Capping, stealing, boarding and carjacking ships in X3 Terran Confict - THE HOWTO

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delray
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Capping, stealing, boarding and carjacking ships in X3 Terran Confict - THE HOWTO

Post by delray » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 16:52

Author: Delray for Egosoft Forums.
Link to the thread: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=2921468
Last updated: 2009-06-19 for X3 Terran Conflict 2.1 version.
Last update notes: Added M8s in the first chapter.

Translations: Italian

Table of contents:

Chapter I: Stealing fighters, freighters and passenger transports.
Chapter II: Stealing Corvettes, Missile Frigates and Military Transports using spacewalk.
Chapter III: Stealing M1s, M2s and M7s using a Missile Frigate (M7M)
Chapter IV: Stealing TLs.
Chapter V: Boarding from a TP and M3s
Chapter VI: Questions and answers.


=========================================================
CHAPTER I: Stealing fighters, freighters and passenger transports.
=========================================================

1. Targets:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Lonely traders traveling in either an M3/M4/M5 or a TS/TP
- Military patrols with unique ships as escorts
- Bombers (M8s) from military patrols

2. Best ships you can acquire:

- M3+ fighters: Medusa, Eclipse, Chimera, Kea (they sell for a few million each) and others in the class.
- Unique fighters (if you are really lucky) from Military Patrols like: Advanced Mamba, Nova Prototype
- Super Freighters of all types, the best one is OTAS Energy Transporter which is Mistral SF but occasional Caiman SF or Demeter SF won't hurt either.
- Some of unique or more costly TPs like Angel or Iguana Vanguard.
- A costy bomber to help you clean up. Hades for example. Usually with a load of Tomahawks.

- No, TERRAN FIGHTER PILOTS DON'T BAIL. You can't steal Thors and Fenrirs.

3. Tools:

- A fast M3 (for example: Mamba Vanguard, Perseus Raider, Nova Raider).

- Pulsed Beam Emitter or Phased Repeater Gun mounted up front.

- Minimum of 2x25 MJ shields.

- A TM (Transport Military, freighter with a hangar instead of a cargo bay) or another ship with a hangar in which you can dock your stolen ships.

- Combat rank above Harmless, do yourself a favor and complete a few combat missions before you go Pirating.

4. Place:

- Everywhere, core sectors, border sectors, pirate sectors. It doesn't matter where as long as you follow the Plan.
- The only difference between pirating in Pirate Sectors and Core Sectors is that you have to apologize to Police in Core ones.

5. The Plan:

- Find your target, don't waste your time going after small and cheap Falcons or Novas, go for the most pricey targets.

- Approach your target from a direction other than front and strip his shields down to 0%. You can do it fast or do it slow, it doesn't matter at all.

- Switch to your PBEs or to your single PRG (one is more than enough) and start slowly damaging target’s hull.

- When the target’s pilot jumps out of his ship (stop firing when he tells you he's leaving his ship!), get out of your ship ("Shift+E"), come within 40m from ship's centre, click it and pick "Claim" from the menu, patch it up with your Repair Laser (Right mouse button) and send it to a nearby station or your TM/TL/M1)

- If he doesn't jump out and his hull is 1%, comm him ("C") and apologize for "accidental" fire. He will turn blue and fly away. You don't have to destroy him! It's a waste of reputation and gives bad karma.

- Don't forget to apologize to all red police ships in your vicinity before you leave the sector.


=========================================================
CHAPTER II: Stealing Corvettes, Missile Frigates and Military Transports using spacewalk.
=========================================================

0. Marines:

Before you start stealing bigger ships, you need to prepare a team of Marines.

- They have four skills. Three you can train (Engineering, Hacking and Mechanical), one is related to experience and is raised during successful boarding operations (Fighting).

- You buy Marines in Military Outposts and Marine Training Barracks and sometimes in Trading Stations and Equipment Docks too. You need a ship capable of carrying people to buy them (requires Cargo Lifesupport System which you can buy in many places, most notably Pirate Bases). If you really don't know where to go to buy Marines, go to Home of Light Barracks, it's my favorite place. If you really don't know what ship to use, buy Express from Argon Prime Shipyard.

- If you have Bioscanner installed on the ship which is buying Marines, you will be able to see their exact skills in the top right corner of the screen. You can buy it from Terracorp or Jonferco corporations. You should do your best to buy Marines with at least two or three stars in Fighting since that skill you can't train before sending them into action and their survivability rate depends on it. If you bought a weak Marine by accident, you can enslave him at a Pirate Base and sell saving at least some of cash. Or just eject him into space and let him run out of oxygen and die if you think it's better than slavery.

- You can train your Marines in Military Outposts, Barracks, Equipment Docks and a few other selected stations. If you have no idea where to go, go to Argon Prime Equipment Dock to train there. You train via trade menu, just make your docked ship trade with the station and Marines will show at the top of the list there. Highlight one of them, press Enter and pick a skill to train.

- Quick summary of training time and cost: Training cost and time is longer for each level of their skill, you start with 7000-9000 level marines, each next level costs 2000 more than previous one, you can train up to 47000 level and price and sometimes your marines will advance two or even three levels at once during one training. Every four levels they get another star in the skill you’re training up to five stars max.

- How long you should train? Depends on your target. See Tools sections of the two following chapters.

1. Targets:

- Corvettes (M6s) of all races, shapes and sizes.
- Military Transports (TMs) of all races, shapes and sizes.
- Missile Frigates, all of them.

2. Best ships you can acquire.

- Hyperion Vanguard, Heavy Centaur Prototype, Pirate Centaur and similar.
- Yaki Chokaro, Pirate Caravel and others in the class.
- Kraken, Cobra and other M7Ms.

3. Tools:

- Fast and well-shielded M6, the best ones are Hyperion Vanguard, Vidar and Heavy Centaur Prototype but if you don't have any of them yet, it's easiest if you go and buy Skiron from OTAS HQ in Legend's Home.
- Half a dozen of Hornet missiles, something that makes it very easy to carjack M6s and TMs but you have to produce them yourself.
- Typhoons and Wasps to quickly dispose of any escort your target might have.
- Guns... doesn't matter which ones as long as they don't use too much energy, 6x or 8x Phased Repeater Gun is more than enough for most targets.
- Marines trained to three stars in all trainable skills and with at least two stars in fighting.
- Research - know your enemy, how many shields he has, where he mounts strongest guns.

5. The Plan:

- Approach your target from behind since that's where they usually mount weakest guns. Or from any other direction where he doesn't have much missile defence. Approach from front if you are desperate (front guns don't target missiles).
- When you are 2 KM behind him (or in his missile defence blind spot) Fire Hornets, you need one Hornet per each of his 200 MJ shields (for example Hyperion has 5x 200 MJ shields so you need five Hornets to strip his whole shield with one salvo).

- Keep flying forward aiming for the spot on target's left or right side and in distance around 500-600m from him.

- With your ship flying to the right spot and target's shields at 0% go through Piracy menus, to do that press Shift+C, select Piracy -> Enter -> Enter but wait with "Start Boarding" until your ship is in position.

- When your ship is finally at the right spot, press Enter for the last time and launch your Marines. If you did it right, they should reach the target and start cutting the hull inside one second. If you weren't, you need to either reload or to maneuver the way that makes the target fly into your floating in space Marines. Autopilot engaging with this command may seem like a problem but it helps you train positioning yourself at the right spot. If your ship turns Autopilot for too long you will know you're not in the right spot!

- AS AN ALTERNATIVE you may use Launch all Marines from Additional ship commands menu (to get to it press Shift+C, scroll down to Additional Commands, pick Slot 1 and choose "Launch all Marines"). This won't engage autopilot at all but instead will launch all the Marines you have at the general direction of your target which is the preferred method of many people. Try both and see what works best for you.

- When your Marines say "We're at the target" do everything you can to keep target's shields under 5% with your guns. Ignore any enemy fire there is, those shields are your no. 1 priority.

- When you hear your Marines are inside ("Beginning Equalization" or similar message), jump out to the same sector but a distant gate and start flying towards your target. In the meantime your Marines will start fighting their way to the computers on the target.

- Stay away from target's guns but also stay close to him (10-15 KM), that's what you need a fast M6 for. When you hear your Marines started hacking the core comm the target and apologize to him turning him, his escorts and all the Police in the sector blue and friendly to you.

- Press SETA and wait until ship is handed over to you. Transfer back your Marines and go look for another target.

6. Notes:

- If you don’t have Hornets you will have to strip target’s shields with your main guns and then try to position yourself in the right spot with target hostile towards you, circling around you and pounding at you with his guns, it’s much harder.

- If your ship can use Ion Disruptors, you can use them to fry enemy shields and guns to make it easier for you to deliver Marines onto him. He will always have one shield and one gun left though.

- If you have trouble keeping target’s shields down, you can consider using Fighter Drones to do that job. Just make sure you don’t launch too many or they will sink the target ship even if he’s a tough one.

- It’s much easier with Hornets. Seriously.

=========================================================
CHAPTER III: Stealing M1s, M2s and M7s using a Missile Frigate (M7M)
=========================================================

1. Targets:

- All sorts of capital ships of all races: Carriers (M1s), Destroyers (M2s), Frigates (M7s)
- Occasional TL or a Corvette.

2. Best ships you can acquire:

- Not buyable Destroyers like Akuma, Brigantine, Tyr (and all other Destroyers)
- Best Carriers like Raptor, Tokyo, Galleon, Odin, Hoshi (and all other Carriers).
- Unique M7s like Agamemnon, Aegir, Skirnir but also you can snatch some usual Shrike or Tiger if you don't feel like paying for it.
- Atmospheric Lifters, Yaki Ryus and all other TLs.
- Equipment - very often capped capital ships will have on board some equipment, if you're lucky you may find 32x IBL or 32x PSP!

3. Tools:

- A good and reliable Missile Frigate like Kraken or Cobra
- A complex producing Flail Missiles and Hammer Heavy Torpedos (missiles used by Missile Frigates). If you have no idea how to build one, here's an example complex you can build in Herron's Nebula.
- Boarding Pods which you can buy from Military Outposts and Pirate Bases.
- Marines trained to at least three stars in all trainable skills (for Commonwealth (Argon, Boron etc.) ships) and to five stars for Terran ships (like Tyr, Odin or Tokyo). Terran ships require much more skill!
- Research. Know the speed and the shields of your target.

4. Place:.

- This is the good part: capital ships hang around in Core Sectors so that's where you have to steal them from! Fear not, just read The Plan.

5. The Plan:.

- Get to the sector and fly so you have the target ship at the edge of your scanner range. Turn around so he is behind your ship and press F2 for external view. Rotate the view so you can see what's behind your ship. Make sure there are no AI ships near you.

- OPTIONAL: If your target is Pirate or Yaki and is in the middle of a sector full of hostile ships to which you can't apologize, clear the sector first. It is far more convenient this way. You don't need to do it in friendly sectors.

- Change target ship's race to Foe. To do it press Shift+C, scroll down to Friend/Foe settings and set everything of the target’s race as your ship’s Foe. (It’s per-ship setting, your other ships should be fine unless you make them fly between you and your target).

- Get attention of the target ship. Launch a dozen of Flails at him so he turns Red and starts chasing you.

- DON'T PANIC!!!. When he starts chasing you, you should start running away.

- Launch Hammer Heavy Torpedos to quickly bring his shields down. How many? Hehe. Each Hammer does 300 000 of damage so you need 10 to remove 3 GJ of shields. Just do the math. You can speed things up by barraging the target (Shift+C -> Advanced Commands -> Barrage -> Current Target). Each barrage launches 8 Hammers which do 2,4 GJ of damage.

- Create "Flail Tunnel". Why it's called a "tunnel"? You will see. Launch a Flail missile every few seconds and try to keep target's shields below 4% using them. Remember he's chasing you into empty space and you have plenty of time so don't rush things!

- When you see you can control his shields and keep them very low it's time to deliver the final punch. If you have trouble keep target's shields low, you may want to send some Fighter Drones to attack him and help you. It's helpful but completely optional since you can do it all using just Flails. Make sure to send Drones away as soon as you notice they started damaging target's hull!

- Launch two Flails, quickly switch to Boarding Pods, launch your Marines and quickly go back to Flails launching one or two more after your Pod. Don't forget to maintain your "Flail Tunnel" even after Marines are on their way, at least for a few more seconds.

- Boarding Pod will hit his hull and your Marines will start cutting into the ship. That's when it's crucial to keep shields low because if shields go above certain level (usually 6-7% depending on the target ship) your guys will be a toast. That's why you launched more than usual amount of Flails with your Pod.

- If you launched too many Flails and they are about to damage target's hull... don't panic! You can press SETA ("J") which will ruin Flail agility and prevent them from hitting the target while SETA is on. When you see shields started climbing up again you can get out of SETA so a few Flails hit and bring them back down.

- Stop your engines, switch the target's race back to "Friend" (you remember you set them as "Foe" at the beginning, right?) and Wait. Target ship will come closer but unless he was right at your back, he won't have time to come close enough to fire at you.

- Listen to your Marines. When they say they started hacking the core you should immediately comm the target ship's captain and apologize to him for the fire. It will turn your target ship friendly (blue) and also all the Police in the sector. This way you won't have to apologize to them later.

- Ship control will be handed over to you and the locals won't be mad at all. Congratulations, you just earned 100 million.

=========================================================
CHAPTER IV: Stealing TLs.
=========================================================

1. Targets

- TL is that huge ship people use to build stations. For example Mammoth or Orca.

2. Best ships you can acquire

- Mammoth, Orca, Atmo Lifter and so on.

3. Tools.

- Either M7M or M6 set up the way you set it up to cap M6s or M2s in above chapters.

- Marines. You need four stars in Mechanical skill to cut through TLs hull if you don't use Boarding Pods. With Boarding Pods you only need three stars. You can board Atmo Lifters only using Pods, even Marines with maxed Mechanical skill won't be able to cut through the hull of it without a Pod.

4. Place

- You can try to hijack them from the middle of a Core Sector just like you would steal an M2.

- You can hire them and send them to an Unknown or a Pirate Sector and steal them there. To hire a ship talk to the Captain ("C") and tell him you need his services and later that you need to move to some empty sector.

5. The Plan

- OPTIONAL: If the target is Hired comm the captain and tell him to stop the engines. Hehe.

- Position yourself in your target’s blind spot which you can check by either using Model Viewer or by attacking the ship and strafing until you notice you aren’t being shot at. It's usually above and below target TL. Blind spot on Mammoth is very tiny so prepare for a lot of failure if you are after that ship. If the target isn’t hired you just have to fly next to him in his blind spot. Much harder!

- Strip down his shields with Hornets, Flails or your guns. Do what you like the most.

- Deliver Marines. It’s much easier with a Boarding Pod since the target is huge and it’s very hard to position yourself in a good way to pull off a spacewalk boarding. Spacewalk is still doable, just not as easy.

- Keep his shields low until your Marines are inside, then just fly away and wait. Apologize to your target after your Marines start hacking the core. Wait for control to be transferred to you and voila.


=========================================================
CHAPTER V: Boarding from TP and M3s
=========================================================

1. Targets:

- This method can be used to board every ship except Terran ones since even with 5 stars and training all the way up to 47000 in Mechanical, your Marines won't be able to cut through a hull of ATF and USC ships. That's just the way it is.

- This method isn't very easy to pull off so usually we use it board our first M6 (usually Pirate Centaur or Osprey from Defend Station missions) and we conduct further operations from that vessel.

2. Best ships you can acquire:

- If you're good you can steal an Akuma but usually this method is used to carjack weaker M6s and TMs.
- Missile Frigates (M7Ms) are so easy to board that you shouldn't have a problem snatching them using this method.

3. Tools:

- A fast and reliable TP. This has to be something that can withstand enemy fire so don't be cheap here. Angel or Scabbard are the best choices here. It's very good if your TP is equipped with Transporter Device from Terracorp which allows you to quickly switch between your TP and other ships.

- A group of tough fighters. Pick fighters with good shields like Medusa, Eclipse or Falcon Hauler and equip them with Pulsed Beam Emitters or Phased Repeater Guns. You don't want to give them IonD or they may accidentally fry your Marines. Give them Fight Command Software 1&2 so they have "Attack shields of..." command available. It's easier if your fighters are a bit faster than your target so they can run away, that's why Medusa is such a good choice. How many fighters? 2, 3 or 4 depending on the target. Just don't bring too many to prevent them from crashing into each other.

- Missiles and Fighter Drones. This is a huge help for your fighters. Drones serve as distraction to target's turrets, missiles quickly strip his shields allowing you to shorten the whole operation considerably.

- Marines. They don't need to be fancy, just make sure some of them have two stars in Mechanical to get inside the target ship and some have two stars in Hacking so they can hack the target. Five Marines is max you can send into an M6 or a TM so that's the group you should prepare.

4. Place:

- Far away from AI ships who might attack your fighters, crash into your fighters or even worse, damage your target.

5. The plan

- Your goals are the following: get the target ship and don't lose any of your fighters. To achieve that you have to bring a group of fighters so you can send away those damaged ones without stopping the fire.

- Your fighters can't be added to one wing. They need to be separate entities so you can send them away to recharge shields and also you can use "Attack shields of..." command.

- You need to lure your target away from other ships, both friendly and hostile. Quickly eliminate his escorts, then attack him and make him follow you far away from sector centre.

- Send your Fighter Drones. You don't need that many, half a dozen per M6 is enough. You send Drones before Fighters so they take all the heat from target's energy reserves. Remember to send Drones away as soon as you notice they are damaging target's hull!

- Send your Fighters using "Attack shields of..." command from Combat menu. One of your priorities is to not lose any fighters so as soon as you see one of them lost most of his shields, tell him to fly away from the target.

- Fire missiles like Hornets to quickly dispose of most of enemy shields and speed up the whole operation and jump into your TP. You fire missiles after Drones and Fighters because it's easier for them to hit when target's turrets are distracted.

- When you are certain target's shields never go above 5%, position yourself next to your target on his left or right side in distance of 500-600m from him and launch your Marines (Shift+C -> Piracy -> Enter -> Enter -> Start Boarding). If you do it right autopilot will engage only for a half a second and you will hear "Approaching target" report right away, quickly followed by "We're at the target, begging hull cutting".

- AS AN ALTERNATIVE you may use Launch all Marines from Additional Commands of your TP (Shift+C -> Additional Ship Commands -> Slot 1). It will launch all the Marines you have at the general direction of your target without engaging Autopilot. The downside is that you won't be able to see if you were in the right spot at the moment of launching them (autopilot from Piracy command engaged for too long suggested that and allowed you to break command execution and reposition).

- Send your TP away to safety and jump to one of your fighters to help keeping target's shields down.

- As soon as you hear your Marines are inside ("Beginning equalization"), evacuate all your ships from target's vicinity. Stay withing 10-15 KM from target when your Marines fight their way through his decks.

- Apologize to the target as soon as your Marines start hacking the core. This should turn him and all the Police back to friendly towards you. If he's Pirate or Yaki it won't work... but who cares.

- Wait for ship to be handed over to you. Congratulations.

6. Notes:

- Many people will ask why I didn't advice using Ion Disruptors. Here's why:

a. IonD fire often passes from target to nearby ships so your fighters will damage each other.
b. Your Marines may be fried just like your ships which means instant death to your whole squad.
c. Frying enemy guns might seem tempting but along with guns you will fry his shields too. It's easier to keep 4x 200 MJ shields under 5% state than 1x 200 MJ shield. So if you fry shields, it will be harder to keep them below threshold over which your Marines die.
d. A fighter can't support more than one IonD fire at once anyway so it would be very hard to keep shields low even with multiple fighters. Much harder than using PBEs.


=========================================================
CHAPTER VI: Questions and answers
=========================================================

Q: Which ships can I use for boarding?
A: You can use TP or M6 for Space Walk method and M7M for Boarding Pods method.

Q: Which ships can be boarded?
A: TM, TL, M6, M7, M7M, M2 and M1.

Q: What is the effect of various equipment on my Marines?
A:

(Thanks to Cycrow!)
1. Boarding Pod doubles Mechanical Skill of your two best Marines.
2. Hull Polarization installed on your target increases the skill level of your Marines required to cut into the ship.
3. Firewall Software installed on your target acts just like Hull Polarization but increases the skill level required to hack the Core.
4. Sentry Lasers installed on your target act like two top-level Marines who can't die.


Q: There's no Piracy menu in my TP/M6!
A: You need at least on Marine on board and also Fight Command Software Mk2 installed on your TP/M6 for this command to show up in the menu.
Last edited by delray on Thu, 17. Sep 09, 10:39, edited 54 times in total.

delray
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Post by delray » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 16:52

Reserved.

Tiedyeguy
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Post by Tiedyeguy » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 17:34

W00t +1.
:EDIT: Other M3+ ships include the Boron Skate, Xenon LX, Pirate Blastclaw (Prototype), and the Yaki Tenjin. All are good targets.
NUKLEAR-SLUG wrote:A wasp can sting you and that just hurts, a hundred stings can be fatal.. and that's before you consider most wasps don't come armed with flamethrowers.
Former Commanding Officer of "Hellbound Handbasket" M7 Panther light Carrier in the mighty fleet of Admiral Leo 'Steve' Kayean.

Bothersome
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Post by Bothersome » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 18:16

Not exactly "stealing" when the pilot bails "giving" the ship.

I thought the thread might have something to do with actually stealing the ship. Like keeping a ship from a "Return my ship" mission or other.

Anyone know what happens when you RE or recycle a ship from a return my ship mission?
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

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Post by Tiedyeguy » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 18:53

Bothersome wrote:Anyone know what happens when you RE or recycle a ship from a return my ship mission?
I am fairly sure you fail and lose tons of rep. Same as selling it at a shipyard I would assume.
NUKLEAR-SLUG wrote:A wasp can sting you and that just hurts, a hundred stings can be fatal.. and that's before you consider most wasps don't come armed with flamethrowers.
Former Commanding Officer of "Hellbound Handbasket" M7 Panther light Carrier in the mighty fleet of Admiral Leo 'Steve' Kayean.

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Post by Nanook » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 19:39

Tiedyeguy wrote:
Bothersome wrote:Anyone know what happens when you RE or recycle a ship from a return my ship mission?
I am fairly sure you fail and lose tons of rep. Same as selling it at a shipyard I would assume.
Yes, you fail the mission and lose some rep. Not as much as you think, though. Doing another mission of any type for that race will probably gain you back the lost rep, and then some. However, beware the 'cops' they send to destroy the ship once it's reported stolen. Killing them is a big rep loss, so it's best to figure out a way to let the Xenon or pirates kill them, if you can.

Once you have the ship, it's just like any other and you can do what you want with it. RE it, recycle it, sell it, keep it, it's your choice.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

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Post by BeidAmmikon » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 19:49

Marine training can be done at the Trading Station in Argon Prime as well.
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against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places

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Post by kurush » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 19:55

I have to disagree with the "eject <2* into space" part. First, it gives you bad karma :) :) :) Second, there is an easy way to rise fight rank without losing your marines. Here is how yo do this:
1) train all of them to ~3 stars in all skills.
2) Put 20 marines on a Cobra and load enough boarding pods.
3) Go to that yaki sector where Akumas get spaned. If you fire
Spoiler
Show
all 4 pods
, you capture them with almost 100% success ratio and all 20 marines usually survive regardless of their fight rank. The rank increases with each operation. Now I got myself ~10 Akumas and about 30 marines with 5* in fighting. I don't think I lost a single marine since I figured out that 4-pod trick. It does not always work on patrol/assassination Akumas because they sometimes get marines onboard and you get causalities. Akumas spawned in that yaki sector don't get those and can be easily boarded. The same trick works on Ruy's but you might need to combine it with
Spoiler
Show
seta exploit.
Last edited by kurush on Mon, 8. Jun 09, 20:05, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Bothersome » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 19:56

Nanook wrote:
Tiedyeguy wrote:Same as selling it at a shipyard I would assume.
Once you have the ship, it's just like any other and you can do what you want with it. RE it, recycle it, sell it, keep it, it's your choice.
Assumptions aside, what would happen when you RE or recycle while the mission is still active?

I guess I'll just have to try it when I get home.
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 20:07

I would guess that the same as if you sold it. You get the 'destroyed ship, authorities informed' message, and you lose some rep. After all, the mission doesn't care how it's destroyed, just that you did it. You even get the same message if you personally blow it up. It's your actions that destroyed the ship, hence your rep loss.

Now, if it gets destroyed by enemy action enroute to the destination station, you actually get a bit of positive rep and a few credits for your trouble. After all, you 'tried'.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

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Post by Bothersome » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 20:15

If I were to guess, I'd assume the same.

However, X3 doesn't seem to follow any sort of logic that you'd would think you could rely upon. I'm sure I could list ten things that "should" work a certain way based upon previous knowledge of systems or other things that work a certain way, but would not work as expected.

We are asking a lot from Egosoft to "get it right" with the script to check if it was RE'd or recycled, to do the same as being sold.

I mean, the freight drone process was pretty simple, and you know how that came out. I'd hate to miss out on getting next to free resources because I assumed it wouldn't work.

X3 laws don't make sense, you just have to try it.
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

Tiedyeguy
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Post by Tiedyeguy » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 21:13

Nanook wrote:Now, if it gets destroyed by enemy action enroute to the destination station, you actually get a bit of positive rep and a few credits for your trouble. After all, you 'tried'.
Funny thing is, if you self destruct their ship, it counts as "enemy action" Read N-S's post HERE and see the awesome payout he got for pushing The Big Red Button HERE.
NUKLEAR-SLUG wrote:A wasp can sting you and that just hurts, a hundred stings can be fatal.. and that's before you consider most wasps don't come armed with flamethrowers.
Former Commanding Officer of "Hellbound Handbasket" M7 Panther light Carrier in the mighty fleet of Admiral Leo 'Steve' Kayean.

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JoeVN09
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Post by JoeVN09 » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 22:16

Awesome guide Delray, clear concise and informative -- you should put it in your sig. Looking forward to seeing the update on capping bigships. :)

I guess I'll count myself among the "really lucky", as I just captured a Nova Prototype in Split Fire 8)

If I could make a suggestion, I'd say include a guide on capping corvettes and military transports using a TP and suppression ship (or update the existing guide), as the majority of players probably won't have earned enough for an M6 by the time they want to start capping. Plus, it's something a lot of people writing on these forums seem to encounter problems with.
~ Experienced X3 veteran. Dangerously incompetent X4 novice. ~

delray
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Post by delray » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 22:32

Thanks!

I will add the thing to my sig as soon as it's finished (along with asking mods to link to it from the sticky thread).

And also at the end I plan to add a Chapter with Trivia stuff like capping from TP or capping Hired TLs.

TycHouse
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Post by TycHouse » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 22:38

Good guide, well written & very useful. Looking forward to info about boarding pod use.
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delray
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Post by delray » Mon, 8. Jun 09, 23:55

Okay. I'm done for today. I'm open for suggestions so keep them coming! I especially want to hear which parts aren't clear enough and should be expanded.
Where is it?

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arcana75
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Post by arcana75 » Tue, 9. Jun 09, 04:41

Nice! The comms thing sounds like exploiting the game logic but good tip still!

chelo_boga
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Post by chelo_boga » Tue, 9. Jun 09, 05:50

Nice one Delray! :wink:

As JoeVN09 pointed out, it will be great if u can include some tips/techniques boarding with TP, since thats how most people start with

Kapakio
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Post by Kapakio » Tue, 9. Jun 09, 10:58

delray wrote:- You buy Marines in Military Outposts and Marine Training Barracks and sometimes in Trading Stations and Equipment Docks too.
And in some Pirate bases.

brucewarren
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Post by brucewarren » Tue, 9. Jun 09, 12:34

Good Thread Delray.

Might I suggest you include the use of fighter drones to *hold *the enemy shields down.

Flails are good for initial lowering of shields , but when you want to hold them down
without blowing the target to smitherens, drones can be very useful
if you get the numbers just right.
I've found about 50 mark one drones about right against an HCP.
Mk2s are too powerful.
You can order them to stop attacking if the hull starts to go down

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