whats the point to capturing capital ships

markdb92 · Post by **markdb92** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 21:12

I want to repair them so I can use them but you cant repair capital ships

So I forced to sell them for cash.

The capital ships in the story mode are how you say buged so you have to sell them too. Ie cant talk the captain when he is my squad so we can jump somewhere and cant fire them.

Flic · Post by **Flic** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 21:16

I think you can hire engineers and take them to the cap ships to repair them.

Have you tried that?

Malkuth74 · Post by **Malkuth74** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 21:20

You cannot repair ships right now, its either broken or has not been put in.. Most likely broken.

What you can do is Go to Devair (hotair) and sell those ships for insane money. For instance read below.

Spoiler

Show

Sell the Prison ship you get in the campaign mode that you can't move or use because you can't repair broken vessels. You will get 27 Million Credits for selling this ship. Sell it quick, before it implodes from stupid stuff. The place the shipyard is located is Hotair. Its a friendly shipyard, not reds trying to hurt you.

Mauzi! · Post by **Mauzi!** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 21:23

Flic wrote:I think you can hire engineers and take them to the cap ships to repair them.

Have you tried that?

I did and there's no repair option even after re-docking.

Also I have no clue how to get those construction/repair drones on the capital ship (works for your own only) - which are said by Bernd to be needed.

Also the manual is a joke on this matter (not that one could expect much from a 56-page document which has 50% stuff that's utterly non-informative), not explaining anything in regards to such non-obvious basics.

Egosoft, how about some explaination on how repairs work ?

vahadar · Post by **vahadar** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 21:27

Npc ships repair automaticly, so if you are lucky enough during a boarding, you can have the target engines and/or jumpdrive repaired before the boarding is finished.

Its probably prettu random and based on npc engineer stats, because i boarded many light/heavy Sul, some Balor, 2 taranis, and only 1 taranis and 1 light sul were repairing very fast their engines. Which means i'm theoricaly able to send him to a shipyard for repairs (havent been to the shipyard mentioned in spoiler above yet, and i'm red to plutach, in early plot i guess)

other than that repairing dont work.Issuing a repair order at shipyard to a ship that cant move wont work, and you WILL be taken the money for repairs anyway.

And since it seems captured cap ships cant even fight (that my experience, i captured around 10, none are fighting at all for the few that were following me), capturing cap ship is just good to make a fat wallet (i'm over 100millions now)

vahadar · Post by **vahadar** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 21:41

At some point i was tired that the ship got damaged just following me that i edited the save file.

---------------------

updated with 1.18 patch

Fixing hull values of components by editing become useless since patch 1.14 providing you have an engineer + construction drone on the capital ship
As long as at least one engine works you can send the ship for repairs at a shipyard. And then buy some Construction drone from a station, deliver and sell at the shipyard where the wounded ship is docked and buy them with the capital ship to repair engines/jump drive further.
Ship Dealers repair every components and hull, while engineer+drones on board the ship repairs engines/jumpdrive.... only components.
If you have no engines and no construction drones on a captured ship, or if your ship has no drone bay, jump to the next block of yellow text in the "how to" under.

Make sure you backup your save before playing with XML

Fixing hull and components on ship
obsolete since 1.14 if you have engineer+construction drones, but still work

Check under owner="player" in the xml for your ships
under that research, your crew and drones are also listed, you will eventually find the ship you are looking for.
If you know the name of a crew based on the ship, seach for it, scroll up a bit till you find the start of the <component class=ship with owner=player on the same line

In short a ship is designed in the save file by many blocks and lines. first a line with its name/owner, then position...
Just before the shields and turrets blocks, if your ship is damaged their is a <hull> line you can delete (see under for more details). Then some blocks for cargo (drones, missiles...), wares, and then each component of the inside ship (like crates when docked...), and then components of the outside ship (jumpdrive, engines...), and then each turrets in details.

Finding those blocks is quite easy guess reading them so editing isnt a big problem
You also have a lot of blocks that are about visual damage and graphics (like smoke and so on) i wont deal with them here.

The crew linked to the ship is also listed after all those blocks above, you can edit it too

for exemple :

if its a taranis you own you should have also macro="units_size_xl_capital_destroyer_2_macro"
in the same line with owner="player", it will depend on the type of the ship, this is just an exemple

to get hull back to 100%, if the ship is damaged removed the text in the <hull> line (remove the line completly)
it should be above the <shield> or <turrets> tag

for example i deleted this line : <hull value="765380" time="78253.9"/>
and the ship was back to 100% hull (but you also need to put back component like turrets/shield from
state="collapsed|wrecked"
to
state="collapsed"

to get a full set of turrets you can find other npc ships similar to yours in the xml and copy the shields and turrets lists. Dont forget to remove in each turrets <component> some lines under, what specify that the turret is in a wreck state. (delete the status="wrecked" code part)

you can also fix engines and jumpdrives the same way, check few lines under you will find the <component> entry for it
each component engines will also have a <hull> line, delete them all to get all engines to 100% (when they arent fully destroyed, if fully destroyed check under)
If the engines/engines booster/jump drive were 100% destroyed, deleting the status=wrecked in their <component> line will fix them also.

Even by doing this you will see some damage animation, because those are also coded in the xml and i didnt bother removing them, as long as my ship is at full health and with full guns, some flames just looks more cool ^^ but you can take an exemple from a working turret or shield to copy the code and thus remove all the entries for graphics that deal with damage animation.
Note that with recent patches those graphic damage will vanish over time when you delete the hull line of a component.

still valid with 1.18 - Note that captured ship with engine destroyed wont repair themselves with just an engineer, you NEED construction drones too, so edit your save if none on ship when you captured it, and if you cant move it. Add construction drones to fix the engines, and then you can do the repairs at a shipyard. If you are lazy, the "how to" above still works.

Also some ships dont have drone bay like Balor, Sucellus an so on. But you can add construction drones in the savefile nevertheless, coupled with an engineer they will repair the engines and jumpdrive when destroyed, or when captured.
The type of drone you want to add is this one, 10 drones here :

Code: Select all

<ammunition>
<available>
<item macro="units_size_xs_welder_drone_macro" amount="10"/>
</available>
</ammunition>

Note that during the boarding phase, Yisha might order you to destroy the drone bay of the target ship, i would suggest you to quicksave at each stage of the boarding once a target is destroyed to reload if she ask you to destroy the drone bay next. If you destroy the drone bay, all drone that the captured ship had are destroyed (and the potential construction drones it might have).

unconfirmed way to move URV construction drones to a cap ship :
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 70#4232970

interesting read about random chance that a wrecked component get repaired with engineer
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 64#4244464
theoricaly it should works withoutdrones but you still need at least 1 drone onboard unfortunatly

Also a mod by Jey123456 replace the script for engineer with a better one that do repairs without drones (to a very limited extend)
[MOD] Improved Engineer
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=354081

v1.14 - It seems engineer will only repair till 75% for engines/jumpdrive and other components. For further repairs, go shipyard.

Fixing bugged components that never repair
still valid with 1.18 patch

Some ships from older save might have broken turrets/shield generator/engine that dont have the status="wrecked" and wont repair with engineer or ship dealer and will show hull 0% shield 100% ie.
The same happens sometime when you repair the ship at shipyard but nothing is repaired in fact, despite the ship listing all weapons to be fully available in the ship details, while they show hull 0%/shield 100%. To counter this, find all lines starting with :

Code: Select all

<hull value="0"

and delete the entire line for the component that is bugged.

adding drones :
still valid with 1.18 patch

finally what the point of having a ship without drones?
below i added some freight drones so i could buy from stations, works the same for all type of drones

under <ammunition>

check the <available> line

and do like in this exemple

<ammunition>
<available>
<item macro="units_size_xs_welder_drone_macro" amount="17"/> <--- this is the line to add 17 construction drones
<item macro="units_size_xs_transp_empty_macro" amount="20"/> <--- this is the line to add 20 freight drones
<item macro="units_size_drone_attackdrone_impulse_mk1_macro" amount="17"/>
<item macro="missile_turret_swarm_macro" amount="34"/>
<item macro="units_size_drone_attackdrone_plasma_mk1_macro" amount="23"/>
</available>
</ammunition>

If you dont have an <ammunition> tag for your ship, you can insert the whole code above after the end of the </turrets> tag
look here for more info on where to put it exactly if no </turrets> tag :
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 59#4226359

deleting bugged drones :
still valid with 1.18 patch

There is also an <unavailable> line under that group, it tells what drones are busy. For captured ships sometime they are all busy, so delete the lines of drones that you think are bugged.
For trader ships it can be the same, some freight drones are still labeled as busy when the job is done, you will need to delete them here..

Anyway captured ship dont really fight yet

Unreal2me · Post by **Unreal2me** » Sun, 17. Nov 13, 23:05

You should not have a capital ship this early in the game. If current mechanics lets you get your hands on a capital that soon, then it is another flawed game mechanic to me and another reason for me to never buy it.

scarshapedstar · Post by **scarshapedstar** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 04:21

Unreal2me wrote:You should not have a capital ship this early in the game. If current mechanics lets you get your hands on a capital that soon, then it is another flawed game mechanic to me and another reason for me to never buy it.

We're not talking like gigantic badass cap ships. Basically, by the standards of XR, a Mercury is a cap ship.

Your ship has no cargo space and thus to move anything around (other than the goofy personal items and certain ship fittings) you need a hauler which is called a cap ship but is more of a barge.

chikatilo · Post by **chikatilo** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 04:29

scarshapedstar wrote:
Unreal2me wrote:You should not have a capital ship this early in the game. If current mechanics lets you get your hands on a capital that soon, then it is another flawed game mechanic to me and another reason for me to never buy it.
We're not talking like gigantic badass cap ships. Basically, by the standards of XR, a Mercury is a cap ship.

Your ship has no cargo space and thus to move anything around (other than the goofy personal items and certain ship fittings) you need a hauler which is called a cap ship but is more of a barge.

^^ this

Everything from smallest fighters to M3+ is replaced with cannonfodder that doesn't bail so you can never own.

Everything else is a capship. Having just typed this I'm reinstalling albion prelude, there's an awesome game right there, can't wait to get back in my Hyperion and my Sprinblossom

I spent all weekend exploring this galaxy, wanted to top it off with gettin started, only to find out just about everything is dumbed down or broken.

AP is getting a lot of love through all this, even ppl new to the X series because of Rebirth are getting AP it seems.

reggie368 · Post by **reggie368** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 09:42

Hi There !

@vahadar : Unfortunately editing the savegame to get more drones does not work for me. I added some drones to my scaldis, they do appear in the ship infos, but when I ordered it to trade, no drone appeared... Are you sure you didn't do something else for it to work ?

werewolves? · Post by **werewolves?** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 09:49

vahadar wrote:Npc ships repair automaticly, so if you are lucky enough during a boarding, you can have the target engines and/or jumpdrive repaired before the boarding is finished.

Its probably prettu random and based on npc engineer stats, because i boarded many light/heavy Sul, some Balor, 2 taranis, and only 1 taranis and 1 light sul were repairing very fast their engines. Which means i'm theoricaly able to send him to a shipyard for repairs (havent been to the shipyard mentioned in spoiler above yet, and i'm red to plutach, in early plot i guess)

other than that repairing dont work.Issuing a repair order at shipyard to a ship that cant move wont work, and you WILL be taken the money for repairs anyway.

And since it seems captured cap ships cant even fight (that my experience, i captured around 10, none are fighting at all for the few that were following me), capturing cap ship is just good to make a fat wallet (i'm over 100millions now)

Are your ships not fighting even with the defense officer set to attack all enemies?

fisiu · Post by **fisiu** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 09:59

AP is getting a lot of love through all this, even ppl new to the X series because of Rebirth are getting AP it seems.

Im also reinstalling, and I kind of get that impression too, many new players seem to be getting AP now, maybe thats why XR is a "sucess" just because it boosted AP.

werewolves? · Post by **werewolves?** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 10:04

unless they are all offline players or pirates only 400 or so people are playing AP

otto_deluxe · Post by **otto_deluxe** » Tue, 19. Nov 13, 16:45

or they're ***modified*** and proud xD

Steam makes a mess out of mods/fake patches

x-turd · Post by **x-turd** » Tue, 19. Nov 13, 16:48

There's no point in capturing capital ships, just as there's no point keeping this broken mess of a game on your hard drive.

Kolreth · Post by **Kolreth** » Tue, 19. Nov 13, 16:50

On the last campaign restart I am on I have captured the taranis, it has a 4 star engineer on it and I lucked out and it came with 15 construction drones. Eventually I checked back and all 15 drones were in use, the engines were 60-70% repaired and the jump drive was ok as well. But it still wouldn't move an inch.

mikeck · Post by **mikeck** » Tue, 19. Nov 13, 18:15

Unreal2me wrote:You should not have a capital ship this early in the game. If current mechanics lets you get your hands on a capital that soon, then it is another flawed game mechanic to me and another reason for me to never buy it.

Lol...ok. Some people on this forum seem more interested in trying their hardest to hate the game and convince others it's bad

If he has played 50 hours... Is that not enough time in game to be able to get a cap ship? I had plays about 5 hours before I bought my first mercury in x3..

Can't anybody start a thread on this forum without having someone jump on declaring that the game sucks? We know...we get it. You don't like the game....now can the rest of us who are enjoying it ask questions and share experiences now?

Neferdias · Post by **Neferdias** » Tue, 19. Nov 13, 18:24

chikatilo wrote:
scarshapedstar wrote:
Unreal2me wrote:You should not have a capital ship this early in the game. If current mechanics lets you get your hands on a capital that soon, then it is another flawed game mechanic to me and another reason for me to never buy it.
We're not talking like gigantic badass cap ships. Basically, by the standards of XR, a Mercury is a cap ship.

Your ship has no cargo space and thus to move anything around (other than the goofy personal items and certain ship fittings) you need a hauler which is called a cap ship but is more of a barge.
^^ this

Everything from smallest fighters to M3+ is replaced with cannonfodder that doesn't bail so you can never own.

Everything else is a capship. Having just typed this I'm reinstalling albion prelude, there's an awesome game right there, can't wait to get back in my Hyperion and my Sprinblossom I spent all weekend exploring this galaxy, wanted to top it off with gettin started, only to find out just about everything is dumbed down or broken.

AP is getting a lot of love through all this, even ppl new to the X series because of Rebirth are getting AP it seems.

They do bail... try harder

I have a bunch of plutarch fighters and haulers... or i did till my save game corrupted on me.

You won't believe how god awefully annoying it is to try and claim them though... but I'll leave that to you to figure out when you get one to bail

vahadar · Post by **vahadar** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 09:36

Kolreth wrote:On the last campaign restart I am on I have captured the taranis, it has a 4 star engineer on it and I lucked out and it came with 15 construction drones. Eventually I checked back and all 15 drones were in use, the engines were 60-70% repaired and the jump drive was ok as well. But it still wouldn't move an inch.

try changing sector, they will follow you after you exit the sector where you captured them

malolotja · Post by **malolotja** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 10:28

I usually do this:

1. Add the capship to your squad
2. Call the captain (while being close to the ship)
3. Give the order: "take me to.."
4. Dock at your capship
5. Enjoy the scenery