Since May I have gotten a lot more experience with ground combat on elite, (I am at Cmdr 8) and once again I like it better than space combat.

1. Location is the most important factor at the start of any engagement. Finding a battle location that prevents flanking (flanking kills you in seconds)

2. Knowing when to put my medic (I only use one) on passive while using the y key for finishes.

3. On normal, finding exposes and exploits were instant disintegration but on elite all it seems to do is grab aggro (unless the mob is already near death) So just taking advantage of exploit chances whenever they come up isn't always the best strategy on elite.

4. On Normal I had a certain degree of BOff loyalty but on Elite I have 2 separate groups for Away Team and Bridge Staff so that as soon as I acquire a BOff with superior racial and ground traits I can swap him in without losing too many skill points in the process. My Bridge Staff are the same guys I started with. My Away Team, all new guys, all awesome.

Lastly...

5. Much like in the old days when kings and princes would ride out into battle with their armies, fighting head to head with the royals from the opposing side, I find the highest ranking officer on the enemy squad and try to isolate him one on one. That way I can get help if he outclasses me (pulling him to a position where my Away Team can outflank him) and prevent him from one-shot-ing each of my Away Team before finishing me off. That's the way it should be anyway. Captain to Captain. Warrior to Warrior. No peace in our time.

Now I must get back to the game...

Once more into the breach dear friends. Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.

God, I love this game.

I found elite combat, for the most part, is not too difficult if you are properly equipped and bring an engineer that can recharge shields and a medic that can heal you. At least the ground combat is somewhat of a challenge on elite mode though, whereas in normal mode you don't even have to attack and your away team will handle everything.

The only real problem is every so often you run into a bugged enemy that uses pistol bolt spray, hitting for 200+ damage which just kills you and your entire away team in about 10 seconds. This bug has been reported for months and amazingly still has not been fixed. Unfortunately, I think that shows just how high a priority elite players are.