Strike Action! A discussion on the movement and usage of the TIE Striker

I love the TIE Striker.

There, I said it.

I don’t care that it’s only got two green dice and four hull. I don’t even care that it’s got no target lock action.

I. Just. Love. It.

It’s just so manoeuvrable - being able to do that ‘pre-boost’ move gives so much arc-dodging and repositional potential to the high PS ships that it’s possible to go whole games without getting shot! Who needs three green dice if you never have to roll them!!!

There are other little tricks that make this ship great as well, things like being able to Aileron (yep, that’s a verb now) onto a debris, get a stress and then do a green move straight after to clear the stress… then do an action!!! As long as you don’t roll a crit, you have just gone over debris with no negative consequence! Same thing with an asteroid, it’s slightly more risky as you have a 50% chance of taking damage but still… pretty cool! The reason I don’t want to dwell on things like that too much is that, potentially, they will be FAQ’d to say that you lose your action if you go over an obstacle at any point during your activation. I can’t really see why they would do that, but it’s still possible.

Anyway, the purpose of this article is to show you what you can achieve and expect from, what is (in my opinion) one of the most exciting ships in the game.

Useful moves that are only possible with the Striker

I’ve often thought about how cool it would be to be able to move forward and to the side but not change direction. Essentially like doing a straight move and then barrel rolling but without having to spend an action! With Adaptive Ailerons, it’s possible to Aileron right, then bank left. Surprisingly, (to me anyway) if the bank is a three, this is the furthest a small ship can travel in the game! (without using a boost or barrel roll) It ends up being slightly further than a 5 straight.

Anyway, here's a picture.

Assuming you do a banking Aileron -

• The 1 bank move takes you just shy of a 4 forward and just under two base lengths to the side
• The 2 bank move takes you a 4.5 forward and just over two base lengths to the side
• The 3 bank move takes you about a 5.3 forward and about two and a half base lengths to the side

Getting back into the fight

These things can turn round quickly! Where every other ship (using non-red moves) can only turn 90 degrees (not taking into account the Defender) the Striker can make it 135 degrees by Aileroning (verbage) in one direction then hard turning the same direction.

Here’s the picture.

Both turn locations end 2.5 base lengths forward. The 1 turn lands you three base lengths to the side and the 2 turn lands you four base lengths to the side.

The pincer maneuver

This is so cool! If you Aileron one way, then turn the other way, you end up changing your angle by 45 degrees but essentially just moving forward - the furthest sideways you travel is about a base length.

Very good for barrel rolling and arc dodging!

Hunting down your target!

So, how can we use the Ailerons to help us with our offence?

Say you have managed to get behind a U-wing, there is a rock is front of it so you know it has to change direction, but which way will it go? And by how much?

In the following pictures, the Striker has a one forward dialled in, I’ve used the most likely moves that the U-wing would do, potentially it would try and escape with a longer bank, but that would just result in the Striker getting a, non-range-one shot.

Starting position

The U-wing does a 1 bank
 The Striker Ailerons forward, et voila, a range one a shot

The U-wing does a 1 bank
The Striker Ailerons right then rolls, a range one shot but with,
potentially, a better position for next turn

The U-wing does a 2 turn
The Striker Ailerons left for another a range one shot

The U-wing does a stop (or a 0 K-turn)
Most Strikers will bump BUT Duchess can choose
to not Aileron and still get a range one shot.

So, in conclusion, this U-wing, in this situation, is unlikely to escape unscathed!

Dodging arcs!

In this example, our dutiful TIE Striker is being jousted by an Arc. They start off facing each other at range three. If we dial in a 1 straight on our dial, let’s see what our Ailerons and Barrel rolls can do to get us out of the Arc’s arc! (Yea, I went there)

Starting position

The Arc does a 1 forward
The Striker Ailerons forward and then rolls forward. Arc dodged.

The Arc does a 1 bank
The Striker Ailerons forward. Arc dodged and a range one shot.

The Arc does a 2 bank
The Striker Ailerons right. Arc dodged.

The Arc does a 2 bank
***Duchess special***
The Striker choses not to Aileron. Arc dodged and a range one shot.

The Arc does a 2 turn
The Striker Ailerons left. Arc dodged and a range one shot

The Arc does a 2 forward
The Striker Ailerons left. Arc dodged.

The Arc does a 3 bank
The Striker Ailerons right and then rolls. Arc dodged.

The Arc does a 3 forward
The Striker Ailerons right. Arc dodged.

This Striker is not getting hit!

So, I know it’s not indestructible and actually, in test games, it’s damage output can be quite frustrating (my kingdom for a target lock) BUT I’m still very excited about this ship. I may have said this before but… I. Love. This. Ship!

I will just leave you with one final picture. This is all the final positions a Striker can end up (not including barrel rolls)... almost a rival to the K-wing and the mighty Echo, eh?

Red XIII's X-Wing Maneuver Guide Part 1

Picture the scene: you've barrel rolled and boosted Jake Farrell into a perfect range 1 Procket shot on that pesky shuttle (bye, bye Palp!) Fantastic! You win! Although... wait... through all that excitement you failed to notice the presence of a rather large rock that is now a bit too close for comfort and with Soontir looming into view you need all the actions (and remaining hull) possible to make your escape!

You could do a hard one left and most likely stay out of Soontir's arc BUT, will you end up on the rock?

Decisions like this make or break a match of X-Wing and to be able to confidently say "Hard one left! Out of arc!" will more often that not win you that engagement, if not the whole game.

*** Disclaimer ***

I'm pretty sure I can’t be the 1st person to put together something like this. However, I've tried throwing a few search terms into Google and never had much luck so for everyone else in my boat here it is:

Red XIII’s X-Wing Maneuver Guide

A special thanks goes out to Vassal (where I spent ages getting the screenshots). I couldn't have done it without you buddy!

Straights

Well, to be fair, if you are here, you probably already know your way around straights but here are a few screen shots anyway.

Small Base Ships

1 straight = 2 base lengths of movement

2 straight = 3 base lengths of movement

Large Base Ships

1 straight = 1.5 base lengths of movement

2 straight = 2 base lengths of movement

Please note, throughout all the large ship diagrams, I have related everything to a large base. Where the movement of a small ship doing a 1 forward would be 2 small base lengths (referred to as 2 base lengths in the pics), a large ship doing a 1 forward would move 1.5 large bases (referred to as 1.5 base lengths in the pics) The reason for this decision was to help with eyeballing moves within the game. If you're moving a large base ship, it makes sense to use that base as a reference point.

Got that? Then let's move onto the more difficult stuff.

Turns

Turns are the second easiest maneuver to visualise. All turn maneuvers, regardless on speed, will turn your ship 90 degrees. There are, obviously, some intricacies (it would be a pretty boring game otherwise, eh?) for example, a one hard turn doesn’t move you one base forward and one to the side, we are now getting into the realms of half-base, quarter-base and third-base movement.

All of these go by the formula:

Lateral movement = forward movement

If you go 0.9 base lengths left, you will also go 0.9 base lengths forward. Simple!

One very interesting thing I came across whilst doing this is the one hard turn for large base ships. Everybody says that when you one hard turn with a large ship your base ends up still inside the corner of where it was previously. Have a look at the screen shot that depicts that. Yes, agreed, it does overlap itself BUT not half as much as I had imagined it would.

Previous to doing this post I would never have done a one hard turn when next to an asteroid or other ship but armed with this knowledge, I am much more likely to do something like that.

Small Base Ships

1 turn = 1.2 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

2 turn = 2.1 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

3 turn = 2.8 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

Large Base Ships

1 turn = 0.9 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

2 turn = 1.25 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

3 turn = 1.6 base lengths of lateral and forward movement

And here's all that info in a bite size chart for your convenience!

Banks

Potentially obvious, but any bank move, regardless of speed will turn your ship 45 degrees. The difference is how far forward and how far to the side. Honestly, they are a pain to visualise so hopefully this section will help with that. 

Almost all of these go by this formula:

Lateral movement times 2 = forward movement

Almost all of them… the 3 bank on a small ship doesn’t follow this rule. According to my calculations (and you can see them on the pic below) a small ship doing a left 3 bank will go 4.2 base lengths forward and 1.9 base lengths left… my question to you all is this: WHY???

I have been sitting here staring at these screenshots for what feels like hours. I can’t work it out. Am I being blind? The large base 3 bank follows the formula so why doesn’t the small base one? Please somebody put me out of my misery with this and tell me where I’ve gone wrong (or tell me I haven’t gone wrong and this is just a crazy quirk in the maths of the game)

Anyway, here are the pictures.

Small Base Ships

1 bank = 1.2 base lengths of lateral movement and
2.4 base lengths of forward movement

2 bank = 1.6 base lengths of lateral movement and
3.2 base lengths of forward movement

3 bank = 1.9 base lengths of lateral movement and
4.2 base lengths of forward movement

Large Base Ships

1 bank = 0.9 base lengths of lateral movement and
1.8 base lengths of forward movement

2 bank = 1.1 base lengths of lateral movement and
2.2 base lengths of forward movement

3 bank = 1.3 base lengths of lateral movement and
2.6 base lengths of forward movement

 And another table!

I've been asking myself this question: Is the knowledge we are gaining from this experiment/article/blog post worth it? How am I going to use it to "fly better"?

The answer to the first question is (for me) yes, it's definitely worth it. During the time I've been working on this stuff (a few weeks maybe) I have noticed a difference in my flying, I know where a 5K is going to get me and I will do it in the full knowledge that I'm not going off the table. Asteroids and debris have been much less of a worry for me now I can make and educated guess where a 3 bank will put me. As for how to use this info, I think there are 2 schools of thought, either, approximate the whole shebang (i.e. round up the numbers and remember the formulas - lots of "just over a base length" or "just under a base length") OR print out little tables like the ones above and use those for reference. I usually fly all small ships or two big ships so you would only need one set of tables if you are doing the same... 

Anyway, I'm going to leave it there for the time being, my brain if fried and if you've managed to take all that in then I'm sure your's is too. I will write up part 2 in the very near future which will deal with range and using our knowledge of movement and range to get out of some sticky situations!

Until then; Red XIII signing off!