Crashing spaceships into each other is fun, but some Star Wars: Squadrons players would rather you focus on completing the mission than recreating your childhood fantasies.
Star Wars: Squadrons features large fleet battles between small fighters, mid-ranged frigates, and large capital ships. It has its problems, but the game is full of small touches in the music, sound effects, and combat tactics that make it feel authentically Star Wars. You create your character, hop into the cockpit of an X-Wing or Tie-Fighter, and immediately feel transported to a galaxy far, far away. You also immediately want to try to recreate famous scenes from the films that look really cool in the moment but have fuck-all to do with winning a space battle.
Recently Reddit user _Aedric shared a clip of them decommissioning a Star Destroyer by ramming straight into its bridge. The video’s instantly familiar to anyone who’s a fan of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, in which an all-out assault leads an A-Wing to tailspin directly into the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer. _Aedric does an excellent job of capturing the drama of that cinematic moment, and even manages to make their collision the final deathblow before the match ends.
At the same time it’s not clear that collisions even do any significant damage to larger ships, and blowing up takes players out of the fight and boosts the enemy team’s morale. That’s why there’s a whole push for people to stop doing it. One of the bigger posts on the subject on the game’s subreddit is titled “How to win at Fleet Battles.” It includes two GIFs, one of the Rebellion A-Wing pilot screaming before he dies (“stop trying to do this”), and one of a squadron of fighters firing on a run down the length of a Star Destroy for maximum damage before pulling up at the very end (“and do this!”). The first half-dozen comments are all people admitting to being the ones crashing. A bunch of others tried to justify their tactics as the price of trying to deal a lot of damage quickly.
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“The point I was trying to make is that going full Leroy Jenkins at a SD with whatever ship you happen to be in is stupid and hurts your team,” wrote the thread’s author, slick762.
Players have also taken to trying to ram one another, with fleet battles reduced to a series of one-on-one duels where players try to smash their way to victory. “Listen, I get it. Interceptor pilots are supposed to be crazy AND suicidal, BUT JESUS CHRIST, WHY DO YOU RAM EVERY SHIP YOU FIGHT?” wrote one player tired of all the space “jousting.”
It’s just so satisfying though, especially when you’re out of ammo or the opponent thinks they’ve got you outgunned. Some players have even gotten really creative, combining tractor beams with ramming attacks to blow up their opponents from behind. Those who remain committed to bashing large capital ships have outfitted their fighters with perks that make their explosions deadlier on impact.
More traditional Squadrons tacticians might not like it but it doesn’t seem like the thrill of ship ramming is going to die down anytime soon.
