So, I have played a bit, I got to tier 8 and am working towards the Ricasso currently. I also made an alternate account because of wifi issues. On said new account, I leveled insanely quickly compared to my main account. I got to tier 6 within 4 hours, which I am pretty proud of, but since I improved my gameplay so much, I thought I might give some tips for newcomers.
- Forget everything you think you know about shooters. Star Conflict is fairly unique in that it has fully 3-dimensional gameplay; FPS experience is almost worthless, although games like Warthunder and Star Wars Battlefront have similar enough gameplay.
- Figure out what works for you. Almost every ship is useful in many situations, although roles like Tackler and Guard are somewhat specialized in what they do. Certain roles are harder than others, but they are all fairly well balanced, so all are valid. Try all of them, see which ones work for you.
- Practice. You need to practice several things: 3 dimensional movement, shooting while moving, close quarters combat (preferably in a frigate), knowing what to use at a given time, and how to best utilize your primary ability.
- Interceptor tips
- Interceptor is probably the ship type that requires the most practice, so practice everything.
- Interceptors are not designed to slug it out. Even in an interceptor vs interceptor matchup, you need to stay moving all the time. Avoid enemy fire instead of taking it on your shields.
- If playing in a group or in a team battle, interceptors should be the first ones in and the first ones out. If you die, your team loses not only a player, but quite a bit of utility.
- Close combat is very important. To be able to take out frigates in a 1v1, you need to use encircling tactics (circle around the frigate so that you are behind it and on its bottom). Always be ready to rotate or do a flip against an enemy that can possibly outmaneuver you.
- Always keep your enemy in sight, but out of their sight. Especially against other interceptors, you must always be the one behind or below your opponent to ensure victory. Similar to tailing an enemy in Warthunder.
- Covert ops: Not very good in a 1v1. However, against destroyers and frigates, you have a clear advantage, because if you have the plasma web module and tactical nuke, you can shred them into swiss cheese.
- Recon: Never stop moving. Hit and run attacks only. Your job is to spot enemy ships and provide intel to your teammates.
- ECM: Draw enemy fire and stun them so that other ships can finish them off. I will try to play these more in the future because I don’t have much experience with them.
- Energy regeneration is key in interceptors, because your modules are that much more important and you will be constantly boosting.
- Frigate tips
- Keep your distance. Against interceptors you must always keep them in front of you to make sure they cannot encircle you.
- Frigates are definitely designed to slug it out. You are a flying fortress of doom. Act like it.
- LRF: Stay around 6000 meters away from the bulk of enemies. Do take a couple seconds to check your surroundings between shots to check for cheeky recons or tacklers.
- Engineering: Your strength is in team support. Always stay with a buddy because literally anything can outmaneuver and destroy you. Use your buffs to help out your teammates, make sure they are healed up and ready to fight.
- Guard: You are a tank. You don’t need to move around much, but always stay near your allies to protect them. That is your job.
- Invest in better shielding and speed. Energy regen is important, but much less important in frigates.
- Fighter tips
- Very versatile, very powerful in 1v1s. Don’t attack the bulk of the enemy though.
- Make use of both your damage potential and your pretty decent health pool.
- Very powerful in medium range combat, but long range you will get sniped by frigates and close up you will get destroyed by interceptors. Keep your distance, but not too much.
- Gunships: High firepower. Self-explanatory.
- Tacklers: Use for taking out interceptors or frigates. Your invisibility will let you sneak up on an interceptor, and your debuffs will help when killing a frigate. Use your sentry if you are anticipating a 1v1, save it if there is a team fight. Your debuffs will keep interceptors from running away, so use them liberally.
- Command: Use similarly to guard frigates. Stay at the frontline, although be a bit more reserved than a guard would be, because you need to keep buffing your team. Avoid using Gauss cannons because they will severely limit your frontline capabilities against other fighters and interceptors.
- Definitely invest in shield regeneration. Power regeneration is somewhat important, but it goes second to shield regen.
- Economy Tips
- Save your credits. You need ridiculous amounts for ships starting at tier 7, so make sure you always have a stockpile.
- Don’t bother using your materials on anything until you are ready to start the manufacturing life. NEVER EVER SELL ANY MATERIALS. Especially ship parts you get from leveling up factions.
- Take every chance you get to get more resources. If you get an offer to get a package of materials, get it. Being a hoarder is a good thing in this game.
- Please, please don’t get the Palome. You need to save those materials for better ships. It’s not even that good from what I hear
- Open Space:
- Open space is not extremely useful for beginners, but it is very useful later on in the game or even when trying to build a stockpile of credits
- Start at Ellydium base. Its missions start out by giving you 250,000 credits, which is a large amount considering they are not too difficult.
- Use a fighter if you can. Frigates and destroyers are pretty useless in open space, purely because they are too slow, and interceptors have only 3 cargo slots and very little survivability.
- Don’t challenge alien ships. They will destroy you easily at the early levels, and even at my level some will kill me very quickly.
- Don’t challenge any enemies for that matter. They don’t drop much, and they will often take away half your health bar if you even manage to kill them.
- If looking to get synergy, do all of the daily faction missions for open space. They do take some time, but they give pretty good rewards.
- Certain activities are good for certain things.
- Open space is good for getting high amounts of credits without endless grinding
- Co-op is good for farming materials and some credits, although the synergy gains are pretty slow
- PvP is good for improving your general game sense as well as getting synergy
- PvE is pretty good credits and synergy, although it is less efficient than grinding Co-op
- Special operations is kind of boring in my opinion, although it is good for getting iridium if you need it for some reason
- Probably the most important tip: Don’t give up. If you are going to dedicate time and effort to this game, you can’t let losses discourage you, because as you gain experience, you will move up the food chain and eventually you will be the one crushing those Aces that you used to be one of. When you lose, never, ever blame your team, because most of the time the people that do that are the weakest link in the chain, and you know what they say. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It’s fine to be the weakest link, but don’t be salty about it.
- Second most important tip: Community. Be nice to people. This may sound a bit clichéd, but it is a necessity. There may be toxic tryhards out there, however, most of the Star Conflict community is nice. Make some friends. Join a corporation. If you are feeling left out, you are probably doing something wrong. Good friends will help you out if you need a boost, and you should help them out when they need a boost. Same goes for members of a corporation. You are part of a community. Act like it.