OK, so I play Bora most of the time. But that in no way detracts from the valuable advice I am about to give you new people starting out as GalSpan pilots. First off, don't pick the Orion as your ship unless you're accompanied by a gang of your GalSpan buddies or don't think you'll be doing any fighting. The Orion is too slow and underpowered to be effective in the hands of a novice pilot. Sure it has the best shield recharge rate of all the GalSpan fighters but that's useless if you have a couple Bora chihuahuas lobbing plasma rockets or shooting railguns at you. If you want a good ship to start out with pick the Archangel or Pegasus. Both have their pros and cons but also have their strengths.

The Pegasus is a good beginner ship in that it's small and hard to hit unless your enemy has impecable aim. Its high top speed at the beginning of the game makes it an excellent mining ship. Beginners should start out as miners anyway, that is unless you like being blown up a lot by people like Wild Dog or Reaper. The downside to the Pegasus is its low hull and shield rating. But, if you get really good with the Peg you'll be nearly invincible.

The Archangel is also a good beginner ship in that it has good hull and shield ratings. It also has a humongous cargo hold for those people who are mining fiends. Bigger cargo means qiucker tech and experience. Archies also have pretty good weapon and card slots. Load a torpedo launcher and a few swarmers and you're all set to stomp Bora.

Now you have a ship to fly but what about all those red blips on your radar screen? What to do, what to do. Well, if a few of those blips are Maces, the Bora equivelant of the Pegasus, don't even think about hitting them with missiles unless you're no more than 10 clicks out and no less than 5 clicks in. Maces are usually piloted by vets and aces and they're a willy bunch. 9 times out of 10 a a swarm of missiles fired at a Mace at close range will never find its target. 9 times out of 10 a swarm of missiles fired from a range greater than 15 clicks will never hit its target. A good Mace pilot has enough sense to run from an incoming swarm of missiles. And yes, a Mace CAN outrun every single missile/torp GalSpan has to offer. With boosters and experience level at 1 it has a top speed over 2300 clicks. Without boosters at experience 1 it can clock a speed of over 1800 clicks, more than enough to outrun any missile. Here's the condensed lesson: Save your missiles for slower targets.

I hope I helped at least one person with this little message. Feel free to e-mail me at gaausi@freedsl.com if you have comments or questions.

Wohoo all praise the Mace . Another few little bits of advice to add to Gaau's little column there:

1) If you want to pilot the Peg make sure you know how to use lateral thruster, if you don't you might as well paint an X on your ship that says shoot me here.

2) Use your missiles wisely! Dont run out there and lob them all at a Mace, none will hit, shoot at something like a Claymore and then DO NOT empty both racks on the thing just fire off a couple of salvos.

3) Most important IMO learn to fight with lasers! Not only will it keep you from earning a rep as a "Missile boy" it will save your ass when you run out of missiles.

Lateral trust is a must have in battle. Dont be afraid to use missles. You can use them to destroy the hull after taking the sheilds out, but dont depend on them. Also, when going against a Mace tiger missles will do the job effectivly because they are faster than the other missles. Work in groups for Base Wars. This tactic always worked on the demo. A good ship for newbies is the Pegasus(peggy) because its so easy to kill. You would learn from experience.(which is the best way)

Avoid Hammers like the Plague! If you are doing Cp runs the best config for the job is using Blast Torps (not Adv) and chatters. An angel with quad linked Blast torps can wack a Cp one shot! A peg it takes 2 and maybe a few rounds of chatters. WHile ou are waiting for you energy/torpd to recharge be chewing on another Cp with the chatters while dodging.

MISSLES!!!!
(archangel as example)

A) Quick tip I: Bora are fooled pretty easily some days. When you are about to start dogfighting, and you want to missle them, fire lasers first! Most bora will then believe, OH, he's not going to fire missles, ok. And let then they let down their missle guard. I have down this A LOT!!! Its getting old for me, so I'll share it.

B) quick tip II: Dont fire more then 1-2 missles at a time. Fire one, wait 3 seconds, fire two, wait.... When most bora see thier missle light, ive noticed unlike me when im bora, they do not count the number of missles, and there for drop 6-7 ecms right away!!!! Always fire two, then see how many ecms they drop. If they drop 7-8 for every one or two you fire, you can easily run them out of ecms After a while you will learn the pilots patterns. I had several very experence bora say to me, why the F#$ arn't my ECMS working agianest you muhahahaahah. Because sometimes the best thing to do is fire 1 missle, count to 5, then launch 5-8 missles. since they believe I launched all in one shot, when the first missle gets close, they drop 7- ecms. however, b/c the 5-8 are to far away, the ecms will not effect those.

Loadout-

Lets talk weapons first. Most spanners load up two sets of tiger missles up until tech 6, then load up two sets of sunnies (sun spots). WRONG!!!! Lets look at two missles:

Tiger missle: Great on hull, crap on shields.

Disruptor Torp: AWESOME on shields, no hull damage.

Hmmmm, any guesses? If you want to be able to hull 2-4 bora with JUST missles, its simple. Load one missle bay with disruptor, the other with tigers. The disruptor will kill the shields of a mace and cutlass, and other ships will be left with 20% shields. I shoot one disruptor, wait three seconds, and follow it up with 3 tigers. Most ships wont survive if hit with all. I never see spanners use disruptor, except for for a very few vet pilots. Plus, since disruptor uses laser energy, you cant run out of them. I cannot tell you how many times ive have to fight a plasma boat, and had no missles left except for the disruptor. It has saved me more times then I can count.

One important note: Do not have tigers and disruptor linked. The tiger takes 3-4 seconds to lock-on. the disruptor takes 10 seconds. The disruptor will miss. Even though you may think its locked-on its not. Always have a laser equiped in one slot to make sure.

When you reach tech 6, its your call. I normally go with two sets of sunnies. They do enough damage to sheilds to have both sets on board.

Ok. So up until tech 6, you might want to try this. It works wonders for me

For pilots with VERY good aim there is a missle called a,

Solaris Torp: If linked will kill any ship in one shot!!!! If not linked, will take a hammer down to 20% hull These torps are deadly. But the manual is right, they are VERY costly. To use, hold down the trigger for ten seconds to reach a full charge. A one second charge does about 5 HP damage by the way.

Range to shoot missles:

Ok you have lobed 20 missles and none hit that bora that is now burning at you with his hammer, CRAP!!!

All missles should be fired from a distance of no more then 6SLU, and no shorter then 3.4SLU. I have found firing from an optimum distance of 4.2SLU, even the best ECM users will eat your missles.

During base runs:

A) Since the Bora turret defense is crap and spanner ships can lat thrust quick enough, knocking down turrets in the bora base is not needed. However, you should try to keep the bora from knocking out yours. Most bora ships are slow enough to be eaten alive by spanner base turrets. PROTECT YOUR BASE!!!

B) Common question: What do I use on cred plants?

1) Most people think the chatter cannon is a great weapon. I say its the WORST!!! Why?

1a) The Bora base has a VERY SERIOUS Base weakness The gates are set at 10 and 3 o'clock. Which means if you can sneak to the other side of the base, you can sit right up agianest the walls where the two cred plants are located, and kill them over and over without be noticed. HOWEVER, as a Bora, I CAN HEAR CHATTER CANNON FOR TWO FRIGGIN SECTORS AWAY!!!! They WILL find you!!!! If you sit there with demios heavy lasers, no bora will ever hear it. Since there are most likly peg pilots harrassing the base, most bora hear turrets and see the peg and think the turrets are responding to them not!!! This has worked many times for me.

1b) Chatter runs out. Demios hvys dont. Use demios instead.

2) Blast Torps: Linked blast torps reak havoc on cred plants. However, do not QUAD-LINK them. For some odd reason, most times they are QUAD-LINKED, the plant takes the damage of only 2. In an archangel, the trick is to Quad-link them, but before you shoot, unlink the primary and secondary. Shoot the top slot, wait about 5 secs, then link and fire the bottom two. On good days, no more cred plant.

3) NOT ADV. BLAST TORPS: ADV torps only do about 10hp more damage, but require to much energy, and require tech level 10. If Im bora, you won't stay at 10 long And if any vets are playing bora, you won't be at 10 for long either.

4) Demios Hvy lasers: These work very well if you have time.

5) Sol Torps: Since this take time to load, use sunspots or swarms instead.

Dogfighting

Plasma Happy Bora

Tired of those damn hammer plasma lobers? (look who's talking ) You may not realize it, but you have some advantages.

a) Hammers are slower then most spanner ships.

b) Most (I dont) equip the AIM Point module.

c) Most cannot hit a lat thrusting target beyond 3-4 SLU very well. (If its a pilot named "Wilddog" he can, so just sit still and die, you wont get away, Ive tried.

You also have disadvantages:

a) plasma fires at a unbelievably deadly rate: 1/2 second for four (quad-linked)

b) If you stray beyond a hammer pilots plasma distance, they may have dual-rail.

So to defeat these Bast@rds, i normally

1) Set up face to face with them, and change my energy rechange to 0 on all, then REVERSE burn, and slide while rolling your ship in a 90 angle of theirs. Then i fire lasers at them, b/c normally they slide as well. If they have AIM-point installed, and most do, the plasma will form an X at the position you were when they fired, and will miss you completely, if your at least 3-5 SLU from them.

2) If I have missles, I may laser their shields to 50% or so, and when I'm 5-7 slu from them, let missles fly. Dont fire missles from 4, because they might not have time to "acquire" the target, and fly right by them. If you fire from greater then 7, most pilots can react with ecms.

Misc Multi-player:

TEAM WORK AND MINE DAMNIT!!!!

You spanners drive me to drink. Besides for 1-3 pegs hitting cps or harassing the bora, MINE CREDITS!!!

The last game I played I was mining out Capricorn, and 4 spanners were just sitting by the rings. I asked each what the hell they were doing.

Their response:

"I'm stopping the bora from mining"

Since there was only 9 of us, you can already guess who they were really stopping from mining!!!!!

Almost every game I play is the same.

Bora mined: 70K, Galspan: 39K

Tips for spanners to win more?

a) As you mine, cycle through targets within 30SLU. If one is fighting a teammate, burn and slide up to 5SLU of them and missle them.

b) Don't leave a sector with bora in it, and u still have 10+ missles. Before leaving a sector, I always try to hull one claymore or large cred cap ship. (within resean of course, if you have 100% credits, and wilddog, 5 ~bc~ members, and myself are closing in on you, I think you'd better run ) Otherwise, stop them from mining!

c) Pegs should go directly to bora base and harrass or protect its miners. As a peg, sit at the gate (between the gate and base used by bora miners and nail the miners with disruptor torps before they leave. Don't try to kill them, just take most of the ships shields down by 30%- 80%, then move onto the next ship. This will help your teammates who are mining, who now only have to deal with a crippled ship.

d) Defend the base from those damn bora turret killers. The reason why I take out turrets as bora with a mace, is so my teammates in hammers / cuttys can come in and drop 3-4 cps a run. Galspan turrets are awesome agianest bora larger ships.

by, Blade Runner