The assembly of a xenon fleet.
The fleet currently stands at;
1 x J +3 EDIT
2 x K +5 EDIT
3 x Q +3 EDIT
1 x P
1 x Lx
32 x L
27 x M
2 x N
0 x PX +2 EDIT
I'm actively looking for a PX (EDIT-Got one in SPG) and I'd like to gather more Lx's but they don't seem to bail as often.
Background:
I sort of over prepared. I have over 200 maxed marines and about 150 waiting for boarding experience. There are around 75 more in training at various eqd's. In light of what I know now, I have wasted many hours of my time and hundreds of millions of credits.
The J, K's, P and 2 of the Q's were all gathered in about two hours.
In order from hardest to easiest to board successfully (no casualties) they are ranked as follows:Average reloads will change with more data
J - Frikkin hard,...................... ~11 reloads, Xenon 596, Acquisition Repository (2), Xenon 472
Q - Hard,................................ ~8.8 reloads, Ocean of fantasy (3), Black hole sun (1), Men. Front. (1), Bluish Snout (1)
K - Not too bad,..................... ~6 reloads, Xenon 596, Thyn's Abyss, Xenon 347, Acquisition Repository (4)
PX - Could be worse.............. ~3.5 reloads, Scale plate Green (2)
P - Really? Luck?,................... ~1 reloads Nyana's Hideout
Wild vs Spawned:
All acquisitions were wild except one of the K's which came from a XI mission. Based on how easily it fell I am forced to correct my earlier assumption (if anyone has read one of my previous posts), and recognize that there is no difference between Wild and Spawned Xenon ships for the purpose of capping. I will say however, that the wild versions had weapons left on board whereas the Spawned K did not. Perhaps coincidence. (EDIT - Starting to look less like coincidence)
Tools:
Sirokos - Not an option IMO, go do your OTAS missions. If you really can't be bothered you will need 2 M7M's. Put 20 maxed marines in one and put 1 in the other. Order both to board the target. Here's how
Tiger - Optional, other M7's could work too. Ability to turn off turrets and fire main guns is critical though. The only good Xenon is a capped xenon, not a dead one. You will need to project an awful lot of controlled forward damage in a hurry to do things fast, and speed is always useful. Which is why I use my Tiger instead of my shrike, (love my shrike though).
21 maxed marines - Not 20, not 5*, I mean MAXED, as in 100 in everything including fight skill and I mean 21 of them. You will need the 5% boost from the extra marine.
Tactics: Failures first,
I found it infuriating when people made boarding posts remarking on how easy it was when I just couldn't get it right. Part of it was that I was on TC 2.5 when the posters were talking about TC 2.1, part of it was that I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and the rest was not using the right tools. Once I spacewalk capped my HCP using a pirate Centaur I thought I'd reached the pinnacle of prowess. Next stop Xenon.
Boy was I stupid.
I failed miserably on my first P attempt (spacewalk method months ago), after frying the crap out of it my four maxed marines + 1 5* marine got slaughtered time and again. I gave up in disgust after about 30 reloads.
So I started the most ambitious and expensive training program in the universe. I put 2 TP's at every barracks and outpost, bought all the crappy marines and sold them by the TP full at the nearest shipyard to make way for halfway decent marines. Fight skill 30+ got bought and trained. Fully trained marines were shipped to my 'scratch and dent' Minotaur in Aladna Hill. Pretty soon ships started disappearing across the universe. Once the first batch of marines was maxed I got ahead of myself again. I tried for a K using the Minotaur and my HCP as a Ion-d ship roaster/shield suppressor. Once again I had a very time consuming learning experience that ended with me giving up in disgust.
So I got a Sirokos and started boarding ships like crazy to get as many maxed marines as I could, thinking that each Xenon Capital ship would require waves of marines. Once I had 50 maxed marines I staked out a Q. I attacked it with my Cerberus using 6 Ion-d's and I gotta say I roasted the tar out of that sucker until it had no guns to speak of. Took its hull down to 60% using Ion-d's only. I brought in the Sirokos, switched ships launched fighter drones and moved in for the cap. The first wave connected, marines on board, and the fighter drones have chewed the hull down to 45%. So a fire a pod, then shut down a fighter drone. Check status, 21 marines on board, now shields are climbing... fast, reactivate fighter drone to attack shield of... marine death sound, fire pod, check 17 left on board, now 21, 2 in space, etc etc and it's mine. Yay
9 very expensive casualties. Reloads showed that it could have been much worse.Lessons learned:
Don't use fighter drones. They are a pain in the ass.
Ion-d's are only good for removing CLS to kill enemy marines to protect your rookies at first. Haven't used an Ion-d in over a month.
High level marines make ship defenses obsolete, I don't even bother scanning the ships that I board since I keep my training ops at 55 average fight skill with 21 marines. Haven't had to reload a botched boarding op for non-xenon for ages. As a result I have quite a collection of Hull Polarizers, Sentry Lasers and Firewall thingies. Don't really have a use for them but they're kinda like trophies.
Victim orientation can be important. Shoot them in the face for best results
.EDIT- New lesson, Don't get greedy, kill everything except your target otherwise you may spend hours maneuvering to have your new ship and marines blasted by it's former buddies. It's not worth the time. Xenon are like rats, you can find them all over the place.
Tactics: Now successes
I've taken to using my Hyperion to de-shield the victim. Mostly because it's agile, fast and very well shielded. Typhoons and CIG's make short work of most capital shields. The Sirokos takes care of the boarding part by itself.
I have to admit though, that for the heavies, like Terran capital ships I just use my Minotaur with 20 maxed marines. A barrage deals with the shields nicely, the target conveniently turns to face you and bam, it's yours from 20 km away. Cake. Safe, but boring.
So finally on to the Xenon. Having tried and failed on a couple of occasions, but succeeded once, I decided to try again since I had no idea what else to do with 200 maxed marines and I was starting to run out of storage space. It was a P that faced my wrath, memories of my shameful defeat driving me on.
It was pathetic really. I've been dueling Q's for so long that the P is like an M3. I shredded its shields with PBE's in about 5 seconds flat, at which point the Sirokos launched 6 maxed marines. I spent the next couple of moments trying hard not to blast the P to hell while keeping its shields down. Marines connect, save,
Deck 1, Save, deck 2, save, man down. She's ours.
That's it? Load save, she's ours no losses. Really? Just like that? Maybe I should try for something bigger.
XI mission in Thyn's Abyss, jump in Tiger and Sirokos, accept mission. 2 K's hop in with some fighters. My Tiger's flak makes quick work of the fighters. 1 K goes down in a hail of IBL. Save. Take out the other K, mission complete. OK, reload. Slowly and carefully remove sheilds, dodging gauss fire while flying backwards, and then a funny thing happens. When the K gets about 2 km away it stops shooting and starts trying to figure out which way to turn. Order Sirokos to board, save, strip shields to 2%. Pods away. All connect, save. Deck 1, cleared, 1 casualty, deck 2 cleared 4 casualties, reload. Deck 1 cleared, no casualties, save, deck 2 cleared 1 casualty, reload. Deck 2 cleared, no casualties save, etc. 2 more reloads and I have a K and no casualties.
Very anticlimactic. Ok, maybe it's time for a bank robbery. I scope out Ocean of fantasy, 1 marauding Q. Jump in the fleet. De-shield with Hyperion, board with Sirokos. Significantly more reloads needed for a clean cap, but not nearly as painful as the first time. Much easier when I'm not distracted by fighter drones (also thank you turbo booster, you're awesome). Just as I'm getting my marines loaded back into the Sirokos, another Q pops in with a fighter escort. Hell why not. I steal it too. On to Xenon sectors. 597 was almost unpopulated. I had to fly around for half an hour before I found an M. Lame. On to 596.
Hellooo! A k at the gate just for me, why thank you RNG gods, I'm looking for a J but this'll do for now since I need more data. After a bit of maneuvering I jumped in the Tiger and the Sirokos. 5 minutes later I had me another shiny K. Again it only took a few reloads to get a clean cap. Odd. Oh well, I need more data. I jumped in my supply TM for jumpdrives, my Cerberus for fighter cover (awesome flak platform), and a TS for jump energy and missile removal (from the fighter swarms, of which there were quite a few) as I slowly moved my small fleet into the sector I found the station and 3 black specs in the distance. VE goggles showed me two more Q's and a something. 4 Q's are better than 3 and I have 3 spare jumpdrives so why not. I order everyone to follow the Cerberus and order it to defend position. I ordered the Sirokos to follow me (in the Tiger) and head to the party.
I'm considering which one to kill and which one to keep when the other blob becomes more visible, it's huge, and it's symmetrical could it be... no it's probably another... no wait it is!, my J is sitting right there. Well things didn't go as smoothly as before. The J was armed to the teeth with flak, which didn't bother my shields much, but obscured my sight, and shot down a boarding pod. On the second try all the pods connected but I put a 2% dent in the hull,
(rookie mistake). And then the fun began, the 2 Q's had noticed me by this point and decided to avenge their stolen comrades, or kill my 'like-new' J. This made watching the boarding progress more difficult. I ended up Turbo boosting straight down (relatively speaking) to draw the Q's away from my prize, but that doesn't change the fact that my marines were dropping like flies in the J. I'm guessing bad luck was to blame but it took ages to get everyone through decks 1 and 2. 12 of the 15 reloads were for decks 1 and 2. After that it got considerably easier. I think it had 5 decks but then so does a K IIRC. It was harder to nab than a Q, but again maybe it's all RNG and coincidence. I'll gather more data. Anyway, I iced the Q's, even though I should have 'acquired more data' from one of them, and jumped my fleet out. Arming my new toys emptied my store Mammoths of PPC's and flak. Looks like I need to fire up the old PPC forge again. While that's running I'm going hunting for a PX. I remember seeing them around in my early game, but I haven't seen one for ages. Mind you I've never seen a Khaak destroyer or carrier outside of UFJD sectors either, even though my fight rank is the one above Crusader, Battlemaster? I don't remember.
So if anyone sees a PX let me know
, and have fun assembling your own unholy fleet.Next up, add to my single fighter Khaak fleet.... maybe I could gather enough for my very own cluster some day.....
Update: Added a PX and another J and K to the fleet.
The PX took ~6 reloads for a clean cap.
The K took ~4 reloads. Most of them at deck 1. Once you get past deck 1 with no losses it goes much smoother.
The J took ~14-15 reloads, it's becoming a trend...
:):thumb_up:
:khaak:
I've only used my Gannet once. And that was Aran hunting because it has a rear turret so I wouldn't have to spam missiles to stay safe. Once I got my Cobra the Gannet went obsolete. 
and kill your boarding party 
. On the other hand you never know when another K/J/Q is going to drop in and need to get evaporated 
MODS 