AP boarding ops -- first impressions

[Vim Razz]

Sooo... I started up in AP as a Bankrupt Assassin the other night and have been havin' fun kicking around and seeing what's new.

I'm not very far in yet or anything, (just finished my first "day" in game, haven't started any plots or built any stations), but one of the first things I wanted to check out was what boarding's like now.

So I hired me up a random pack of marines (no bioscanner yet; I just grabbed up every grunt on deck), quick-trained 'em up to 1/1/1, threw 'em into a basic Express, and been having a blast seeing how much they can do.

It's clear from the very beginning that a number of major changes have been made, and they've all been awesome so far (in my ever-so-humble opinion, hah!). Kudos to Cycrow and the crew that handled the redesign! !

Don't get me wrong: I absolutely love the TC system, even as "quirky" as it tends to be. (That's just part of it's charm!) But it is definitely a ~rough~draft~ compared to the AP system, which plays as a far more polished product. This should make it a lot more fun and accessible to folks who get put off by all the many, many "eccentricities" in TC boarding.

So these are my thoughts and observations on boarding in AP, and I'm wondering reactions other folks are having. So far all I've done is a few low-econ fighter/TP hits on small targets (7 TM and 3 M6) with no internal defenses, so that's what I'll be talking about here.

If anyone's tried out any pod boarding, TP or M6 based one-ship spacewalks, or major target spacewalks yet I'd love to hear about those too. (There are some powerful new TP+ ships in AP. The Teladi TP+ in particular -- Geochen -- looks like it can one-ship civ TLs or Supply TLs w/ limited turret coverage pretty easily. I'll be trying that out as soon as troops are ready.)




The first Big, Obvious Difference between TC and AP is the marine carrying capacity of ships. TP now carry 40 marines. TM and M6 now carry 8. (M7 and up, I haven't played with yet. Anybody know?)

EDIT: Capitals confirmed as being the same as TC at 20 marines.

At first glance I was kind of disappointed by the scale of the TP change -- thinking maybe it was just lazy pandering to the whiners out there who don't want to learn how to manage multiple ships during an op (you know who you are!) -- but it does make more sense from a roleplay immersion perspective, and the more I played around with it the more I warmed up to it. It completely eliminates the tedium of juggling 3 or 4 ships just for troop storage and training management in the early game, making it a lot faster and easier to get out there and get to the fun parts. BIG win on that point right there.


The changes to TM and M6 capacity are a huge benefit as well, changing boarding party size from 6 in TC to 9 in AP. In TC, if two of your guys die that cuts your potential fighting strength by 30% for the next deck, and things can snowball kind of fast -- 60%-90% casualty rates are not uncommon for rookie crews. In AP, each individual loss is a lower overall loss and your squad's in a much better position when moving to the next deck. Total casualty rates have been reduced as well, at least for M6s (according to Cycrow's post in another thread, here). This, combined with much more reliable target latching, has made a huge difference.

All in all -- over the course of 10 spacewalks without reloads -- I only lost 5 marines, all of them from rookie crews (~0-2* fighting). Experienced crews lost no marines at all. For comparison, in TC I tend to get ~30-50 casualties on the same kind of low-econ fast-boarding start (many of them for from poor latching or other bugs rather than fighting on deck, ie: 3 marines board well ahead of the main party and get partially or entirely wiped out), and I don't DARE send higher fight rank marines out against small boats because the risk of loosing them is too high. This allows for a lot more time spent actually boarding ships, and less time wasted doing missions to try and come up with troop replacement/training funds.

This all makes boarding TM-class ships economically viable in the early game, AND it's a viable way to train up overall fight skill early on without untenable losses (or pods). I've already got two marines at 100 fighting, and solid little block of 2-4* fight marines to anchor initial boardings vs larger targets. This is with NO bioscanner; most of my marines started at 0-1* fighting skill.

Good stuff. It makes transitioning into the midgame far less dependent on pods or tedious troop-farming.



The next Big Change is the availability of marines at outposts and training stations. There aren't as many. All outposts started with a full set, but by the time I started buying them up about ~14-16 hours in there were only 1 or two in most locations, if any.

It looks like the rate of marine production might depend on keeping the station supplied with resources, and if that's the case then it's a really cool gameplay change. It'd make for more running around, sure, but I like game elements where player interaction improves functionality.



Moving on to the boardings themselves, I was flat out shocked my first time out when the TP launched all marines on the very first flyby from what should have been a very poor approach angle. According to Cycrow, he increased the range at which TP will launch, and it's made a huge difference in-game. Marines launch much from TP far more reliably all around, even when boarding near gates or asteroids.

I'm still getting used to it, tbh, since it really changes approach considerations and plays out very differently than what I'm used to.

Latching on consistently as a group is also greatly improved, without the groups of three that frequently race out ahead or lag behind in TC. In all but two boardings, the entire party of marines started cutting at the same time. In TC, I tend to launch 10 marines at a time at TM/M6 in order to ensure that at least 6 will get on deck together, but in AP that kind of overkill has been unnecessary. Launching 8-9 marines at the target has been perfectly sufficient.

The launch condition changes and improved group cohesion really have me excited, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they affect large-ship boardings. They should remove a huge amount of headache, and the Piracy->Board Ship command might be a lot more viable for big targets than it has been in TC. We'll have to see how it plays out.



I'm also looking forward to playing around with the new TP+ and light M7 (griffon-like) ships on spacewalking boarding ops. I've already mentioned Geochen, as it's an absolute monster, but there's a whole slew of them. The Griffon from TC is an awesome ship to manage spacewalks vs M6+/M7/M2/M1, and the fact that it's been expanded into a purchasable ship class in AP is just great.



So, those are my thoughts so far. Been havin' a great time this game.


Day 2 Commentary -- Spacewalking TLs: Direct Link.
Day 3 Commentary -- Spacewalking M7Ms: Direct Link.
And I suppose I'd be much remiss if I didn't provide a direct link to this useful note.

[Urschleim]

Great post, thx! It´s linked in the german forum too.

[Skillzfire]

so boarding is fun now hazarr il do it now then

[Sovereign01]

Well I just tried boarding a Hyperion Vanguard with my rookie marines that came with my M6 (only one had any experience in anything), and while I was able to succeed, I was really surprised to learn that in doing so it dropped my Paranid rank to rock bottom from friend of priest duke.

What I'm wondering is that either the rank penalties are far more severe, or simply because my rank wasn't great to start with, or was it because my marines were rookies they shot up the ship in question and lost rank that way

[Cycrow]

rank drops have been increased

[Haine]

Has anyone tried a balls to the wall Frigate/Destroyer cap mid war mission?

I've been considering it, I've got these marines that came with the Centaur, but I've never -ever- tried boarding actions.

I saw a damn Tokyo during my first War Mission and bugged the hell out, I'd love to try and cap something like that, but apparently the Argon Navy is on point with it's rapid response times.

[Sovereign01]

I tried it with a Carrack that was attacking the highway, I'd managed to destroy its CLS to get rid of the defending marines, but no matter what I did I couldn't get my marines to board it, only two would appear in space despite the personnel screen telling me they all were, I'm trying like mad to earn enough to get a TL, I'm about halfway so far

[Vim Razz]

[Stealth17]

Hey Vim,

Thanks for your extensive guide and vids!

I'm working on getting some marines trained and readied to do some serious boarding. I was planning on doing it from a Heavy Centaur (only 8 rines) but this seems easier. It was always so much of a hassle and micromanagement in X3TC that I hardly ever did it.

Your post inspired me to just go at it again .

Thanks!

Stealth

[DaWilko]

Thanks fro your post Vim Razz.

I tried capturing in TC and failed, running into too many issues.

I'de like to give it a go in AP, could you provide some pointers on ship configuratons/weapons you recommend to get the 'job done'?

Cheers,
Wilko

[The-Monk]

Is the whole boarding process still clunky in that you have to navigate through multiple menus to launch the marines or can it be hotkeyed?

[Vim Razz]

[Sir Warwick]

[darianle]

launching is still a pain.

You can open the sector map, highlight your target and select Launch Marine. But in doing so, you also open a huge window that blocks any visibility you had to fly your ship around and find that sweet spot to launch..... sigh

[A5PECT]

Or you can click on the enemy ship's targeting bracket on your HUD and select the launch marines command from there.