Why the hell are my ships shooting at a ship our marine are boarding?

[jlehtone]

I guess I see your point though if that happens, I tend to just deal with bringing the hull back down myself since I can actually control the level of destruction which the AI can't

Lets assume that there were "do not shoot a ship when boarding is in progress" rule. How do you make sure that player follows that rule? Surely you don't want to allow any exceptions to the player?

4.0 did add that NPC can occasionally send marines. I've seen it happen. What if a Yaki decides to launch one marine at a ship across the sector. Is that ship now protected from all attacks?


As for the third parties -- they have two reputations: with you and with the target that you are boarding.
If they hate you, then they should be free to shoot if they hate the target too.
If they don't care about you, then they should still be free to shoot if they hate the target.
If they are your allies, then perhaps they could help you ... but you would steal their kill, so why don't they steal yours?

[Pesanur]

I'm insist in that in 4.0 you can select the behaviour of the ships that you are using in the boarding, see the screenshot.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 81DA7583F/

[jlehtone]

I'm insist in that in 4.0 you can select the behaviour of the ships that you are using in the boarding, see the screenshot.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 81DA7583F/

Yes, and it was there already before the 4.0. Only the "Maintain distance" does not target and shoot something with main guns.

[ajime]

Just use the maintain distance option and be done with it. Never was an issue for me since the beginning.

[Midnitewolf]

its another example of the game not giving you the proper control options you need. one of my biggest gripes with this game the inability to do the simplest things or to give more specific orders. this game need a lot more micromanagement options to compensate for the often brain dead AI. don't get me wrong the ability to give orders right in the map is great improvement over the past. but there is still a lot of wasted potential and digging thru menus to do things. and while there are situations where this is useful in many it doesn't and could be streamlined. trade rules are a good example of a very useful and powerful feature when you know how to use it. but they alow replaced an exiting easy to use feature and for some that hasn't played in a long time or even a new player it can be very confusing and intimidating. and while tutorials have improved there sill seems to be the swim or sink mentality at egosoft.
i do like the boarding UI it is an improvement over XR i think there was a mod for XR that made it more like this but no UI. but boarding is still very risky business not only do you have to worry about an NPC patrol showing up destroying your target and your marines but you also have to worry about your own ships blasting it to pieces. and there should be ways to prevent this like the patrol AI should already consider that ship yours while boarding is in progress. this way friendly AI wont accidentally kill your marines. but you would also have to protect it from hostile AI. you own ships on the other hand need to pay more respect to whatever you set in the boarding screen and hull integrity should have a higher priority then damaging surface elements.

I agree fully. They seem to have taken the approach of "Why do something in three clicks when you can do it in 12 using multiple menus?" I mean why do I have to set a behavior to have a fleet protect a position when it should be simple as right click on fleet, select "protect position" form the menu and click on map to set position. I am not necessarily saying there isn't a place for behaviors for setting up more detailed orders but it just shouldn't be necessary for many things that currently require it.

As for NPC ships interfering, I kinda don't have a problem with that because I am kind of a roleplayer at heart. I figure that some bystander probably wouldn't be privy to my internal communications like ships in my own fleet are and all they are going to see is combat occuring so naturally they are going to engage the target in ignorance of what you are attempting. YOUR ships however are not which is why it infuriates me how difficult it is to control them in a boarding attempt. I know that one person didn't like the idea of your ships stopping fire automatically and I get his point but I still believe that any of your own ships that are actively tasked to lend you their marines in the boarding attempt, should stop firing unless explicitly ordered to attack again after they launch boarding pods.

[GCU Grey Area]

why do I have to set a behavior to have a fleet protect a position when it should be simple as right click on fleet, select "protect position" form the menu and click on map to set position. I am not necessarily saying there isn't a place for behaviors for setting up more detailed orders but it just shouldn't be necessary for many things that currently require it.

I've found it really quite useful to have Protect Position as a behaviour rather than a conventional order. I use it to define a rally point in the sector from which I send out ships to complete specific objectives (e.g. attack stations or ships, retreat for repairs, collect loot, etc) knowing that when they've done all that they will automatically return to the rally point & resume their protection duties. I do a similar thing with the Dock & Wait behaviour for the ships that assist with deployment missions - saves me the bother of having to give an explicit return home order after they've finished dropping off satellites, laser towers, mines, etc. A few extra clicks to setup a behaviour saves me from having to do a lot more clicks later on.

YOUR ships however are not which is why it infuriates me how difficult it is to control them in a boarding attempt. I know that one person didn't like the idea of your ships stopping fire automatically and I get his point but I still believe that any of your own ships that are actively tasked to lend you their marines in the boarding attempt, should stop firing unless explicitly ordered to attack again after they launch boarding pods.

Tend to keep the ships in my boarding fleet from shooting at the boarding target by keeping them on either Intercept mode (so shooting L/XL targets is prohibited) or Defence (so they'll only return fire if the boarding target shoots them first) & having all turrets set to Attack Fighters. Can still get them to attack the boarding target if I need them to (e.g. to smash turrets or poke a few holes through the hull to make my marines' job a bit easier) but need to give them an explicit order to do so, or specifically set them up to do that on the boarding screen.

[jlehtone]

I mean why do I have to set a behavior to have a fleet protect a position when it should be simple as right click on fleet, select "protect position" form the menu and click on map to set position.

The system seems to be based on "simple actions". "Attack target Y" is a simple action. "Fly to Z" is a simple action. What a behaviour does is it adds actions for the ship to do. Rather than having a "Protect" action that must target, attack, and return to position, there is Protect behaviour that does use the "Attack target Y" action. A ship can carry out a thousand distinct attacks while protecting a position.

Furthermore, like GCU did point out, you can add to the queue of actions (or erase them) without stopping the behaviour.

I would argue that the "orders and behaviours" gives more control to the player. You could have a monolithic "protect action", but any temporary task would stop it and you would have to issue it again.

In an another thread there was a question why giving order does not remove previous orders from the queue. If they would, then there would be no queue. Being able to queue commands gives more control, more options and you can rather give many actions in one go than give one action whenever ship completes previous action.

YOUR ships however are not which is why it infuriates me how difficult it is to control them in a boarding attempt.

I have not noticed those ships to be difficult to control. Then again, I use at most couple, usually one. All they do is to deliver the marines. If there is element destruction, hull denting, etc, that is carried out by totally unrelated ships. Once I had escorts for the ship that carries marines and was genuinely scared by them all suddenly waving cutlasses. They did get other assignments immediately.

There are threads lamenting how boarding is "way too easy". There is apparently technique, where you don't have to destroy any surface elements nor will lose any reputation, while you arrogantly steal ships. Of course "too easy" and "infuriatingly difficult" are not mutually exclusive.

[Admiral Sausage]

I've boarded a few pirate destroyers with one destroyer of my own, and observed that sometimes my ship will take out the pirate ship's engines and turrets, bring it down to 80% hull, and then stop shooting. Most of the time it never stops shooting, so I've taken to disabling its turrets once they are no longer needed.

[Maebius]

There are threads lamenting how boarding is "way too easy". There is apparently technique, where you don't have to destroy any surface elements nor will lose any reputation, while you arrogantly steal ships. Of course "too easy" and "infuriatingly difficult" are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, it's especially easy after you get your first Asgard.

Spoiler

Show

Just park it on top of your target when it's not moving (or during a slow turn) and start boarding with it full hp.

Unless it has missiles or 300 marines, you're set. Just don't shoot it, only board.

By the time they've cut the hull, the target and his friends have turned friendly again.
If they don't have overwhelming numbers near you, it's no issue to survive with an Asgard, even by just running away.

Plus, if it has docked ships inside it (like a Tokyo) they're now yours too!

If you leave it to the A.I. to board things for you, it's, uhm "wtf is he doing" area.

[jlehtone]

If you leave it to the A.I. to board things for you, it's, uhm "wtf is he doing" area.

If that is the case, then I'll let A.I. do it every time. (In fact I do, didn't figure out how to manually drop the litter.)

Besides, if the target's attitude is not at -30 before the start, then I do something wrong.

[Pesanur]

I'm insist in that in 4.0 you can select the behaviour of the ships that you are using in the boarding, see the screenshot.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 81DA7583F/

Yes, and it was there already before the 4.0. Only the "Maintain distance" does not target and shoot something with main guns.

Sorry, I misunderstand you, you are referring to the turrets ignoring their current order and opening fire against the ship that you are trying to board. Yes, this bug is irritating.

[jlehtone]

Sorry, I misunderstand you, you are referring to the turrets ignoring their current order and opening fire against the ship that you are trying to board. Yes, this bug is irritating.

No. Not me. My ship(s) have either turrets disarmed or set to attack small fish. They do not shoot at the boarding target. If there is a bug somewhere, then it has not bitten me.

[Pesanur]

Sorry, I misunderstand you, you are referring to the turrets ignoring their current order and opening fire against the ship that you are trying to board. Yes, this bug is irritating.

No. Not me. My ship(s) have either turrets disarmed or set to attack small fish. They do not shoot at the boarding target. If there is a bug somewhere, then it has not bitten me.

Is a bug that affect turrets in defence mode. When you start the boarding operation, the turrets of the ships that launch the marines start firing against the boarded ship as if they have the attack current target order instead of defence order.

[jmrc]

Before boarding set all boarders turrets to shoot at your current target. Then send the board assault. Then select the target so all boarders will shoot at it to lower the hull to the level that you chose. Unselect your target when you want them to stop. Keep in mind that some shots are on the way, so unselect a little bit before. They will still react to laser towers so target them if you want a hail of fire on them. I prefer this approach to the maintain distance because this way they help with the hull damage and will be around to pick up the surviving marines.

[jlehtone]

There was an Aux (Honshu?). I had TD fighters attack it. Its hull did drop down to 60-70%, but instantly popped back to ~83%. This did repeat multiple times before it did finally stay low.