Tactics

Few useful hints:

• Concentrate on one target at a time, kill it before moving to something else. If someone is on your tail, hit afterburners and turn, and continue pounding your target until it goes down.
• Match speed! If you go too fast you'll end up having enemy fighters flying all around you instead of settling into a tail chase.
• If fighting an ace (who call you over radio and boast), go after the ace first. If the plot doesn't call for the ace to die yet, he will warp out with his squadron, so you don't have to fight the rest of them. Two advanced missiles on him should be enough, follow up with guns.
• Always fire guided missiles in salvoes or two. Even if the enemy decoys away one of them the other one will get him. Two missiles hit consecutively usually guarantee a kill.
• Blind fire usually only works with one set of guns in your craft, not both sets (if you have two sets, that is). You will have to switch between full guns for strafing attack and blind fire gun for anti-fighter work.
• When fighting cloaked fighters like Basilisks, when you get a lock-on, use blind fire guns. When the lock-on is lost, switch to full guns and lead the target manually. Even when they cloak, you can see a blue shimmer. If they're damaged and trail smoke, you can still see the smoke.
• Don't head directly at the torpedoes, during interception. You'll likely ram one accidentally and destroy yourself. Slow down, match speed, use afterburner to get in range.
• When you need to tail-chase a torpedo, use guided missiles. If you shoot guns at the torpedoes and miss, and hit allied ships instead, you'll be branded a traitor.
• When flying around a large ship or structure doing turret busting, slow down. One trick I use is set zero speed and only move with short bursts of afterburner.
• If you need to fly in formation with something, match speed with it and use afterburner to move around.
• Lay yourself flat against the surface of the base or ship and you can sneak up on a lot of targets.