[TC] How to board with 2 M7M's

[Gruber1232002]

Boarding with 21 marines is best accomplished using an OTAS Sirokos. However, as many of us are aware, getting a Sirokos takes a certain amount of patience and dedication.

On more than one occasion I have been asked about alternatives to the Sirokos and I have been forced to speculate. Well I shall speculate no more.


SETUP

For this exercise I chose an Ares and a Gannet. A lot of thought went into this choice. My minotaur was full of non-elite marines, my Cobra is stalking an Atmospheric lifter around Saturn and my Kraken has no pods or marines on it. Made it quite an easy choice really. I offloaded 19 marines from the Ares onto the Kraken, and made a quick scan of the usual places. A marauding Q in Bluish snout fit the bill. Now obviously I could have boarded something easier, but that would defeat the entire purpose of this exercise. So on I went.

PROCEDURE

I sent the M7M's in ahead to a position near the S gate and off to the West a few km's. Then I jumped in, with my Hyperion to go get the Q's attention. As I approached the Q, I made sure that the M7M's were side by side, hoping that if they were both the same distance from the Q, all the pods would land together, (assuming of course that both would launch at the same time, which naturally is a HUGE assumption).

Pretty soon I have the Q chasing me with that characteristic xenon zeal. When it looks like everything is in position I order both M7M's to board the Q. Sensing trouble ahead, I saved.

Taking out the Q's shields was not much trouble, until the Q launched 2 hammerheads and my turrets vaporized us both. Bugger.

Second try. I backed off a little to take down the Q's shields, but this time it didn't launch a hammerhead at me. When the shields hit 2% I got the familiar boarding pods away confirmation , and then watched in horror as 20 marines tried to board an XL SPP. To make it worse, I have warned others about this very issue and then I did't heed my own advice. Stupid stupid stupid

Third try. I led the Q away from sector obstacles, save and lower the shields. Pods away. About 10 seconds later, pods away again. Enter sinking feeling. 1 marine lands, gets slaughtered, 20 marines land, get slaughtered.

OK, fourth try. I waited 10 seconds, then took out the Q's shields. Pods away. Pods away. Good. I hit R, look at personnel. 20 marines boarding. WTH? The Gannet only launched 19 marines. Seriously? How does this happen?

Ok, fifth try, wondering if this is ever going to work out. This time for some unknown reason the ships both launched within 3 seconds of each other. The single marine landed first then 2 seconds later the others landed. I thought the op was doomed, but for some reason they all entered together. Now the 1st marine was listed as (fighting Deck 1) and the others were listed as (fighting), but the important thing is that nobody got slaughtered on deck 1. If anyone had been listed as cutting hull, I would have had to do a sixth try...

I had to reload a couple of times on decks 2 and 3, but it only took 6 reloads for a clean cap, which is low for a Q.

So anyway, there it is. I suspect that every couple of seconds, (perhaps 8-10, the boarding script checks to see if the pods should be launched). If I were to venture a guess, it should be possible to set one M7M to board, then count 8-10 seconds (or whatever) then give the command to the other, so that both M7M's board together.

I'll probably never find out, because even though this was surprisingly easier than I thought, I have a Sirokos, so quite honestly, I don't need to know. If you would like to assist the community feel free to post any observations here.

[dbrowdy]

So essentially, it works exactly like you'd think it would. Some minor details:

1 - Did you manually park the M7M's where you wanted or order one to move and the other to follow?

2 - There was no significance to the choice of M7M. It makes a more interesting read, but it's kind of a red herring. Might do well to clarify that.

3 - You mentioned the ships were side-by-side...did you arrange the fight with the Q so that they were side-by-side relative to the Q or did you just get within range and hope for the best?

4 - What range do you like to stay from the M7M's for this? ~10km?

5 - You dropped the Q's shields in a Hyperion? How do you like to fit it?

Thanks, your boarding guides are money.

[Gruber1232002]

So essentially, it works exactly like you'd think it would. Some minor details:

1 - Did you manually park the M7M's where you wanted or order one to move and the other to follow?

2 - There was no significance to the choice of M7M. It makes a more interesting read, but it's kind of a red herring. Might do well to clarify that.

3 - You mentioned the ships were side-by-side...did you arrange the fight with the Q so that they were side-by-side relative to the Q or did you just get within range and hope for the best?

4 - What range do you like to stay from the M7M's for this? ~10km?

5 - You dropped the Q's shields in a Hyperion? How do you like to fit it?

Thanks, your boarding guides are money.

1) Manually parked, -24,-6,24 and -24,-8,24 iirc, to be precise.

2) Sometimes I like to entertain myself. If I had just said which ones I used, people may get the feeling that there is some reason for it. All that matters IMO is that they can both fire pods.

3) I just got the Q to follow me to a point roughly where the third corner of an isosceles triangle would be.

4) Not sure, I like it when I can see the M7M's, but not on my gravidar, so that I can see the pods (on gravidar) coming in a short time after launch. That way I can time the shots for shield suppression before using SETA if need be.

5) My Hyperion is set up with 8 CIG's for M7/Q combat, or 3-4 PBE's and 4-5 CIG's for fighter's and M6's. I gave up using PBG's quite a while ago since the damage is too unpredictable.

SURE.

[dbrowdy]

I've never used anything but an M8 to take out marauding Q's. Any tips on engaging in a M6? Do you out-range his guns or do you make strafing runs (in the classic sense of the term) or do you just sit in range and strafe to dodge incoming fire?

It'll be while before I have a full boat load of elites so I could probably just practice taking down their shields in the mean time, I suppose. Another stratergy that I was considering is using a thresher with Ion Cannons for shield work when capping. I don't know if that big ugly thing would be nimble or fast enough to pull off this thing tho.

[Gruber1232002]

I just park about 3km away and open up with the CIG's. I strafe and barrel roll away from the snow/fire balls. The only time it's a problem is when the Q has flak, because then I can't see the incoming ISR and CIG fire. In that case I corkscrew away from the Q once the rear guns are facing my way. The front guns aren't scary unless you're in something big... like a thresher for example...

It's also why I like the Tiger, narrow profile...

[dbrowdy]

I keep flirting with getting a tiger but never quite do. I think it's because I'm either making complexes (hello, Hub!) or capping reds for cash (hello, ANH!) these days.

I think it's quite likely that as soon as I get my 333m for ANH, I'll grab a tiger (and/or panther) and to do OFF. I have a feeling the Q shields will fare much worse against 8x IBL's up the nose. I just hope it doesn't turn as slow as the cobra. Egads!

[Eisenkalle]

Hi,

I have a general question regarding "remote" boarding. I tried to do a remote boarding. The target shields were hammered active with my Hyperion. I pulled them down to ~10%, then I command my cobra to launch all marines (without the barrage command). Hammered the shields down to 1% and... nothing happened. Command refused! (?) What? Shields are 1% of the target... what is your problem? (My thouhgts!). The cobra was positioned close by (less than 4 km away).

Anyway, do I have to use the "piracy" command or the "launch all marines" command? Is it important to set "missile fire" to whatever amount or 100%? Is the missile firerate connected to the launch pod/barrage command?

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Use the barrage command, it'll fire when you tell it to then. Just make sure you've only got pods onboard or it'll try and use something explosive.

[Eisenkalle]

Ah yes OK.

I will have to switch the regular stuff over to another M7M then (it's my all-rounder atm).

Thank you!

[pH7.0]

Speaking of the joys of capping and killing in general, I agree that the tiger is way cool, especially when you've got the pair of PALC from... a mission. (go search for spoilers if you want.) They are the sweetest little visual treat/fighter swatters ever.

As far as swatting Q, K, anything, I have yet to go past my Boreas. It is my happy solo killing machine. Whenever I need some therapy after a long difficult period of complex building or being nice to people, I take my boreas and visit the xenon sectors. On a bad day, all of them. I have PPC all around except for top/bottom, (IIRC). Total 32 PPC and 8 FAA.

After they're all dead again, and the stations and shipyards are dead again, and the vengeance fleet from any remaining sectors is dead again, and little space tumbleweeds are rolling through their sectors, I feel better. It's about helping people. No, really.