Your Very First Boarding - Guide (X3TC)

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TRxGenesis
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Post by TRxGenesis » Thu, 11. Nov 10, 15:00

Ahhh nevermind I capped the Hyperion Vanguard! Hhoooot! it took me about 25 tries though. And yes, I got familiar with the keystrokes! Thanks for all the help! Time to spend a few hours repairing that sucker up.

Rive
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Post by Rive » Thu, 11. Nov 10, 15:24

Congrats, Sir 8)

May I ask that what was the most difficult part of the OP? And exactly what equipment did you used?

TRxGenesis
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Re: Your Very First Boarding - Guide (X3TC)

Post by TRxGenesis » Thu, 11. Nov 10, 23:55

Rive wrote: - You will need a Passenger Transport (TP) ship. I recommend an Express because it's common, fast and can mount 75MJ shielding. There are other TPs out there which are better for this but those are harder to get. The Express will do.

- Get a gun for your ship's tail and set it to 'Missile only'
- Max out its speed and rudder
- Triplex scanner (not absolutely necessary but useful)
- Freight scanner
- 3X25MJ shielding
- Special command software
- Fight software I & II
- Bioscanner
- Transporter device
- Jumpdrive
- 150 ecells
- 15 Fighter drone MKII
- 50 Dragonfly missile
- Some mosquito missiles for missile defense
- A dozen Salvage Insurance

Well, this is almost a two million credit investment till now. The boarding is not a cheap thing. Most equipment can be bought at Argon Prime and Home of Light if you start as Argon.
I used the above, however I got everything except for 50 dragonfly missiles. Also I had 20 Fighter drones MK II, I launched 13 just so they won't take down the hyperion too fast. When a couple get destroyed by hyperion and it's support ships, I launched the other 7. Will try that next time though. My Marines, they're fresh out of bootcamp but I have around I think 7 marines with fighting stars of 2 or 3, but only 2 marines with 1 and 2 stars in engineering and hacking and mechanics? But I was lucky when I launched them spacewalking because all 10 marines connected to the ship. My initial scan of the Hyperion showed no marines, no defenses at all so Im glad I got the ship but the drones really did a number on the hull, I think I'll have to spend a lot of time repairing that.


Most difficult part was actually controlling all the drones and then parking right next to the Hyperion with it's almost full coverage turrets, I found that if you fly straight toward one of it's sides ( not top) you are out of it's angle of fire from it's main guns and rear turrets. (It doesn't have side turrets.) Also you have to do a bit of hull damage to the Hyperion to slow it down, Hyperion max speed is 155m/s Express is 150m ... you have to be extremely careful how to fly your ship, once the marines connect, run away to 3km+ and wait for them to hack the core.

Lastly, out of the 10 marines I think I lost only 2 marines, but I never had time to trained them so it's not so bad.

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Progress-M
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Post by Progress-M » Fri, 12. Nov 10, 00:11

Congratulations!

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BDK
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Post by BDK » Mon, 6. Dec 10, 10:09

So now I've tried boarding 6 times, each time I fail as my marines are just floating around in space. On one occasion one of them actually got to the target but failed at getting through the hull.

How exactly do you control your ship when that menu is up? I'm in a vidar and it's not exactly the quickest ship around.

Rive
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Post by Rive » Mon, 6. Dec 10, 10:56

- What is the target? Has it any defense? How big is the speed difference between the ships?
- Do your marines has enough skills to do it if they are at the hull?

The goal is to be in front of the target by 100-300m when it flies in more or less straight line. Everything else depends on the actual situation, I can't give you exact answers.

If you are the slower then consider the use of strafe drives. It'll make the things even more tricky, but you can gain some more speed to get yourself in front of the target without bumping into it.

Or you can try to make some hull damage on the target to slow it down (with greenhorn marines it's a bit dangerous: they will also do some damage, which can lead to a failed OP too ).


Another possibility - it's still under testing!!!! - is to release the marines while you are flying against the target - but damn, it's HARD, yet I couldn't get the trick of it :o

EspritFort
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Post by EspritFort » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 03:11

Instead of hunting for M6s, wouldn't it be far easier to simply "rent" a TL, order it into a peacful unknown/pirate sector and ambush it there?

I mean, it just sounds so much more efficient: no lengthy scouting for possible targets, no escorts you have to deal with, a slow and huge target...
So what's the downside? :o

Vim Razz
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Post by Vim Razz » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 03:36

EspritFort wrote:So what's the downside? :o
Spacewalking big ships takes a bit more practice, generally. While hiring a TL is a great way to introduce yourself to the dynamics of boarding big ships in a reasonably controlled environment, I wouldn't recomend them for someone's first few spacewalks.

One of the biggest issues is the game's colision aviodance system, basically. If you drop too close to the target, marines get scattered all over the sector, entering the ship in groups of 2-5 and getting slaughtered before reinforcements make it throught he hull.

There's also the challenge of managing dual-TP or M6+TP. If you want to use just 5 or 10 marines, they need to be real pros -- something you're not likely to have up front.

(Talking about TC, specifically. The new TPs and higher marine limit in AP compensate a lot for these problrms -- throwing 40 marines out the door at a time pretty much guarantes enough will hit the target in a single group to be effective, regardless of scatter.)

And of course, if you miss your drop it's not necessarily any easier for your 28 m/s marines to catch a 50 m/s TL than it is for them to catch a 100 m/s M6.

You also need a lot more training, making it slower and more expensive to get up and running.

And then, of course: if you want to keep hiring those TLs, you need to keep repairing your rep. Boring.

khadgarion
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Post by khadgarion » Tue, 14. Aug 12, 21:54

Thanks for this guide!

I just boarded my first ship, a Hyperion Vanguard!

Did pretty much what you said. I had some good marines from the Player HQ quest (4 really good ones were on the Albatross).

Bought an Express, some dragonfly missiles, and MkII fighter drones.

Located a Hyperion Vanguard, all by himself in the middle of nothing in Clarity's End.

Launched 15 drones, with the attack shields command. Bombarded him with dragonfly's (they each seem to take about 1% off shields, which is good. Don't want to take too much!!)

Saved before I tried flying in front of him. Good the the joystick still works at steering while the menu is up. Took me about 6 tries before the autopilot would launch marines.

4 out of 6 marines survived, and I managed to get the ship at 76% hull, with 8 frag bomb launchers and 5 particle accelerator cannons. No shields, but that's no big deal.

Thanks again for this thread!

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DiArmada
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Post by DiArmada » Tue, 18. Sep 12, 13:34

how many marines are recommended boarding different classes of vessels?

the number 21 comes up several times for M7 class ships.
is it because deck 1 of the target ship can only keep 21 marines?
I launched 5 pods, sending 25 marines to a Q.
4 of them stayed outside while the rest was fighting on deck 1.

is the amount of marines used different for M6, M1, M2, M8 class ships?

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Tue, 18. Sep 12, 19:22

DiArmada wrote:how many marines are recommended boarding different classes of vessels?
One more than the maximum number of marines that the ship can hold.

TC
M1, M2, M7, TL = 21
TM, M6 = 6

AP
M1, M2, M7, TL = 21
TM, M6 = 9

(In both games, the boarding party for a Sirokos can be 31, although 21 is usually more than enough.)

M8's cannot be boarded. You can capture them just like other small ships.

Xenon ships are the most difficult to board. You will probably need more than one "wave" of marines because some will die. Timing the second wave is tricky, so Xenon ships are an "advanced" skill.

See Marine Tips for more detail.
.

Rive
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Post by Rive » Wed, 12. Dec 12, 10:28

Good to see that after two years this guide is still 'up' and 'running' :)


It was not planned to be extended for AP (as I don't have that game), but:

- if this kind of boarding still works any similar way in AP than in TC
- and somebody wants to participate and writes an extension about the changes

then I will happily add those extensions to the main text.

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Thu, 13. Dec 12, 05:55

Rive wrote: - if this kind of boarding still works any similar way in AP than in TC
- and somebody wants to participate and writes an extension about the changes
Boarding is mostly the same in AP. The only real differences are the numbers of marines that I posted above, and the fact that reloading is mostly useless in AP. Also, TP's hold 40 marines in AP, which makes them much more useful.

Things that I would recommend adding/changing in your OP:

- A TL or M7M is an easier first target than an M6, especially in TC. Larger ships are easier to board than smaller ships.

- If you launch marines when you are too close to the target then the marines may scatter due to collision avoidance. There is a "sweet spot" somewhere around a couple of hundred meters which is ideal.

- Strafe keys (WASD) make precision maneuvering much easier.

- Avoid Terran, ATF, and Xenon targets for your first boarding op. They are more difficult to board. Xenons, in particular, are very difficult to board.




If you want some other ideas, feel free to use suggestions from Marine Tips.

BTW, thanks for making your tutorial. It was one of the first that I read and it helped me to understand the basics without being overwhelmed. :thumb_up:

Roknar
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Post by Roknar » Mon, 14. Jul 14, 18:32

i am sorry to necro this thread but i couldnt find it anywhere:

is it actually possible to board smaller freighters like the mercury/dolphin/demeter etc. (TS class ships)?

or is boarding only working for the fregattes/capital ships?

i was thinking about to equip my TP ship with marines etc to board those smaller freighters owned by the phanon corp (i am using Litcubes overhaul mod) so i dont have to buy every single freighter to support my stations.

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Mon, 14. Jul 14, 19:33

Please don't dredge up old threads. While there are much more recent topics on boarding, you can also just start your own topic to get answers.
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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