Tips for XvT/BoP
Strategy & Tactics
by Scott
(A'Kula) Schimmels
(continued)
Playing Cooperatively:
Flying unshielded TIE's demands teamwork if you want to survive.
Playing as a cooperative group is a difficult thing to adjust to for players who have played the two previous X-Wing games. Let's face it, the AI didn't do a very good job of portraying a competent wingman in the previous two games. You usually ended up having to do everything yourself. Even in XvT, you can't entrust many tasks to your computer controlled wingman.
With multiplayer, the situation has completely changed. You now have the potential of having a wingman as good or better than you. Unfortunately, there still exists the urge to fly off and do everything yourself. To quote Obiwan Kenobi, "Bury these feelings deep down Luke. They serve you well, but they could be made to serve the Emperor." You are gonna have to get rid of these instincts if you wannna play effectively as a group.
The first rule of playing cooperatively is to stay close together. Remember that in general group on group situations, you should concentrate all of your firepower on one individual of the enemy, overwhelming that individual and making the opposing group's firepower less. Meanwhile, you may take some damage, but your firepower will remain the same while the enemy's decreases. Coincedentally, this concept also works in Warcraft II. Anyway, the way to stay close together is to put your wingman in a memory location so that when he calls for help, he is one push of a button away from being targeted. When engaging enemy fighters, put two players to an enemy fighter so that you can eliminate it quickly. When combat engagements end, the first thing you should do is find your wingman and get close to him.
Another part of playing cooperatively is communicating. Of course, nothing beats having everybody close together and communicating by speech, but most of the time you don't have access to such an arrangement. Usually when you want to communicate, it is because you need someone to help you get a fighter off your back. The most effective way to do this is to target the fighter with the E key and then use Shift-A. This will allow your wingman to target the fighter attacking you. If you've been keeping close, he will be able to distract the fighter before it can kill you. You can also use this technique to call your wingman's attention to other targets.
Other resources for communicating are the insult keys (F1-F4). These can be used for more constructive purposes by using them as custom communications hot keys for you and your wingman.
If you need to communicate about general strategy on a specific mission, it should be done before the mission starts in the chat room. Attempting to do a custom message is too slow to be effective in combat.
That's it. This is the sum total of my knowledge after having played XvT and BoP. I don't claim the information is 100% correct, but these are lessons I've learned after playing X-Wing and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter for the last 3+ years now. I'm sure there are others who have differing views. My only thought was to provide what information, tactics and strategy that works for me, and present it in a logical format. If it helps, then I've done my job as Tactical Officer. If not, well, I wish you Good Luck and Good Hunting anyway!
(Scott (A'Kula) Schimmels is a mild, meek-mannered engineer in real life. As Kalidor Squadron's Tactical Officer, he enjoys vaping Imperials and rogue Rebels with impunity. He's currently drooling over the new X-Wing Alliance screenshots and impatiently waiting for its release.)
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