The almost "Xenon" Mammoth [AP 2.0 vanilla]

[gecos]

Long story short, using Mammoths from Legend's Home to train my marines (short waiting time for the ship to arrive in the neighbour unknown sector).
Had 21 5* marines, with 100 skill in everything except fighting (here, skill was between 53 and 98, most of them between 80 and 90). This was to be my 11th Mammoth and this time using pods seemed like an overkill since the Mammoth had no defensive equipment at all (HP, AF, ISL). But I went with it anyway since I didn't have a TP around and have over 3000 pods in storage.
Usually when I cap Mammoths, I make sure to save only before a successful hack of the core to get the rare IBLs. I had no trouble capping Mammoths, not even when they had ISL and suffered no losses.
This time to my surprise during fighting on Deck 3 I heard one of my paranid marines ask for a medic and quite puzzled opened the personnel menu to see what the heck was going on. Had only 15 left out of 21!!!!
Reload! ... Ok, maybe just bad luck. Boarding again, this time I'm watching to make sure everything is fine, they all cut the hull and enter fighting at the same time, all is well, reach Deck 5 with all 21, when the text changes to Hacking core there's only 17 left of them!
Ok, reload again. This time I saved at hull cutting, marines go in, a couple die on Deck 3...
Reload... reload...reload...reload...

Only after the 6th reload I've managed to get a perfect finish with all 21 alive. And this on a Mammoth with no defenses after 10 easy caps of the same ship model but which in previous boardings had sometimes anti-boarding equipment in place.
So kudos to the devs on this one, when you think you're going to have an easy ride and nothing can happen (based on previous extensive experience), there comes the almost "Xenon" Mammoth to prove you wrong .

[David Howland]

Nice one gecos!
Yep I've been playing X for years and one of the delights is the odd phenomenon that cannot be explained by the game engine.
The weirdest ships and stations tend to be left overs from plots and missions so the most productive game tends to be TC, which has most game content, also a lot of redundant stuff from previous X games!
I am sure you could get a logical explanation from an experienced player but as I am just learning boarding myself in TC, that player is not me!

[pulzarokkit]

Well the added element of randomness during capturing is sometimes too high in AP, seems like someone screwed up and added a bit too much defence bonus and sometimes even very high marines can't make it.

[jwrealing]

I've been playing since XBTF and this game is always doing something that surprises me.

I was using Cycrow cheat mod, I was running a round for about 2 hours with out saving the game. Basically is was clearing out Xenon sectors for fun. I jump into Xenon core 23 I think. There were about 6 Q's running around so I kicked there butts. left the sector and ran into 3 Q's I was in a hurry so I cheated and removed there shields. took out the first one with out any problems. Headed for the other two. They were flying side by side, so I went down the middle. remember they have no shields and I'm in god mode I'm flying a Hyperion. Well the two Q's sandwiched me I blew up and in the closing sequence I could see them flying away. I lost two hour of game play. So much for God mode!

Even if you cheat you get your butt kicked. That is why I love this game.

[Lazerius]

interestingly enough, this same thing happened to me. Was my 1st cap in AP, and was on a mammoth that I pulled over to the unknown sector east of Legend's Home.

Took probably 20 reloads from the start before I could get minimal losses. Finally I walked away with one death (probably like 100 total reloads).


Just as fun was a few hours later I decided to go for an atmospheric lifter. The 1st 4 I found all had internal lasers. the 5th one was in mars was only hull polarization and Firewall..... and was traveling straight away without turning around. I followed it in my hyperion for 445 km.......my cobra never had a chance to catch it (97 m/s vs the lifter's 105). I finally moved to the next sector, and there was 1 going on a loop, and I was lucky enough to catch it at it's turnaround time. 50+ reloads later, I'm 3 troops down and a Atmospheric lifter richer.


I think my biggest question though would have to be Can you not cap an owned ship without a massive rep hit anymore? I did the standard make red, attack, make back friendly during the hacking of the core, but when I comm the ship, the captain won't talk to me. Took me an hour and 1/2 to repair my Argon rep yesterday, and Terran rep....Well, let's just say 1 more rank tick drop and I'd have had the fleet trying to eat me.