As with any flight sim, you need to have adequate control of your craft and know where your ship is. Being aware of the size and maneuverability of a craft in a dogfighting game is even more important. With Star Wars: Squadrons there’s an extra layer of tactics that revolves around the management of your systems to make yourself faster and harder to take out. Mastering the various movements and mechanics of the game is vital in PvP, so here’s a bit of help in getting a grip on one very important maneuver, the drift in Star Wars: Squadrons.
How to Drift
The drift in Star Wars: Squadrons is very vital to your survival as a starfighter pilot. Here’s how to use it for fast escapes or sudden turns. Sitting still in this game is a death sentence, here’s how to make quick turns without losing speed.
Star by diverting power to engines to boost your speed, press left on the D-Pad to do that. From there, you will want to press forward on your Left Stick until you reach maximum speed, this sets up the drift. Be aware of where you’re going and where you want to go, you don’t want to drift into the side of a Star Destroyer. Now press L3 to initiate a Boost that will kick up your speed and send you rocketing forward. The next part requires crucial timing, as you need to push your Right Stick in any direction while pressing L3 on the controller. Your craft should drift into the direction you’re pointing if done right.
Keep an eye on that speed indicator in your cockpit—that’s the little blue bar on the left— and you should see it max out. When you complete the drift you should be able to turn quickly in one direction. It’s very useful to evade foes that are on your tail. It can also be very useful when trying to get behind a group of foes.
Once you’ve finished the drift in Star Wars: Squadrons, make sure to switch off the power diversion. Having no power to shields or weapons at a crucial moment can be disastrous.
When doing anything in PvP, beware repetition. Using any move too many times will clue players into what you’re up to. If you start developing a pattern of boosting or drifting at the same point in any attack run, your enemies can easily predict this and take you down. Be aware of where your enemies are and that they can see just as much as you can.
