Find out the bonus goals for any mission by taking a veteran pilot into
the combat chamber, playing the mission, and pressing the 'G' key. (Not that
you can't find a hundred lists of them on the internet.)
If an enemy Capital Ship has lost its shields and you are armed with an ion cannon,
don't hesitate to disable it. That way, It can't fire back or escape into hyperspace,
allowing you to destroy it at your leisure.
Fighting Capital Ships in a starfighter can be dangerous and/or time consuming.
Why not let two enemy Capital Ships take each other out? Hit one ship to provoke
it. When it starts firing at you, fly towards the other capital ship, positioning
yourself so that one ship is directly in front and the other is directly in back.
The one in back will accidentally hit the one in front, which will then attack the
one in back. They will continue to attack each other until one is destroyed and
the other is weakened.
While dogfighting can be fun and stress relieving, like fighting Capital Ships,
it can be time consuming or dangerous (like when you are flying an unshielded TIE
Fighter and have managed to tick off six concussion missile-armed A-Wings.) Although
you can't use the exact same tactic as above, you can get a Capital Ship ticked off
at them. Use the same idea as above, but fly towards the Capital Ship with the enemies
following you. The Capital Ship will make short work of the fighters. Also, don't
forget about the 'Shift-C' command. It tells your wingmen to attack whoever is
attacking you.
When a new enemy flight group appears in tight formation, you should do one of
two things. If you are very close, stay on their tails until they break up, firing
lasers or warheads into the group. You can usually destroy one or two before they
break up formation. If you are farther away, always offer them a head-to-head attack
starting from at least 2.5 km away. Start firing with your lasers set to single fire.
Both you and their own rear wingman will hit the front ships. This works even better
when the enemy is armed with warheads. If, for some reason, they don't accept a head-
to-head attack, then be sure to target a ship other than number one, since your allies
will always target ships in numerical order.
When fighting squadrons in which every time a flight group is destroyed, a new one
appears, destroy all but one ship in a particular flight group, then disable the
remaining ship. No more ships from that squadron will appear until the last ship has been
destroyed, leaving you free to deal with other problems or recharge your shields
unharassed.
When reloading, after you get the 'docking operation begun' message, go to full
throttle. You can continue to fight while being reloaded. Even rebel
pilots can hit a stationary target. Also, the docking operation will not end until
you have been completely reloaded. Hence, if you never let your warhead supply reach full
capacity, you have a virtually endless supply of projectiles. So go find some rebel scum
and fire torps, bombs or missiles into them until they are ex-rebel scum.
