Star Wolves is a mix of small scale strategy game with RPG: you have up to 7 unts [+allies which you cant control in many missions] which you buy/find [fighters only] and outfit with weapons, systems, and missile weapons.

Its a great game, but

--controls are tricky, sometimes camera just won't zoom in enough, and due to 3d combat, visibility tends to be poor [even with lines showing current height difference]
--it's mostly linear, with some forks and choices
--in early game, combat is qiute random... later, a bit of random; this mostly depends on piloting and gunnery skills of pilots, both your and enemy's
--there is small amount of equipment which is actually useful [good system and fighter options, lack of gun and missile options]

If you can live with this small cons - adventure awaits!

Your Hero is the only unit, for which you can choose skilltree - you can level skills on every pilot, but their skillstrees are pretermined in final shape - for Hero, there are four paths.

Thats the most important moment in whole game <== personal opinion
In short, specialisations:

• Piloting - inefficient for hard diff.
  
• Gunnery - optimal, always
  
• Missiles - inefficient for hard diff.
  
• Electronic Warfare - optimal, a bit worse than Gunnery [heavy depends on situation]

Without spoilers: you start with Ace character - he's your best pal, and specializes in Gunnery tree; his Gunnery tree is different that yours [a bit]; thats also the case with every other pilot. In most cases, they have some unique ability whch makes them better than your character, even when you and they both have same specialisation.

So, sadly, you won't be the best one; but, you are leader with Inspiration, which is quite good when coupled with other abilities [thats is spoiler part]. Also, there are max 6 pilots with you on mothership, and you will get, in some part of the game, every specialisation covered. Few of them, more than once.
You can till be good: just take gunnery or system control [electronic warfare].

Piloting
Outmaneuvering your enemies is nice, and it means hitting them even wthout acc.bonuses from skilltree, especially with lasers which travel instantly.
Manual Control is, well, good. It allows you to play pavsies with enemy Ace Pilots, or Captains - if you have minimal acuracy. Laser weapons recommended; kinetic/plasma on high level can work
Hard Diff: you can try and, probably, win wth this

Gunnery
Sweet, sweet gunnery tree. Probably, best tree for Hard difficulty, probably for every difficulty.
You got nice active salvo, up to +100% firing speed - but the passive skills are much more important. Especially 20% critical chance, which can one-shot anything other than capital ship with correct setup. 200% accuracy is wonderful if you don't use lasers [and nice if you use them].
Hard Diff: take this one, really

Missile
Ehh... It's nice on Normal, but on Hard your rockets/missiles will be always generation behind, and almost everything have Active Anti-Missile System [AMS] on top of Passive Anti-Missile System [ECM]. You can overcome passive one with abilities, but you have to shoot - with guns - guy with AMS. To shreds.
And, as rockets are best as "wake up, Joe" first salvo which don;t give enemy chance to retaliate [often shot from outside of weapon range] they are, well, not useful.
Hard Diff: not worth it - on Normal/Easy it's fine [won Normal]

Systems
Don't get me wrong, its extremely useful tree - you can have wing without Piloting and Missile Specs, but you cant without Guns and System Specialists. It's just problematic in early game, when you have only 2-3 fighters and Mothership - and System Spec cant fight, when he's using an Active System Module, like AMS or Ranged Repair System [RRS].
Good, useful, harder early game.
Hard Diff: tricky, but viable; poo early, really good mid & late game [won Normal]. Due to low overall usefulness of early game fighters and high Mothership reliance, its fine to take that Spec.

Basic Combat
Tip #0: Use pause - never give orders in real time. You will missclick and screw situation.
Tip #00: Use Save function - you can also save during combat, and you can savescum - every shot is calculated again after game loading. I dont say you have or should savescum - but you can, it you really want. In early game on hard, its god time saver, sadly, due to huge fight randomness.

1. Dont beam up all the loot during combat - take best position to destroy enemies; loot after combat - it probably cant be destroyed [never seen it]
   
2. Wings are less efficient than single fighters in early game; sadly, single fighters cant be defended by AMS or repaired by RRS; use single fighters only when its necessary to attack few targets at once, or danger level is low and you want to scatter some fireworks. In late game, wing formation is esential, and you will have passive and active skills which will affect all wing members, so it will be more efficient. In short - use wings in most cases; use single fighters as assassins, or to shoot a rocket salvo
   
3. Focus fire - damage does not reduce efficiency of fighters, or makes them more cowardly/defensive. Always fous fire on most damaging unit in proportion to durability [almost always]
   
4. Use rockets/missiles only with abilities - they are quite useless otherwise. Dont use them at all if enemy has working AMS - they will be shot anyway
   
5. Send fighters on AMS/repair task only when needed - pause when you see a rocket, switch in AMS, wait for lovely laser to melt the missile, switch off when not needed; send fighters on Stealth task only out of combat, when enemy is close enough to take first shots, switch to Attack/Defence
   
6. Early & mid game: use Mothership as gunship and dive into enemies, unless they have plasma cannons. Draw fire with Mothership, exterminate enemies which dont dogfight with your fighters that efficiently, when they have othen target
   
7. Late game: send fighter wing first - Mothership will be devastated due to null dodge ability
   
8. Use accurate weapons in early & mid game. Use lasers always, if your pilot has low accuracy, or laser spec skill, or you just can mount them - there are countermeasures especially against lasers - but thats what missiles are for. Lasers are that good. Almost overpowered, on Normal, probably, overpowered. Especally good for low acc. pilots and Mothership turrets, which can't get acc. bonus due to lack of skilltree.

AdvancedCombat and tricks

1. Use manual targeting for both Mothership and fighters. Dont wait for enemy ship to explode - pause manually when you see hit and their health bar disappear. The shield will regenerate a bit, and the ship will explode few moments after it's destruction. Target another ship manually before explosion to save time - essential tactic for late game combats, when you are overwhelmed by numbers
   
2. You can activate Missiles Spec abilities [make him solo fighter, not a part of the wing for best efficiency] and shoot quick salvos at multiple targets by pausing after single missile is shot; you don't even need more than one missile slot for this. Also, you can destroy, in extreme situations, up to 2 wings of fighters with well places salvo - just pause, shot missile or two, pause, choose other target [with missile attack command] and repeat till out of missiles. If your lone missile spec is targeted with missiles - join then to the wing with active AMS for few seconds, AMS user witll shoot the missiles, remove him from wing and continue attack.
   
3. Use Active Stealth System to strike as first. Long Range Missiles are optional, but not bad option. It's efficient to have A.Stealth and AMS on same ship, cause you won't be using them simultaneusly anyway.
   
4. Mothership turrets are positioned on the "left" and "right" side. Position her slightly below enemy, or dive straight into enemy - turrets arcs have small overlapping area in front of Mothership. Also, dont move when shooting, it seems to lower accuracy [not confirmed, only guessing from observation]
   
5. Dont split the party unless you absolutely have to.

Tip #0: Use best laser that you can find and mount on every ship. Tis everything you need to know.

Sadly, tip #0 is true. There are few situations, when laser is not most efficient weapon, but you have to know when that situations will happen, so if you dont use walkthrough, use lasers, especially due to higher technological level of enemies. If you use walkthrough, then, use lasers anyway, unles you know that:

• There is stationary/semistationary target, like capital ship, corvette, or station. Use plasma weapons or heavy kinetic weapons, or just use torpedos.
  
• Your pilot has really good accuracy - he can use heavy kinetic guns - still, laser is more accurate.

Excluding lasers:

• Light weapons have straightforward path - every new weapon is kinetic-tye and is better than old one. Replace and sell oldies. [there is one quirk described below]
  
• Heavy weapons have plasma-type and kinetic-type [and laser type.]. In most cases, use kinetic type; again, straightforward progression. Plasma-type is useful on low-mobility targets, and high-acc pilots. They also have simple progression.
  
• Mothership turrets are similar to fighter weapons, heavy type. You cant swap them during mission, so dont use plasma - you wont hit anything other than corvette/capital. Kitenic-type can hit fighters, but its tricky. [yup, lasers again]

Not really much to say about, short of... Not really a spoiler, but there are laser-type weapons which you cant use, and:

If you happen to find some really powerfull and expensive laser, don't sell it. Just dont. When you find some weird, light lasers [2000+ per one], sell every one of them, just leave twelve or so after last mission involving. You will know when its time to stop selling them due to mission names.

And real spoiler:

There is system which makes craft extremely durable against laser fire; its like cutting damage by 50-70%. Use missiles, because it will devastate your crafts otherwise. I has 3 light weapons [poor acc. pilots, zero damage practically] and full laser squad, including mothership. One rocket salvo, the best tech ones, and they were gone, dont need to swap weapons.

Tip #0: Never use missiles/rockets without abilities on Hard, unless you know that enemy has no AMS or passive defence that you can overcome.

Rockets: non tracking straight-line-traveling, outmaneuvered by craft, or shot by AMS.
Torpedoes: non tracking, massive rocket variant with huge explosion range
Missiles: tracking ones which can be fooled by passive system or shot by AMS
Long Range variant: useful due to first strike and ability to harrass AI from range, reload, repeat.
Multihead missiles: variant which splits into few missiles; good against passive systems.

They are all quite useful in correct situatons and completely useless in other ones - you should have at least one fighter with missiles [highest tech] on Hard in mid & late game; it's also good idea to fill everyone's missile slots with torpedo class rockets - the big ones, non-trackng type even if they know only how to shoot it in right directio - it's enough for imobile/slow targets. Dont use regular rockets, unless out of torpedoes and have immobile target to destroy.

• Again - lauch abilities, then lauch missiles. If you dont have abilities, stick to torpedo class.
  
• Never use any missiles [even with abilities] when enemy has working AMS
  
• You can shoot at fighters with torpedos points blank to destroy everything, you fighter included, when AMS destroys torpedo in space, between fighters. In short - save, do it once for fun, dont repeat, ever.

Tip #0: Never leave without Active Anti-Missile System [AMS]. Only few first missions are ok without it; just mount it on one foghter as backup option - in case you will have to use it to survive an volley.

Passive systems are fine, one-time are crappy.

• Don't use Passive Anti-Missile Systems [ECM], if you have AMS in wing. You should have one always, so dont use ECM longer than few first missions.
  
• Don't use Engine Boosters at all. They dont increase manoeuvrability, speed only - and speed is not usefull, you fight to win, not to run.
  
• Don't use one-time systems before late game - and in most cases, only weapon rate of fire [cooling system] is worth it.
  
• Use shield systems - you can mix in one repair systems, but shields are the best choice. There are no special weapons for eliminating shields more effectively than hull; shields also can regenerate really fast when boosted with 2-3 systems and pilot's operating bonus.
  
• Use passive radar system, one ship only - more efficient than sacrificing Mothership's slot

Active systems are essential to winning.

• Always have one fighter with Stealth, one with AMS and 2 or 3 with Repair systems.
  
• Engage with Stealth, turn off after first salvo
  
• Use AMS only when needed - most efficiently is to switch foghter for Defence task
  
• Use Repair as needed - turn on all support fighters at once to reduce time of vulnerability for damaged craft. Switch to Defence, as above.

Tip #0: There is a gunship, missile carrier and system carrier in every generation. Use one with most slots, and then most shield/health. If pilot is poor in piloting, look at higher maneuverability ones.

Ships are straightforward, in most cases. Use them just like their slots and definitions says suggest you to do - nothing hidden here.

Exceptions and tips

• Save money on ships and buy them whenever you see them - they are rarely sold, especially when you hunt for only 2-3 models from 5+ options/tier
  
• T1 is durable like papermache, swap all as soon as possible, except unique one [you will know which], it's like T1.5 and fine to swap it as last one.
  
• T2 missile carrier has same number of slots as T3 one, so it has lowest upgrade priority
  
• T2 is good place to stop and upgrade every weapon and system before goint into expensive T3
  
• T3 has cheaper gunship with 2 Big Gun slots and horribly expensive one with 3. Sadly, you will need it anyways; but it has low priority... on Normal. On Hard, 50% increase in damage [you got the weapon, right?] of your lead gunner is gift from God himself. Or, your two lead gunners!

Mild spoiler:

There is exaclty one 4th generation fighter in game - extremely durable, wonderful maneuverability , but has only 2 Big Gun slots. Ace should still fly the 3rd gen with 3 slots due to his extreme accuracy and Sniper Shot

Tip #0: Take all "Quick Learner" and "Instructor" perks at first occasion. They add up and give obscene amount of exp in mid & late game - you will have harder early game, though.

First, regardless of role and skilltree:

• Take these experience perks, really.
  
• Take first piloting, two gunnery and first system operator to have minimal combat performance.
  
• In mid game take second, maybe even third piloting perk to dont let your ilots behind - high accuracy wont work if you enemy is always at your tail
  
• Somewhere later, take shield recharge perks, and repair if you use repair systems

Then, according to skilltree:

• Piloting - go for Manual Control; save some exp for 2nd gunnery perk, then go for piloting and tactician - you want to lead your wing and let Ace increase his gunnery/instructor instead
  
• Gunner - gunnery, Rapid Burst 1, more gunnery [including 50p one], then rush for Survival and Critical Hits. If you dont use lasers, Rapid Burst 3 is really nice with heavy-kinetics
  
• Missile - go for 100% missile skills, don;t bther with rockets till you have all under 100p bought
  
• Systems - AMS as fast as possible, gunnery 2nd perks then repair/stealth/overall system. If you have more than one system spec, split tasks and take some shield perks for both to increase their survival ratio.

And, for Hero:

• Inspiration can wait - T1 fighters tend to crumble into junk when pilots "ignore their safety"
  
• System Spec - Get Hacker Attack to lvl 2, it's miracle especially for Mothership all the time and early game, low accuracy pilots

Tip #0: Fly everywhere, fight everyone, loot everything.

What to buy at every occasion:

• Essential: Repair system for Mothership
  
• T2 and T3 ships that you want to use, gunships have priority
  
• Missiles, if you have 1 or more Missile Spec[s] - only best ones [T2, dont dare to buy Piranha ones, but use ones that you will find] and, in late game, all multi-warheads
  
• Torpedoes - if you only can afford them [not needed on Normal, still useful]
  
• T2 AMS, only single piece - but you probably guessed it :>
  
• Pulse laser turrets for mothership, till you got all 4. Regular laser ones are fine too
  
• T3 shield upgrading systems
  
• 3, or even 4T1 shield generators for Mothership

What not to buy:

• Weapons - you will loot them
  
• Systems, in most cases - you will loot them
  
• T1 ships - just wait for T2
  
• T2 laser turrets, not pulse ones - regular ones, expensive for small improvement
  
• Radar for Mothership - use the one for fighters

When you will swim in money:

• Buy best turrets for Mothership. Yes, these horribly expensive ones.
  
• Buy multihead missiles even if you dont have Missile Spec - T3 support ships have 1 slot, right? Maybe one or two will hit...
  
• You cant donate to orphans or poor civilians, so buy T3 shield generators for Mothership, from Black Market, of course! You will be broke in 10 seconds flat.

Sell everything you dont use; you have unlimitet cargo capacity, so if you are not sure and not in desperate need of money you dnt really have to.
Dont sell missiles/torpedoes in mid/late game - better to save them for you support ships against enemies without ECM/AMS [it happens... sometimes...in my dreams, mostly]

Minor spoiler:

In late game, when close to changing into T3 ships, its good idea to have at least 200.000 credits in cash, on account. There will be sweet deal in one of missions.

In early game, use whatever looks efficient, and as i explained. Below, my choice of most efficient combinations.

Late game wing composition

Efficient way:

1. • Hero - Attack Command
     
   • Mid game: Cleaner with double Polaris/particle accelerator and 2 shield boosters
     
   • Late game: Gunslinger with Precursor Cannon+2 ASCL for Hero; install there experimental cooling system with one-time cooling systems and use his ability [they stack] to shred everything with autolaser cascade of doom. If you dont have Viper, you can use Wyvern here, for better dogfighting. You can also use shield system.[/list]
     
   • • Ace - Wing Leader [Expert tactician]
       
     • Mid game:
       
     • Late game: Use Gunslinger with 3 ASCL or 3 particle accelerators [a bit worse option, better for sniper shot though]; install experimental engine system and anything you like; one-time cooling systems experimental shield is good choice.
   • • Astra - Defence Command; switch to AMS/Repair as needed
       
     • Mid game: Raptor with Wing Stealth, Wing Repair and AMS [swap Stealth for booster when have Phantom on board]; 4 Mace/Tetsubo
       
     • Late game: Trident with Wing Stealth, Wing Repair, Radar System and Shield booster; 3 Alien guns
   • • Phantom - Defence Command; switch to Stealth/Repair as needed
       
     • Mid game: Raptor with Wing Repair, Wing Stealth and Shield Booster; 4 Mace/Tetsubo
       
     • Late game: Trident with Wing Stealth, Wing Repair and Shield booster; 3 Alien guns
   • • Corsair - Attack Command, Solo Leader for missile runs
       
     • Mid game: Bident with missiles and Shield Boosters; 2 Mace/Tetsubo
       
     • Late game: Hrimturs with missiles and Shield Boosters; 1 Alien gun
   • • Viper - Attack Command, Solo Leader for assassin runs
       
     • Mid game: Tiger with 2 plasma guns and shield bosters
       
     • Late game: Wyvern [or Gunslinger] with 2 [3] plasma guns and shield boosters. Sometimes, she got secondary radar/active cooling system
   [/olist]
   
[/spoiler]

Pirates and Patrol
They come in numbers.... massive numbers.
Missile spam captains/aces, shoot down rest using manual targeting.
Can have "Butcher" corvette - focus fire on her, cause plasma guns will shred your Mothership - and corvette will try to dogfight your fighters, which will toast her in no time. Use torpedoes as "Hello!".


Berserks
Dont try to soak damage with Mothership here - lasers shred her in seconds it there are 2+ wings. Engage at range with fighters wing. They never use AMS, only EMC - use cheap rockets with abilities or expensive ones without.
Destroy Chimeras ASAP - they cant shoot effectively when you attack them form the front, but are very dengerous if allowed to shoot from close distance.
Again, say hello with torpedoes.


Precursor
Pray for lucky Ace's shot, and shoot it with at least 15 missiles at once - this will make fighter spin and lose time, not destroying your fighters in one shot. With abilities, it will probably destroy her in 12-missile volley.
Save before attacking, try to drop laser for late-game Ace's/Hero ship


USS and Triad
They have quantity, not high skill/quality - missile salvo and manual targeting; focus on their Cleaners.


InoCo
Missile only these with reddish shields - thats laser defense system. They have horrible piloting skill, so snipe them.


NAVY
Their biggest strenght is money - they have better fighters than you, better equipped - and be waty od NAVY Aces. They need to be salvoed with missiles ASAP, cause hitting them without piloting at 3-4lvl is almost impossible.
I have fought with one long enough - one Ace versus 4 fighter and Mothership - to reload missiles wth Corsair two times and blast him with two salvos [ablities were down]


Aliens
Save and pray - on hard best option is using highest class Long Range Missiles [you need radar] and multiwarhead missiles in salvo. It can even be good idea to switch Phantom into spare Bident, shoot a salvo of MIRV and immediately dock to swap ships, while Corsar uses regular missiles with ablities. Use LRM with Corsair due to better passive bonuses - that MIRV one is emergency move.
Also, be wary of corrosive effect - AMS anyone?

• Choose Gunnery and learn to love lasers!
  
• Always take experience perks first
  
• Recruit Red Corsair, cause lasers dont work always
  
• When you get Heretic, dont get attached - he's good as system operator for time
  
• Destroy every enemy... and few allies to
  
• On escort missions dont contact escorted ally, clear system before escort mission
  
• Dont level up your AI member - Berserk Code Cracking is OK
  
• Kill and loot every Berserk in every system for their lasers. You dont need to do this with Aliens, cause you will be already stacked with space cash.
  
• Let your allies, like NAVY/Patrol in Berserk mission die for loot - or kill enemies first for exp - or kill them both for exp
  
• Kil InoCo whenever you can, for their sweet, sweet loot. You cn savescum them a bit for Diamond sytems, they sell for nice sum
  
• Choose "Stealing The Prototype Mission"
  
• Stick to Emperor Side, its easier gameplay-wise
  
• Savescum till you get Precursor Cannon at every occasion
  
• Use Long Range Missiles and Laugh At Their Corpses!
  
• Always say hello with torpedoes to the big guys - they really deserve it
  
• You cant, sadly, change your Mothership, so learn how to use her effectively.
  
• Mount ASCL everywhere when you can, it's almost failsafe strategy. Have some spare plasma/gatling in case of horrible, horrible Diamonds everywhere and lack of missiles