to boost and some tricks to help prevent too much shield depletion when boosting. You can use boost for 2 things: engaging the enemy and fleeing from the enemy. If you want to engage the enemy, you shouldn't press the boost button too much as there's a possibility you arrive to the fight with very little or no shields at all. So, in order to avoid that, you can initially boost to get some speed and then either: 1. Turn off flight assist to help preserve that speed as much as possible Or 2. Engage your travel drive to slowly increase your speed without the use of boost. If you're going around from fight to fight, the 2nd option may not be at your disposal all the time, so then, obviously, you can only use the 1st option. If you realised that you are low on shields, you should boost away from the enemy, especially if you know your ship has very low hull integrity as you should think of your hull as something to preserve as much as possible, as it is effectively your health bar meaning that, if it reaches 0, you die. Now, depending on the amount of hull you have left and the amount of enemies in close proximity firing at you, you can try to risk some of your hull to finish off the enemy or to make them flee from you. These, if you found out that you tried to boost a little too late, are possibly your only options as you dont have an effective way to save yourself anymore (That is, if your ship speed is smaller than that of the enemy) Now, you have to decide when is the perfect time to start boosting away AKA how much shield capacity you have to use to flee the battle. This depends on a few factors, mainly what engine you equipped on your ship, the max acceleration and max boost speed of said ship, as a ship with high acceleration and boost will achieve max boost speed much quicker than a ship with low acceleration and boost. This is especially apparent when comparing S ships to M ships, as S ships tend to have acceleration above 100 m/s (squared), while M ships, even though they tend to have higher max speed, have acceleration lower than 100 m/s (squared). To see how much shields you have to boost away, you do have to fly the ship (woah, shocker!) and boost a bit to see how quickly it reaches max boost speed. For this i cant give much as it is based on ship-to-ship experience. For example, the Chimera has excellent max acceleration, so it tends to boost very quickly, while a Barracuda doesnt really have all that good acceleration, so it tends to boost noticeably slowly. 5.5: 7.5 Boosting: Why and when to boost As of 7.5, boost has been seperated from shields and now uses its own energy bar. This means that you can boost at any time, no matter the state of your shields. But do note that there is a global recharge delay for that new energy bar AND that you can start boosting when you have a minimum of 10% energy left. The main purpose of this is to prevent "microboosting" (or smth like that), but it also punishes you for using boost too frequently to an extent. Additionally, boost has gotten a new hidden stat called "Coast". This stat makes it so you decelerate much slower after boosting and NOT hitting the "stop engines" button. This happens in a certain time period which is determined by a different stat. All this combines to a term called "Coasting" which is: An effect that kicks in after boosting where the rate of deceleration is greatly reduced over a given time period. It is important to remember that stopping engines AKA hitting the "Stop Engines" button (Usually backspace) completely skips the "Coasting" and goes straight to reducing speed as fast as possible. This is also highly dependant on the type of engine you took So, we still have to know when and for how long to hold the boost button (The "for how long" part greatly differs depending on the type of engine you took). The three main actions that we can do with the new boost are: engaging the enemy, fixing our heading/evading shots and fleeing from the enemy First, engaging the enemy. Depending on the type of engine you took, you will have to boost for longer or shorter times. You usually engage your enemy if you've picked a fresh target or if your target has boosted/is boosting away from you and you have to catch up. The latter part usually happens in a dogfight, while the former at any time. Keep in mind that if your engine has a lower boost capacity compared to other engines, you will have to keep track of how much you're boosting so that you dont end up using all your boost energy and getting yourself stranded in a sea of red blips. Second: Fixing your heading/Evading shots. This is for the times when you're drifting a lot and you want to go to where you're actually looking at. Generally, you wont have to boost a lot as it does require little power to actually fix your heading. However, if you want to be mobile and go for the "No hit any% speedrun", you can also use your boost to do exactly that. You can also boost slightly via strafing which additionally helps you evade shots. Also, if you picked a ship with rotating engines (Nova, Falcon, Guillemot) vertically strafing will make you boost in that direction (Or a 45° angle if you still want to go forward) meaning that strafing down/up for a second and then switching strafes will make you go in a zigzag motion almost instantly, effectivelymaking you immune while youre boosting. But if you don't have rotating engines, you can still turn in random directions to get the same effect. You can also slightly adjust your throttle/stop engines so that you decelerate much quicker which also aids you in evading shots. So, the TLDR of this is: Drifting? Boost a little. Don't want to get hit? Look randomly and boost there for a bit. And third: Fleeing from the enemy. This will usually happen when you're in critical shape OR (If you want to do a 100% hull left any% speedrun) have very little shields left and if you are running out on boost energy and want to safely recharge it. Nothing much to say here, just boost for as far as possible (8-12 km is a reasonable distance, 5-6 km is about minimum only if you are faster than your enemy OR if you turned on travel mode AND you are tracking the target's speed). Do note that if you go too far (>12 km, sometimes at 10 km), the enemy will most certainly go into travel mode, so be careful. And there, thats boosting done yet again, now we go on to learning how to actually not get hit by a stray microplastic that has been sitting in the ocean for decades and has just now decided to rupture your lungs open so you have a 1% harder time breathing. 6: Evading enemy fire: How do i become that Matrix guy again? So now you got all the hardware at your disposal, all free for you to start using. So you start using it AKA you go ahead to kill some xenon. Then you realise... you... died? wha- hu- how- wh- What happened? Well, you just fell victim to the oldest "trick" in the book: those reddish lines you saw? Yeah, they hurt. And when something can hurt, it can usually kill... In other words, you have no idea how to evade. So, i'll teach you some useful stuff in most/some circumstances First the simple things: you can use your boost to evade shots. I already explained this in the last section, so there's no need to further dwell on this. Next up is to start strafing in random directions. This gives enemy weapons a sudden change in heading, meaning that they will miss more often until you reach your max strafe speed in that direction. This is why you have to quickly switch between strafing directions, to keep the enemy guessing. BUT you must not switch too quickly because merely pressing or holding the strafe key/s for less than a second is not gonna get you anywhere because you have to factor in that strafe has acceleration to worry about. BUT just remember that some boost also carries over to your strafes if your holding a strafe button while boosting, so you can also do that to evade Third in line is to eliminate as much drift as possible. You'll learn how to do this after this section, but as a rough explanation of why drift is usually bad, here it is: Drift makes you keep you previous heading BEFORE the ship corrects itself. This makes the ship predictable, so the more drift your ship has, the more predictable your ship gets. And the more predictable a ship gets, the easier it gets for weapons to shoot you down. So, to avoid getting shot down, you have to lower that drift because then your ship is less predictable which gives enemy weapons a harder time to hit you. As i said, exactly how to lower that drift you will learn after this section, so just bear with me. After that comes mixing up your steering and strafing. This means that you either constantly change your heading, making your ship less predictable or take one direction and just steer in that direction, like up. Of course, depending on how maneuverable and drifty your ship is, you will have to alter/modify them to match the ship's playstyle, but generally, this will make you less predictable. You can also add rolling to further make your ship less predictable so you do a kind of spring shaped movement. You can also do zig-zag motions for obvious reasons. Now with these tips and tricks you might see an improvement in your evasive skills. But, as always, know that you need to PRACTICE to perfect your evasion skills, as with everything else. Remember the third point, the one about "drift". Yeah, its time for that one now. 7: Eliminating drift AKA "pls help i'm uncontrollably drifting towards the sun pls help me i don't wanna die!!!" This will be a quick section to help you eliminate drifting as much as possible if either: you are having trouble controlling the TOKYO DRIFT or: the ship is an uncontrollable mess to fly (or both, both are always possible). ...There is one specific enemy that everyone is constantly fighting against, whether it be in the heat of combat or trying to do a simple trade run. It is one enemy that never goes away, nor is ever fully eradicated. Its ALWAYS there, no matter what... And its for some reason extremely fun to experience it. Idk why. Ok, so you are flying a chimera and are thinking: "chimera is literally unusable in dogfight with tne new flight mechanics" (found in discord,, source was without special effects, typo intact). You probably think this because it tends to just... not go where you're looking. Like, it takes a good amount of time for it to actually go where you're looking at. And now you're just thinking how you just cant use the Chimera anymore cuz its an uncontrollable beast... Well, good thing i exist, right?... right..? Whatever your answer to that is, i'm gonna go over some things you can do to minimize as much of the drift as possible, thus giving you more control to the so called "uncontrollable beast". First thing is a simple one: take TER engines or avoid SPL engines. As i said in the engines section, the TER engines reasonably decrease the amount of drift a ship has, thus making the ship much more maneuverable. on the opposite end of the spectrum, SPL engines GIVE you MORE drift, making the ship an even bigger pain to fly effectively, so if you just can't stand drifting, avoid SPL engines. Pretty simple step, right? Second thing is to boost a little to the heading you wanna take. This will drain your boost meter a bit (or a lot, depending on how strong the boost is), but it will fix your drift problem Third thing is to lower your speed when you're getting close to your target or are expecting to start turning. This will minimize how much drift you get as you're not moving as fast, thus giving the DRIFT less energy to work with and giving the ship a much easier time to correct the drift. Fourth and last boi is: if you have to do a near 180° turn cuz you either overshot or the enemy boosted behind you, stop your engines, turn around and then start going towards the enemy. You do this so that you: a) Don't add any additional drift at unwanted directions, and b) use your engines instead of thrusters to eliminate the drift which are much stronger than your thrusters. Note that if you are getting targeted by multiple ships at that moment you will have to alter this move a bit with stuff like: boosting for 1-2/3 seconds mid-turn OR boosting when you completed your turn. Alternatively, you can also turn FA off instead of stopping engines, this does retain your previous speed, but might be potentially safer in some situations. And there, hopefully these things will help you eliminate drift as much as possible. Now you will actually have to learn about AI. I know, im sorry, but i assure you its really important... NO YOU'RE NOT GONNA LEARN CHATGPT, DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT 8: How combat AI works- 0.5 level basics and how we can use it to our advantage This section is gonna tell you some habits of the combat AI and how we can use some of these habits to our advantage. BUT before you read any of this, keep in mind that this i found out mostly fighting Xenon ships, meaning that their "pilots" always have 5 stars which means that you might not have the same experience with, say, an Argon ship. So keep in mind that the AI is different with different star numbers on pilots other than Xenon or Khaak. The very first thing that i am gonna mention is when an enemy is following you. So, when both you and the enemy is in travel mode and the enemy has higher travel speed than you, the enemy AI doesn't seem to want to intercept you. Instead, once it is about 10 km away from you, the AI is gonna lower its travel speed to be the same as your travel speed. This is good to know so that when you plopped into travel mode to recover, you don't need to worry about the enemy catching up to you and disabling your travel drive. As long as you stay in travel drive, you will be fine. However, there are times when the AI becomes smart and stays in travel drive until he hits you. (REQUIRES FURTHER TESTING AS OF 7.5) I have a feeling the above doesn't work anymore, so im gonna give you a different thing instead. One good thing to note that the enemy will most likely engage travel mode when: IF the enemy is an S ship and you're slower than it: you're about 10 km away from it. If you're faster it is possible for the enemy to engage it BEFORE 10 km so it catches up to you. So if you're faster than your target, it is generally a good idea to be somewhere in between the enemy's weapons' range and 7 km. If your target is an M ship then 10-15 km is a good limit distance to be in, mostly because they have increased range on their weapons. Still, it all depends on the weapons and speed of your enemy. A VERY rough formula would be that the max distance you can be away at is about 2x the enemy's firing range. But yet again, this part is all about the FEEL and experience. Another travel drive thing is that if you make a sharp 90 degree turn in travel mode via the use of Flight Assist off, the enemy will automatically disengage their travel drive to fix their direction. You can also use this to your advantage in order to give yourself more time to recover. Also remember, the closer you are to the enemy, the bigger the chance that this trick is going to work. So if you are about 20 km away from them, this trick is gonna have a near 100% success rate, while if you are 60 km away, it's gonna be more like a 60% success rate. However, one thing to note is that this trick also depends on the enemy's turn rate in travel mode. If it can't really turn that well, then you got no problem. BUT of he is pretty maneuverable in travel mode, this trick will have a lower chance of working. Just keep that in mind. If the enemy passes through both of these tricks, you will still have one more tool at your disposal in order to not die. TURN. FLIGHT. ASSIST. OFF!!! Flight assist is very useful for the exact situation when the enemy disables your travel drive. This is because it drastically increases the amount of time required to decelerate from your travel speed to your standard max speed. You can also turn off FA when boosting as it effectively does the same thing as with the travel drive (As of 7.5, FA off BYPASSES the coasting mechanic of boosting, meaning you might get less deceleration (good thing) if you keep FA on for the duration of the coast, after which you turn it off). Just remember to turn it back on after you have gotten away if you cant effectively fight with FA off. When in battle, the enemy likes to boost away once he has gotten very close to his target or if his target has gotten very close to the enemy. This, if you are in perfectly healthy condition, can sometimes be irritating, but if you are in bad condition, you can actually use this in order to buy yourself some time to re-enable your travel drive or recharge your shields. You do this by running into the enemy. Yeah, i'm not joking. Sometimes you gotta take a few risks in order to survive. What this will do is force the enemy to boost away from their effective range thus giving you some time to further run away to recover. This trick also works with multiple enemies as well! But you have to make sure that you either run into all of them OR keep all of them close together so they all run away without much effort and time wasted. So if there's a swarm of Xenon M's, just run into them! For now, that is it for AI, next up we will focus on strategies that you can use and ultimately decide which strategy will work best for you. 9: The strategies, tips and tricks when in combat Alright, so you've grabbed the perfect shields, weapons, engines and of course, the perfect ship for you. You also now know how you can use the enemy AI to survive for longer. Now you just need to find the perfect strategy/tactic that you most resonate with and also learn some more tips and tricks to make the most out of the strategy. Let's begin. The first one i'm gonna mention is the Hit and Run strategy. It's quite simple. close the distance on the enemy (preferably with boost), fire at the enemy for as long as you can and boost away. Rinse and repeat. This type of strategy is great for fast ships which just don't have enough shielding and hull to just dive-bomb to the enemy. Of course, other fast ships can do this too. Additionally, during the boost stage you can turn on travel mode to conserve your boost energy, but that is kinda in between the two types of Hit and Run strategies... A variant of the Hit and Run strategy is one where you fight in... Travel Mode. Yes, i'm not kidding. Travel mode is actually useful for fighting. The way you do this is simple, but you will need to either: a) Take a ship with high acceleration; b) Take a ship with TER engines; c) Boost a bit to gain speed; or d) do some flight model trickery to get insane temporary travel acceleration. When you got your method of gaining travel speed in 1-3 of your fingers, each dedicated (in order) to pressing the travel mode button, pressing the boost button and... (seems i put one finger too many...) we can move on to the simple process of fighting in travel mode. You go towards the enemy in travel mode with decent speed (Not too experienced guess: >1500 m/s), then you shoot them for as long as possible while STILL IN TRAVEL MODE. Then you gain some distance while STILL IN TRAVEL MODE. Rinse and repeat. If your travel drive gets disabled, boost away and wait for the little yellow engine to disappear. Don't have shields? wait a bit out of battle. This tactic is somewhat harder to pull off, but it is a show of some GOOD skill in my books so feel free to try it. Next up is the most common tactic (or term), dog-fighting. This one is what you see every day, every hour, every minute, every second, every... milisecond... every... Basically, you want to be as maneuverable as possible in order to not get hit. Because most weapons will be harder to aim since we have to be maneuverable, i would suggest picking weapons with either a high rate of fire, high projectile speed, high accuracy or a mix of the three. Also, a joystick, gamepad or, if you dont have both of these things, Elite Dangerous-like mouse steering is heavily recommended for this tactic because of the whole being maneuverable thing. You don't wanna suddenly run out of desk space mid-battle now, do you? For the engines, it's really your choice. All of them are good in one way or another and each complements a different playstyle, so it's your choice. For the ship, i would recommend a ship that can decelerate very quickly, is very maneuverable and that doesn't have horrible max and boost speed. Some good examples are the Asp, Nova, Perseus, Takoba, Balaur and so on. The third tactic in line is the Circler. Basically you circle around the enemy trying your best not to get shot, while you constantly rain boolets on them. This tactic is great for weapons who need to be close to the target in order to have max efficiency. The Nova is also a very good option for this because of its rotating engines. This one is quite easy to do since you just do W+M1... wait, why is that familiar... Moving on from those... Ṕ̸̨͔̲̠͐̀̈͌͐͝y̸̌̌̿̍̍̂̚͜͠ṙ̸̗̳̥̦̬̲̬̲̳́͆͑̄̈͌̀̚o̵̡̼͖̪͐͌͛̌͂̂͒s̶̨̠̲̹̺̾́̀̓ we have the Spear. This one is basically what the AI does, do a beeline towards the enemy and shoot, slow down when you're getting close to maximize the amount of damage we do and then let the enemy boost away, we track the enemy down and engage in a dogfight (or don't, you can always keep doing this tactic again). For this one we heavily rely on shields to absorb all of the damage we receive and as such, this tactic has a high risk-high reward system. This is why we will take more shield heavy ships like the Ares, Shih, Kalis, Barracuda (...not so sure about that ship anymore...) and most M sized ships. Also i would recommend you put slower weapons with a lot of damage because both you and the enemy are gonna do beelines towards the opposite and so most shots will hit, no matter how slow or fast it is. Also remember, when making a beeline, strafe in random directions. This will reduce the amount of damage you will take to, let's say, 40%-50%. However, dont randomly mash WASD and expect to not get hit, instead you should hold each button for a short while (Max 1-2 seconds) so that your strafe can reasonably accelerate for you to reduce the number of times you get hit. If you prefer to be a sniper rifle, take the Mass Driver, plant yourself very far from the battle, lead your enemy and shoot. Just keep at least one different weapon just in case if the enemy wants to kill you. You pick the ship for this one. The end This is the end of the guide for now. If you have noticed anything incorrect or if you got another tactic/strategy, please let me know. This guide will probably get some updates in the future. So yeah, hope this helped and again, let me know how good or bad i made this thing. Until then, good hunting!