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[carterr]

Logged on after not playing for a year and a half and see that GAFEmpire is dead lol.

Agent Thursday and Lord Tee'Hee are not amused.

Yeah we just never had enough people with 55 imperial alts to do much of anything cross faction. We've focused on Republic but GAF Empire was sort of ill fated when we reformed it anyways.

 

[Angelus Errare]

I would reroll to republic but I really don't want to trudge my way up the leveling ladder tbh. Sigh, the world will never know the terror that was Lord Tee'hee.

 

[StudioTan]

I would reroll to republic but I really don't want to trudge my way up the leveling ladder tbh. Sigh, the world will never know the terror that was Lord Tee'hee.

When was the last time you leveled a character? If you're subbed and in a guild it's really fast these days. Aside from the 10% boost from being a guild you have character perks to give XP boosts, XP boosts from consumables which you can get from cartel packs and are gifted as quest rewards and there is double XP coming later this month. It gets absurdly fast during double XP weekends with all those other boosts.

 

[StudioTan]

NDA for Galactic Starfighter beta is being lifted on Thurs, I'll be able to give my impressions and answer questions then There may be info released by the media before then.

 

[HarryDemeanor]

NDA for Galactic Starfighter beta is being lifted on Thurs, I'll be able to give my impressions and answer questions then There may be info released by the media before then.

Nice. Looking forward to hearing those impressions.

 

[Heysoos]

NDA for Galactic Starfighter beta is being lifted on Thurs, I'll be able to give my impressions and answer questions then There may be info released by the media before then.

Cool! Looking forward to reading them.

 

[Moff]

cant wait to see gameplay videos and read impressions, I have not been this excited about this game since before the launch.

I hope it makes its way to the pts, what are the chances? was the first "expansion" makeb on the pts too?

 

[HarryDemeanor]

cant wait to see gameplay videos and read impressions, I have not been this excited about this game since before the launch.

I hope it makes its way to the pts, what are the chances? was the first "expansion" makeb on the pts too?

Makeb never made it to the PTS. I wouldn't be surprised to see this coming to the PTS though considering it is free.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Outside of the dewbacks being introduced, the new pack is pretty lame.

 

[Anoregon]

Isn't the launch of space stuff for subs in like 3 weeks anyway? PTS seems kind of a moot point.

 

[StudioTan]

Isn't the launch of space stuff for subs in like 3 weeks anyway? PTS seems kind of a moot point.

Not really.

 

[Anoregon]

Not really.

oh. ok.

 

[Giolon]

Went to the cantina event. Space was awesome. It reminded me of playing Jump to Lightspeed and Freelancer.

Let's see some tidbits we learned

14 different ships at launch, 24 by January

3 classes : Scout (A-Wing, TIE Fighter), Strike Fighter (X-Wing), Gunship (long range sniping/artillery).

4th class, Bomber coming in January

Any who subbed across Nov 1 get gunship at Dec 3, everyone else in January and they will have to unlock them.

Companions act as copilots, mechanics. Can unlock companions from other classes for this. All have new VA for space, even HK and Treek.

Comps have different active and passive abilities for space.

New Flashpoint Kuat Drive Yards coming Feb I think it was?

You can have multiple ships.

Ships have different customizable equipment, and it's visible.

3 additional game modes being worked on.

2 maps for launch, more coming.

 

[Moff]

kuat?
that sounds great, I hope the can do it justice
space sounds great, the companion special abilities sound great.

the only thing I still wonder is how big the cartel markets role is in the space pvp.
looking forward to impressions today, the NDA should be lifted by now.

 

[Giolon]

kuat?
that sounds great, I hope the can do it justice
space sounds great, the companion special abilities sound great.

the only thing I still wonder is how big the cartel markets role is in the space pvp.
looking forward to impressions today, the NDA should be lifted by now.

NDA for testers and press lifts at 9AM tomorrow morning. For those of us at the event, we were not placed under any NDA. (edit: I think you're right about tester NDA having been lifted already. Either way, there will be a lot of coverage in the morning.)

Speaking of Cartel, there will be "premium ships" for sale and in packs that will consist of pretty much any space ship model you see anywhere in game anywhere on any of the worlds. While they're were calling them "premium", it was implied that they we're re basically cosmeticly unique only (i.e. not a performance advantage).

 

[Moff]

I thought the NDA was over on thursday?

cosmetic packs for ships are exactly what I want in the market, sounds good.

edit: oh and according to dulfy, galactic starfighter will be on the PTS this weekend!

 

[BattleMonkey]

Hype! pew pew.

Cool to see that there will be atmospheric maps

 

[StudioTan]

Ok, NDA is up so I can finally talk about Galactic Starfighter!

So first and foremost, I think it's pretty fun overall, even if I'm not great at it. If you like space fighting games I think you'll enjoy it. You'll all get to play it this weekend which is great!

We got to test 2 maps and apparently those are the only 2 that will be available at launch, which is a bit of a bummer as they can get a bit stale after a while. The coolest thing, which I was dying to talk about, is that one of maps takes place in low atmosphere. It looks very similar to Makebs mesas and you fly through and around the rock formations. It's really a beautiful map. I wish I could post some of my screenshots but we're not allowed. I'm sure you'll see it today.

Both maps are the same objective type, domination. Basically there are 3 satellites you need to control, you do this by flying your ships close to the satellites until all the lights on the arms turn green. When you control a satellite you start earning points and the goal is to get to 1000 before the other team. As you continue to control a satellite it'll eventually spawn drone turrets that attack ships, you need to take out the turrets and any nearby ships before you can retake a satellite. The satellite can also be in a neutral state where no one currently controls it.

Now for ships. We tested 4 types of ships but apparently they're holding back and retooling one due to the feedback we gave. You have a scout, fighter, gunship and eventually bomber. You have to manage 3 power pools for each ship, weapons regen, shield regen and engine regen. You can have them all balanced or give focus to 1 of the 3. Each ship has a booster that gives you a speed boost, as this runs out the engines need to recharge. Same applies to shields and weapons. You can't spam weapons fire because you'll run out of energy and you'll have to wait for it to recharge, but you don't have to wait until they're at full. It's similar to energy management in the main game.

Scout ships are fast, maneuverable, have the longest boost time and the least amount of firepower. They're great for dogfighting and capping nodes as the match starts. They have 2 main weapons that are switchable per fight and 1 type of missiles.

Fighters are the balanced ships, not as fast or nimble as scouts but more firepower. They can have 2 different main weapons and 2 different types of missiles.

Gunships are my favorite because they fit my play style. They are slow and quite squishy but they are snipers and can hit you from very far away. When you use your rail or ion guns you literally stop flying and go into zoom in sniper mode to pick off enemy ships from a distance. The blasters are also very powerful but you're not going to win if you get into a dogfight.

Bombers were added I think 3 weeks ago and they are very cool but many felt they were overpowered. Basically they are slow behemoths that can drop mines or drones. The drones can do various things like do massive damage to passing ships or repair passing ally ships.

Now customization. This part is quite deep actually. There are 2 main ways you can customize your ship, by buying different parts for them (various missiles or blaster types) and by getting and assigning crew. Crews provide you with spoken feedback during a fight ("You're about to die!"....yeah, no shit) but they also give you skills. You have 4 skills you can use during a fight, the first 3 come from various ship components and the last from your copilot. The other 4 crew members give passive bonuses. Active skill are things such as defensive maneuvers like evading missiles with a barrel roll or quick 180 or debuffs, slows and other buffs.

There are various parts you can buy for your ship and you can create 5 ship loadouts to take into battle with you. You can switch between any of your ships during battle after dying. Each ship part also has a talent tree of sorts to upgrade over time. It's not much of a tree really, there are 5 upgrades and the first 3 have only 1 option and then at level 4 it branches into 2 options.

You purchase parts and upgrades with Ship Requisitions and new ships with Fleet Requisitions. You can also use Fleet Requisitions to buy parts but you get that much slower so it's not a good idea. You get FRs every fight or from the daily/weekly quests and the SRs from using certain ships in battle. SRs are ONLY for that ship, so each ship you own has it's own currency basically. You can't fly a scout and then buy upgrades on your fighter, for example.

How they will make money is mostly on cosmetic stuff, paint jobs and visual upgrades. We actually couldn't test this since we didn't have access to cartel coins. You will also be able to spend Cartel Coins to convert Ship Requisitions to Fleet ones for buying new ships.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. Any questions?

EDIT: Well shit, I could have just pointed you to Dulfy's guide she just put up LOL. http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1qmhlp/galactic_starfighter_preview_guides/ She killed me quite a few times in beta.

 

[Sorian]

EDIT: Well shit, I could have just pointed you to Dulfy's guide she just put up LOL. http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/1qmhlp/galactic_starfighter_preview_guides/ She killed me quite a few times in beta.

Oh, is she better at this than at healing?

Impressions sound amazing though. I think I will really enjoy this.

 

[StudioTan]

Oh, is she better at this than at healing?

Impressions sound amazing though. I think I will really enjoy this.

LOL, I don't know, I don't play on her server. She was kicking my ass with her gunship which is when I decided to try it and found I was much more effective with that ship than with dogfighting which I'm not good at, although I did get better by the end. We only got to test for 4 hours Fri, Sat and Sundays.

 

[Sorian]

LOL, I don't know, I don't play on her server. She was kicking my ass with her gunship which is when I decided to try it and found I was much more effective with that ship than with dogfighting which I'm not good at, although I did get better by the end. We only got to test for 4 hours Fri, Sat and Sundays.

From descriptions, it sounds like I will be using the gunship as well. Sniping in space sounds awesome.

 

[GungHo]

How's the XP/space bucks for the missions?

 

[StudioTan]

How's the XP/space bucks for the missions?

I honestly wasn't paying too much attention to this because I was on a level 55 character so I wasn't looking at XP but credits were pretty good and this system is COMPLETELY separate from the ground game, you can start playing from level 1.

 

[BattleMonkey]

But you earn xp and creds that apply to the ground game character?

 

[StudioTan]

But you earn xp and creds that apply to the ground game character?

Yes, you could get to 55 doing nothing but this. Unfortunately there is no physical hanger where you can visit all your ships, everything is done from an interface you access with a button next to the minimap.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Nice, would like to do this probably for some alts to skip the side mission stuff.

Is it all menu based or is there any actual character interaction such as a hanger, or visually seeing the new companions?

 

[StudioTan]

Nice, would like to do this probably for some alts to skip the side mission stuff.

Is it all menu based or is there any actual character interaction such as a hanger, or visually seeing the new companions?

Keep in mind I didn't test it with a level 1 character so I have no idea how much XP you would be getting at that level, plus you'd want to at least get to the fleet so you could get the daily and weekly quests.

You have 4 tabs: Ships - Components - Crew - Cosmetic.

In the middle is a 3D rotatable view of your currently selected ship. Various parts like blasters or engines do change the look of your ship.

The companions are just portraits. You pick 4 companions to give you passive bonuses for boosts to various things like weapons or engines and then from those 4 you can pick a co-pilot who also gives you a useable skill in battle. You only see their portraits in the interface, you don't interact with them.

At the bottom are 5 slots where you can put load outs. These can by anything you want, 5 versions of the same ship with different components active or 5 different ships.

EDIT: Actually, I'm slightly unsure about that last part, I can't remember if I tested putting 2 versions of the same ship but I'm 95% sure you can do that.

 

[Sorian]

Keep in mind I didn't test it with a level 1 character so I have no idea how much XP you would be getting at that level, plus you'd want to at least get to the fleet so you could get the daily and weekly quests.

You have 4 tabs: Ships - Components - Crew - Cosmetic.

In the middle is a 3D rotatable view of your currently selected ship. Various parts like blasters or engines do change the look of your ship.

The companions are just portraits. You pick 4 companions to give you passive bonuses for boosts to various things like weapons or engines and then from those 4 you can pick a co-pilot who also gives you a useable skill in battle. You only see their portraits in the interface, you don't interact with them.

At the bottom are 5 slots where you can put load outs. These can by anything you want, 5 versions of the same ship with different components active or 5 different ships.

EDIT: Actually, I'm slightly unsure about that last part, I can't remember if I tested putting 2 versions of the same ship but I'm 95% sure you can do that.

Damn it bioware, you can give me load-outs for this but I still can't switch from pve to pvp spec with the push of a button.

 

[Giolon]

Damn it bioware, you can give me load-outs for this but I still can't switch from pve to pvp spec with the push of a button.

This exact point was raised at the Cantina event. They said there were technical issues making that a relatively low priority at the moment. Everything's a tradeoff. If they make that, they can't make something else.

The companions are just portraits. You pick 4 companions to give you passive bonuses for boosts to various things like weapons or engines and then from those 4 you can pick a co-pilot who also gives you a useable skill in battle. You only see their portraits in the interface, you don't interact with them.

The companion that you have set as your "Co-Pilot" you will hear in battle. All companions have new VO that was recorded for this, including HK and Treek.

 

[Sorian]

This exact point was raised at the Cantina event. They said there were technical issues making that a relatively low priority at the moment. Everything's a tradeoff. If they make that, they can't make something else.

Then don't make something else. It's the last thing this game needs to actually have all normal quality of life things fully functional.

Edit: They could also make it where sending a tell to one alt will deliver the tell if you are on a different character. WE ALREADY KNOW THIS WORKS.

 

[Moff]

I wish there were 3 maps, 2 feels too few.
but sounds great anyway, cant wait.

 

[BattleMonkey]

This exact point was raised at the Cantina event. They said there were technical issues making that a relatively low priority at the moment. Everything's a tradeoff. If they make that, they can't make something else.

It was stated as coming soon 3 months after the game launched. Almost 2 years later and now it's low priority. Sounds like excuses

 

[Giolon]

Then don't make something else. It's the last thing this game needs to actually have all normal quality of life things fully functional.

Edit: They could also make it where sending a tell to one alt will deliver the tell if you are on a different character. WE ALREADY KNOW THIS WORKS.

Legacy-wide whispers/ignores were brought up, and they said it was a bug but something they'd consider implementing properly but is again difficult. As a professional software developer myself for nearly a decade, I can tell you the difference between something "working" as a bug compared to then saying that it's a supported feature that you have to endorse, support, and guarantee works correctly to customers can be quite enormous. They'd need to have opt-in, opt-out functionality for one thing.

I wish there were 3 maps, 2 feels too few.
but sounds great anyway, cant wait.

They did say a 3rd map is coming pretty soon. February I think it was?

 

[Sorian]

It was stated as coming soon 3 months after the game launched. Almost 2 years later and now it's low priority. Sounds like excuses

^This in a nutshell. Improper allotment of resources if they can't get a group working on something that most MMOs can pull off without a hitch.

Legacy-wide whispers/ignores were brought up, and they said it was a bug but something they'd consider implementing properly but is again difficult. As a professional software developer myself for nearly a decade, I can tell you the difference between something "working" as a bug compared to then saying that it's a supported feature that you have to endorse, support, and guarantee works correctly to customers can be quite enormous. They'd need to have opt-in, opt-out functionality for one thing.

This would be the biggest thing. But past that, they have a working template, they are fine putting in much more frustrating bugs into the game already (read as Corrupter Zero and releasing an uncompleteable operation with DP during the first week). I don't think people are going to cry more about legacy wide whispers having some hiccups.

I love this game but the team is much better at making excuses then actually adding in good quality of life changes. Still a miracle that they could program the GTN to remember your last inputted price.

 

[StudioTan]

Trailer showing off the Kuat Mesa low atmospheric map.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHSVOGjuTTo

I wish there were 3 maps, 2 feels too few.
but sounds great anyway, cant wait.

It is too few, especially because they're the same battle type. That's probably why they're releasing it in stages, starting with the subs. I will say that they made quite big changes week to week based on beta feedback.

 

[Moff]

how does it actually play? are the controls smooth and accurate? hows the performance?

I think what excites me the most is the customization, what companion powers did you find the most useful?
there is a list on dulfy and many of them sound very powerful.

 

[StudioTan]

how does it actually play? are the controls smooth and accurate? hows the performance?

I think what excites me the most is the customization, what companion powers did you find the most useful?
there is a list on dulfy and many of them sound very powerful.

I actually didn't spend a lot of time playing around with the companions, we had limited play time and my time during those times was additionally limited so I just concentrated on doing component upgrades to the ships. Plus for parts of the beta the companion abilities weren't all working.

As for how it plays it's pretty damned good. You use WADS to speed up, slow down and roll left and right. Steering is done with the mouse. When you hold the space bar you get a speed boost that has an energy pool, once it's depleted the boost runs out and some defensive maneuvers don't work until you get back some energy. All the ships move at a default thrust speed, you press W to go a bit faster and S to slow down but not stop completely. Slowing down allows you to turn quicker. You can also stop completely by pressing X. Gunships stop automatically when you press the right button to go into sniper mode. The scout in particular turns and flies very quickly.

Targeting is also controlled with the mouse so you're turning as you move the mouse around to target your enemy. There is a second reticule that shows you were you need to fire in order to lead your shot to hit the ship you are chasing.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Is there a proper sense of weight, as in ships don't magically alter speed. Like when you stop, ships actually have to decelerate and come to a stop and not magically just hit the breaks and stop dead in their tracks?

 

[Giolon]

Is there a proper sense of weight, as in ships don't magically alter speed. Like when you stop, ships actually have to decelerate and come to a stop and not magically just hit the breaks and stop dead in their tracks?

For the most part from my playtime, I'd say yes. It feels like it should, to me anyway. You cannot stop or turn on a dime. It's not like on the ground game where you can hold your right mouse button down and just flip around any which way and change your velocity instantly.

Except with Engine Special Abilities that are available on cooldown. These will let you do U-turns, Barrel Rolls, Loops, and Reverse Directions (Retrothrusters) far quicker than what the physics model normally would permit.

Also, a tip given to us by the developers was that you can pitch faster than you can yaw. I don't know if it's universal, but it would be cool if that were an Engine stat so you could find the one that suits your piloting style.

 

[Moff]

pts client seems already to be updated, at least it shows the starfighter splash screen.
does anyone know then the pts usually goes up? is it always on the same time at the same day of the week?
its first time pts for me.

 

[StudioTan]

pts client seems already to be updated, at least it shows the starfighter splash screen.
does anyone know then the pts usually goes up? is it always on the same time at the same day of the week?
its first time pts for me.

I read somewhere that they were only going to do weekends for the first 2 weeks, I guess to get more focused testing, so I would expect it to go up later tonight. For closed beta it was only open 7-11 Central on Fri, Sat and Sun. Not saying they'll do that this time but I wouldn't expect anything until later today or tonight.

 

[kmz]

Does starfighter come with its own customizable hotkeys? One of the more annoying things about regular space missions is the keyboard movement keys are the same as for normal play.

 

[StudioTan]

Does starfighter come with its own customizable hotkeys? One of the more annoying things about regular space missions is the keyboard movement keys are the same as for normal play.

Yes.

 

[GungHo]

I haven't been this excited about playing the game since the headstart.

 

[StudioTan]

I made a thread about the expansion - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=716519

 

[BattleMonkey]

What have you done!

 

[Moff]

I just read there is more to the cartel market than cosmetics
apparently you can convert currency with cartel coins, there are 2 currencies similiar to warzone commendations and ranked warzone commendations.
its not exactly the same but you trade the rare ones into common ones witthout a fee. the other way around, however, trading the common ones into rare ones can only be done with cartel coins. thats a bit worrying.

 

[StudioTan]

What have you done!

Blame Cystm, he made me do it.

I just read there is more to the cartel market than cosmetics
apparently you can convert currency with cartel coins, there are 2 currencies similiar to warzone commendations and ranked warzone commendations.
its not exactly the same but you trade the rare ones into common ones witthout a fee. the other way around, however, trading the common ones into rare ones can only be done with cartel coins. thats a bit worrying.

The only other things requiring Fleet requisitions are new ships and additional companions, and it won't take you too long to get new ships and I believe everyone gets the first 5 new companions, it's the ship components and upgrading those components that will take a long time.

You CAN use fleet requisitions to buy components but normally you wouldn't so the only way it gives you an advantage is because you can earn requisitions on one ship and then convert those to fleet and then buy components on another ship. However, I don't see this as being any worse than PVPing on a geared toon, buying PVP gear and sending mods to another toon.

 

[Draxal]

I have to give the team credit. This is something that seems really fun and different for a MMO endgame.

I'm kinda peeved there's not really any legacy support for this. Sucks for the guy with millions of alts.

 

[StudioTan]

Damn it bioware, you can give me load-outs for this but I still can't switch from pve to pvp spec with the push of a button.

Sorry, I guess I was wrong about this. Playing on the PTS now and you can only have 1 loadout for each ship. Sorry for the misinformation.

EDIT:

There are achievements listed for a new Rakghoul and Life Day events. The Rakghoul one sounds different than the first time.