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Here's a brief first boarding method for Tits. I've chosen a Tit because they're less fragile than freighters & they're now easy enough to find. It's a bit time consuming & the numbers may vary depending upon how many marines you have & what experience (level) they have, but it works for me:

BR = Boarding Resistance; BA = Boarding Attack; cURV = Constructor URV

• Assignment: Boarding a Titurel (v3.10x was used here)
  
  Assets: 50 rookie marines & a reasonably decent Marine Officer (MO): 4/4/3 (this was mine: search with smalltalk until you find a decent one). Skunk has Mk2 weapons except for Mining Laser which we can discount for obvious reasons. I'll not use missiles in this boarding as it's a waste of money at this point (early game) IMO, but if you want feel free to use them. Have any captain (purely to enable drone transfer) & a /good/ (4-5*) engineer ready to deploy
  [I've done this with Mk1 weps; it takes a bit longer but the result is the same. Missiles (Sunstalkers or their lighter versions) are good at taking out turret clusters due to splash damage, but it takes a fair bit of skill & the results are variable, so not recommended for a first capping attempt]
  
  If you're confident with using a hacker drone (ie playing the minigame), go ahead; if you're not I suggest you sell the drone(s) to a friendly dealer nearby to prevent Yisha from telling you to use it. REMEMBER that hacker drones may be targetted by an enemy's PD (point defence), so if you don't have the cash to spare or the techniques to avoid PD fire, sell it off
  [a successful hacker drone mission set will disable capship shields & weps for a short time (5mins?) if used /prior/ to commencing boarding]
  
  Preparation:
  
  Find a Tit a fair distance out from any stations & their patrols. This should be fairly easy with the new game methodology in Albion (or OL): there are Tits appearing all over the place! With decent radar coverage you should be able to find one at around 20-35Km away from any station, with its command 'Patrol'. This is ideal! Remember any ships squadded to you wil automatically fire on the Tit as soon as it lands a hit on you, so send them away as soon as you find your target
  
  Method:
  
  • 1. Knock out <target's> engines as quickly as possible, preferably without taking the associated local shield generator (qv). This gives you a safe place to hide, & you'll be coming back to knock out repaired engines probably at least once. It also prevents <target> from coming within range of other ships who may call on their local patrols or stations to help to destroy the hostile
    [you can use a Traitor drone's mines to do this, but you may have to be very careful to avoid the Tit's PD H/MA fire. Not worth the time IMO]
    
    2. Start by taking out turrets (/not/ shields!). Use the Apache method: pop up, disable/destroy a few turrets that are shooting at you, then pop down again to recharge shields. Work your way forward using this method until you've disabled/destroyed all turrets (check in the target details screen), then position yourself near the JD. Take it out now to save time later
    [if you disable the turrets (take them below 25% hull) they'll remain valid targets for Yisha's directives, giving you a better chance to take the ship with an intact drone bay. The drone bay & its drones are your best profit-making area, so you don't want to destroy it if at all possible: disabling is fine. A disabled (but not destroyed) drone bay also allows you to transfer cURVs for quicker repairs]
    
    3. Now it's a matter of time & patience. Check the target's boarding resistance in it's details screen; for the boarding loadout I've suggested at the top of this post you'll want it below 40, preferably around 25 or so, [currently BA at +10 over <target's BR> means no casualties] but that may change depending upon other things. You may notice some hostile drones flying around. With luck these are the Tit's own cURVs, repairing it; LEAVE THEM ALONE (qv). Any hostile drones that shoot at you, take out ASAP ofc
    
    ATM /any/ drones on board add to the target's BR; the more drones it has (even cURVs or Cargolifters) take the BR up by quite a bit If you destroy the drone bay the drones not in use are all lost, meaning <target> won't repair quickly after boarding (cURV loss) & will lose efficiency & profitsss (excess cargolifter sale loss). If you find you need to shoot the drone bay eventually, (eg if <target> has some attack drones on board or simply because the BR is too high even at 5% hull), try to take it below 25%, when it'll be disabled but not destroyed. This doesn't apply to Yisha's directions; nor does it detract from the BR of the number of drones available, unfortunately
    
    4. Take the Tit's Hull down to around 20% (by all means use other ships here to back you up if you're sure you can stop them /instantly/ - shots in flight & drones take a few seconds to respond! Yes I know that's a boring 10min of playtime, especially when I've told you not to shoot at shields, but the reward!.. NOTE: if you're using the Pulse Maser Mk3 (or Mk2 I think) its accuracy, range & DPS vs Hull is remarkable & persists for about 5s after you take your finger off the trigger, so don't go overboard on approach to the target!
    
    5: Check the target's BR. If it's above 36 expect to fail (with the above assets): take the hull down some more (but /not/ below 5%, just in case..). If below 36 take out repaired engines again. Last check for active (repaired) turrets & to make sure you've got all squadded ships ignoring you (run from battle, fly elsewhere, whatever)
    
    **SAVE** - no point in losing a 20 min preparation to a whim..
    
    6. BOARD option! Since you've disabled/destroyed all turrets the BPs should be safe in transit. No losses there
    
    7. NOW it gets interesting. Since you've disabled/destroyed all turrets Yisha's 5 directives will be to destroy surface targets on the ship. Hopefully that will /not/ include the Drone Bay, but we'll have to go with what the game scripted [you can quicksave at each Yisha mission completion to gain a different target on reload] There may be a time limit on how long you take to accomplish each of Yisha's tasks, but we're not given any clue as to what that may be
    
    I can say (with little evidence) that destroying a capship shield gen (Tit has 2) takes quite a while & may be a little too long to do without help (from missiles or other ships) but I haven't really tested it. You may well come up with a better solution, such as taking them out before starting the final boarding command. This would reduce the number of options Yisha has to give you (ie greater chance she gives you drone bay to destroy), but it'll make the operation quicker to complete.. your choice. You may like to consider taking them down to 20% before the board command, as it's the shields that take the time (& screw Yisha's timing if she gives them as an option).. whatever..
    
    If you accomplish all Yisha's tasks you'll take minimal casualties. Marine strength has nothing to do with casualty rates atm [citation needed]. Failing Yisha's tasks means you'll take a guaranteed drop in marines [20% per task] (with a commensurate drop in BP, possibly leading to failure of the op depending upon how far along you were), leading to a commensurate drop in cash (for marine replacements)
    
    8. RESULT!: You have a not-so-shiny Tit to add to your fleet. Enter the backroom & tell your engineer & captain to work elsewhere, then (after a few seconds) join them on the Tit to congratulate them & retrieve your MO. You will have lost around 11 marine greenies (depending on BR & how well you did with Yisha's games); another 11 may have levelled up to Vet, & the rest.. well you know the game now
  All (previously marked hostile) cURVs will still be repairing your new captive.. & they will eventually be assigned to you! If Yisha didn't order you to destroy the drone bay you got lucky & can now transfer drones from another ship for whatever purpose (once your captive has a new captain); if the drone bay was destroyed you can't do this until it's repaired

References: JoeTheDestroyer's boarding calculations For more general background see CBJ's comment on skills and may also be useful for general officer calculations, plus another dev's post (CBJ? Benrd)?) explaining how the new boarding works..

[edit] I'm now fairly happy with this, but I'll hunt down that other reference when I remember.. [/edit]

[edit] I've added & amended a few things, but as a /first/ cap tutorial this still works (eg missiles are useful later on for takng out turret clusters). I still haven't found that last reference though! [/edit]

[edit] Minor rewording for some points to make things clearer [/edit]

Original post with followup discussion here

That's a very useful guide, thanks for sharing

Never tried to 'seriously' board a Titurel because I already have some pain with a Rahanas where I only did succeed with MK2 weapons, MK2 shields and a lot of missiles. But now I understand the boarding process a little better, so it's surely possible even with MK1 material.

IMO, what's very useful are these Shield-refilling Drones to keep your shields up. I always carry 2 of them, I launch the first prior of attacking anything, and the 2nd later if things get tough. I rarely lose them. Especially good against Xenon/Pirate fighters.

I still find the so-called Boarding Resistance and Boarding Strenght not reliable at all, they are all x times higher than your Skunk and you don't have the time to track how these numbers change. For your Skunk against a Tirurel the numbers will be 25 or 30 against 450 But this doesn't mean anything, caus you can win anyway if you are skillful. At some point you will have the higher number and you WIN.
I calculate like this: if the hull gets to 50% or below, then his BS is approx. BS = 3x HULL + 20, but I'll have to check closer...

Instead, I think that Yisha's instructions are the crucial point: If you don't do these fast enough (I think max. within 60 seconds per sub-mission), you LOSE, unaware of how good you did prepare or perform before.

My tip: the drones onboard the CAP ship are most valuable, you may even get x times the price of the ship
So, DON'T destroy the drones landing bay. The problem is: If Yisha tells you to destroy it, then you'll have to do it, else you will lose a major part of your marines and you will probably fail the boarding. The workaround for that is to leave most of the ship intact, and start with the boarding command straight at the beginning. The more objects are to be destroyed, the less likely it's that Yisha will command you to destroy the Drone's Bay.
With a Titurel, you probably can't do that unless you are a crack in boarding So I'd better go with the advices above.

My 2nd attempt at boarding a smaller Rahanas was an interesting failure: I took out ALL the turrets and engines, I then reduced his hull to 15% - a big mistake, I then give the boarding command, but soon after I got the Mission Failed 'caus the ship was exploding Interestingly I got the failure message a liitle before the explosion, my MO was calling me to tell about some desperate situation...

XenonS

XenonSurf wrote:I still find the so-called Boarding Resistance and Boarding Strength not reliable at all...

Hi XS. You've not given yourself good advice there. Because you're at the beginning of your boarding adventure, you have a small Boarding Strength. However, making sure your target's Boarding Resistance is below your strength is key to continued success. I'd advise getting used to checking it before starting your board.

My Strength is now 217 (apparently maxed given my boarding officer), and I cap Titurels without taking out anything but the engines and jump drive. It's possible to launch your pods inside the framework of the ship (Titurel) and not lose a one to enemy fire. Some cap targets (not hostile to the point of shooting you on sight) can have their turrets disabled with the Trojan Drone making it easy to get your pods on board, and taking out Yisha's targets.

Go ahead and blow early drone bay and sell off those ships fairly quickly. Get that Boarding Strength up. There's lots of juicy targets out there for later use. Heck, right now, on targets I'd rather sell, I'm transferring drones as cargo to a freighter for later use on those assets I'd rather keep.

I just love capping and using my enemy's assets against him...

Happy Boarding,
Thu

Thufar wrote:

XenonSurf wrote:I still find the so-called Boarding Resistance and Boarding Strength not reliable at all...

Hi XS. You've not given yourself good advice there. Because you're at the beginning of your boarding adventure, you have a small Boarding Strength. However, making sure your target's Boarding Resistance is below your strength is key to continued success. I'd advise getting used to checking it before starting your board.

(...)

Thu

Hi Thufar,
yes, you are fully right here. And my 450 probably refers to a Taranis, not a Titurel.
To get 217, can you do it with Mk1 equipment? I actually had a good 4-star MO (4-star boarding exp and multiple other 4-stars), but no Vet or Elite Marines.

Greets,
XS

There is also a boring period to mention *after* a successful boarding:
To avoid the following period, before boarding your rep with PMC should be 10+, because you may occur -15 rep for boarding. If your total PMC rep goes to -10, you get hostile (red) and you will hardly find a friendly Shipyard to completly repair/replenish your ships, assumed that you don't leave the system.
You are looking for a CAP Ship Dealer to refit / repair CAPs and a Small Ship Dealer for your small fighter ships. It seems that these two are rare beasts in the game
Any engineer will repair your Skunk, except your hired engineer.

Workaround if all shipyards are hostile:

XS,

Yes, it can be done with MK1 equipment. I'm playing a plot game, and I've not yet reached a point where I can buy MK2 equipment, so I only have MK1 stuff (crafting stuff excepted).

My rep with PMC is locked at -20, so even considering raising rep with them at this point is pointless. Thanks for the hints though, when it comes time to "worry" about it.

Personally, I've not bothered with repairing stuff (capitals) at the shipyards. I only hire 5 star engineers, and 90% hulls work fine for me and my play style.

Regards,
Thu

XS Cuspid Splint has all you should need for boarding, both in-campaign & out. There are no PMC stations there, it's a jump point (so plenty of targets), and there's a small shipyard where you can sell ships

Like Thufar I don't bother to repair 'keepers' to the full 100%; why waste the cash? 90% or even 84% is enough for me, so long as I can get the targets moving fairly quickly I'm not that bothered about the last few %age of hull..

A small shipyard will take any ship for sale; only if you desparately want that last few %age of hull should you consider jumping the target to (say) Gemstone for repair..

Thanks Snafu_X3 & Thufar for your additional tips. Tried it 2 times on a Pirate Titurel, 2 times I've destroyed the ship, apparently I was too trigger-happy

Also had upgraded mk2 weapons and missiles + mk2 Targeting.
Sorry for that stupid question: you can only carry 1 of any type of weapons on your Skunk, right ? (e.g. 1x Plasma Cannon mk2, 1x Particle weapon etc.). Because that's what I do.

But let's speak about BS and BR.
It would be nice to understand more clearly the very important Battle Strenght (BS) which is the Skunk value and Battle Resistance (BR) which is your opponent's ship value.
I now agree for sure that

BS + 10 >= BR = SUCCESS without (additional) losses of Marines

But it seems to be a veeerrrryyyy long way to increase your BS .
On the other hand, ships like Taranis (BR = 450+), Phoenix (about 750+) should not be a piece of cake, that's fully ok.

But the mystery to resolve for me is: How does your BS change? Upgrading weapons doesn't do it (apparently). Crew skills, nr. of good boardings? I've to check that, but I don't believe. After 1 successful Rahanas boarding, I have resupplied my nr. of marines for a total of
10 Vet Marines + 40 Recruits, 3-times 4Stars MO and got a barely +10 for a total=28 in BS, a fully repaired ship of course.

I've yet to see the road that takes me to Thufar's 217, but Patience, Patience is the game in XR

Salut,
XenonS

To increase your BS (or BA) you need to aim for 50x Elite marines plus a full 5* officer; that's the only way to do it currently, & it's done via lots of successful boarding plus a bit of smalltalk (for the MO's non-experience-related skills; either train them or get a better MO)

After that the key is not to increase yourAttack but to decrease the target's defence. Taking out the drone bay will lower this by quite a bit if the ship carries drones; taking the hull down will also drop a fair few points. I can't remember if taking out the untargettable surface elements make a significant difference, but they may be critical to get the defence down to a number where you can at least /consider/ mounting an op..

I think it's worth to add this:

Major changes in the boarding code has been made since v.3.0 of XR, and most advices in Youtube videos about boarding are obsolete.

[TAKEN OUT]
My ideas about boarding were taking a larger, larger content and for sure have become off-topic for OP's intents that describe the boarding of a Titurel.
So to respect his article, I decided to take out this longer analysis about boarding and give it a separate post.

XenonS