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Been going through old posts trying to figure out what's true for the latest version of the game on finding jump beacons. Is the only way to get them now by capturing RRF vessels that have one? Is there still a chance for a drop on destroying one? They seem pretty hard to capture since my marines aren't all at 100 skills.

The beacon won't drop if the ship's destroyed. You need to improve your boarding odds by destroying the Cargobay Life Support and killing the onboard marines before sending your boarders over.

And the beacon is 100% certain to be among the loot when the ship is captured. So, feel free to reload for better loot when capturing the ship.

Finally, "captureable" beacons do not respawn after you capture them. It might have in earlier versions, but not anymore.

I've got a few Jump Beacons from ships that weren't RRF. I even got one from a Paranid Hyperion. But not very often. Yes, I had to board them.

Actually Jump Beacons can drop if the ship is killed by a player owned ship.

RR captial ships have a 5% chance to spawn a Jump Beacon while military ships can have it among their spawned loot but this is an even lower chance.

To cap RR ships you need to kill their shield with missiles and then use mass Ion Disrupters to kill the jump drive and cargo life support before they jump away.

I recommend using an Astraeus Hauler to prep the ship for boarding.

DrSuperEvil wrote:Actually Jump Beacons can drop if the ship is killed by a player owned ship.

RR captial ships have a 5% chance to spawn a Jump Beacon while military ships can have it among their spawned loot but this is an even lower chance.

To cap RR ships you need to kill their shield with missiles and then use mass Ion Disrupters to kill the jump drive and cargo life support before they jump away.

I recommend using an Astraeus Hauler to prep the ship for boarding.

This first part is what I was trying to confirm, but still find conflicting info saying that the drop chance was removed completely in a patch, while others say it can still happen if you are the one doing the blowing up. Last night I tried blowing up a RRF Ares I know has a jump beacon about a dozen times then reloading, but all that ever stuck around in the debris is e-cells and maybe a hammer torpedo.

If there really is no more drop chance on destruction, I'll invest in the Astraeus and continue to prep my boarding team

War. Jupiter has "predictably" couple ATF Carriers with beacons. The only downside is that one has to beat the Terrans a bit.


Just kidding, you have to beat them a lot and boarding the the Terrans deserves top notch team. That is the upside.

Actually RR M7Ms have a different mechanic where on death they spawn a whole load of mines that detonate killing most wares dropped.

The spawn chance is set in the script !config.rrf.pck so it is definitely present.

The war zone in jupiter only has jump beacons on the ships under one of the six war states (same probability of finding two Valhallas in Circle Of labour).

DrSuperEvil wrote:Actually Jump Beacons can drop if the ship is killed by a player owned ship.

They dont actually drop as freight anymore, they used to, but it was removed in one of the updates

So looks like I'm going to have to plan on zap and capture for that Ares in the near future. Going to be annoying since it seems to have an Ariadne escort that will have to be blown up too.

I've recently encountered ...

I spawn generic missions regularly. At my Combat rank that brings Capital ships. Most of the time I get all the fun, but occasionally the RRF jumps in too.

Ships do get their shields down, but don't necessarily die immediately. Cue in the creaking sounds of boarding. Before battle is over, some Marines are walking. Experienced ones. Free to be scooped up.


It is not necessarily trivial to orchestrate such events either, but it does not harm to keep eyes open for such volunteer crews.

wathman00 wrote:So looks like I'm going to have to plan on zap and capture for that Ares in the near future. Going to be annoying since it seems to have an Ariadne escort that will have to be blown up too.

Your target is an M7M, eh?

A bit of advice, get a Pteranodon, put PALCs on the sides and rear. Then put 2 more (only two!) PALCs on the mains. The side and rear PALCs will absolutely neutralize any missiles launched at you.

Use the PALCs on the main to kill the Cargobay Life Support. PALCs under player control are bugged and will only do 1/10 their normal damage. Codingwise, they are actually a stream of bullets instead of a true beam. Which makes them a wonder for taking out equipment while doing minimal damage to the hull.

Don't be concerned about the Jumpdrive, RRF ships can jump even without the JD. Just get your boarders onboard before it jumps.

Got the Ares and my jump beacon last night after much cursing and fist-shaking at the RRF ship, though used a much cheaper and faster to outfit solution. I do want a Pteranodon and PALCs but I only have like $220 mil currently and haven't started PALC farming.

Used an Astraeus Hauler with 8 IonD up front, Plasma Beam Cannons on L and R, and flak everywhere else. 200 mosquitos for MDM. After zapping and chasing him through two sectors, he ran out of missiles and all the nasty anti-boarding extensions were destroyed. Launched 20 4-5 star marines from my Cobra I jumped in. I'm keeping it as a trophy and naming it Pain in the Ares.

Jimmy C wrote:PALCs under player control are bugged and will only do 1/10 their normal damage.

IIRC, if you tap shoot then PALC should get most of the damage it gets under AI control.

Beams have fire rate and lifetime and damage like normal bullets, except applying their damage over the lifetime. If a player holds down the fire button, though, the fire rate is ignored and the lifetime is extended as long as the button is held, applying damage at the damage/lifetime rate.

This results in beam weapons with a shorter lifetime than their fire period getting buffed in player hands, while those with a longer lifetime get weakened (since the player has 1 beam active when multiple beams could be overlapped). Palc is in the latter category, with a 420 ms fire period and 2500 ms lifetime.

Tap shooting will fire off new beams which last their lifetime every time the fire period has elapsed (plus delay until the next tap), recovering most of the DPS. So if you tap, say, 2 times per second, for about 500 ms between new beams, that could get you up to 84% of the PALC potential DPS, compared to 17% when holding the button. Tapping is annoying though, so this knowledge might not be practical when burning equipment.


Edit: I did not recall correctly. The reason for the low PALC damage should be accurate, but in game behavior will cancel out all existing beams when the player taps to shoot a new beam, so there is no way to overlap multiple beams under player control, sadly.