Bearing these Star Wars Galactic Racer tips in mind will help you emerge victorious on your Tours through the Galactic League and become an expert racer. The game can be quite brutal at first, especially if you’ve never played things like Burnout and Need For Speed. It’s also a runs-based game with roguelike mechanics and risk/reward woven into every aspect. So, these Galactic Racer tips aim to set you up nicely for the racing challenges ahead, covering the basics of piloting your speeder, how to upgrade it, and things to bear in mind as you progress through each Tour.

1. Focus on surviving each race rather than winning

The racing in Galactic Racer is ridiculously fast and dangerous, and it doesn’t help that the speeders can feel a bit clunky at first. There’s a learning curve but the more you play, the more you’ll improve. That’s both in terms of your driving skill and from permanent stat upgrades for your speeders, as well as Favours, and Racer Styles. Just remember that crashing and wrecking is a normal part of the runs-based format of the game – you aren’t going to win every race right from the start, so just focus on surviving to the finish line!

2. Upgrade Cornering and Resilience

This applies for both the Tour-based Upgrade Packs and the permanent ones you can unlock with Tuning Points but focusing on these two stats really helps when you’re learning the ropes of Star Wars Galactic Racer. Improved Cornering means you can turn faster and more tightly, while Resilience makes your speeder less likely to suffer malfunctions and better at resisting dangerous hazards. Overall, you’ll find flying around at high speeds more forgiving.

Remember that you can spend two Tuning Points at the start of a Tour to respec your speeder’s permanent upgrades points – my guide on the best Star Wars Galactic Racer speeders has some pointers on how to spend your Tuning Points.

3. Use shortcuts whenever possible

Races in Star Wars Galactic Racer are won by those that make the best use of a circuit’s shortcuts, not necessarily by those going for the most takedowns or pure speed. They can be tricky to spot, so pay attention whenever a rival racer goes off the main track and you might be able to follow them for a shorter route – or remember it for the next lap. Additionally, you can turn in mid-air quite a lot, which can allow you to cut some corners massively by flying around them after taking a ramp at high speed. But be aware that many shortcuts are dangerous, usually being very narrow and featuring hazards like overheating lava flows. Sometimes there are even shortcuts within shortcuts!

4. Use your Ramjet and Afterburners responsibly

Your Ramjet needs to be used carefully for the obvious reason that it can overheat and explode your speeder, but also because when you stop using it, it must cool off before it can be used again. Afterburners, meanwhile, can be switched on and off as often as you like, so long as you have fuel That means you need to quite carefully balance how you use the two to maintain high speeds.

5. Complete your pre-race checks

Each of these cheat code-like inputs you enter correctly in the five-second window offers some sort of benefit. For several abilities, like the Concussion Mine, Ion Shot, Surge, and Shield, this is just amplifying your first activation of that Ability, but other abilities have much more useful effects. Priming your Afterburners and Vent respectively ensures you start the race with full fuel and your Ramjet ready. Status Scrubber massively increases the size of the Perfect Start bar. And if you’ve got Autopilot installed, prime this ability first as it’ll automatically prime all your others for you.

6. Don’t worry about getting a Perfect Start

They’re quite hard to pull off in Star Wars Galactic Racer compared to Mario Kart games as the timing is very strict, but the boost isn’t especially powerful either, only helping you get off the line a tiny bit quicker. Regardless, it’s still useful to know how to do one since some Parts trigger effects with a Perfect Start. My advice is to go full throttle just after the 1 in the “3, 2, 1, go” countdown, but the exact timing varies between speeder types, so you will just have to get a feel for it.

7. Practice in Arcade or Scenarios

If you want to hone your racing skills outside of campaign Tours, time trials in the Arcade menu are a good option. These let you practice flying various speeders with no pressure from other drivers. You can also try Scenarios which let you play a short five-event Tour using a set build, letting you try a Racer Style without committing to a full Tour.

8. Spend your Credits in Hibi’s shop

Whenever you’re in the paddock upon landing on a planet, always visit Hibi’s shop and buy something from it. She offers a good selection of Parts and there are several Favors that even enhance her offerings in terms of quantity, quality, and discounts. Even if she has no Parts worth buying (though you can pay 250 Credits for a restock), it’s worth buying an Upgrade Pack for 1,500 Credits to put an extra point in one of your stats. These upgrades all add up by the time you reach the final races of your Tour!

9. Plan before choosing your next Tour event

When you begin a Tour, you can see all the branching paths of events across every planet, and it’s crucial that you don’t just look at what your next event is. For your current planet, make sure you choose a path that offers a good mix of events to help you get a variety of speeder upgrades, setting you up nicely for what’s ahead. Bear in mind that diverging paths can also remain forked when heading to the next planet, which might severely limit your options. For that reason, it’s a good idea to look ahead to the next planet, and sometimes even beyond that to choose the events you want to take on.

10. Get at least one Ability early on in your run

Upgrade Packs and Parts are very important for enhancing your speeder, but most Abilities in Galactic Racer can make a massive difference to your race. I strongly recommend picking a Racer Style that provides an Ability for free at the start of a Tour or choosing Sebulba’s Feet First Favour to get given an Ability after your first race event (you can also buy an Ability from Hibi’s shop and Field Tests have a chance to provide an Ability Pack). I like having at least two Abilities, with one being a more offensive or defensive option like Ion Shot or Shield, and the other being speed-focused, such as Vent or Surge.

11. Don’t sleep on Autopilot

Autopilot seems like an odd Ability to choose since it does the racing for you. I ignored it for a long time for that reason but found it’s incredibly useful. Deploy it at the right time and it can carry you through very tricky sections of a track at high speed, sometimes even taking shortcuts. You also remain in full control of your other Abilities, so you can target enemies with Ion Shot or help the Autopilot go as fast as possible with Surge. Just be aware that it’s not perfect and can still crash!

12. Focus your build around a few keywords

Star Wars Galactic Racer’s speeder Parts heavily revolve around a wide selection of buffs, debuffs, status effects, and specific triggers. The best builds are the ones that remain focused on a narrower playstyle and synergize well rather than trying to do a bit of everything. I personally like using the Ramjet, so anything that buffs the Ramjet’s cooling and power is good to have, as well as Parts that trigger effects when Redlining.

And you obviously shouldn’t be getting Parts that have little to no effect. There’s no point choosing Overcharge or Energy-focused Parts or Battery upgrades if your build is very light on Abilities, for example.

13. Always place sidebets

Once you reach Act 2 of the campaign, you’ll unlock the ability to place sidebets and, unless you have no Credits to spend, there is no reason why you shouldn’t bet on every race. Chaotic racing means anyone can finish anywhere, so you should ignore the predicted placements and always go for the middle or high bet. The only exception to this is bets against Kestar Bool. He’s always very fast and his bets are very expensive, so losing can be costly.

As well as making some extra money, sidebets are also how you unlock some great Favors. Win enough sidebets against a particular racer and they might become your rival, eventually challenging you to a head-to-head race. Win this and you’ll permanently unlock their Favor for you to choose at the start of a Tour.

14. Avoid the acid on Sentinel I as much as possible

This is by far the worst track hazard in all of Star Wars Galactic Racer. Touching an acid puddle results in an immediate System Malfunction and chokes your Ramjet, and spending too long in an acid puddle causes your speeder to explode. The more you touch the acid, the more you also risk falling into a death spiral of Systems Malfunctions and Critical Malfunctions, leading to lots of Faulty Parts. If you don’t wreck out, you’re in for some costly repairs. If you’re struggling with Sentinel I, I highly recommend having the Shield and/or Status Scrubber Abilities equipped to negate the acid’s effects.

15. Don’t worry about completing your Backer Contract objectives

I found it’s actually quite rare to consistently place on the podium in races and complete your backer’s objective, often resulting in a ‘satisfactory’ rating from them. This is largely because some of the objectives are completely incompatible with winning a race – spending time in last place, for example – and that you can only progress these objectives in Races or Eliminators, so choosing too many Field Tests and Mystery Encounters can make objectives impossible to achieve.

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