Hi everyone!
Here are few things that’s been running around in my head the last weeks. Basically i think that a few simple features would promote team play and a more realistic way executing space combat in the game. This post will deal with the x-wing, but keep your eyes open for the y-wing post too.
First off, in a star wars game, any fighter should be handled as a WWII fighter, say a Spitfire or Messerschmitt. Not a modern fighter like an F-15 or JAS-39 (me, Swedish? Why?)
In the movies you see TIEs and x-wing hunt each other down and blast one another with cannons in much the same way as WWII fighters would. Only they would probably be using machineguns, not laser cannons. Some Star Wars fighters will carry missiles, proton torpedoes and concussion missiles, but in my mind, they are NOT the primary weapons.

Some basic lore on the X-wing:

The X-wing is a state of the art space superiority fighter. Its armament consists of 4 linked laser cannons and two proton torpedo launchers, each holding only one torpedo. Fast and quite maneuverable, it's a formidable dogfighter. It can also hit larger targets as corvettes and frigates (and maybe a few huge moon-size battle stations), but with a limited torpedo load this is not where it excels. It's a one man fighter, but the pilot is aided by an onboard astromech, able to work some flight and weapon systems, but also do simple repairs to damaged systems in reach of its manipulators.

The X-wing in-game as I see it:

On torpedoes: Proton torpedoes are a basically a sort of guided missile with a pretty big warhead stuck to the end of it. In the movies you see them busting up the Death Star, but it’s not its main use. They are primary a weapon for taking out shields and systems on medium size capital ships such as corvettes or frigates. They can be used against any sort of target, even small fighters. But the missile is not at all that maneuverable, and can easily loose track of it target. So locking on to a TIE, launching the torpedo, and the hitting the target with torpedoes is not going to be easy. If you still manage to pull it off, you’re pretty much going to turn it in to gas.

On flight groups: In the movies or books, you’re not going to find x-wings fighting solo! It’s simply not what they are made for. A typical scenario would be six X-wings flying in a group. And probably there would be more then one group, maybe a whole squadron, of probably 24 fighters in total. Each group of six would have their own call sign, for example ”rough”, ”gold” or ”green”. In this example I will be calling my group Gold-group.
The flight leader should have the call sign ”GOLD ONE”, the rest would follow as ”GOLD TWO”, ”GOLD THREE” and so on.
The group of six would then be split in to three pairs.

GOLD ONE, with GOLD TWO as wingman
GOLD THREE with GOLD FOUR as wingman
GOLD FIVE with GOLD SIX as wingman

GOLD ONE (the flight leader) is responsible for keeping track of the battle. He/She/It (hey! its star wars) is to give orders to the leaders of the pairs (GOLD THREE or GOLD FIVE) who in turn should report back to the leader. So what about GOLD TWO, FOUR and SIX?
Their only concern is to give their leaders cover. Any offensive moves ought to be taken by the pair-leaders. This way the pilots who go in for the kill can focus on shooting, without having to keep track of his/her/its tail. And the pilot providing cover can focus on just keeping an eye on his /her/its leader and the other on what’s going on around.
If, or maybe when, a group of six is cut short by some nasty TIEs, it’s the Leaders job to re-assign any loose fighters to another group. You DON’T want a lonely x-wing out there, its just going to be a sitting duck!
For the pair leaders it’s pretty straight shooting. Just hunt down and kill whatever needs killing according to the flight leader. The covering wingmen however will have a few options, all depending on the in-game features. He/she/it could for example choose to stay a bit behind his leader and simply blast anything that makes a run on him/her/it. Or, if countermeasures are available he/she/it could stay close behind his leader. I.e. making his/her/its own craft a shield and also using countermeasures together with the leader (this would i.e. double the effectiveness of the countermeasures, since the loading time would be cut in half)

So if this sort of game play is to be available, what do we need from the devs? Well not all that much. Keeping the group tight and executing the tactics, is totally up to the players. However there are a few things that would open up for this sort of play.
First, X-wings need to spawn in groups of six. If not, we are going to find people having to wait around for too long, becoming impatient and just heading out on their own. Also there needs to be lots of x-wings, not just six. Preferably in different hangars or such. This way your group could easily find six x-wings waiting for them, allowing them to start as a team, even at launch.

Thanks for your time!