Introduction to Jedi Master - 101

The key to becoming a good pilot is basically honing your own instincts and abilities to their best effect, inventing your own strategies to take your opponent by surprise. The most important thing to do is to form a base standard of tactics that play to your individual strengths and attempt to hide and minimize your piloting weaknesses to your enemies. Most of the better melee flyers and pilots do not blindly jump into any melee without first having a general idea of how they want to take on their enemy. The same types of planning should be taken on missions in order to complete missions with a reasonable amount of success. Simply honing your skills and coming up with an all-purpose plan of attack is enough to get you started on your journey to piloting success.

However, to generally improve your rank there are quite a few pointers that will help tremendously in climbing that ladder to the peak we all know and love as Jedi Master. These tips both include single and multiplayer but remember later on in the ranks you gain very little (if any at all) promo points through single player. A lot of these tips are common sense and used throughout the XvT community, but I hope there will still be a few that you have not heard of before.

General tips

When you start playing XvT initially there is very little you can do wrong basically shoot down anything for the first couple of grades (Trainee, Flight Cadet) and you are guaranteed to promotion points.
Always keep a backup copy of your pilot not necessarily on your computer (i.e. uploaded on a free ISP or on a disc) you never know when the easiest mission can go awry and lead to a demotion or even worse, your machine decides to breakdown.

Single-player tips

Once you feel comfortable that you are good enough to last, make sure you always have the mission difficulty set on hard (this also includes multiplayer melees) - it makes infinite difference to the amount you get promoted by. However, before you feel comfortable taking this jump into the unknown-
Make sure you have a practice pilot for when trying out new missions so that when you try it with your proper pilot you are well and truly prepared for what the mission holds for you (and can therefore get maximum points).
Don't bother taking counter measures - it just makes you lose more points when you die.
If the mission does not require it (i.e. bombing raids etc.) don't bother taking warheads either for the same reason.
Don't take a more powerful fighter than is offered to you as standard plus if you think you can handle using a less powerful one, take it.
Don't always stick close to your requirements - if you are able to try taking down all the Imperial craft (except the mission critical craft of course) they may give you bonus points as well as normal kill points - plus along the same lines you may get bonus points for several of your craft being able to complete their missions.

Multi-player mission tips

If flying co-op make sure you both have your own set goals to complete the mission as a unit as quick and painlessly as possible - see our tac-ops for individual mission walkthroughs.
When flying against each other if the main requirement is not to take down a capital ship (if it is do this after completing the goal) always primarily target the real life pilot as he will undoubtedly cause more damage than the A.I. (or they really should).

Multi-player melee tips

Once your rank starts increasing and you get to around Top Ace level, only agree to play those pilots in the same rank grade as you or higher (use your secondary pilot to play them if you still want to have any friends).
Make sure when flying melees your flying on hard and if your prepared to face a platform as the nav-buoy turn on randomize - it's all points.
Make sure you have a decent connection, this is more a tip for generally enjoying the game but it can still lead to you being wasted by a pilot that you could easily have defeated.
When the game is loading, set up your craft for the first sweep - the first run up can often decide the entire match so make sure you are prepared! The best setting initially is to put lasers and shield up to full (F9 and F10 twice) pour your laser power into shields (') and set your throttle to naught (/) . The last option is very much my personal tactic but I find it allows the time for the craft to meet extends and allows you to save up more shield energy.
As the mission starts, allow the ship to come to you - throw more energy into your shields from your lasers when they have significantly recharged but only once - you do want some power for combat. When your enemy is about 2.5 k away go to full throttle (backspace) and put your shields at full at the front of your craft (s twice).
How you arrange you lasers is very much personal choice - it seems everyone does it differently but I definitely find that on the run up it is best to have them at dual settings (x)
When you reach about 1.8 k turn your shields back to 50 (s three times) then try and target your foe and start shooting (you shouldn't yet have the green lock indicator) as soon as you see you have a green lock swerve out of line with your foe (causing his lasers to miss you but hopefully your last burst caught him). Re-target him and let off a quick shot then swerve again - repeat this process until you fly pass each other.
As you pass each other for the first time immediately switch to 1/3s throttles and try to get on your foe's tail.
Your ELS (engines/laser/shield) settings during this part of a furball are very much personal choice but I find the most effective being the insane approach. Turn your lasers to 0 and your lasers to 50 and you should now have a greater turning velocity than your foe and be able to get on their tail. My reasoning behind this is if you need your shields he is better than you anyway and you wont live long enough to appreciate them. The main problem behind this is that assuming you win when the foe hypers in you then have no shields.
In the turn itself concentrate on using your radars as your eyes, hold you joystick firmly down in a loop and set you lasers to single fire. Try and judge when your foe is just beyond your sights and let of a burst- often it will hit even if you can't see your foe due to how close you are.
If you think the foe is going to get the better of you in the turns then a tactic is often used where you pull out of the loop where you fly away moving erratically- you should get some distance as it will take your foe a moment to realize where you are, next turn and try shoot down your foe like the first run up. I rarely use this maneuver but have seen it effectively used by many pilots from Rogue squadron.
If hyper is allowed in the melee whenever your radars are smashed try and get to a safe distance and hyper out - you are basically powerless without your sensors.
As the waves continue the above tactics should work in all situations. However, you should not just be after promo points and after a win for a ladder there are many different methods that can be used in true Machiavellian fashion.
Once you have asserted a decent lead (3 or 4 kills) try and just get stuck in a turn where he can't touch you- often ELS setting 50/25/25 works in this fashion. If you have full engines you tend to easily catch up with your foe and when you find you have no laser power this can often be a problem where you end up over taking your foe.
If you want to be truly evil you can get a single kill and then start running away from your foe with full engines- this will undoubtedly lead to a win (assuming you can get the first kill) but will certainly lose you a lot of friends and is hardly a lot of fun - remember why we are playing these games?

Well that's about it. These tips should hopefully improve your flying but remember nothing can beat good practice. No matter what some hot shot tells you - being a good pilot has nothing to do with natural skill but practice on playing the game - discovering the intricacies of each craft and situation. Just ask any Rogue how he made it to the squad.