Characters

Making the most of the skills your pilots have is essential. Try to match fighters and equipment to the skills of each pilot.

Character Skills
All characters have four major skill branches:

Piloting - Piloting provides a passive bonus to the Maneuverability rating of whatever fighter the character is in. This skill helps to keep the enemy in front to bring weapons to bear, while simultaneously working to keep enemies from getting a good shot from the rear.


 * Pilot Grade - All characters also have a Pilot Grade branch that determines the highest generation of fighters that they can fly. For example, a character must unlock Ace Pilot before he or she can fly a 5th generation fighter. It has no effect other than that.

Gunnery - Clearly an important skill, Gunnery provides a passive bonus to weapon accuracy. It's hard to be sure, but it seems to improve rocket (unguided missile) accuracy as well.

Missile - A character's skill with missiles provides a passive bonus to both the resistance rating and the damage of all missiles fired by the character. In general, if a character's missile branch does not extend beyond "Advanced Missile Gunner" then you should limit that character to rockets or put them in a fighter that doesn't have any missile slots.

System - This branch provides bonuses to equipped anti-missile and/or repair systems, as well as an overall bonus to shield regeneration and engine speed.

Weapon-Specific Perks
Plan carefully with these to maximize their effectiveness.

Machine Gun Proficiency - Provides a 30% bonus to accuracy and a 10% bonus to damage when using light or heavy machine guns. Does not work with autocannons.

Heavy Cannon Proficiency - Provides a 30% bonus to accuracy and a 10% bonus to damage when using heavy cannons or plasma cannons.

Laser Proficiency - Provides a 30% bonus to accuracy and a 10% bonus to damage when using laser weapons. These include Berserk lasers, (heavy) lasers, and pulse lasers.

Unguided Missile Specialist (i.e. - Rocket Specialist) - These perks (there are two for Missile Specialists) increase the damage of rockets, but do nothing for any of the guided missiles and torpedoes.

Active Abilities
These are timed bonuses that the player must activate manually and can only be used a limited number of times per portal jump.

Sixth Sense - While active, this greatly reduces the enemy's chances of hitting friendly targets and reduces the amount of damage inflicted when they do manage to hit. It's not limited to the team, so it affects other teams, the mothership, and even allied (green) NPCs as well.

Darting Attack - This ability of Piloting Specialists provides a massive boost to maneuverability, an increase in speed, and it greatly reduces the chances of enemies hitting the pilot's fighter.

Hacker Attack - This ability of System Specialists disables the engines, shields, and weapons of an enemy target for 20 seconds.

Aimed Fire - This ability increases accuracy and damage for a period of time.

Snipe - This ability of Gunnery Specialists provides a massive damage multiplier to a single shot from each of the pilot's weapons.

Burst - This ability of Gunnery Specialists increases the rate of fire of the pilot's weapons for 30 seconds.

Coup de Grace - This ability increases weapon damage for a period of time.

Missile Salvo - This ability of Missile Specialists increases missile launcher rate of fire and reduces the efficiency of enemy anti-missile systems for 30 seconds.

Deadly Missile - This ability of Missile Specialists provides a massive damage multiplier to missiles and a massive efficiency divider to enemy anti-missile systems for 30 seconds.

Other
Tactician - This is a skill that only applies when the character is assigned as a "Team Leader". This also means they must have at least one other pilot assigned to them (i.e. a wing man). There are no exact details, but it improves the coordination between team members.

Reliable Partner - This skill only applies when the character is assigned to "Defend". Having someone assigned to Defend reduces the chances for enemies to hit other members assigned to the same team. A character with the Reliable Partner perk will reduce the chances for enemies to hit more than usual.

Lone Wolf - This is a skill that only applies a bonus if the character is not in a team at all.

Team Assignments
Multiple pilots can be assigned to one or more teams (or wings) where one pilot is the leader and the other pilots can be tasked with various roles.

Team Leader - Each team must have one team leader. For the most part, this pilot will behave the same as if given an Attack role, but all team coordination will center around this character.

Attack - All team members given an Attack role will actively pursue enemy targets. If they player assigns the team a specific target, all Attackers will go after that one target. Otherwise, they will sometimes divide their attention in order to keep enemies from lining up shots on team mates.

Defend - Team members given a Defend role will still shoot at enemy targets, but instead of attacking assigned targets, they will attack enemies that are pursuing team mates, lowering their accuracy and forcing them to break away to avoid fire from the Defender.

Missile Defense - This option is only available if the pilot's fighter has an active anti-missile system (AMS). When assigned a Missile Defense role, the pilot will use the anti-missile system to destroy enemy missiles and rockets fired at anyone in the team. It's unfortunate that there's no way to assign a pilot to shoot down missiles targeting the mothership. Regardless of whether or not pilots are given a Missile Defense role, they will still use an AMS, if they have one, to defend their own fighter. When not busy shooting down missiles, pilots given a Missile Defense role will still engage enemies.

Stealth - This option is only available if the pilot's fighter has a stealth system capable of affecting the team (some only affect the fighter they're installed in). When assigned a Stealth role, the pilot will use the stealth system to improve the stealthiness of everyone in the team.

Repair - Docking in the middle of a firefight is not only risky, since the pilot comes to a near standstill in the process, but it's also a lot of time to have a fighter out of the fight. With a good group repair system, a pilot can be given the Repair role to repair the armor of any damaged fighters in the team. Unfortunately using the repair system brings the weapons offline, so they cannot attack and repair at the same time.