I've recently discovered the concept of "boost skipping" (may have some other names within the community), which is basically engaging boost, then drift, and then boost again about 1/2 second later, repeat. Doing this properly means that your engine power decay doesn't kick in at all, and the only loss of engine power is the activation cost from engaging boost.This results in longer and faster traversal across the map on average, and allows you to completely negate the negative side effect of jet engines (extra 150% drain cost from holding a boost). Also, you don't need to maintain any energy pips in engines while boost skipping, so you can overcharge shields/weapons instead.Now if you do this with the Tie Defender in particular, you can achieve some crazy fast speeds for an incredibly long duration. You'll only have a few narrow vulnerable time windows from when you need to quickly recharge engine power. Here's how it looks in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJ61Y2qtBEAs the video shows, it's incredibly difficult to kill a Tie Defender that is doing this, and I want to say that this degree of mobility is probably not intentional. Lately the only way I die when doing this is by accidentally crashing into something, even if I have 3 people actively trying to take me down.

Yeah, that how the "top" pilots in this game fly. Switch power to engine from time to time to negate entirely the boost loss and you'll have this perfected.This and dead drifting needs to be nerfed to the ground but I highly doubt it will happen since the devs are really liking how the boosts looks and feel. Imo a drift should always consume a section of the boost bar and dead drifting should be flattened out for every class to have the same turn rate/speed.

Balancing this is the change we need. More sledge hammers to the A Wing is the change we get.

Dead-Drifting. It simply cannot be intentional that a ship has unlimited boost. Fix this exploit!

The "top" pilots in this game fly bouncing...... When you play a match with several "top pilots", the game looks like a ping pong game, lose all the magic of star wars fight dogfight universe.... ☹️They could organize personalized matchs to play ping pong with each other pros, and so the rest of us could continue playing Squadrons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN8EjDimhl0This video is a match that shows some of what I was complaining about earlier. Two things are going on that shouldn't be. 1. The Tie defender and various bombers are skipping around like madmen and are unhittable as a result. Not just advanced movement, lag-hitching, hard 90 degree turns, two cycles of boost turns in under half a second and no limit to boost seemingly.2. Targets are on my client stopping before my crosshairs and when I correct to shoot the frozen position, they suddenly reinvigorate to where they would have been without stopping so quickly making sudden jolting movements against my crosshair's direction. I'm also frequently noticing this with the AI where they seem to "know" where I'm aiming, making dodges against crosshair positions instead of actual gunfire, and doing the lag freeze, resume juke to make them extremely frustrating to shoot at.I think the AI should be more numerous, and behave more like players, but this sort of omniscient dodging is way overdone and needs to be rolled back. Make them more consistent, more deadly more likely to turn on targets and hit structures, and less likely to sit in formations doing figure dances that defy possibility to waste time. The current meta of using bombs to kill formations is stupid to me and I'd prefer to see them more as "weaker" players swarming vs visual backdrop for points.The fact that bombers are moving so quickly and and with so many rapid boost turns hitting 90 degree jolts is unreasonable and some sort of netcode optimization is needed to make the chasing player see a smoother pathway vs a track that can get very behind with ping and then suddenly spring to life somewhere else. Bombers have their tank to escape but should be requiring escort and peels to pull of escapes, not some sort of hero vessel that is guaranteed both to get frontal damage in and escape unless chased by auto-aim loadouts (which I would just remove from the game anyways). No one likes watching kill feeds where the player never even lead their path a single time and scored the kill while erratically aiming behind the player.

"Boost Skipping" with Tie Defender | EA Forums

15 Replies

CloudWalker60
5 years ago
Yeah, that how the "top" pilots in this game fly. Switch power to engine from time to time to negate entirely the boost loss and you'll have this perfected.
This and dead drifting needs to be nerfed to the ground but I highly doubt it will happen since the devs are really liking how the boosts looks and feel. Imo a drift should always consume a section of the boost bar and dead drifting should be flattened out for every class to have the same turn rate/speed.
Varkas
5 years ago
If I were to make a change that would impact this while not affecting occasional boosting at all, it would be that the boost activation cost would increase each subsequent time you activate again within a certain time window.
That would have no impact on holding a boost for a "normal" duration, but definitely would if you're activating boost every 1/2 second.
Outlaw23V
5 years ago
I used this method to get the "I Know a Few Maneuvers" achievement/trophy but in a different ship. .
Daemunx1
5 years ago
Balancing this is the change we need. More sledge hammers to the A Wing is the change we get.
Trevorevenge
5 years ago
Dead-Drifting. It simply cannot be intentional that a ship has unlimited boost. Fix this exploit!
Trevorevenge
5 years ago
@Varkas I am liking how the Defender has had it's boost activation cost increased!

Personally, I never thought the Defender was the worst offender... I have seen X-wings pinballing around almost as much while smashing flagship components easily. I think the best possible solution would be to add a boost activation cost increase to all ships across the entire board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z9fyEQRrVA&ab_channel=Meaty_Yogurt
7 min 30 seconds in is an example of this.
Varkas
5 years ago
Yeah, I think the defender is much closer to where it needs to be now. I find that I have to bring APS to have a similar degree of survivability that I had before.
I get the impression that boost skipping is intended and here to stay though.
mezanu
5 years ago
The "top" pilots in this game fly bouncing...... When you play a match with several "top pilots", the game looks like a ping pong game, lose all the magic of star wars fight dogfight universe.... ☹️

They could organize personalized matchs to play ping pong with each other pros, and so the rest of us could continue playing Squadrons
Cleaner9191
5 years ago
A TIE defender pilot using the "boost skipping" or "boost gasping" technique is very difficult to kill in a dogfight match, especially when they are running APS.
The 24-FEB nerf slightly addressed this, but I still- if you are flying 5v5 and more than 1 experienced opponent flies a TIE Defender and uses this technique, it is also impossible to defend against.
It does not help that the A-Wing nerfs really diminish it's ability to counter a boost-skipping TIE Defender, let alone an X-wing.
I've seen top team main all TIE Defenders in a dogfight. This seems not with the spirit of the game, and a loophole that is exploited.
Trevorevenge
5 years ago
@Cleaner9191 I think the latest March 15 patch did a GREAT job in changing the game to make PVP a viable option to swing morale once again (Although AI Farming is still the best way, unfortunately but I digress). The only problem with the patch is that it didn't equally nerf defenders which WERE more balanced pre- March 15. Defenders need one more nerf to bring them back in line with their relative power pre-march 15 and then the single largest balance issue with the game will have been basically solved. I love the direction things are moving I hope they take it a little further and settle it about there. Great job if you're reading, devs!