My thanks to pilots:
KJQ - for a message about conditions of big ships surrendering in X3TC.
toor and RusTer - for information about capturing small ships.
I. Theory.
As it turned out, capital ships surrender (exactly surrender, like fighters and small freighthers, i.e. boarding isn't required) in game of version 1.2.1 during Sector Defence missions. For this mission in this version of the game file 04.cat/director/0.8 Battle Enemy Ships.pck is responsible. Having opened it, one can find a magic line, which was changed in following versions of the game:
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<param name="OBSFleetCapturable" value="1"/>
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<!--Mission C, kill nearby enemy group-->,
So, there IS a chance to capture a big Kha'ak ship in mission "Kill nearby enemy group", and class of this ship depends on player's combat rank.
But why hasn't this fact become well-known yet, only a couple of rumors appeared on the Egosoft forum? The answer is simple: Kha'ak have a very high value of morale - 29. Let's look at the "Capturing of small ships" (RUS) article.
Let ship strength modifier be equal to 0 (we're using a more formidable ship), and time modifier = 2 (trying to capture in the first minute).toor wrote:<ejecting probability> = 30 - <morale> - <ship strength modifier> + <hull modifier> - <time modifier>
Then P = 30-29-0+0-2 = -1% - in fact, capturing is impossible
But if one pretreats the hull with a Mass Driver to <2,5% and lowers shields in the same minute (or leaves the sector and returns), then P = 30-29-0+10-2=9%. Not bad. When attacking a weaker ship, it will be 4%. It's true for combat rank 30 (X-Treme). If the rank is lower, then
II. Practice.toor wrote:<ejecting probability> = <ejecting probability> * (<player's combat rank> - 5) / 25
Having successfully completed "Final Fury" missions up to destroying the Kha'ak Station in Unknown Sector 14-7, I saved the game. The next mission was convoy escort again, but I loaded the save made before Fjuny t'Scct summoned me into his HQ - and so, I got the desired mission in Nathan's Voyage instead of that.
Flied into the sector on Tiger. Shot down 3 Corvettes, damaged the hull of the 4th with Mass Drivers, replaced them by Pulsed Beam Emitters. Lowered the shields to ~10%. Saving. Then lowering the rest of the shield, reloading, if failed. Behold, the Corvette bailed at the 15th attempt! It can be claimed from the Space Suit or with System Override Software, like an usual abandoned fighter.
The picture is to make clear that this is Terran Conflict (not Albion Prelude, in which aren't any Kha'ak sectors) and ***modified*** tag isn't here.
The game is of version 1.2.1 without any modifications whatever.
I planned to acquire a Cobra and a Boreas before I start hunting for Kha'ak Destroyer, but I met it earlier than planned.
I was too lazy to prepare my Marlin Hauler for the fight, so I showered the Destroyer with Mass Drivers, jumping in good time to a gate to restore shields. Having damaged it's hull to 2%, lowered the shields by all 2 Incendiary Bomb Launchers I had (when shields were at 15%, I stopped pressing fire button, and shields were lowered completely without further damaging the hull). Jumped into a nearby sector to set time count to zero and decrease the time modificator (Fjuny t'Scct rebuked me for failing, well, okay). Returned and nullified the restored % of the shield. Saving before nullifying the last %s. Random was favorable - the Destroyer surrendered to the Tiger at the 10th attempt, moreover - with all GKEs intact!