As I’ve been playing the beta for Star Wars: The Old Republic, I’ve been trying to experience as much of the game as possible. A significant chunk of that is the Space Combat minigame. Basically this involves using the ship you earn at around level 15 to take part in space missions, such as escorting a ship, disabling an enemy space station and so on.
While this minigame is fun in it’s own way there are some significant limits on how this combat works. All the action is on-rails – your ship flies a preset path from one point to another. All the action takes place around you, from enemies coming in to intercept through to capital ships dropping out of hyperspace.
What this means is that the experience gets very repetitive very fast. While you can move your ship around your limited field of view to avoid asteroids and debris, there’s no opportunity to do things differently. Enemies arrive at the same time every time, so once you’ve recognised the pattern to the attacks you can sail through it easily.