The Sentinel is the TDS starter ship and one of the fastest vessels in the game. While it can deal damage it isn't really a frontline combat ship in the way the Pioneer or the Venturer are – it excels more at capturing stuff and chasing fast nimble craft, like Equalzers, Protectors or Rangers.
Both of it's support abilities are mobility-related, one gives a massive speed boost to the ship itself and a lesser one to it's allies and the other one sets up a buoy that increases agility (sideward, up and down thrust) of all ships in the area of effect.
It's jump cooldown also scales really well into late game giving the Sentinel superior strategic mobility as well.

The Sentinel's greatest downfall is it's really weak armor and hitpoints, and a lack of raw DPS on the main gun.

The Sentinel has a higher skill floor than the Pioneer or the Venturer and greatly benefits from an experienced player. It is a very good ship but not exactly easy to get into.


What this guide will attempt to show you:
This guide will attempt to give you a most complete rundown of the traits and abilities of the Sentinel and how to use them for the most effect. It will also feature friends and enemies of the Sentinel.

I will try to keep it up to date the best I can and add more information as the game is growing into it's final shape. If you feel anything is missing, have something that should be added/expanded upon or any questions, feel free to let me know in a comment below.



Yes, there is a separate section solely about movement as this often overlooked guide component is the key to being a successful captain.
We start with the first and utmost important rule of all.

rule #1:
NEVER. STOP. MOVING.

As an Sentinel you're one of the more fragile ships in a match, so not getting hit by too much stuff is pretty important. The Senitel is a very sleek ship with a very low front and side profile, so if you move a lot you are a harder target and your opponents will most likely miss a good amount of shots, especially at the longer engagement ranges the Sentinel prefers.
Immobile ships are sitting ducks, especially ones with low armor and health like the Sentinel.

rule #2:
Move into more than two direction at once.

The Sentinel is very sleek and agile ship, and with the thruster boost it can become really really fast, so if it applies thrust into multiple directions it becomes almost impossible to tell where exactly it is actually heading. If there is any game where a no-ghosting keyboard pays off it's this one (no-ghosting keyboards, aka keyboards that do not bug out if you hit more than three keys at once, can be acquired quite cheap - I payed 40€ for my Sidewinder keyboard that even has LED-illuminated keys).

In battle you should almost always press one key from each of the following pairs:
- W or S for forward or backward thrust
- Q or E for sidewards thrust
- Space or Ctrl for up/down thrust
- A or D to adjust your facing (if necessary)

This will make it very hard for Ghosts and Enforcers to land a full volley on you and even give Hunters and Reapers a lot of trouble at medium ranges.

The standard battle tactic of the Sentinel is to circle around it's target and pummel it from as far as possible (preferrably from far above or below) until the victim either runs, dies or jumps out. Note that backwards and sidewards thrust stack, so you can fly backwards a lot faster with diagonal movement, plus the thruster boost works in every direction, even upwards and downwards - in combination with the agility buff from the buoy it can make you amazingly maneuverable.

rule #3:
Change elevation to your advantage.

The Sentinel has no limitations on it's fire arcs while most of the high DPS ships have. Use this to your advantage – if you see a Reaper or an Interceptor try to get high above or deep below it where it can't hit you with it's full firepower, if necessary use your thruster boost. You cannot afford to hang around within the main fire arc of these ships. They will shred you to pieces.

Be careful with Hunters though as they can teleport up to 7k quite frequently, even on the vetrical plane.

The Sentinel has three weapon systems. The smart gun and the missiles are rather easy to use while the rockets requires a good amount precision aiming.


Smart gun
This is your main weapon. It is a relatively slow-firing medium-long range gun that doesn't deal an amazing amount of damage but fires smart projectiles that follow the selected target (press T to select the ship you're looking at or cycle through all ships within sensor range). The tracking isn't very good though so you still have to sort of aim, especially at close range.
In some situations you might be able to shoot from behind cover at a target you cannot see but usually the tracking isn't good enough to allow for this.
For the most effect you should try to fire at broken armor (burning sections) whenever possible which obviously is easiest when you attack from above or below. The projectiles have sort of their own will though, so at longer ranges they won't always hit where you want them to – on the upside they rarely miss.

The range of the Sentinels main cannon is 12.5k. It does not have an optimum range, so shots always do full damage, even at maximum range.

Note that at very close range the gun behaves almost like a direct fire gun. At ranges below 3k the tracking is barely noticeable and at ranges below 6k you might have to aim in very unusual ways to make your tracking bullets hit.


Rail rockets
This is the Sentinel's secondary weapon and it's actually a pretty hard-to-hit skillshot one.

The rail rocket launcher fires a burst of very fast unguided rockets. They move in a straight line up to 15.5k (yes, they have more range than your primary weapon) and need a very good aim due to their tiny warhead size.
It is easiest to land them when attacking from above or below because most ships have very big dorsal/ventral profiles (except some tube-shaped ships like the Colossus). They also work well in close combat.

The cooldown is very low so they become spammable quickly.


Harrier Missiles
Harrier missiles are some of the faster missiles. They have decent chances to bypass point defense on ships that are flying towards or sideways to them and when they do they deal a lot of damage.
The missiles shoot out upwards before they start to track their targets, so they are pretty much unable to hit targets closer than 5k at most angles (unless the target is above you) but they have a maximum range of about 18k.
Harrier missiles impare the flight model of any ship they hit by 5%, reducing speed and agility.




The Sentinel has two abilities which are both movement-related.


Thruster Boost
Thruster Pulse, Thruster Surge and Thruster Shock are essentially boosts.
They give a MASSIVE speed boost to the Sentinel (basically 4x forward speed, 2x vertical and strafe speed as well as acceleration) and a far less one to all allied ships within 5k. They also slightly decrease the movement of enemy ships within the area of effect.
The Sentinel is already a fast ship with a top speed of about 620 m/s but the Thruster boost makes it go REALLY fast – almost 2500m/s for a few seconds.

It is not only the prefect tool to move through a lane quickly and grab some mining stations or head to support your team mates far away, the boost also massively increases upwards and downwards speed, so it is very useful for getting above those nasty Reapers and Interceptors (or right behind them if you're closer than 10k).
And of course it makes you really hard to hit, so it's nice as an evasion and escape mechanism as well.


Mobility Buoy / Recharge Buoy
The second ability of the Sentinel is also mobility-related. It is a buoy that increases the agility of all allied ships within it's area of effect. While the effect isn't spectacular it can help to win and asced/descend race against a Reaper and make ships slightly harder to hit.

One of the option is different though, the Recharge buoy. It increases the energy regeneration of allied vessels (the description also says that it purges negative energy status effects that's not really true however, the only thing it purges is the Raven's drain).

Upgrades
The Sentinel benefits mostly from attack upgrades which increase damage and rate of fire on it's various weapons, as well as from utility upgrades decreasing the cooldown of thruster boost.

Defensive upgrades are possible but not too effective due to the rather low hitpoints and armor they are supposed to increase. Also it usually is better to either kill a target from beyond it's retaliation range or to disengage with thruster boost than trying to take the beating.


Crew
Due to it's high speed and agility the Sentinel really benefits from a pilot. The relatively weak armor and hitpoints make crew members that increase durability a good choice as well and of course a utility officer decreasing the cooldown of thruster boost (though personally I don't run one).
Clara Reisette (+7.5% damage reduction), Gregory Durov (+10% strafe speed and 7.5% turning rate), Ren Groznik (+1500 HP), Zhang Tao (+10% utility cooldown) and Cornelius Baptise (+5% fire rate and +10% reload) are good choices.

Depending on whether you prefer to fight or doing sneaky backcaps you might want to either take an armor officer for increased durability (Mira Sharma), a Coms officer (Samuel Mosley) for increased concealment (reduces the range from which the ship can be detected) and/or a jump core officer to increase the strategic mobilty options and buff your chances on an emergency bail-out.

Heavies and frontline combat ships: These ships (Hunters, Enforcers, Reapers, Interceptors, Colossi, Gladiators) will draw a lot of attention and enemy fire as they make you look like a rather low threat. This enables you to just pummel them from high above/below or break through their lines and go some tasty low health ships like a Protector, Ranger, Equalizer or Sniper.

Ships with instant armor break: Your guns don't do a lot of damage and have a hard time carving through enemy armor, so allies that can break armor easily help them a lot.

Healers: While heals on the Sentinel aren't even remotely as effective as on heavies, it has a rather weak armor and can die pretty quickly under concentrated fire, so having a healer backing you up is never a bad thing. Also healers shouldn't just focus their attention on the heavies as they're usually not the ones doing the surgical strikes that make you win an engagement. The Sentinel is is a very fast attack ship that can easily break through the enemy lines and take out support ships (Protector and the like) if it is kept alive long enough.



Pioneers: The Pioneer has a very high range, no fire arc restrictions and it can easily hit you. And it does more damage. Do not attack them alone, wait for another ship to support you. They may have the same main gun range but they are a lot slower and cannot catch you until you let them.

Close range brawls with high DPS ships: The Sentinel has neither the armor nor the raw health to survive a close encounter with ships like the Brawler, Hunter, Enforcer or Presecutor. It is best to stayat range against those ships and not let them come close.
However you can actually race past them while using boost, as it will almost impossible for them to hit you while you're zipping around at 2500m/s – just make sure you don't end up in their striking range when the boost goes off.

The main fire arc of high DPS ships: Ships like the Reaper or the Interceptor can shred you within seconds if they get you into frontal fire arc. Try to avoid this as best as possible by moving up or down, using thruster boost if needed as well as your superior range to poke them down from a place where they can't shoot back effectively.

Thanks for reading this guide, I hope you enjoyed it.
My hopes are that it will lead to a better understanding of this highly underrated ship (just because it's a start ship doesn't mean it's bad, although most new players really seem to struggle with it) and we see more good Sentinel players out there soon, making the most out of this formidable little ship..
Have fun playing the game and see you on the battlefield!