A Guide to Drifting in Star Wars Squadrons

Drifting is a Squadrons technique in which you use boost to maintain velocity in one direction while
turning to face another. Drifting is immensely important to Squadrons gameplay. It allows more evasive
flying, and it can be used to allow for faster turns than what you would get from dropping to 50% throttle.

In order to drift, you must have boost energy. Boost energy is gained by having full power to engines, by
shunting power from guns to engines in Imperial ships, or by using the Boost Extension auxiliary
component. Charging boost with full power to engines takes 12 seconds to go from 0 to full. SLAM
engines, which also prevent boost from decaying when changing to other engine types, allow building
boost energy even without having max engine power, while Jet engines allow building boost faster (7
seconds) but at the expense of discharging it faster. Note that every ship type has a static boost speed
and boost duration—no matter your components, this ship type will always have the same maximum
boost speed and last the same length of time. For the purposes of drifting, this means that smaller ships
can drift at faster speeds and have more boost energy to spare for their drifts than larger ships. This does
not mean that larger ships can’t drift, only that they have to be more conservative with their boost energy.

Boost Speeds and Durations by Ship Type

Ship Type Maximum Boost Speed Boost Duration (seconds)

TIE/in Interceptor 269 13

A-wing 259 13

TIE/ln Fighter 249 10

X-wing 239 10

TIE/rp Reaper 239 10

U-wing 239 10

TIE/sa Bomber 229 6

Y-wing 219 6

To drift, activate your boost. Then, press and ​hold​ the drift button. On some inputs this is the same button
as your boost button, on others it is a separate button. While you are holding the drift button, engage in a
turn. You will continue to drift for as long as you hold the button until you have completely spent the drift.
Ships with higher acceleration values will return to normal speed quicker than ships with lower
acceleration values. Note that latency can make drift fail to activate—it is often safest to wait a second or
so after you boost (or just wait until you reach max boost speed) before you activate the drift.
At its most basic, the full 180 drift allows you to spin around rapidly to face what is coming behind you.
Drifting can also be expanded to a range of other maneuvers, however, all of which are very important to
battlefield traversal and survivability. These other maneuvers are ​microdrifts​, ​dead drifts​, and ​retrodrifts​.

Keep in mind that drifts continue your original vector for a short while. In some cases this can make you
more evasive, in others it can make you a sitting duck. You must also calculate your trajectory carefully. If
you try to drift too late, your previous vector could take you right into a wall.

Note that on all drifts, you can increase the turn rate of the drift turn by dropping to 50% throttle during or
immediately before the drift. (You must have the ‘throttle down to disable boost’ option turned off for this
to work!) This will not lower your drift speed at all, but it will increase your drift turn rate. You can return to
100% throttle after coming out of the boost.

Here is an example of drifting: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJCNv__qEXU

Microdrifting

A microdrift is a basic maneuver in which you release the drift button before you have done a full drift turn,
such as stopping at 90 degrees instead of the full 180. From here, you can engage a new boost and start
a new drift, chaining drifts together. Thus, instead of doing one 180 drift turn, you could chain together
several 90 degree microdrifts, several 30 degree microdrifts, and so on. Microdrifting is a key method of
evasion, as it allows you to turn and maneuver your ship in tight turns and around obstacles without
needing to slow down.

Here is an example of microdrifting: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g2V4FbWVio

Drifting Boost

A drifting boost is a kind of microdrift where your intention is to fly in a mostly straight vector. A drifting
boost allows you to negate the drawbacks of boosting—the inability to turn. Performing a drifting boost is
simple: engage a boost, and, once you have reached your maximum boost speed, engage a drift. While
you are slowly losing speed, you may perform whatever evasive maneuvers you feel necessary. After a
brief moment of maneuverability, kick in another boost and continue forwards, repeating as necessary to
keep yourself moving fast while avoiding flying too straight.

In addition to evasiveness, drifting boosts also allow for efficient traversal of the battlefield. Boost until
max speed is reached, then drift until you drop speed, then repeat. You will move faster than you would at
normal speed, without draining as much boost as you would by holding your boost until it is empty.

Drifting boosts are especially helpful when you are going for a health pickup while enemies are on your
six. You should never be boosting straight at a health pickup, because your enemies will know you want it
and will line up the perfect shot if you fly straight at it.

Here is an example of a drifting boost: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYqUs6UVxl4

Dead Drifting

A dead drift is a tactic in which you extend the duration of a single drift by dumping power out of your
engines, allowing you to fly across the battlefield on inertia alone. This maneuver is similar to what
fighters in Battlestar Galactica are capable of doing, allowing you to maintain your forward velocity while
strafing or shooting at someone on your rear.

To dead drift, build boost in your engines. Then move power out of your engines and into your guns
and/or shields (as in power management, not shunting). At any point before you run out of boost energy,
you may boost and drift. This drift will last an extended period of time, allowing you to strafe the full length
of a capital ship.

Dead drifting is relatively easy to do. As long as you have boost energy remaining, it doesn't matter when
you dump power and engage the boost. You can, for example, have 5 bars of boost, then put power to
weapons/shields, wait until you have 1 bar of boost remaining, and then quickly boost and drift. It will still
be a dead drift.

Dead drifting is great for a variety of purposes: It allows strafing across the length of capital ships, strafing
along the outskirts of the opening engagement on Yavin and coming in on people's rear at the end of the
drift, and simply making efficient use of your remaining boost during normal power management
adjustments (as in, if you're going to be putting power to guns/weapons anyway, you don't want to just let
that boost fade away—use it!).
Note that because dead drifting requires dumping power out of engines, you should only perform it when
you know you will not be needing that boost power for anything else. A dead drift, by its nature, will
consume most if not all of your remaining boost.

Here is an example of dead drifting: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPJ6N3Q9vro

Retrodrifting

Retrodrifting is a tactic in which you maintain a drift beyond its normal duration. It is similar to chaining
microdrifts, except in a retrodrift you never ​stop​ drifting. You can do a 180 drift and then do another 180
immediately after, while keeping your nose on the center of the arc, spinning tightly around a limited area.

To retrodrift, you must hold your drift until your ship gets to its highest turn angle. On some ships, it may
look like you have begun to fly backwards. Once at this point, you activate boost and immediately activate
drift again. This is a quick double-tap action, boost-drift (remember to hold the drift button). This will
refresh your drift. Once you are at the highest angle of this refreshed drift, you can repeat the process.
This can be continued for as long as you have boost remaining, though for practical purposes you will
rarely need to refresh your drift more than one or two times.

Retrodrifting is fantastic for survivability as, unlike a normal turn, during a drift turn your ship is traveling
along a vector different to where your nose is pointing, causing you to strafe. It is also good for hooking
(drifting behind an enemy after a joust), and for maneuvering bombers, which, due to low maneuverability,
acceleration, and speed, turn best (and safest) by drift turning instead of dropping to 50% throttle. The
Y-wing especially almost demands a retrodrift to do a full 180 drift turn, as its base drift turn is quite
lacking.

Here is an example of retrodrifting: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcLai75l53g

Rolling Retrodrift

A rolling retrodrift is a type of retrodrift where, instead of performing looping turns, you fly in a corkscrew
forwards. This allows you to gain much of the evasiveness of retrodrifting, while putting distance between
you and your opponents.
A rolling retrodrift works like a normal retrodrift, except instead of doing it during a turn, you're doing it
during a corkscrew/Wotan Weave/spiral. You can refresh the drift at the highest angle of the roll, just like
a retrodrift. This keeps you traveling in a more or less straight direction, but makes you much harder to
hit.

To corkscrew, roll opposite to your vector. For example, if you are pitching up and yawing right, then
you'd roll to the left. If you are pitching up and yawing left, then you roll right.

Rolling retrodrifts, like drifting boosts, enable you to traverse the battlefield without flying in a straight line,
making you a more difficult target for opponents. They are great for getting to health pickups or allies
safely, or approaching flagships even while you have enemy fighters on your six. They are also quite
efficient: retrodrifts usually only use a split second of boost before drifting, allowing you to maintain them
for a long time and conserve your boost for other maneuvers.

Here is an example of a rolling retrodrift: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXEHZQRQ3PM

Credits:​ It is thanks to other members of the Squadrons competitive community for first discovering and explaining these techniques.
This guide is just meant to consolidate all of these maneuvers in one place and provide instructions on how to perform them. I take
no credit for them.

Microdrifting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlriiObB374​ - Micro Drifting Meta Discussion (GreenFoxLeader, Aces5)

Retrodrifting:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsSquadrons/comments/j6a8u0/retrodrifting/​ - Retrodrifting (Chessur)

Dead drifting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vWDzOqJsMc​ - SecondRun DeadDrifting (Destracier)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS_5orWKAlU​ - How-To-Game: Dead Drift (Hopfot)

Booster stats:
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsSquadrons/comments/j4ykdg/hidden_booster_stats/​ - Hidden Booster Stats! (Paristeta)

Rolling retrodrifting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7mgOIbKwGc​ - Squadrons Drifting Tutorial (Carolina Krayts)

For more help on improving your Squadrons play, I recommend checking out the CompetitiveSquadrons reddit and the SWS 5Mans
Discord server.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveSquadrons/
https://discord.gg/aSvdZEr

Written by Rhifox