EA’s Star Wars Squadrons Game Achievements and Early Mission Reveal !!

By Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun, in X-Wing

Posted at

Jeez, so the only Imperial craft in this game with a shield generator will be the Reaper, maybe? Yikes. That’s scary.

In the older games, any hit that you took with shields down typically took out a critical system (which would remain down while autorepairs worked on it; typically took 30 seconds to 2 minutes), which might include guns, steering, thrust control, ejection systems... and if it didn’t wreck a system, a shields-down blast would typically blow out some of your dashboard screens, making it impossible to verify targets, or tell how fast you were going, or how your power was allocated, stuff like that. If they follow that damage model, the Empire is in for a challenge.

For the record, I’m still most excited at the prospect of flying TIE Fighters and Interceptors.

I do wonder about the customizable loadouts; on one of the preview videos, I saw things like Ion Missile upgrades (dunno for which ship or which faction), so I’m wondering if TIEs can equip shields at higher levels?

Edited by Cpt ObVus
Posted at

In my informed but still personal opinion, that is informed from playing the X-wing games in VR (don't ask how):

  • Cockpit visibility is overrated: You have your sensor that tells you with a quick glance where is everything, including your current target. Sure looking around is cool, but it's not any big advantage. TIEs will have no disadvantage in this respect. Distractions are real. See 5 things moving around you and you will lose your focus.
  • HOTAS, and joysticks in general, are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overrated: Of all the controlling methods I have tried, including thumbsticks in gamepads, and even mouse+keyboard, the joystick is the least precise, and most cumbersome of them all. Joystick owners try to convince themselves otherwise, because they are cool and because it's what real-world fighters have. But for a game such as this, they are plainly an expensive toy. The fact that they have given a function to the throttle in this game to give you extra maneuverability when positioned in the sweetspot is just a gimmick to give that useless piece of hardware a use at all. Real pros control their speed with the power settings, anyway. (I expect incoming fire from joystick-heads. I don't care).
  • "Gaming laptop" is an oxymoron: A gaming computer needs 3 things - powerful GPU, good cooling, upgradeability. Laptops suck at all those three things. You may as well wish for a formula 1 car that has big trunk, it's easy to park, and consumes little gas.

Regarding the shields on TIEs, they will probably make them just sturdier. But they could have also gone the path of making them jus having tighter hitboxes, while Rebels have shield but bigger hitboxes.

Posted at
9 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Eh. I tried playing Elite on a game pad and found it impossible and disappointing. I very much wanted to like it, I just felt like I was hamstrung with the tiny little pad and complicated button layout.

Well, I've never played it on anything but and have had zero issues at all. Sure, there's a lot of commands to learn, but that's just as true for keyboard/flight stick users as it is for controllers.

9 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

...Never picked it up again after the first few hours.

..."if at first you don't succeed". Gotcha.

Posted at
15 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

An excellent piece of Imperial propaganda that no TIE rookie should believe.

The trick is to survive until they promote you to something with shields!

Posted at
7 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Well, I've never played it on anything but and have had zero issues at all. Sure, there's a lot of commands to learn, but that's just as true for keyboard/flight stick users as it is for controllers.

..."if at first you don't succeed". Gotcha.

Eh, I’ve played thousands of games at this point in my life. Unintuitive controls are nearly always an instant dealbreaker for me. It’s not any sort of petulant stubbornness on my part; I just almost never have any interest in steep learning curves on controls anymore, and games that don’t make sense to my hands, I typically never get the urge to play again.

Posted at
13 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I’ve played thousands of games at this point in my life. Unintuitive controls are nearly always an instant dealbreaker for me.

Which is why I am glad that this game will have very customizable controls according to the developer. Games that don't allow simple control mapping are annoying. Sometimes a simple button swap will make a game much more playable. Fallen Order had one of those simple swaps that after I did it made the game fun instead of frustrating.

Edited by 5050Saint
Posted at
3 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Eh, I’ve played thousands of games at this point in my life. Unintuitive controls are nearly always an instant dealbreaker for me. It’s not any sort of petulant stubbornness on my part; I just almost never have any interest in steep learning curves on controls anymore, and games that don’t make sense to my hands, I typically never get the urge to play again.

Well, if there's one thing Elite has got, it's a steep learning curve. 200+ hours in and I'm still learning new stuff.

Game has pretty much seen me through quarantine.

Posted at
20 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I do wonder about the customizable loadouts; on one of the preview videos, I saw things like Ion Missile upgrades (dunno for which ship or which faction), so I’m wondering if TIEs can equip shields at higher levels?

I reckon so, as player ships are the 'hero' ships so each one has unique upgrades, so you could possibles gain minimal shields but lose out on other choice upgrades

Posted at
11 minutes ago, EbonHawk said:

I reckon so, as player ships are the 'hero' ships so each one has unique upgrades, so you could possibles gain minimal shields but lose out on other choice upgrades

The developers actually said no; TIEs don't have shields and they don't have any way of getting them either. They also said there's no "leveling" in the game in the form of strict improvements. Any changes in loadout are strictly orthogonal.

Posted at
1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

The developers actually said no; TIEs don't have shields and they don't have any way of getting them either. They also said there's no "leveling" in the game in the form of strict improvements. Any changes in loadout are strictly orthogonal.

Didn't know that about shields, but considering we have upgrades such as ion cannon turret and SLAM there will be builds which offer improvements over others depending what upgrades people run

Posted at
On 6/18/2020 at 8:34 PM, Sithborg said:

Here are the 60 components they listed in the trailer. Go and speculate.

Laser Cannon


Rotary Cannon
Burst Cannon
Rapidfire Cannon
Plasburst Cannon
Autoaim Cannon
Guided Rotary Cannon
Guided Quad Cannon
Ion Cannon
Concussion Missile
Turret Mine
Seeker Mine
Quick Lock Missile
Goliath Missile
Rockets
Ion Missile
Ion Torpedo
Multilock Missile
Cluster Missile
Proton Torpedo
Proton Bomb
Ion Bomb
Automatic Ion Cannon
Beam Cannon
Baradium Torpedo
Repair Droid
Repair System
Tractor Beam
Assault Shield
Mimic Beacon
Tactical Shield
Targeting Jammer
Targeting Beacons
Supply Droid
Squadron Mask
Seeker Warheads
Chaff Particles
Sensor Jammer
Sensor Inverter
Ferroceramic Hull
Reinforced Hull
Light Hull
Lamnasteel Hull
Dampener Hull
Deflector Hull
Reflec Hull
Deflector Shield
Resonant Shield
Nimble Deflector
Fortified Deflector
Ray Shield
Scrambler Shield
Conversion Shield
Overloaded Shield
Sublight Engine
Propulsion Engine
Thrust Enging
Microthrust Engine
Ion Jet Engine
Slam Engine

These are the upgrades they listed in the trailer. Remains to be seen if that is all.

Posted at

There’s nothing I’ve yet heard about this game that hasn’t made me EVEN MORE excited to play it.

I don’t care if I have to use an old Colecovision paddle. This is going to at very least be a lot of fun.

Posted at
2 hours ago, IceManHG said:

This info is over a week old.

Cool. The article was from today.

Posted at

Well, my computer (which has been limping along for years) is really starting to die. It takes me about 20 minutes from pushing the power button to load into a TTS room for a game of X-Wing now. I’m thinking I may actually get a new computer, and that might just end up being my primary Squadrons rig.

Trouble is, I haven’t had any idea what I’m doing with computers since DOS (an old pre-Windows operating system) stopped being a thing. And so every five to ten years I go out and drop $1000-1500 on a new computer that doesn’t run as well as I think it should to start, and is totally obsolete in six months.

Friends try to tell me what to get, and I hear things like, “AMD 7 3700X,” and “2070 ti,” and like, I don’t even know what these parts are (and yes, I know the first one seems to be a processor, and the second is a partial name for a graphics card, maybe? It doesn’t literally matter, I’m just making a point). I watched a “How to build a gaming computer in 2020” video on YouTube, and was lost before the YouTuber was done describing the very first component (so like, 45 seconds in).

This is why consoles make me happy; I spend $400, pay another $50 to download the games and click play, and they just work. As they should.

But I need a new computer, so I may as well get a good one. Can anyone recommend a place to start for someone who really doesn’t do well with this sort of thing? I mean, I can talk about SW-7 Ion Cannons installed on a CR-90B, and can tell you what SFS Ls-9.3 lasers are, but the phrase “NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070” makes me dizzy and anxious.

Posted at
6 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Well, my computer (which has been limping along for years) is really starting to die. It takes me about 20 minutes from pushing the power button to load into a TTS room for a game of X-Wing now. I’m thinking I may actually get a new computer, and that might just end up being my primary Squadrons rig.

Trouble is, I haven’t had any idea what I’m doing with computers since DOS (an old pre-Windows operating system) stopped being a thing. And so every five to ten years I go out and drop $1000-1500 on a new computer that doesn’t run as well as I think it should to start, and is totally obsolete in six months.

Friends try to tell me what to get, and I hear things like, “AMD 7 3700X,” and “2070 ti,” and like, I don’t even know what these parts are (and yes, I know the first one seems to be a processor, and the second is a partial name for a graphics card, maybe? It doesn’t literally matter, I’m just making a point). I watched a “How to build a gaming computer in 2020” video on YouTube, and was lost before the YouTuber was done describing the very first component (so like, 45 seconds in).

This is why consoles make me happy; I spend $400, pay another $50 to download the games and click play, and they just work. As they should.

But I need a new computer, so I may as well get a good one. Can anyone recommend a place to start for someone who really doesn’t do well with this sort of thing? I mean, I can talk about SW-7 Ion Cannons installed on a CR-90B, and can tell you what SFS Ls-9.3 lasers are, but the phrase “NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070” makes me dizzy and anxious.

You can build a really competent PC for around $1000 nowadays. By competent I mean new AAA titles playing at well over 100 Frames Per Second (FPS) with max graphical settings at 1080p resolution. But yes the whole thing can be intimidating but in reality there isn't that many components to a PC - Motherboard, Processor, Video Card (GPU), RAM, Power Supply, Hard Drive, Case, and accessories like CPU Coolers or more fans (usually not needed unless you want to get crazy overclocking). For gaming its always best to spend more on the GPU than other components, but there is a balance there.

If you haven't already go to https://pcpartpicker.com/

They have a bunch of build guides to help figure out what you might want to purchase to meet your needs. They even give you prices and tell you what Wattage your components will run at to make sure your Power Supply is adequate to power all of your components. The biggest thing to note, is that companies tier their products. Low, Mid, High. So the AMD processors are - Ryzen 3 (low) Ryzen 5 (low-mid) Ryzen 7 (Mid) Ryzen 9 (High). Naturally the more you spend the more performance you get. Same with the GPU you mention. The NVIDIA (company) GeForce (Brand) RTX (Ray Tracing, fancy rendering technique for light, makes a game look more natural), 2070 is the version which is their mid-tier card. They have 2060, 2070, & 2080. Also, there are other companies (Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, etc.) that make each tier of video card, but bottom-line I would look at reviews and videos on each. I personally have an RTX 2060 KO Ultra by EVGA and it can take whatever game I can throw at it at max settings at 1080P.

While I do recommend building a PC, there are prebuilts that can come close to what you can buy if you bought all the components separately. The main problem with a prebuilt is sometimes they come with bloatware (unneeded software) and they always skimp somewhere to make the money. Either a very generic power supply or a basic motherboard that may choke the system when you try and upgrade. There usually is some sacrifice with the "cheaper" end of the prebuilt gaming PC's.

But keep watching YouTube videos. While a bunch of channels throw a bunch of techno babble at you, the more you research the more you will actually know what they are talking about.

Posted at
2 hours ago, Jo Jo said:

You can build a really competent PC for around $1000 nowadays. By competent I mean new AAA titles playing at well over 100 Frames Per Second (FPS) with max graphical settings at 1080p resolution. But yes the whole thing can be intimidating but in reality there isn't that many components to a PC - Motherboard, Processor, Video Card (GPU), RAM, Power Supply, Hard Drive, Case, and accessories like CPU Coolers or more fans (usually not needed unless you want to get crazy overclocking). For gaming its always best to spend more on the GPU than other components, but there is a balance there.

If you haven't already go to https://pcpartpicker.com/

They have a bunch of build guides to help figure out what you might want to purchase to meet your needs. They even give you prices and tell you what Wattage your components will run at to make sure your Power Supply is adequate to power all of your components. The biggest thing to note, is that companies tier their products. Low, Mid, High. So the AMD processors are - Ryzen 3 (low) Ryzen 5 (low-mid) Ryzen 7 (Mid) Ryzen 9 (High). Naturally the more you spend the more performance you get. Same with the GPU you mention. The NVIDIA (company) GeForce (Brand) RTX (Ray Tracing, fancy rendering technique for light, makes a game look more natural), 2070 is the version which is their mid-tier card. They have 2060, 2070, & 2080. Also, there are other companies (Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, etc.) that make each tier of video card, but bottom-line I would look at reviews and videos on each. I personally have an RTX 2060 KO Ultra by EVGA and it can take whatever game I can throw at it at max settings at 1080P.

While I do recommend building a PC, there are prebuilts that can come close to what you can buy if you bought all the components separately. The main problem with a prebuilt is sometimes they come with bloatware (unneeded software) and they always skimp somewhere to make the money. Either a very generic power supply or a basic motherboard that may choke the system when you try and upgrade. There usually is some sacrifice with the "cheaper" end of the prebuilt gaming PC's.

But keep watching YouTube videos. While a bunch of channels throw a bunch of techno babble at you, the more you research the more you will actually know what they are talking about.

This is exactly the sort of info I need. Thanks for breaking that down a bit!

Posted at
On 6/26/2020 at 3:30 AM, Azrapse said:

In my informed but still personal opinion, that is informed from playing the X-wing games in VR (don't ask how):

Nope, I'm asking how! :D

Quote
  • Of all the controlling methods I have tried, including thumbsticks in gamepads, and even mouse+keyboard, the joystick is the least precise ..... because it's what real-world fighters have.

Hmmmmm. Maybe real world fighters should switch to gamepads! ;)

In reality gamepads are so horribly *imprecise* that game developers need to add heavy assistance and auto-aim to make them remotely playable. Do not confuse this with the input device being precise itself... joysticks are *far* more precise than gamepads (simple physics on that one... longer lever and all).

Mouse is another story... it's quite precise but it's not really appropriate for 1:1 flying where you're looking for relative rather than absolute motion. Games like Battlefront 2 also make concessions to mice by adding some amount of gimbaling on weapons to make it playable as well. If you mapped your mouse axis 1:1 to relative pitch/yaw/roll it would similarly be unplayable.

Where the developers land in terms of how much assistance to apply to the different methods is yet to be determined, but it seems clear they are gonna hit further towards "sim" than Battlefront 2 did. Obviously gamepad is going to be the primary target since it is the mass market, but it's certainly not impossible to have both gamepads and joysticks competitively viable.

If you're not interested in a HOTAS though just use a gamepad and don't worry about it.

Edited by punkUser
Posted at
4 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

This is exactly the sort of info I need. Thanks for breaking that down a bit!

No problem. Once thing I did forget to mention is that new generations of processors (AMD 4th Gen) and GPUs (NVIDIA RTX 3000 series) should be out this year. So it might be best to wait to either look at getting the latest stuff or what usually happens is the last gen stuff goes on sale.

Shoot me a message if you have any other questions.

Edited by Jo Jo
Posted at
2 hours ago, punkUser said:
If you're not interested in a HOTAS though just use a gamepad and don't worry about it.

Wtf is a HOTAS?

Posted at
1 hour ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Wtf is a HOTAS?

Heroes of the Aturi Sector? 😂

Posted at
17 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Wtf is a HOTAS?

Hands on throttle and stick. It is a type of control for modern fighter aircraft and for their virtual brethren. See: https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/space.html