Boarding game breaking too easy

[Tulvox]

Hi i think there should be mutch greater penalty for boarding and it should be waaay harder i can have asgard like 2 hours in game by flyby right next to him in L transport withh 220 marine recruits... infinite money by boarding builders and selling them... i know i can decide not to do it ...but why do i bother with your other harder but mutch cooler mechanics to get rich if i can do this game breaker

[Alan Phipps]

Gameplay suggestions belong in the gameplay forum and not in the beta forum, so over we go. That said, there have been many such threads there already.

[jlehtone]

Yes, this has been discussed several times.

...but why do i bother with your other harder but mutch cooler mechanics to get rich if i can do this game breaker

Isn't there the answer? The money apparently does not make you happy and makes you feel broken. Is it worth all that?

[grapedog]

The benefit of a single player game is that you can do whatever makes you happy, or not do that.

I personally don't use the flyby method myself, but some players do. Boarding could use some work for certain... but to just make it more difficult because you choose to cheese the mechanic doesn't mean everyone else does.

[Gavrushka]

My self-imposed rule is to only board SCA ships, and so I've never felt conflicted as the OP does. I just enter the search term 'plunderer' and there's always at least a couple of targets, and all I do is set a fleet of Cerberus Vanguard to follow until I'm free to conduct the boarding operation personally. My game, my rules.

I avoid any element of the game which impacts my immersivity, wherever that is feasible. If I did otherwise, I too would have a sad face, but why would I inflict that on myself?

[MarvinTheMartian]

If I may interject...

I've had a really slow start to my game and HOP have got a bit out of control and I want to prune their progress, they have 9 destroyers patrolling Second Contact II! but not having much luck with boarding with a L transport, the team want me to "do more damage" to the target - I'm practicing on one of their L miners in GOP territory for now.

If it's this easy, are there any guides to help a fella out? I'm not bothered about reputation loss, I'll go further than 2nd contact in future.

I'm still on the base game, have the DLCs but want to get some control first before the universe expands further.

[jlehtone]

not having much luck with boarding with a L transport, the team want me to "do more damage" to the target

The second phase of boarding is the hull breach. The stronger the hull, the longer it takes.

When you order the board op, you choose difficulty for the first and second phase.
The first phase is about how many turrets you have to disable. Marines will not launch before you get turrets down to what you choose to do.

The second phase has default difficulty "Strong". That means that hull must be under 80% before the phase starts. On "Very Strong" the breach starts even with 100% hull, but takes much longer.


The OP does choose "Very Strong" for both phases, but is not happy.

[BitByte]

If I may interject...

I've had a really slow start to my game and HOP have got a bit out of control and I want to prune their progress, they have 9 destroyers patrolling Second Contact II! but not having much luck with boarding with a L transport, the team want me to "do more damage" to the target - I'm practicing on one of their L miners in GOP territory for now.

If it's this easy, are there any guides to help a fella out? I'm not bothered about reputation loss, I'll go further than 2nd contact in future.

I'm still on the base game, have the DLCs but want to get some control first before the universe expands further.

If you want cause bigger issue for HOP that really slows them down then don't so much concentrate what they have now but how they get their ships at first place.
To halt their army get 2 L-size ships (choose freely what you have or what you can get), send them to maintenance for their shipyard (for example sell 1 nav beacon). At this point also give them next command "Dock and wait" to that same shipyard.
This way you reserve both construction bays and halt their L-size destroyers (and any other ship) production which will prevent them continue war when current fleet runs out of ships.

If you only concentrate to board / destroy their L-size destroyers which are flying in the universe that will be endless task as they produce more and more as soon as 1 is out.

[Nanook]

...
If you want cause bigger issue for HOP that really slows them down then don't so much concentrate what they have now but how they get their ships at first place.
To halt their army get 2 L-size ships (choose freely what you have or what you can get), send them to maintenance for their shipyard (for example sell 1 nav beacon). At this point also give them next command "Dock and wait" to that same shipyard.
This way you reserve both construction bays and halt their L-size destroyers (and any other ship) production which will prevent them continue war when current fleet runs out of ships...

Some might also consider this a rather cheesy exploit. IMO, a faction should be able to evict a foreign ship that's blocking access to a vital defense industry. It was a thing in X3, but for some reason it hasn't made it into X4 (yet).

[jlehtone]

IMO, a faction should be able to evict a foreign ship that's blocking access to a vital defense industry.

Agreed.

Early in my game (version ~3.10) the PAR did a push and demolished HOP Wharf and Equipment Dock.
Every faction suffers from continuous attrition and soon HOP had insufficient logistics fleet and
material shortage at Shipyard's storage. Even though they had rebuilt the Wharf, it was equally empty.
Since the rare deliveries seemed to go to military vessel replacement, the lack of logistics and
starvation did continue.

Xenon do depend on their S and are prone to starvation. (One can't block Xenon by docking ...)

The Terran did not please me, so I shot the storage modules from their Wharfs and Yards.
They have achieved nothing since then (ingame days).

When I got bored to HOP suffering, I spoonfed them materials and they got all fleets up.
That did include a Doom Fleet that raided Second Contact and beyond. There were still
ANT in True Sight and they did ask for a station. I did take that mission and did add "a couple"
defence modules on it. The HOP fleet vanished soon after, because assault on armed ANT hurts.

Obviously both demolition and build of stations do require some resources. Perhaps even more than two L ships.


In the end it is up to the player, whether something feels too cheesy.

[Reitema]

I'm an avid roleplayer, only way for me to keep games interesting over a long period of time. Self-imposed restrictions play a large part in that, ship and character naming, warring certain factions and not others, supplying any factories you have only with raided materials, boarding only ships that you truly pacified (no engines, turrets, main guns, but above all NO SHIELDS (like it used to be), so that getting away with your prize is a challenge as well).

More than willing to spar with anyone about ideas, I might learn new ways of enjoying this absolute treasure of a franchise