This section will cover everything not mentioned in the previous notes, tips and hints from other fellow pilots, as well as some general strategies and words of advice.

Ion Cannons

As mentioned before, ion cannons are perhaps the most useful and potent weapon a pilot has at his disposal, yet many, veterans included, fail to utilize these cannons to their full potential. One of the most effective uses of ion cannons is disablement. Many a time, missions and primary goals are failed because the enemy simply sends in swarms of fighters. Primarily in defensive missions, just enough fighters slip through to cause severe damage to the ships you may be protecting for primary or secondary goals. Obviously, in these situations, it's to your advantage to slow the action down. How? Ion cannons. If the enemy craft are coming in waves, or are keyed to another's destruction, differ your strategy a bit. Instead of destroying all fighters in the flight group, kill all but one or two, and disable those both. This will prevent further waves of these fighters from coming in, and allow you to concentrate your time and efforts on any other craft that may be causing problems. When you're ready to deal with the flight group you've disabled, destroy the disabled craft, and tackle the new guys. This strategy is primarily effective in defensive missions, though in missions when you're assigned to destroy a capital ship that's heavily defended by fighter craft, it's useful to disable those so you can concentrate on your primary mission.

Veteran's Corner

Some TIE Corps veterans and previous graduates of this course have opted to share some bits of TIE Fighter wisdom with you...enjoy.

• You are docked points for every time you pull the trigger, but you receive points every time you hit, so accuracy gets you a higher score.
• Certain ships are worth more points than others. Go out of your way to kill the higher valued ones first, and yourself. Don't assign your wingmen to kill them.
• Mooch kills. If you see a capital ship, or some other high-value target when it is heavily damaged (less than 5% hull remaining), don't hesitate to finish it off yourself.
• Don't get shot down. Every time you get shot down and go ahead to the next mission, you lose 5000 points.
• Don't call for reinforcements unless you absolutely have to; doing so costs you 5,000 points.

FM/LC Tiberius

A pilot should always try to do as many things as possible. That means - shoot/inspect/disable as many enemy craft as possible. And it also means - to stick around as long as possible as you'll have more chance of finishing secondary and secret mission objectives (which brings more points).
Also, I would suggest that a pilot tries flying a mission several times. If he uses his observation faculties, he should be able to improve each time he reflies the mission. And from that point on, it is only a matter of willpower.

ex-FM/COL Dread, one-time Baron.

One thing I've discovered is that having a tractor beam fitted to your fighter (or the jamming beam) is great. This is because you can divert all its power to the engines and get a massive boost in speed. I play TIE CD, and by dumping the tractor power into the engines I can increase gun charge and still rip around at over 130 (in a T/A or higher). It makes cap ships have one hell of a time targeting you.

CM Krax Tarnisar

• Ion cannons can destroy weapon emplacements.
• 'Tis easier to destroy weapon emplacements in DOS versions of TIE; don't ask me about Mac.
• Priority targets when engaging CRS/CRL should be the warhead launchers mounted on each side of the ship (that is if it has warheads...)
• Reducing a ship's systems to 12, 25, or 33 percent can cause it to come to a halt without being disabled. Useful for keeping enemy strike fleets and stuff from hypering in when you don't want them to.
• Smashing into a ship and destroying it counts as a kill, meaning fewer lasers you have to fire.
• Players should either choose between adv. concussion missiles or heavy rockets; other missile types are just not as efficient. Adv. torpedoes may be useful in a few situations (i.e. you have to disable a large amount of ATRs for some reason).
• Capturing ships provides 5x the points given by their destruction.

CPT Calvin Nunb

I think you'll find torps and advanced torps useful. They come into their own when taking on a fleet attacking your mothership or another caps ship that you have to defend, torps are better for taking out the slower heavy bombers quickly, they pack a greater punch and still home so it's fire and forget. I think it's 2 A-torps take out 1 B-wing as against 4 A-missiles you get the same no. of torps as A-missiles, so you do the maths and see which is better

CM Jon Doyle

Switching between lasers and ion cannons makes the rate of fire a whole lot higher. When you are flying long missions with lots of capital ships, it can speed things up. You just hold down the weapons button. However, this is only effective when you have used all your missiles.

LT Kalklash Fendar

Take bombs if you want to bomb in a TF. They carry two bombs or two rockets, so take the bombs simply for the blast rating and be careful to hit something. Most effective against a CRS or something.

MAJ Brucmack

In many cases we are asked to take out an enemy platform. When in such a situation it is best to come at the platform from the bottom, where most of its guns' firing arcs cannot reach you. This tactic is most useful in attacking a platform of the 1 or 4 class. Both of these platforms have only 1 turbolaser on the underside. If a pilot can manage to take out this lone gun (and if there are no other threats in the area) he can simply come to a stop on the underside of the platform and pelt it with lasers until it is destroyed. This tactic can also work to a varying degree against platforms of the 2,3,5, and 6 classes. All of these have three turbolasers stationed to guard their otherwise vulnerable underside. But it is still a small amount compared to the amount of firepower located on the top side of these stations. In any case, coming at a platform in ANY craft from its top side is suicide and should be avoided at all costs if you want to get home in one piece.

LT Andrew Strindar

Course written by LC Tiberius, with modifications and expansion by LC Ford Prefect. Thanks to all who have offered their help, assistance, and advice with this course!