An illustrated guide to boarding a Boreas using an M7M

[ryeeson]

I see.

Never used to it actually. But apparently i have to since i don't have missile complex yet.

Hope to capture few M7/M1 and sell them for easy money.

I really need to react fast since the Kha'ak shity found my Base Sector.

[Orion1632]

any ship can use drones, but if you don't have a hanger then you have to pick them up one at a time by running them over. if you have a hanger then they can return to home and land in your hanger.

I just don't like to waste them.

[quarkian37]

why don't I use drones? well...Errr I don't have a drone factory.



And the minotaur doesn't have a hanger so I can't get the drones back on board easily. Unless I call in a support ship.

And besides it's easy enough to do it with missiles.

I don't bother calling them back - they are usually mostly spent/destroyed by the end anyway.

You don't need a drone factory, but if you did want to build your own it only needs one factory. They are so easy/quick to produce - I only have one factory and it has already produced more than I need - whereas iirc I have 4 hammer and 3 flail fabs, and they take a while to produce about 40-48 of each type of missile.

Using 25-40 drones will save you several hammers (by spamming turrets) and flails (by keeping the shields below 5%) and because they slow down the shield regeneration I find it easier to avoid hull damage by sending too many missiles. (I rarely capture a ship with less than 100% hull) It also means that I rarely have to send any more missiles after my marines attach to the hull as the drones always seem to keep the shields below 5% - if you send missiles, there is always the danger that the shields generate before they arrive and kill your marines or you send some flails and after launch some previously fired flails turn around and hit the target resulting in hull damage when the later launch hits.

Since you use the barrage command - which send missiles in batches (which I avoid using as it is less flexible than sending missiles one at a time) I would have thought this would be even more useful.

[Orion1632]

Good tip, I'll have to try it out.

And I only use a barrage in the initial stages when i want to get a lot of missles in the air at once.

[WhiteStar1]

Great post! I'll make use of this.

[ryeeson]

Ok i posted yesterday that i want to board a boron therstar, but i have no missile..

here what i did.

1. Panther attack shield, while i try to fly 300m above therstar (in my Cobra)

2. When the shield of the target almost down, i ask panther to run. i get real close until i ram the target.

3. i fired my boarding crew within a very short range and they directly hit the hull..

4. and yay... here we go.. "Marine, prepare your weapon.." wow...

5. save, and run away...

6. 1 marine died but the therstar worth 15 mil

7. lol... haha


Second boarding last night.

I was in the Omicron Lyree. Looking for any Protect/defend Station Mission.

i did few worth about 45 mil... until..

i accepted a defend mission-Very Hard.
Well, so far, i only face 3 Xenon K and its not that hard on my Panther with few strategy..

Apparently, this time is different,

Yaki Hosi (Carrier M1 whatever the spelling is) jump in with few M3s i was yay.. i must cap this M1.. and few second i realized that its not alone as the Yaki Akuma M2 Destroyer emerged from the same gate..

seriously, i was afraid i would failed the mission. But i was horny to board one of the ship.
I check my marine traning program and they should ready when i done with the M3s.

I lure the M1 to another side but only to find out that the argon military destroyed it as i already took it's shield.

damn u argon military!!.. that ship probably worth 20 mil.

Jumped in my cobra comm: cobra follow Akuma, ask vidar to follow me(panther), took out 90% 0f the M2's shield. ( My shield also almost gone) changed ship to my vidar and fly into the Cobra. command ship, Vidar follow me and Panther run. when i was in 5km from the akuma, its start firing at me. I hold my position as i waiting for it to comes. Its shield up now about 35%. i fly to akuma and command panther to attack shield.

Now i just have to break through the firepower of the M2 and i know how long my 3X1GJ will hold. by the time i fly very closer to the akuma, its shield almost gone so as my panther and my cobra were 50%. game Saved

the up turret of the Akuma stop firing.. probably because i was very close or blind spot or run out of energy... lol.. ask the panther to run..

Fired 1 Boarding Pod. " deck 2 clear, we faced heavy resistance... deck 3 clear, we sustained heavy casualty... arrrr... " and later on.. "Boarding Party, eliminated"


dang dung dang....

reload- scan the ship.. lol... they have 12 marines inside with 2 of them were 3*.

I have 1 marine with 5* in fighting but apparently, he was not in the POD when i lunch it.. or he was in the training room lol

Second tried,
bunch of my marine were no experience.. 10 out of 20 (13 were just bought) have at least 1* fighting exp..

Strategy, same.. but this time, i lunch all marines. All them went through..
By the time i heard deck 4 clear, i notice that few marine jump out of the ship. " Split Astronaut - Marine" lol.. when did i hired Splitian???

When i took over the M2, i check and only 8 made it through....
The Akuma shield were ok.. i check and the 3 X 2Gj are they ahahahaha
but no weapon lol.......

I later, fleet dock at shipyard.
Pick all the Splitian POW...
wow... 2 of them got 5* in fighting... lol hehe

i lost a few good man.. but now i have good Marine

And the Akuma worth millions..... hehe

[mattalyst]

I think you're doing it the hard way, actually. That Boreas wasn't hostile to start with, was it? When attacking non-hostile cap ships, here's the easy way:

1) Have your M7M follow a gunboat (preferably an M7 with IBLs)
2) In the gunboat's front turret/main guns, attack until the captain gives you a final warning (use charge shots if you have IBLs or PPCs)
3) Apologize, then wait until his shields have recharged 10-11%
4) Repeat (2) and (3) until the target shields are gone. Make sure you're not at "final warning" phase at the end; if so, repeat another cycle.
5) Transport to M7M; order the gunboat to jump to a gate (ie, away) and mark the target ship's race as hostile
6) Your M7M is probably 5-7 km from the target; this is where you want to be. Fire 2 flails, 1 boarding pod, and 2 flails as quickly as you can (the flails are decoys)
7) You may or may not need to fire a few more flails to keep the target's shields down during cutting. Once you're sure cutting will succeed, mark the target's race friendly, save, then jump to a gate
8] SETA till boarding is complete. If you didn't get the gear you wanted, reload and re-SETA until you do
9) Look around the sector for any police/military ships who might be hostile to you; apologize to them

Virtually foolproof, in my experience. If the target has fighter squadrons, they may (although they don't always) attack it once it's captured. But then, you have flails, and they have PUNY EARTH WEAPONS.

[ryeeson]

hehe seem like we have the same idea.

But how many IBL do you have in your gunboat?

if interpreted your work correctly, 1st shoot with charging the IBL took down more than 85% of the Boreas's shield.. and the boreas have 5 x 2 Gj?
are you serious?

lol, i just got 6XIBL so how do i charged it? kkee

[Orion1632]

The purpose of this guide was to keep it as simple as possible, so I used no extra ships and no drones, just the M7M.

Of course there's lots of other ways to do it, and each is equally correct, that is the fun part of X3.

[ryeeson]

Yup,

Simple and expensive method.
And much worst if you don't have missile complex.

Well,
i on my project to construct a complex. i know it will ruin my game frame rate.
(Talking about self sustained and produce 116 Fali + 44 Hammer per hour.)

[Likme]

Thanks for the guide! It just helped me cap my first M1. Took a few times since I can't do the math for flight times on the fly so my marines were like bugs on a windshield the first few times. Finally I just figured it out for 10km.

Flail 20.5 sec
Hammer 39.5 sec
Pod 20.8 sec

Then just kinda guessed the timing based on that. Worked out great! Thanks again for the help.

[Tha_reaper]

drones have a big negative effect for boarding too: on smaller ships they can (and on M6s, they will often) shoot down your own boarding pod. You really need a big enough target like a capital ship so your drones are spread out enough over the hull and there is enough place for your boarding pod.

i tried to capture the yaki Ryu a couple of days ago several times. everytime my pod got destroyed and my crew eliminated (7 times in a row). the 8th time i set my view to target view, and i saw my pod flying right into the stream of fire that my drones released, followed 1 second later by the boarding crew eliminated message.
didnt use drones, and got the ryu on the next try.

[Dem0n_Dude]

i recently kitted my minotaur out with missiles and captured 5 zeuses. You can find them easily around paranid prime and neighbouring sectors. On top of that their easy to capture and usually only have about 5-7 fighters with them. i've ended up making 270mil from them.

[Dayooper]

Do boarding pods work on TM class ships? because I've tried and keep getting (boarding is not possible on this type of ship)

And yes it was a TM not TP or TS.... I know the difference.

Unless a TP/TS can dock m4's which none can.

and shields were at 0% so dunno why the pod wouldn't work.

[Orion1632]

I have never tried to take a TM with a pod, I normally just chase them down with an M6 (HCP) and throw the marines at them.

[delray]

Why do you even board TMs?

They are cheaper than M6s and harder to board since they have one more deck to "free" from defences. It's Urban Legend that best way of training marines is going against TMs. It's best to go after M6s right away. Oh btw, ALWAYS scan them first though cause I lost four guys recently to a Centaur with some really nasty stuff on it. If I scanned, I'd never sent them in. Or maybe I would since I have a few dozens of rookies anyway.

Summarising: Go hunt M6s instead.

[cezarip]

Summarising: Go hunt M6s instead.

And do not use drones. Or use max 10. They end up destroying your pod very often. I prefer to spam flails and I never ever had any pod shot down in more than 30 captures. Using drones is like asking for your pod to be destroyed (even if the drones are not firing at it).
The problem is the very large "hit box" for the missiles.

[BigBANGtheory]

I managed to cap a Boreas with an M6 and 5 marines today, all survived too

[Choublanc]

It's Urban Legend that best way of training marines is going against TMs. It's best to go after M6s right away.

And after M2 too . Once you have some veterans (5 stars all), a good option is to mix them with rookies in a team of 20 marines. They cap an M2 without casualties (except a pod occasionally destroyed of course) and after 8-12 successes the “newbies” have also 5 stars in fighting. I used the trick with 10 vets and 10 rookies, but I’m pretty convinced that it should work the same with only 5 or 6 vets and 14 students.

[BigBANGtheory]

Just boarded my 2nd Boreas with only an M6, this time I recovered 6 FAA, 16 HEPT and 8 PRG

Now I am 2/3 of the way to achieving my goal of Gold Wing = 3 x Boreas

lets see who can kill that wing off...