I have reached the 4. battle of Hoth, having much fun flying the gunboat (finally a ship with a shield!). Im blasting x-wing, y-wing, b-wing and some blue a-wing, then comes a pair of gold a-wing both targeting me with missiles and kills me every time. So how does one defend against missiles???

The problem is those A-wings from Gold squadron are packing advanced missiles (twice as fast, twice as maneuverable, and packing twice the boom), which will kill you crazy quick. The best way to avoid them is to not target the transports laying the mines. Scan the containers, destroy the containers, and then blast your primary objective (the 3 star fighter squadrons) to dust, and get the heck out of there. Don't bother with trying to blast the cruiser, as it's invulnerable for the mission.

Missiles in general you can shoot down, but as VF19 pointed out there isn't much you can do against the advanced missiles, especially in a gunboat. They're just too darned fast. I've always just bugged out toward the end of this mission. Fighting A-wings in a gunboat is a pain, too, but keep in mind that it can be easier to disable A-wings than to destroy them outright. Disable them if you can and leave them for later.

Thank ill do that :)

Your mileage may vary, but I've found even advanced missiles get confused if you start looping your craft. I literally just pull all the way back on my joystick and keep it like that until the missiles wear themselves out. Obviously this is a problem if you are on time-sensitive missions.

As people said, you need to tank those fighters until you can come close and dogfight. Have your shield and laser system increased charge on the ELS (just one hit on F9 and F10, not two). Deal with the Awings first, as they are the greatest threat to your survival. Also, a small tip, don't destroy the whole squad, leave 1. The cruiser won't launch any replacements untill all fighters from the curent wave have been wipped out. If you can, have it retreat, as it will ignore you and head home. Untill it doesen't enter in the hangar no new a-wings will come out. Depending on your distance to the cruiser, thay should give you a few minutes of "relax".

This tactic can (AND MUST BE) applied to future missions in-game, so don't go greedy on kills unless its necessary fro primary or secondary mission objectives.

What about bonus goals, you sure need them to advance in the secret order of the empire, or am I mistakeing?

Bonus goals help rank up but are not required to attain next secret order Rank. You just need to complete secondary goals. Bonus goals are meant to gain extra points to advance faster within the order, and some are very juicy worth 5.000 pts (such as helping to survive a capital ship that should have been destroyed during a mission... but it's hard as hell even on easy difficulty).

As said, just worry about secondary goals, but don't miss a chance to get a bonus goal, except when the primarys are compromissed.

Make sure your shields are double filled. Then if you keep a lot of Laser energy at the same time, transfer Lasers to Shields and refill them when you get hit by a missile. That's the alternative to shooting them down or dodging.

From what I remember many many years ago, it's often a good idea to keep Lasers at Max charge, shields at neutral or even small negative, and just transfer laser energy to shields to charge them.

Depends on the ship; if I recall it correctly, that mission must be played with an assault gunboat; for me it's the worst ship in all the game, even worst than the regular Tie Fighter. Even with shield capability, they are easy to deplete and hard to replenish; the only good point about their guns is that it has ion cannons, but no big deal as with only two standard cannons, transferring energy ir barely noticeable. Also, its power transferrence is the worst in all the ships, decreassing your speed to a ridiculous 68 MLGT, let alone the loss of manuverability that comes from transferring engine power to weapons and/or shields.

It's equivalent in the rebel armada is the BW, but I don't recall it having such worthless shields, and its weapons allthough quite spreaded where a lot better, at least the BW had a clear role, taking out capital ships. The GUN? Nice looking ship but just THAT... nice looks.

Back to the point, with the assault gunboat have just one click on the F9, leave f10 neutral, and alternate between ion and standard cannons to drain your targets shields. If you must transfer energy to the shields, then max out cannon recharge lvl, then drop it to increassed when you have replenished your energy. That ship is in dire need of speed and manuverability even to fight against an XWING, let alone A-wings... Hence why I say the regular TIE it's better, it can cope with X-wing and even veteran I.A lvl a-wings swiftly. The gunboat? Only good vs YW and z-95s.

Well the Assault Gunboat is essentially the Imperial equivalent of a Y-Wing and we know how terrible those are... ;P

Actually, the assault gunboat is the middle equivalent between the YW and the BW.

Many people tend to confusse ship equivalencis as they just compare speed and weaponry. This wa smade this way not to make Imperial Navy and Rebel Armada just mirrors from each other.

For instance, the equivalent of an X-Wing is not a Tie Fighter, but a Tie Interceptor. Not only it shares its weapon and armamaent distribution, speed is allmost equivalent (remember standard Ties don't have shields, so to compensate for that, the interceptor was given 10 extra MGLT speed). The actual equivalent of the Tie Fighter is the Z-95 headhunter, as it iis slower tan an XW and shares the attack power of the standard Imperial navy fighter.

Next you have the YW, whose equivalent in terms of speed and raw firepower is the Tie Bomber. Allbeit the lack of shields, this ship isn't as fast as a YW but performs its role in a similar way: wipe out enemy ships. Though YW also have Ion cannons to perfomr capture operations, in Tie Fighter the BW is the prime hunter for the rebels when it comes to capture enemy ships, much like the Assault Gunboat is the standard choice for Imperial Navy capture operations. Hence why the Gunboat is a middle term between YW and BW, but in terms of speed and manuverability its closer to the BW.

AW's equivalent, allthough exagerated is the Tie Advanced. I know it seems strange given the T/A superior speed and weaponry, but both ships have same manuverability, and the A-W has slightly stronger shields.

The two ships in the imperial navy that don't have equivalent are the Tie Defender and the Missile Boat; the T/D is overpowered, period. In fact, many clans banned it's use on multiplayer matches due to the fact that it was the fastest ship in the game (even with full power redirected to shields and lasers, the ship is as fast as an XW with full laser rechargge), strong shields (only surpassed by YW and Gunboat ones) and superior weaponry (four laser canons and 2 ion cannons, plus great capacity dual warhead launchers). And the missile boat, allthough not a ship to be played competitively, it can outrun ANY SHIP (even T/D), not to mention that it can rely on 80 advanced concussion missiles to take out ships.

Also, better acceleration.

Pull the stick back and diagonally toward the left and fire your lasers unlinked.