Beware, you Xenon hunters...

[deca.death]

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Old legend seems true, not all ships are equally though, and ... Sometimes is just better to let go. There will be another day /another opportunity.

Yesterday i isolated Q near Zyareths dominion, brought up Cobra and Sirokos and tried my "fanatical reload" approach that never let me down. Marine training just lasts too damn long me to be comfortable with loosing my highest grade marines.

One hour maybe and 50 reloads later i was still on deck one. Something was wrong here, 4 deck of J went down in 22 reloads. So I did what i rarely do, I just gave up, reload, and tear damn thing with wraiths with special pleasure.

Today I found another Q nearby, in bluish snout. I called in Sirokos and did shield supresion myself, in a Hyperion. Q is such an inferior opponent IS. Hyperion eats it for lunch. All pods boarded and I needed few reloads to marines connect in a same time on deck 1 (when they arrive there in different time your chances are nil). Only nine reloads, no casualties and 100% hull. Even 3 1GJ shields. Comparing to yesterday, it was piece of cake.

It looks like some ships have robot recruits on board and some veterans ;)

[ external image ]

[twilight_echoes]

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Old legend seems true, not all ships are equally though, and ... Sometimes is just better to let go. There will be another day /another opportunity.

Yesterday i isolated Q near Zyareths dominion, brought up Cobra and Sirokos and tried my "fanatical reload" approach that never let me down. Marine training just lasts too damn long me to be comfortable with loosing my highest grade marines.

One hour maybe and 50 reloads later i was still on deck one. Something was wrong here, 4 deck of J went down in 22 reloads. So I did what i rarely do, I just gave up, reload, and tear damn thing with wraiths with special pleasure.

Today I found another Q nearby, in bluish snout. I called in Sirokos and did shield supresion myself, in a Hyperion. Q is such an inferior opponent IS. Hyperion eats it for lunch. All pods boarded and I needed few reloads to marines connect in a same time on deck 1 (when they arrive there in different time your chances are nil). Only nine reloads, no casualties and 100% hull. Even 3 1GJ shields. Comparing to yesterday, it was piece of cake.

It looks like some ships have robot recruits on board and some veterans

Curious.

As far as I can tell, and others may know better - there seems to be a "dice roll" made at the end of each level after which the soundtrack for the next plays.

If your first save point was made after that roll, then no matter how many more times you try - you will get the same outcome. I believe the "roll" for the first deck happens while the sound track for cutting the hull happens, and there may be more than "roll" during each deck.

[A5PECT]

The "live or die" roll for the marines is made once they enter the deck, right after they say something like "Throwing stun!" or "Place a charge on that hatch!"

If any marines die you'll usually hear "Man down!" or "Aaaargh!" or both. If no one dies you'll just hear the usual "Cover me!" and "Reloading!" and what not until they clear the deck.

I've never lost marines in the middle of clearing a deck, only when they first enter it.

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As for Xenon ships having varying resilience to boarding, it makes some sense. The Xenon are constantly adapting, so newer ships are going to have better defenses than old ones.

So a "newer" Q will likely be harder to board than an "older" one.

[Hubert99]

I hate that celebrating argon hurrays when they manage to get some of your marines killed.

Question:

Is it boring to only board TL's ? I have 60 marines in training, half of them are overall 4 stars, a few are closing to 5 stars in everything, anyway, they almost always board the TL without losses (nor reloads). What would be the next potential target, what does not kill them, but makes a bit of a fighting training possible ? It's a pain to take a 40ish marines to 100 only boarding TLs as I already took 7 TL's and only a few got to level 100.

[A5PECT]

Try pirate and Yaki capital ships. They're slightly harder to board than a civilian TL, but considerably easier than Commonwealth military ships

I started training my marines on Yaki ships, actually. My first boarding op was against an Akuma (M2) using pretty inexperienced marines. All of their skills were only 1-3 stars, and a few marines had almost no fighting skill (zero stars). But they took over the destroyer with no losses; all I had to do was make sure the thing didn't have any internal defenses.

[Alan Phipps]

If any marines die you'll usually hear "Man down!" or "Aaaargh!" or both. If no one dies you'll just hear the usual "Cover me!" and "Reloading!" and what not until they clear the deck.

I've never lost marines in the middle of clearing a deck, only when they first enter it.

If you watch the marine boarding Op live in Property/Personnel (after patch 2.5 only), you will see that you only ever lose marines at the time of the first of the two mid-deck sound bites that come a bit after the deck starting cry (blowing the hatch etc). The first of the two mid-deck ones is the only time you can lose people on that deck.

If you hear a scream or man down etc then you have lost one or more marines. Even if there is no cry but just a normal first mid-deck soundbite, you may still have lost a marine there.

Sound is not a safe indicator, use Property/Personnel to see what is really going on if you can.

[A5PECT]

Sound is not a safe indicator, use Property/Personnel to see what is really going on if you can.

Oh, I know. I use the property menu, but I tend to open and close it during the op because my boarding strategy involves being very close to my target.

[twilight_echoes]

I hate that celebrating argon hurrays when they manage to get some of your marines killed.

Question:

Is it boring to only board TL's ? I have 60 marines in training, half of them are overall 4 stars, a few are closing to 5 stars in everything, anyway, they almost always board the TL without losses (nor reloads). What would be the next potential target, what does not kill them, but makes a bit of a fighting training possible ? It's a pain to take a 40ish marines to 100 only boarding TLs as I already took 7 TL's and only a few got to level 100.

If you have 4* averages & several 100 fight skills, then you will likely find all commonwealth M1/M2/M7 targets easy. You can also put in a few low fight skills with an otherwise experienced team to train them up.

Corvettes are harder & for those I really would recommend 100 fight skills for all 6 marines.

[deca.death]

I've never lost marines in the middle of clearing a deck, only when they first enter it.

Exactly. When they enter new deck, few moments later they get killed (or not). If they survived first moments, they would be OK (for that deck anyway) and it's usually time for another deck-save.

As for Xenon ships having varying resilience to boarding, it makes some sense. The Xenon are constantly adapting, so newer ships are going to have better defenses than old ones.

So a "newer" Q will likely be harder to board than an "older" one.

I don't think that difficulty is progressing. It's more like sheer luck. Once a guy posted a story here of how he repetedly failed to board one Tyr (iirc) out of pair, and when he tried the other (after a few hours of frustration), he suceeded without any problems.

[Hubert99]

Corvettes are harder & for those I really would recommend 100 fight skills for all 6 marines.

6 marines ? M6 only carries 5 of them. Whence do I bring the sixth ? TP ? Another M6 ?

[A5PECT]

Oh, I don't mean that the boarding literally gets more difficult as you play, but that you don't really know exactly when a particular Xenon ship was built. The ships you see in the universe might be fresh out of the shipyard, or maybe its been in service for awhile. I know the game spawns them and they come into existence at specific (and measurable) point in time.

It's more of a lore thing; I'm just trying to explain the whole randomness of boarding difficulty.

[twilight_echoes]

Corvettes are harder & for those I really would recommend 100 fight skills for all 6 marines.

6 marines ? M6 only carries 5 of them. Whence do I bring the sixth ? TP ? Another M6 ?

TP if you feel brave... M7M + 2 pods with 6 aboard is far far easier. Then again I'm playing in 3.0, so TP teams do silly things - like not landing at the same time. If you're using a different version, your experience may differ.

The 6th marine ejects from the captured ship after the core is hacked.

[deca.death]

It's more of a lore thing; I'm just trying to explain the whole randomness of boarding difficulty. :p

Oh, i see, you are absolutely right! Those damn machines always find a way to subterfuge our every effort...!

[nponoBegHuk]

It is important that your pods land at the same time. As long as you get them all to "fighting (Deck 1)" or "fighting..." it's okay. but if you get some still on "cutting hull" you're screwed on xenon, and need to reload.

[deca.death]

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i prefere to have them all "fighting: deck 1"
what's the difference between "fighting: deck 1" and "fighting" anyway?

[Alan Phipps]

'Fighting Deck 1' means that they are clearing that deck while 'Fighting' means that they are still taking cover while under fire at the hull entry hole. If your boarding force is split between the two headings then only those actually fighting the deck total up their combat points against the defending crew, marines or internal defences. Thus a divided squad is more likely to fail or take heavy losses. The good news is that all who survive the deck 1 fight under either heading start off deck 2 together again.

[Hubert99]

TP if you feel brave... M7M + 2 pods with 6 aboard is far far easier. Then again I'm playing in 3.0, so TP teams do silly things - like not landing at the same time. If you're using a different version, your experience may differ.

The 6th marine ejects from the captured ship after the core is hacked.

Hmm. So far I only boarded M6 ships using 5 marines. And since boarding got balanced, they rarely cap the ship ... especially if there are internal defences and marines on board.

I am not sure how can I protect the pods though, to not be shot down by the M6 turrets. I usually just reloaded until I managed to launch the marines instantly on their target.

[deca.death]

Hmm. So far I only boarded M6 ships using 5 marines. And since boarding got balanced, they rarely cap the ship ... especially if there are internal defences and marines on board.

I am not sure how can I protect the pods though, to not be shot down by the M6 turrets. I usually just reloaded until I managed to launch the marines instantly on their target.

In a case of internal defences you should soften up the target using IonDs. You could controll shields from same vessel, for me most practical way was PRG mounted double turrets on missile defence, but you could use other methods, several fight drones with "attack shields" command do fine, and they coul easily disturb targets missile defence.

Pod protection might be an issue on certan type of targets, especially if they mount some tricky weapon types. Try launching your pods in the face of target (run away towards your M7M with your shield supressing/frying ship), you could use described fighter drone method, or launch several low yield missiles before your pods come into range. It could be tricky sometimes though.

[Infekted]

If your marines are well trained enough, internal defensive measures shouldn't matter except in the case of ATF.

[A5PECT]

On one of my recent boarding ops, five of my 5 star marines (the entire squad was maxed in fighting skill) got toasted by a Yaki Akuma's internal sentry lasers.

I think with internal defenses there's always a chance to get a bad "roll" and wind up with dead marines, even if they're experienced.