The X-Wing and Tie Fighter play like more of a (very fun) simulator than an arcade game. And needs to be approached as such. Which means you should pay attention to the mission briefings, and study the controls. I think these games have dog fighting excellence unmatched in any other game.

The best experience is with a joystick. You are handicapped with anything else. Most of the newer joysticks are quite stiff, and dont give you the same fine control needed when individual pixels matter. My excellent old joysick has the old game port connection, so is useless. Am currently using a Cyborg X, but the stiffness will take some getting used to.

M : goes to the in-flight map. Game is paused in this mode. Use it often.
I: Toggles between ID mode and targeting mode. You will want to stay in the latter mode for a bit more visual targeting help unless you need to ID craft as part of a mission goal.
ALT-C: recalibrates the joystick. Can be done at any time and is needed if you start to get joystick drift.
X: Toggles firing mode. You should always stay on single firing mode for lasers because its faster.
??: Matches speed with target. What is the key for this does anyone know? Enter only fires the lasers. I do remember using it but was that only with Tie Fighter? In the absence of this, use the 1/3, 2/3 and full throttle keys as needed to chase mobile targets better.
ALT-D: changes detail setting. Keep it on the lowest setting. Newer gamers would not understand this, but it keeps the display minimalist and allows you focus on the task at hand in destroying craft. And not having the stupid galaxies and debris flying around to distract you.
. : the "dot" on the keyboard toggles the cockpit on and off which gives you the best display for dogfighting. Can be used when you become more familiar with the game and dont need the cockpit cues as much.

Learn how the energy system works and how it relates to shields and speed. Have you lasers charging in increased or max mode (except when you might need max speed - 200, to chase down a distant target) and transfer laser energy to shields periodically. When you need to increase or recover your shields you do NOT want your shield system set to increased or max level as its inefficient. Balance your shields out with the S key when needed after taking hits.

There is much more information that can help with these games, but I wont bother typing it all out here as there are also many excellent guides online. Good luck Red Leader!

Enter is the default match speed for me, odd that yours is different.

Where your lasers are makes a HUGE change in accuracy. Your y-wing will hit slightly below where you fire (slightly above for the ion cannon), your x-wing will be a little outside where you fire. Each craft is different. Learn to lead enemy fighters, that green light that pops up when you are "on target" is only effective if the target doesn't change direction.

A lot of times, a yellow lock on missiles/torpedoes is just fine, trust your instincts.

Seriously map as much as you can to your joystick. I prefer to have my fingers near the F9/F10 keys since energy usage is one of the most important aspects of the game.

I know this was mentioned in the main post, but to reiterate: DO NOT CHARGE YOUR SHIELDS. Transfer power from your lasers always, It is much more efficient, and there will be plenty of opportunities to do so without causing you any problem throughout most missions.

Don't get discouraged if you die or get captured in X-Wing and your points get reset, it's going to happen, just soldier on.

Original X-Wing didn't have match speed - it was apparently added in TIE Fighter, and added after the fact in the 1998 revision of X-Wing.

JRjr

Something that has helped me out quite a bit is setting target presets. Especially for those escort missions where you have to protect a shuttle and there are lots of targets to scroll through. Setting your VIP to a preset is helpful to check up on their status.

Very much disagree on keeping lasers on single fire. I can take out a tie fighter in one shot with quad cannons linked on the x-wing. You only need one good shot and they are gone. You will start to learn how to lead your shot and suddenly you become the one shot wonder taking out TIEs in one shot.

Linked is also great if you want to solo a capital ship. You can fire a quad shot, change direction a bit to avoid oncoming fire, fire another quad shot, change direction again....so and so forth. Already have a frigate and star destroyer kill in just 7 missions in the first tour of duty (TOD).

Speed is a huge help in avoiding enemy fire. Often I keep my lasers charging at max and my shields decharging at max so I get good speed. Keep pumping laser energy into shields and it will actually fill up faster even though you are decharging your shields.

Not that I doubt you, but I'm curious how did you destroy an SD? Did you fly right up to the engines and fired until the shields went out?

If you destroy the two "globes" on top of the SD Bridge, the shields go down immediately... i think one of the latest missions in one of the TODs illustrates that

IIRC it should require a couple of torpedo each (fired from point blank range, since you can't lock sub-components in XW)

EDIT: found the relevant video Tour 2, Mission 10

Correct. Shoot the two deflector shield towers (look like globes on top of the bridge) with 3 torpedoes each. After that I fly around with quad link skimming the surface shooting at the furthest part of the ship, then turning around and finding the next furthest spot on the ship, so and so forth...

Interesting, never knew they only took 3 torpedoes. Thanks for the tip!

One other little tip: if you ever have to slow down a bit, try upping the shield recharge rate instead of cutting throttle.

You might be easier to target at slower speeds, but it's partially offset by the higher shield recharge rate.

More pro tips: dual laser linking is to maximize precission without missing too many hits; quad linked is good for great tough targets such as freighters and other capital ships. Single fire is only advisable when chasing nimble fighters or when you want to finish a capital ship (lasers fire slightly faster).

Next, speed: don't turn your ship at 100% throttle; youll have increassed manuverability at 2/3 speed and the sharppest turns can only bee performed at 1/3 speed. Also, if you're chasing T/A, you should have your shield energy transferred to engines: I know, It seems suicide, but these fighters are the most agile one's in the game. You could try getting one with standard adjustments on an A-Wing but and X-Wing will have to renounce to shields in favor of speed to chase one of this tricky SOBs down.

Kind of sad that they didn't add "Show target's attacker" (Default "A" in TIE Fighter) - would come in mighty handy in all those damn escort missions.

That, and the ability to view the message log. The message bar in the 98 remake is a little wonky. Likes to repeat messages long-since irrelevant.

I've always had best results with the opposite setup: Using single fire mode for the big, slow ships lets me pump more shots into them because they're not fast enough to (or even trying to) dodge them. Mid-level ships like shuttles and transports get dual-fire mode because they are moving, but slow enough that I don't have to worry too much about losing tracking.

The X/W, Y/W, T/Fs, T/Is, and T/As, though, are what quad-linked fire was made for. My logic being that, either way, I'm only going to get to squeeze off one shot before I have to adjust course to re-acquire anyway, so I might as well get full bang for the buck and, hopefully (in the case of T/As and "pirate" rebel ships) getting hit with multiple bolts will keep their shields from fully regenerating before I get another shot off. I've always cleared them out faster one quad than using spray-n-pray tactics.

You do realize that quad fire for some ships equals loosing 4 points if you don't aim correctly, right (acuracy in thi sgame is meant to give you more points, not just to show off in front of your frineds?) Also, your logic behind shoting capital ships with single fire is missguided. Some capital ships have a tremendous firepower, and you barely have time to aim at them with the lasers before you have to evade a deadly barrage of fire that could wipe out your shields (or a great portion of them... let alone if you're piloting some regular ties like Interceptors, fighters or bombers in Tie Fighter). Also, the more you get close the harder it is to dodge those barrages.

Think it this way, if you have less than a second to fire your guns at a ship, what do you preffer: a single shot every 4-5 seconds or 4 shots?

When attacking large ships:

A) More often than not, they aren't star destroyers or frigates, they're corvettes or freighters, so dodging turbolasers isn't a big deal.

B) When they ARE star destroyers or frigates, I'm either using the corkscrew approach, or I'm skimming along the length of the ship, drilling the entire run before I pull away to recharge. (Of course, if I'm at the point where I'm shooting at an ISD with my lasers, I've already done something very wrong)

As for the small ships, yes, it's true: if you miss with 4 shots, it's 4 points off. On the other hand, when they're bouncing around the way nimble ships do, you have to look for clear shots. Assuming an average of 1 clear shot every N seconds, I'd rather risk the points rather than having to take 2 to 4 times as many passes to kill the ship over a few points, especially when I have mission objectives to complete.

Plus, considering that the score can get reset every time that stupid putz in the T/B turns into you instead of away from you[0], worrying about score is secondary to getting the job done and progressing with the mission.

[0]Update: Or, as just happened to, you get captured because your idiotic wingman decides to try to shoot torpedos through you to get that pesky corvette... It's so stupid I can't stop laughing

For A) Well, yes, In xwing capital ship combat was quite rare and fairly easy compared to Tie Fighter (not allways, but rebel ships are easier to handle and have an easier time dealing with corvetes and even frigates).

And as for B) I guess it depends on the playstyle and/or hability of the person. Its true that when you have misión objectives to complete you can't loose much time in dogfights, but when things are quitter, I preffer to take my time and maximize my score.