Some Thoughts After Boarding with an M7M

[Simoom]

So, after over a week of vigorous training, I finally had 20 marines trained up to 100 in every skill (except Combat, of course), and with 20 more still in training, it was time to send the boys to work.

So I loaded them into my Kraken and went hunting. I know most people recommend the Arena ships as the ideal first targets for training combat, but I was ambitious and wanted to go for some rare military ships.

The first thing I went for was a Centaur Prototype that was wondering around in a nearby sector - I had my eye on that for a while now; it is likely the same one that spawned yesterday along with a Notus Hauler in a battle group. I capped the Notus Hauler in my Springblossom but did not have marines to deal with the Centaur Prototype. Well, it was time to fix that.

So, Hammer, Hammer, Flail Flail Flail, Boarding pods. Ten marines landed on the hull and 6 went inside - and kept dying. No, the ship did not have sentry lasers. It took about 6 reloads to finally capture the ship without casualties. Well, it's a military ship so may be it's just tough like that, I figured. After all, my marines weren't trained up in Combat yet.

Next, I went around looking for a Hyperion Vanguard, which I've been wanting for a while now. Did not find one right away, but came across an Agamenon instead - a much more daunting target, but heck, why not.

So, same routine... Hammer Hammer Flail Flail Flail Hammer Flail, Boarding Pods... 20 marines went inside and... what? Captured the ship without a single casualty in one try? Couldn't believe my eyes. Tried again. Same result.

Well, not gonna pass on a treat, so I accepted the result, and found a Hyperion Vanguard in Pontifex's Seclusion next. How did that fight go? Pretty much the same as the Centaur Prototype. Took 5 reloads to capture without casualty - and that's with my marines' fighting ranks already improved.

Then I went hunting for Pirate ships. Fourth target: Pirate Galleon in Unknown Sector next to Gaian Star. What happened? Zero casualty, captured in one try. Same with the Pirate Carrack which was next on the list.

Then I saw a Pirate Caraval and went, hmm, might as well. The shield is so weak on this one I couldn't use my M7M, so jumped into my Springblossom with five 3-4 combat rank marines and went the space walk route. Took a while but they landed and punched through the hull... and... kept dying. No matter how many times I reload, I would lose one or two guys on deck 1.

I finally got tired of it and swapped out the marines for the ones that already got 100 in combat from all the commandeering of the day, and finally captured the Carrack without casualties.

In conclusion? Capping small ships seem a bit too hard, and capping big ships seem way too easy. Especially considering how most players who go for smaller ships (TMs, M6s) are likely newer players who don't have an M7M and fully-trained marines, it seems odd to me that smaller ships are so much more difficult to capture than big ones. You would think the crew of the Aggy or the Galleon would put up more of a fight than a lowly Carrack...

[Rive]

It's normal. If you go with overkill, you will have less casualties: with equal forces, you will lost some marines. For a defenseless M6 you will need at least five or six four star marines to board without casualties: for an M7 or TL at least ten will be needed: for an M1 or M2 fifteen is recommended.

Ps.: it's a waste of credits to train up every marines to top in everything. Especially if you accept that some of them will die.

[X3caldarian]

@Rive

Very true in the economic side of things, but 20 "5 Star" boys and girls is a truly wondrous sight to behold in your M7M cargo bay

[Rive]

@Rive

Very true in the economic side of things, but 20 "5 Star" boys and girls is a truly wondrous sight to behold in your M7M cargo bay

That's absolutely true - actually, I have my elite team too, but I max them only after they reached some levels in fighting.

Except of engineering, of course.

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

@Simoom - Going for an M6 was probably a mistake as it's all about the numbers. You could have boarded an M1/M2 with 20 marines and come out with zero casualties. Boarding M6s requires elite marines with 5 stars in fighting and then you may suffer some loses if there are any internal defences.

When starting out with fresh rookie marines I usually go for M7s, you can get them to follow you (minimising loss of pods) and sending all 20 marines in will usually get you 20 more experienced marines at the end. I would suggest looking in some of the pirate sectors and look for some Carrack's, they make excellent training vessels for rookie marines.

[Callidus Thorn]

I've found that 13 3* fighters can capture M7s or M1s without losses. Over and over again, so it isn't just luck. And with 5* fighters, I've captured M1s using 8. The balance does seem to be off when it comes to boarding.

I generally consider it a waste to send any marine with more than 3* in fighting to board an M6. They die far too frequently, and after the training it just isn't worth it to get an M6, when you can board bigger ships with a far higher success rate and far lower casualty rate.

[Bobucles]

Defending marines are the biggest cause of initial casualties. The combination of their combat skill with the ship's base defense is devastating. Once they're taken out, you only have to fight the ship's defensive attribute.

This is partially why corvettes are so difficult to take. The combined defense of marines and ship is usually much harder to penetrate with only 5(plus one) marines. By comparison, bigger ships have roughly the same marine defensive bonus, but you get 15 extra attackers for the job.

Scan ships before boarding them. If you see quality defenders, be prepared to send in reinforcements.

[Playbahnosh]

Scan ships before boarding them. If you see quality defenders, be prepared to send in reinforcements.

Or just fry the ship with IonDs until the CLS is gone. Defending marines will have a hard time fighting back when they are dead

[Kryten]

Why do you need to send 6 marines to capture an M6 that can only hold 5 marines? Just one of those questions I've allways been meaning to ask

[Rive]

Why do you need to send 6 marines to capture an M6 that can only hold 5 marines? Just one of those questions I've allways been meaning to ask

For boarding you can always send the holding capacity +1 marine. So for an M6 you can send six (if the last one survives he will go swimming after the op - you have to pick him up later).

Usually it's not a big difference, but if you try an M6 (with beginners) or a Xenon ship then it has real effect on the success/casualty ratio.

[Smacksim]

One of the quirks of the X universe, along with:

1. Escort missions are insanely hard with any fight rank.

2. Return Stolen Ship is terrible but Return Ship is great!

3. OTAS wants how many Disruptor missiles?

4. The Terrans are economically suicidal...

etc..

I would think that re-balancing boarding wouldn't be too hard a programmatic change, and it would be welcome. I would love to see:

Buy 5-10 marines.

Board 5-15 TM's and M6's with few losses if at all.

Buy 5-10 more marines.

Now you can board TLs / M7Ms, M7s

Then there could be a 3rd tier of boarding ops for the big-ships: 30+ marines launched either from a Sirokos or from 2 M7Ms, with no punishment for troops arriving at slightly different times.... Maybe the 1st deck would take a long time before fighting started... to simulate a huge ship and slower response times perhaps.

I mean, if you can bring a ship to it's knees and comm: "We shoot or you bail", the marines should really just be there to take prisoners and deal with numptys and fanatics. Doesn't matter the size, IMO.

[jwigeland]

Yep - after the v2.5 rebalance, the small ships became the hardest to board since you're limited to a small team of marines.

Don't get me wrong - the larger ships became a lot tougher as well. You could no longer snag that Boreas using five marines chucked out the airlock from your Centaur. But with a full team of 20 launched from an M7M these big ships still fall without too much trouble.

The increase in difficulty is more aparent in smaller ships as there's no way to use a larger team to board them, is all.

No worries - I only ever need to board one M6 (the one you can't buy), and with five marines that are four stars or better I usually get it with zero losses without too much fuss.

[Honved]

It just seems odd that the "easiest" targets are the toughest to actually board. This game seems harsher to newcomers in a couple of respects, but gets ridiculously easy for the veteran player who gets past the initial hurdles. It's a shame that the difficulty level doesn't increase with ship size, rather than effectively decrease.

I recall trying repeatedly to board a crippled M6 with (5) 2-3 star marines (the best I could buy at the time) from a TP (and making 10-20 attempts before all 5 landed on the hull), then getting exterminated almost every time, despite it having no defending marines of its own. Once I got an M7M and enough marines to take on bigger targets, they rarely failed, even without 4-5 combat stars.

A rebalance would be great.

[Simoom]

@Simoom - Going for an M6 was probably a mistake as it's all about the numbers. You could have boarded an M1/M2 with 20 marines and come out with zero casualties. Boarding M6s requires elite marines with 5 stars in fighting and then you may suffer some loses if there are any internal defences.

Well yeah I realized that after trying my hands on boarding, but I was mainly complaining about the balance of difficulty seeming a bit off, since realistically I would imagine big ships to be more difficult to board.

Also... apparently when you issue the Piracy command to your M7M, it launches boarding pods automatically, so you could be keeping the shield of the target down in a smaller ship and have the boarding pods launch remotely. Sheesh, that would have been nice to know earlier, too. Just captured two Atmo Lifters.

[garv222]

You could also think of it this way, a m6 is usually a smaller ship. Imagine a single hallway leads to the central computer. Boarding team gets discovered, it's going to be hell going in. Big ships probably have all sorts of ways to circumvent defenses due to their larger sizes.

[Honved]

It does seem odd, though, that the small M6 ships have as many decks as the huge M1/M2 ships.

It's not good from a "play balance" perspective, as it punishes the relatively inexperienced and poor player who can't afford the right tools (M7M and 20 decently trained marines) to take on an M7 or M1/M2, yet could probably handle the cost of a TP and 5 or 6 marines to attempt boarding an M6. An additional consideration is that they could probably afford to equip the M6, but it would make far more sense to just sell the M7 or larger ship if they could take it, and buy a new M6 with the proceeds if they like. Once you've got the cash for the better gear, there's almost no challenge taking the larger ships, and no reason to go through all the trouble to capture the smaller ones, unless you want to try for the smaller target for some bizarre reason (like "collecting" one of each). It's backwards.

[Carlo the Curious]

It does seem odd, though, that the small M6 ships have as many decks as the huge M1/M2 ships.

Have they changed?

They weren't the same back in 2.5.

[Bobucles]

You could also think of it this way, a m6 is usually a smaller ship. Imagine a single hallway leads to the central computer. Boarding team gets discovered, it's going to be hell going in. Big ships probably have all sorts of ways to circumvent defenses due to their larger sizes.

Which means M6 teams only have to face a few waves of defenders before hitting the sweet spot, potentially killing all the defenders on board.

Whereas when invading a large vessel you may have multiple security teams, dedicated boarding defense marines, and could spend hours trapped in a maze of hostile, ever changing corridors, never making it to the control room that may simply be one of multiple computers that have to be hacked synchronously!

Boarding mechanics could use some changes, most notably to the extremely harsh binary (live/die) nature of combat.

[BeardyDan]

It does seem odd, though, that the small M6 ships have as many decks as the huge M1/M2 ships.

No they do not.

TM/M6 = 3 Decks
M7 = 4 Decks
M1/2 = 5 Decks

Unless you are playing with a really weird mod.

The reason M6/TM's are hard to board is there is zero room for error. One dead attacking marine is a sixth of your force dead, enemy marines & ISL give a much bigger % boost to those ships as well. It can also be tricky to keep the shields down to the boarding level as well.

[Ozkar]

TM have 2 decks.

Keeping shields down on TM/M6 can be done with either wasp or dragonfly spamming.

100 in every skill (except Combat, of course)

I think your problem is right there. About how was their combat skill? I usually cap M6s with combat ranks around 45-55 without losses doing M6-M6 boarding, so I only have 5 troops.