Can't survive first firefight

I finish the early tutorials and Clay sends me to Touchdown Station. I go through the cutscene where the 2 pirates want to seize my ship. Then as SOON as the cutscene ends I'm hit like 4 times and die! That happened every time except once, and the 1 time it didn't happen I got hit only a few times and then died again.

The first fight of the game can't possibly be this hard can it?? What am I doing wrong? I'm no stranger to space combat sims so I know it's not because I just suck....

If I recall, the goal there is not to fight and win, but to retreat. The first encounter is intended to be a lesson in humility; you're flying a command section (think: shuttle craft) with only a single particle beam cannon.

The one thing that's not obvious about IWar2 is that cutscenes are not really "cutscenes" -- you're still flying during the scene. Whenever you see a cutscene, you're still flying forward; so if you're rushing towards the pirates, you'll be getting closer and closer as the scene progresses and once things start shooting, you'll probably have blundered directly under their noses.

Because you still can fly during the cutscene, try to invert your ship and hit the burner to get out of there even while the cutscene is going (this is mostly just a matter of remembering how well your craft manoeuvres -- it doesn't have to be perfect). Once the cutscene ends, try going into an unguided linear displacement (e.g., "go to warp") to put some serious distance between you; hit the LDS button ("L" on the default keyboard), ramp your throttle to halfway, and then when you leave everything behind, hit the button again to kill the LDS. Clay should then tell you what to do next.

Also important is to master the fine art of dodging using your lateral thrusters -- WASD (I think). I tend to map these keys to a hat on my joystick, since I use a joystick and throttle combo. It makes a world of difference.

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Surgeon-General's Warning: Early test cases of Torn Stars have resulted in fatalities. The errors in the software should be gone by now. Hopefully.

Actually, you are flying the Storm Petrel at this point. This little ship is the TIE Fighter of the I-War universe. It is fast, maneuverable, and carries two light but powerful guns.

First off, you should be full throttle right at the start. Immediately start bank pitching. This is where you bank and pitch at the same time. The spiraling effect makes your ship hard to hit. And it's pretty small, so it is already hard to hit when moving.

Once you got them broken off, make sure you target nearest enemy and go for him. The trick here is not to Joust. When you are near to passing each other, you hit the brakes (thrust reverse or throttle down), then turn around when the enemy ship blows by full bore and step on the throttle. Start firing. Don't stop firing unless he is out of the firing arc. Keep on his rear, as you're fighting a Tug, which has no shields on the rear. Your ship has no shields on the bottom, just on the top, so try and keep the enemy ships a little above yours. You should be able to hammer out at least one of the Tugs with just the primary guns, but while you are not able to shoot the main guns, target the other one and release all your missiles at it. Once you defeat both these tugs, four more will warp in. At this point you should be wetting yourself, but you can take 'em all on!

All power to the engines!!!