I'm hoping for more variation, planning and preparation.
There are some related balancing changes I think are needed, for example, I think all shields should protect surface elements. What is the point of a shield, if it can't protect critical systems like engines and weapons? That will make boarding much harder.
It should also be possible to hack a ship covertly, and have them remain unaware.
I also think that marines should be able to covertly enter a ship, and start softening it up without being detected. So marines should have a stealth stat, as well as the combat, engineering, hacking, etc.
So, we can go in guns blazing XR style, crippling the ship and taking it over with overwhelming force. Or, we can get close, hack the ship, throw a couple of high level marines out the airlock to clamber into the enemy ship through their hacked airlocks. Those marines then benefit from a low, unaware boarding resistance to soften up defences, and maybe plant some charges. Weaker ships could be completely taken over in this way. If they are discovered, ship goes on alert, boarding resistance goes way up, and you are forced to finish the job with force, and lots of extra scrambled marines. But, maybe your covert marines could have had time to plant charges on some surface elements, engines, shields, etc in the mean time to make things easier.
The other thing I'd like to see is progression. You start out by throwing marines out your airlock. You can then upgrade to boarding pod missiles or dedicated ramming boarding ships. But most of all, I want to see the transporter finally be able to be used offensively. Teleport marines over. Teleport missiles over. Steal cargo. But of course, this is only possible with appropriate upgrades and research, and most importantly, only when all shield generators are destroyed.
EDIT: Oh, and also importantly, anything you can do to other ships, they can do to you. Big organisations should have access to teleporting technology right from the start, and you're catching up to them. This would be great for realistic pirates.
X4 boarding mechanics
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I should also add that I don''t think the gravity well business in XR is bad. It is actually 'realistic', as any large ship (100s to 1000s of metres long) would require an "inertial field generator" magic device to stop them breaking apart when turning, or to stop crew and passengers being squished (or even just falling over, stuff falling off tables, etc) when accelerating.
I voted for X3 but i liked the XR surface element destruction.
I would love to see a combination of both.
I hated the fact that in XR i was forced to have only 1 team to carry around.
X3 felt more detailed and in depth in the whole boarding / boarding teams preparation etc area. with skills to lvl up for the marines, multiple teams on various ships that could potentially lead to unimaginable boarding fests in a sector.
I would love to see a combination of both.
I hated the fact that in XR i was forced to have only 1 team to carry around.
X3 felt more detailed and in depth in the whole boarding / boarding teams preparation etc area. with skills to lvl up for the marines, multiple teams on various ships that could potentially lead to unimaginable boarding fests in a sector.