Early access to Galactic Starfighter, the new expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic is live!
This free-to-play digital expansion lets players dogfight in 12 versus 12 factional battles as well as earn rewards for their ground game character (i.e., additional XP), snag new weapons, powers and abilities to customize their starfighter.
Anyone can start dogfighting at level 1, so if you’re not interested in the story content… bypass it and head to your Hangar to queue up for battle. By making Galactic Starfighter a separate part of the game, BioWare is hoping the player pool will be massive.
To flesh things out and make this a deeper experience than just blasting ships in space each pilot has access to a set for four crew members. These new NPC’s come complete with their own backgrounds, appearances, and personalities.
May the Force be with you… right up until I blast you into bits!
Crew members serve two purposes:
- They can be assigned to work on certain aspects of your ship (Offensive, Defensive, Engineering, and Tactical) when it’s not in battle. This applies two passive bonuses to your ship.
- A copilot (chosen from your currently assigned Support Crew) gives a passive bonus too, but also provides a single active ability that can be used during battle. Check out the latest Developer Update for all the details.
All would be fighter pilots (from level 1 to level 55) will queue together. The matchmaking system will take into consideration how tricked out your ship is and attempt to put newbs with newbs, and more experienced players with each other. At least in theory. Let’s hope this works correctly, because there’s nothing worse than being outgunned and outmatched before you fire of your first volley.
Who can fight… and when!
Subscribers can start dogfighting immediately. So get on it! Preferred players won’t be able to leave dry dock until January 14th of the new year, and free players won’t be able to lock S-foils into attack position until February 4th, 2014.
Check out the new trailer to see how you can customize your brand spanking new starfighter in Galactic Starfighter!
Published: Dec 3, 2013 05:32 pm