Today I wanted to muck about with some ships after I had reorganized everything and made sure all ships were kitted out.

I started thinking about DagobahDave's racing track and the old PC game's training, remember that one?

So I set myself a challenge; I tossed some asteroids willy nilly on the field and made some gates with tokens. Behind each gate, at different spots and angles I placed a single target token. The job? Go through each gate, hit each target and race to the finish.

I'll do it again tomorrow to time myself, and to use different ships. Today I made it easy on myself and gave me Tycho, Daredevil and PtL and it still required some tricky flying.

It's great fun, it doesn't require you to fudge about pretending to set the dial for one group without knowing where the other group is going, and I think you could even play it with multiple people in between a tournament, it takes a few minutes per person so whoever is sitting around doing nothing can have a go using a ship out of their list.

Targets are destroyed with a single hit, a destroyed target takes 5 seconds of your time. Hitting a gate adds 10 seconds.

To the races!

Pretty cool.

What I like to do for practice is setting "my" side first and then playing the other with perfect knowledge. It isn't realistic, but it helps you find the least punishing way to fly any situation.

Neat idea. Reminded me of the Hoth Asteroid Field mission that I never got to try.

http://tools.fantasyflightgames.com/xwing/htmlpreview/273/

I like it. Definitely doing this. Now I can get some use out of these mission tokens.

Another really good way to practice by yourself is to work on your maneuver visualization. Throw some rocks on the board, put a ship down, pick a maneuver, and don't execute it yet . Take another empty base and put it down on the board where you think your maneuver is going to land you. Then, put down your maneuver template, see how close you were to being right, and do your maneuver. This really helps correct problems like "I always mis-judge bank maneuvers" or "I always forget just how crazy long a 3-speed hard turn is for a large ship." When you can get it close to right most of the time for simple maneuvers, try to do it with re-positioning actions. E.g. say, "I'm going to do a 2-hard left, then boost right, then barrel roll right and forward. Where do I end up?"

Pretty cool.

What I like to do for practice is setting "my" side first and then playing the other with perfect knowledge. It isn't realistic, but it helps you find the least punishing way to fly any situation.

This is how I prepare. In addition to what Admiral Deathrain said, it gives you good experience flying the opposing list as well. I found that when I played against similar lists that I'd practiced a good deal against, I could intuitively see option tree for my opponent's movement. It really helped.

When I started playing this game I did something similar. Set up an obstacle course with rock and ships of varying sizes. The goal to make three laps and not bump another ship and to not fly over or land on rocks. I set up 'bonuses' that if you landed on these tokens it was worth extra points.

It really helps to develop those spacial relation skills early on in your X-Wing Career. Which we all need and need to keep sharp!

Just tried it. Works. Like a charm. Aftermath - hit 4 asteroids. Out of 12. Will try again - with slower ship.

Pretty cool.

What I like to do for practice is setting "my" side first and then playing the other with perfect knowledge. It isn't realistic, but it helps you find the least punishing way to fly any situation.

I do that as well, just played a game of Vader/Fel/Omicron Palpatine vs Wedge BB8 VI, Poe, Wired, R5P9, Autothrusters and Tycho, Ptl, Expert Handling, Autothrusters

Tycho hunted the shuttle, got hunted by Vader (with help from a cackli g Emperor) and died without leaving a scratch. The Barrel Rolls and breaking of target locks were frustrating for the Advanced though. If you expect advanced targeting computers, bring expert handling.

Wedge kept Fel on the run for most of the game, even getting him stuck on an asteroid but Emperor Willing, no damage from that. Eventually Wedge damaged him for two hits, but then Fel ran away after hurting Poe, leaving the latter to be finished of by the dark lord himself.

Wedge managed to drop Vader to one hitpoint before bowing to the might of the Empire.

I could've flown Tycho a bit better and more aggressively, that might've made a difference. Barrel rolling Wedge at PPs11 is dreamy. Wired wasn't useful once, but then it is an insurance.

Second game and Rebels won with sustaining only one crit and one damage. Same lists, wired came in useful a few times combined with the talon roll (I set the dials according to PS as well,so no thinking if Fel goes there Poe'll go here).

Autothrusters, in this setup, I couldn't keep the distance or there were other targets. But again, insurance against a type of lists.

You'll get hairy palms!

You'll get hairy palms!

If that were the case, ladyshaves would be marketed to men and standard equipment in every bedroom in the world.

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AWESOME Sauce Brah!

Had another fun solo game, (my wife being at an Editors concert tonight giving me extra muckabout time). Vader, outmaneuver, eu, atc. Howlrunner and Whisper decked out versus Wedge, VI, BB8, Tycho, EH, PTl and Horton with R2, ion cannon and EU.

Took some time to take out Whisper, by Tycho barrel rolled just in time to keep everyone out of Whisper's arc allowing Horton to ion, after which it was game over.

Can someone explain in a bit more detail how you facilitate solo play? I don't get to play very often so it would be fun to get the extra practice in. Do you just play both sides to the best of your ability?

That's one option,and that's harder than you think. It does teach you about different lists.

Another way is setting up some sort of a race track and run that with a single ship. When doing that I time myself, forcing me to have a good spatial awareness. It also speeds up your playing, which is never bad.

You can also have a track and try to keep several ships in formation without bumping.

You can throw tokens on the table and challenge yourself to get to that token in x turns.

Today I had Wedge close to an asteroid with bb8, revealed a one bank to barrel roll back and pass the asteroid on the other side. That felt really cool and it was unexpected. When playing a solo match I set the dials for the lowest PS first, so you can't set the dials for an academy pilots knowing where Han is going to be, for instance.

Tossed 14 asteroids on the field last night, took out Soontir vs Wedge, BB8, VI for a couple of match ups. Fun going.

Hardmode - replace asteroids with prox mines and use a large-base ship.

Special Olympics - randomly spawn and rotate eight IGs. Are you man enough to sloop them all without flying off the board or blowing up?

I do something like this at least twice a week! I set up 9-12 asteroids of varying sizes across the board and place mission tokens at specific locations in between the asteroids with some tokens placed millimeters away from the asteroids.

Some tokens require the base of the ship to overlap to take them off the board and some can only be removed by shooting them and getting a single hit.

It's a great way to practice spatial awareness and setting up firing arcs.

... right, this will be my plans for days I can't get a game at my FLGS. Go anyway and set up racetracks with loads of terrain!

... HoShit. Set up a minitourney/game night with a bunch of these tables/racetracks. Single ship lists, figure out point limits, variants for small and large base ships, side goals n bonuses... make it like race day in orbit!

Hi all,

I would be interested by solo training as well.

But, I found that setting a game with 2 squadrons (I did it yesterday) where you play both sides can be a bit lengthy and tiresome.

Is there any AI script somewhere, which you could apply easily on a few rebet "bot" ships ?

I am thinking of a list of basic rules just so that ships don't fly randomly and shoot you basically (possibly focusing on 1 target), but you don't need to think twice (once for each side). And also to keep it fun within a 1h00 play time.

I tried the squad benchmark combat trainer and I suppose it works ok for flying tactics, but I am not sure your accuracy and map reading really improves with this practice.

Thanks.

A.

I used the squad benchmark trainer recently and for some reason the A-wing title doesn't work as the second EPT doesn't work, which is a shame as it can be quite good for a practice or getting the squad synergies going

I used the squad benchmark trainer recently and for some reason the A-wing title doesn't work as the second EPT doesn't work, which is a shame as it can be quite good for a practice or getting the squad synergies going

Glad it's not just me then