Ship Capture Guide: X2 Version 2 (Updated for 1.4)

[novacatt]

Hey Peeps,
Wot Ship Is Generally the best 4 a noobie to use 4 "capping" in X2 1.4?
IE: M3/M4... Min/Max. Wep./Shield Load Out, etc........
BTW I've never done "capping" b4 so thought i would give it a go

Any Specific race? i can only buy from these races: "Moron/Boron" (:twisted: ), Argon & Teladi @ the mo........

My Normal Fleet, so far, consists of:
1 Maxed Out* Disco - 2xGIRE/3x1mw (Kept Same Ship From Start Of Game )
1 Maxed Out* Mercury,1xGIRE/1x25mw-2x5mw (Gained From TerraCorp, I Added The Shields, Etc)
1 Maxed Out* Dolphin - Bought "L" Version Straight From Shipyard [minus GIRE,added later]
1 Maxed Out* Vulture - Bought "S" Version Straight From Shipyard [added all of the above] {:!:}
1 Maxed Out* Buster - Bought "L" Version Straight From Shipyard {:!:}
Around 1 - 2mil cash in hand.........

*Maxed Out=Speed,Steering,Cargo Bay,Software Extensions
[:!:] Depending on which saved game i'm using...
My Cracked/Cheat Fleet,so far, consists of:
All Of the above + A Maxed Out* Manta with Maxed Out* Occy

PS 1st post here ever

[muadiib]

My Capping Fighter of choice is the boron M3, maxed except for steering. BHEPTS to wittle away at shields. Able to use Ions if you just want the hulls, or Apacs if your after some of the kit on the inside. With your 2 Mil if i remmeber correctly that will get you a maxed M3. For my personel style it got what i need which is speed. Plus while capping pirate transports you can take a fair whacking from the rear turret.
Plus with transporter and jump drive its also more like a personel yacht, speccially useful when trouble shooting your empire when you need to be in system to build your factories!

Dont forget Strafe Drive, Its Awesome dont leave a station without it!!!

CRS HOOD

[Sirus5]

Well,

You have looked in the right place... Al was the capture Guru in X2.. Taught many of us how to capture...

Anyhow, there is a lot of controversy about which ship to use... Depends upon your style.

I personally like the M4 - it's a more "Surgical" craft which is faster and I think can capture more easily - however, a couple of hits from some HEPT and you are a gonner (not to be confused with a Goner)...

The best in quite a lot of peoples opinion is the Pirate Buster (you can't buy it and have to capture it from the pirates).. It is quite easily cappable with an ordinary Buster, but you will have to have som PAC's fitted, and it would be best to have something to get the shields down quick (like ION DIsrupters)...

I would then max out the Pirate Buster with Speed, Jump drive etc and give it 2 IONS, 2 PSG and 4 PACS....

Then go find a lone Falcon and get behind - Give it 2 IONs and 4 PACS and then stay behind it whilst attacking.. Get the Hull below 87% as quick as possible with everything you can muster, then chip away at it...

Other people prefer an M3 - nothing like as fast (except a Mamba) but better shielded and can survive more.. But although I have tried M3's, I have always gone back to an M4 for capturing and I have captured over 500 ships in X3 Thus far and am only 3 days from the start in X-Treme mode (so I started with Water Pistols not the cannons needed to capture)...


That should get you started.


Edit.... Whoooops...

Suddenly noticed you are talking about X2 not X3....

In that case, the Pirate Bayamon... Similar loadout.

[KesinX]

I'm at Admiral or something around there, and I love those Bounty Hunter type missions. They usually reward 300k-900k and I generally cap at least one fighter (probably going to start capping more now that I've read this ). Lately it's always spawned 2 M6s and 3-5 M3s. One time the second M6 was doing such a good job dodging all my shots that by the time I'd destroyed it...all the M3s that had been following me trying to protect it had ejected because they were getting hit by all the turret shots that were missing me...so in addition to my 900k reward I sold off 3 M3s for around 400k apiece.

[Nelly]

Wonderful guide from Al,

Noticed he was not into capturing Khaak ships, and there's my problem.
I dont bother much with the M4,M5. but the M3's keep ramming me.
This seems to be deliberate. With an ID and an AIRE I can take the shields down to below 87%, chase them around in circles for 20 minutes, and then suddenly they ram into me and I hear "The argon government is grateful" screw the Argon Government, I want the ship. I tried stopping, just in case I was ramming him but that is a dangerous trick (hull repair is expensive). I dont have this problem with other races, only Khaak.
I took on 17 M3's last night 12 rammed into me, 3 I captured, 1 was fried by an Argon Centaur, who offered to do the same to me (didnt like my ID's) and after an hour of chasing the last one around for nearly an hour I lost the head, loaded 2 beta Hept, and fried him 1% hull and he still wouldn't jump.
Just wondering is it me, or am I missing something

[Carl Sumner]

I dont bother much with the M4,M5. but the M3's keep ramming me.
This seems to be deliberate.

chasing the last one around for nearly an hour I lost the head, loaded 2 beta Hept, and fried him 1% hull and he still wouldn't jump.
Just wondering is it me, or am I missing something

The Kha'ak do ram sometimes. The don't bail out that often, and can be suicidal. They are meant to be hard.

[Nelly]

Thanks Carl
That helps,
I thought they just didnt like me

[KesinX]

I noticed that if you're going head to head, most ships will turn before hitting you (a few M6s are a bit slow to do so which is bad if their steering sucks ) but Khaak ships rarely give up when playing chicken.

[FoubouT]

Good job Al.

For my part I used a little trick that might interest people when starting.
In sector Priest Pity there's a pirate base and quite a bit of pirate ship traffic. With a fully shielded and armed Disco I was able to capture 2 TS pirate ships.

That's how I proceeded:

-Got to the sector
-Looked around for a pirate ship
-Waited until a Paranid Perseus comes around to destroy the pirate ship
-Approached the fight scene but still kept my distances
-Waited until the shields of the pirate ship went down due to the firing of the Paranid ship
-Fired at will on the ship which didn't take long to be given away

For an average of 80,000Cr for a TS pirate ship almost right at the beginning and for barely any effort I think it's quite a good way to start.

[Thunderbirdz]

In the Brennon's Triumph system i found a convoy of 2 ships: a Bay and a Ori ! Whenever i shot at the bay from behind without hitting the other ship... both attacked me! The same happens if i attack the Ori first!
BTW!
This is the first time i ever need help on understanding a game and mi first post on this forum... so pls reply!

[Thunderbirdz]

Monitoring my target's movement i observed that they are flying in a line formation! not 1 behind the other!

[Thunderbirdz]

I managed to follow them to a Jump Gate and placed myself in front of the Bay(M4) and make him evade me thus not entering the gate... after the Orn(M3) left i easily captured my target... but i'm still waiting for an answer!

[Thunderbirdz]

Ok... i have found a foul proof way of separating a ship out of a convoy! When they all jump either move right in front of ur target so that he will evade .. or simply attack teh last ship after every other ship warped!

[Al]

Nice to see that this guide is still getting used

You have found one way of separating a single ship off a convoy but it only works if the ship you are targetting is the last one to go through. What you can do check the ships in the convoy and find out whether they have different maximum speeds (and that you are faster than most of them!). If so then attack the convoy targetting the M5s first (to get rid of them) and then run away until the convoy is spread out and then attack the ships in order

[Fred45]

I am playing X2 now abt 10 days (a friend gave me the game version 1.0). After mission II - hint, to get cash money, I started the " Newbie Guide to Making Money Through Trading from Creston", found in this forum. But the diff for the Silicon in my game is 414 to 595 credits.

When I reached 1.4 kk Cr; I bought a Boron Mako for capturing Pirates..It works..but missiles and the low shield were a problem. I kept making money up to 1.9 KK Cr, and decide to look for a better ship.

I found the best one for a bad pilot as I:

TP – Transport Personel.
Split Iguana
Speed: 162 - upgraded to 308 m/s
Shields: 2*25 MW = 50000
Cargo: (Large) 450, for energy cell, satellites and drones
Missiles: Mosquito = 200 dmg – 45000 range, 10 units never used
Weapons: (3 Forward Mounts) Alpha to Gamma PAC, and Ion Disruptor
(Turret Back 1) Alpha to Gamma PAC, and Ion Disruptor

With this speed, no missile can catch me. I already fought 3 pirates in line with different speeds, each one of them took some hits in 1 passage.
I equiped the Iguana with 1 APAC - 3 GPAC - 4 IsD. The IsD in the turret is more efficient than the PACs, Lol.
When I ear the warning..Missile Launched....I am already above my target and have no idea where the missile is going, but it is not behind me, anyhow.

Last Sunday the Khaaks invasion started, and I decided to try the Iguana on them, so I selected 1 red dot and went to battle. Then I understood what ppls were talking of Khaak cluster..Lol. Lucky I had 10 fighter drones with me...The Iguana managed the Khaaks M5 easely..the back turret have done a nice job, cause 1 of them runned at 322 m/s. Now the M3 was difficult to hit the hull and its weapons are very good... at the end the M3 Khaak ram at me without shield and exploded...congratz from Argon.

I think it will be impossible for the Iguana to capture the Khaaks ships, but it is a good capturing ship.

Should inform Giskard about the Iguana. I read his post "X2: Playing as Split".

Thank you for every one who read this. And thanks to all who helped me.

Fred

[Shaf]

Hi!

First of all, thank you AL and every one else in this thread that has discussed and written lots of good things
But now i have a question...
Iv been playing X2 on Normal difficulty from the beginning having 2 working SPP's, about 1 milion CR and a total of 10 ships.
Im at the point where President's End have got invaded by the Khaak.
Yesterday i captured about 3-4 Pirate Ships with my Bayamon in about 1 hr. Today i havnt been able to capture a single ship Is the capping-rate depending on what difficulty im playing at? And might my low combat rank have anything to do with i cant capture as much as you can?
Im playing on V 1.4.
Thank you for your help!

[adobis]

yep for me, when i've put the difficulty at the highest level, my rate of cap ship as drop drastcly
But i was in 1.2 and from then i played the game with a "lot of stuff"
so i'm not sure, but i think it's the same

And personnally i don't think the Disco is a good ship for capturing, i need a M4, i usually take a Mako, because i can buy it after the Mi Ton's mission because i sell the shields of the TP

It's a better reward than Elena's TS!

[Shaf]

yep for me, when i've put the difficulty at the highest level, my rate of cap ship as drop drastcly
But i was in 1.2 and from then i played the game with a "lot of stuff"
so i'm not sure, but i think it's the same

And personnally i don't think the Disco is a good ship for capturing, i need a M4, i usually take a Mako, because i can buy it after the Mi Ton's mission because i sell the shields of the TP

It's a better reward than Elena's TS!

I got my Bayamon (which im currently using) when i was capping with my Disco. That capture went quite easy, but afterwards its up and down
Right now my SPP are making me some money, but it would be much more fun to do something more than just having SPP's
Thank you for your help!

Edit: Just read this on Argonopedia
"The difficulty setting only affects your starting cash and which upgrades you have on the ship you are given at the start of the game. It has no effect on combat difficulty, rewards, or anything else in the game."

[adobis]

Edit: Just read this on Argonopedia
"The difficulty setting only affects your starting cash and which upgrades you have on the ship you are given at the start of the game. It has no effect on combat difficulty, rewards, or anything else in the game."

Well i was maybe mistaking, and that's correct that i shoot like a psycho!!
However at the beginning i thought it was gonna be fun to cap ships but after having cap more than 500 ships it begins to be boring

That's there that i made a real company with about 90 factories and a lot of ideas and then my computer crashes and i've to begin from nothing

Well, if you wanna cap ships, you'll destroy a lot anyway so don't forget the Police license to get a little reward when you destroye ships

[Shaf]

Edit: Just read this on Argonopedia
"The difficulty setting only affects your starting cash and which upgrades you have on the ship you are given at the start of the game. It has no effect on combat difficulty, rewards, or anything else in the game."

Well i was maybe mistaking, and that's correct that i shoot like a psycho!!
However at the beginning i thought it was gonna be fun to cap ships but after having cap more than 500 ships it begins to be boring

That's there that i made a real company with about 90 factories and a lot of ideas and then my computer crashes and i've to begin from nothing

Well, if you wanna cap ships, you'll destroy a lot anyway so don't forget the Police license to get a little reward when you destroye ships

Too bad hearing about your computer
Destroying ships with the IONS and low power lasers isnt quite fast...
And i dont know where to put the money i get from my SPP's as im fairly new to this game
Thank you!