How Do You Play This Game?

[Siah Topher]

Never played this before. I'm using an Xbox 360 controller and I keep running out of ammo around the third enemy in the tutorial mission? What am I doing wrong?

[avatar.zero]

You have to increase your laser recharge rate. Ships enter missions with lasers (F9) and shields (F10) set to "Maintenance", which is just enough power to keep them from draining when not used, but not enough to recharge after use. You have to set them to one of the higher levels to allow them to regain energy. There are also controls for diverting stored energy between shields and lasers, but I don't remember which ones they are offhand.

Keep in mind that increasing either shields or lasers will also decrease engine power, so you'll be slower and more sluggish.

[Justin]

I think I'm showing my age when I say I played this series on DOS (obviously not XvT but...) As a result I do not know the Xbox controls.

Okay, so the big circles on the top right and top left are your radar. Targets that are directly in front of you appear in the middle of the left circle, and targets directly behind you appear in the right one. I think targets get brighter the closer they are.

Green = Rebel Scum
Red = Imperial Master Race
Purple/Blue = Neutral
Yellow = BEWBEW INCOMING MISSILE

Pressing F9 and F10, as they mentioned, will let you switch power between three systems - shields (green), engines (blue), and weapons (red). By default, all power systems are set to "maintain" - that is, you don't bleed off any shield or weapon energy, but you don't gain it either. Pressing F9 and F10 once at mission start is generally a good idea, because that'll make it so your shields and laser systems recharge over time.

Pressing ' will help in an emergency to divert laser power to shields, and ; does the opposite. Mashing the ' button a few times after being shot is generally a good idea.

I think that's just about everything they don't cover in the tutorials...

Oh, my most commonly used controls aside from F9 and F10

T = cycle through all targets
Y = cycle backwards through all targets
W = switch weapons
B = fire beam weapon (unsure what it does, admittedly; need to replay TIE Fighter again to be sure)
C = Fire countermeasures (chaff = makes your rear immune to missile hits, flare = shoots a missile out your butt that can lock onto a pursuer behind you; will lock onto enemy missiles first)
R = target nearest enemy
S = divert shield power (double front, double rear, or balanced)

[Mojavi Viper]

I haven't played this game in ages but I might buy it (again). Anyways I think it should be noted that this game was a "sim" if I remember correctly, meaning print out a cheat sheet for the keyboard because there are a lot of buttons. Although a xbox 360 controller might be fun I remember playing this with a joystick, and would probably recommend the same.

[Justin]

It's a sim to an extent. Some things are counter-intuitive, and buttons that require more than one press aren't often used (exception: wingman control, which is IIRC Shift-A to attack my target, Shift-I to ignore, Shift-B to board me, and that's all I remember). There are a lot of controls, but I personally only end up using less than half of them.

[avatar.zero]

Originally posted by Justin:

B = fire beam weapon (unsure what it does, admittedly; need to replay TIE Fighter again to be sure)

Beam Weapon is things like tractor beams, ECM, and... well, those are the only two kinds of beam weapons I can remember right now. Only a small number of craft have beam weapon capabilities installed. One notable craft (IIRC) is the TIE Advanced/x1 (I might actually be thinking of the Interceptor in this case), which is a pretty fast TIE with shields and beam weapon. Slapping a tractor beam on that thing makes it an incredibly deadly craft by holding a target in place while you pound away at it.

[Justin]

Originally posted by avatar.zero:

Originally posted by Justin:

B = fire beam weapon (unsure what it does, admittedly; need to replay TIE Fighter again to be sure)

Beam Weapon is things like tractor beams, ECM, and... well, those are the only two kinds of beam weapons I can remember right now. Only a small number of craft have beam weapon capabilities installed. One notable craft (IIRC) is the TIE Advanced/x1 (I might actually be thinking of the Interceptor in this case), which is a pretty fast TIE with shields and beam weapon. Slapping a tractor beam on that thing makes it an incredibly deadly craft by holding a target in place while you pound away at it.

What about the different beam modes? One was "Decoy", one was "Jamming", and the other was "Tractor" IIRC

[avatar.zero]

Originally posted by Justin:

Originally posted by avatar.zero:

What about the different beam modes? One was "Decoy", one was "Jamming", and the other was "Tractor" IIRC

You choose your beam weapon type during craft selection, just like choosing what kind of warheads you want to carry. "Jamming" scrambles a target's weapon systems so that they can't fire (I now remember that Star Destroyers use this kind of beam near their hangars and power dome), "Decoy" confuses a target's sensor systems (this is what I was thinking of when I said "ECM"), and "Tractor" holds a target in place.