X3TC Boarding Question

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
WhizzB
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu, 8. Feb 07, 18:47

X3TC Boarding Question

Post by WhizzB » Sun, 2. Mar 14, 08:53

I'm not new to boarding, I have over 50 4x100 ninjas, but I have a question, does a successful boarding attempt have any relation to your own personal fight rank?

Left SETA on overnight to test my sector defences, which I was quite pleased with the results, but ofc my fight rank has gone all the way down to a lowly Vindicator.

And after finally making peace with the Yaki, I have changed my ways and stopped using their Akuma's as recycling material for my fleet of Tyr's at my PHQ. So I decided upon Xenon K's instead, I already have a K and a J and I only lost one marine each time.

But now, no matter how many reloads, I lose every single marine.

I know Brigantines, are worth more, but there's also a good chance of getting a nice score of PSP to boot, if you go after a K.

User avatar
Sabrina Bergin
Posts: 2239
Joined: Sat, 12. Apr 08, 10:53
xr

Post by Sabrina Bergin » Sun, 2. Mar 14, 10:03

To go for a Xenon ship you have to use over kill and keep the number of marines on board at 15+ by using extra pods.
It is a task fraught with difficulty as Xenon ships are hard coded to be tough to board in the game. you need at least a full squad of marines left at the hacking stage and even then the rng can lose them for you so the answer is to save at every deck and pace your marine resupply carefully.

User avatar
Sinxar
Posts: 1224
Joined: Tue, 22. Mar 11, 05:44
x4

Post by Sinxar » Sun, 2. Mar 14, 10:06

AFAIK, your personal fight rank means nothing when boarding.

However your maries fight rank is everything when boarding Xenon. Are they all 100 in fight skill or are they just bookworm ninjas? If not they are gonna die constantly.

WhizzB
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu, 8. Feb 07, 18:47

Post by WhizzB » Sun, 2. Mar 14, 10:39

100 in fighting, I think I must have just gotten lucky with the first two Xenon ships I boarded.

If I'm going to lose 10+ marines every time, its not going to be a cost effective method of building Tyr's even with the PSP thrown in. I already have my trophy J and K's.

Think I'll save the money on training and just add some more PSP forges.

Thanks for the answers guys.

User avatar
DrBullwinkle
Posts: 5715
Joined: Sat, 17. Dec 11, 01:44
x3tc

Post by DrBullwinkle » Sun, 2. Mar 14, 13:04

Yeah, I don't attempt a Xenon capital ship without 30 4x100 marines. And I expect to lose five to ten of them.

Gruber1232002
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue, 14. Mar 06, 21:16
x3

Post by Gruber1232002 » Mon, 3. Mar 14, 17:55

Xenon ships have 80% (iirc) max fight skill, (20 maxed marines). That's 1600 fight points. Defender fight skill (DFS) gets compared to Attacker fight skill (AFS) with the inclusion of the RNG. Sentry lasers (+200 DFS) on a xenon ship makes them impossible to board without MASSIVE losses.

Every deck has a 'slightly' lower DFS than the last. If you lose marines early on (lowering your AFS) your guys are all doomed on the later decks. If you lose a couple late in the process you may be moderately ok.

Many players board in waves to keep 21 marines attacking at all times. Watch the progress of your boarding op using your property menu, (~personnel tab) to see what's going on.

My guess would be that you got quite lucky with the first couple and got good rolls on decks 1 & 2. Now you are getting mediocre rolls on the first decks and your guys are dropping like flies. From empirical study, you have about a 1 in 5 chance of an excellent roll (no casualties) on both decks 1 & 2 when using 2100 AFS.

Using a bioscanner on your player ship make sure that all of your marines are in fact at 100 fight skill. I assume that they are or you wouldn't have gotten this far, but it doesn't hurt to check.
AP 3.1 Vanilla + Bonus Pack. For now....

XENON
Boarding the Xenon TC 2.7

Exotic Boarding Maneuvers TC 2.7
2 TP's
2 M7M's

WhizzB
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu, 8. Feb 07, 18:47

Post by WhizzB » Tue, 4. Mar 14, 03:05

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:


I am now the proud owner of a Q and another K and J. This time for no casualties.

But wow, it took a lot more reloads, around 70 for the Q and 60 for the J and K.

Not sure if this is the best way of doing it, but... I jumped into 472 with my cobra, hammer'd and flail'd everything except for one Q that could only do 105m/s and one J and K.

Once everything else was dead I jumped the Sirokos in, set him to follow me and dragged the remaining 3 ships well off the ecliptic, the Sirokos can do 111m/s so it was faster than the Q and I used the Turbo Booster to stay ahead of it. I waited until there was sufficient distances between the three ships, then let the Q close to about 11km, sent 1 barrage of hammers, gave him a bit of a breather then sent another two hammers (he only had 3GJ of shield). Started the Piracy Command on the sirokos and kept the shields in check with flails.

LOL learnt a lesson there, once you tell him to send the boarding pods you must remember to tell him to follow you again or he just stops and gets blown up.

I think because he was following me in the Cobra, and not the Sirokos, the slight angle helped to get the boarding pods to hit. Then 70 reloads later I'm the proud owner of a Q, quickly transferred the Marines over and picked up the one floating in space. Gave it the Sirokos' jump drive and jumped it back to Avarice.

I let the J close to about 11km made sure I was pointing away from the K, matched speed with the J and started the process again, this time giving it the jump drive from the Cobra.

Now I went back for the K, which by this time was quite some distance behind. Only there's no more jump drives left so after successful boarding, the cobra goes back to the gate and makes sure its clear before I jump a Griffon in with the replacement jump drives.

And on an excellent sidenote, in all the carnage of the initial clearing of the sector, I had my first LX decide to bail, so I had the Griffon pick that up too.

Gruber1232002
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue, 14. Mar 06, 21:16
x3

Post by Gruber1232002 » Tue, 4. Mar 14, 16:37

WhizzB wrote:... it took a lot more reloads, around 70 for the Q and 60 for the J and K....
Nice work on the unholy fleet. 60-70 is a lot of reloads. Save before launching pods. Save immediately after deck 1 if no casualties, (use a different save slot) and save again in a third slot immediately after deck 2, etc. That should bring your reloads down into the ~10 range. Just watch your progress in the property menu and you are set.
AP 3.1 Vanilla + Bonus Pack. For now....

XENON
Boarding the Xenon TC 2.7

Exotic Boarding Maneuvers TC 2.7
2 TP's
2 M7M's

WhizzB
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu, 8. Feb 07, 18:47

Post by WhizzB » Wed, 5. Mar 14, 08:25

Yeah that's what I do, just in case there's separation on the landing of the boarding pods.

I really am starting to wonder if your own personal fight rank is a factor in boarding on Xenon ships only. When I first tried it, I was either Battlemaster or Conqueror. And I'd heard that you had to expect loses, so I didn't bother reloading too many times and was happy with the one casualty.

After SETA'ing for a night I went down to Vindicator and I swear, it was next to impossible, I mean I lost count of how many times I reloaded (I caught up with three episodes of Elementary and made myself dinner) and never once did more than 19 Marines make it past Deck 1.

Yesterday, when I took the 3 ships I was up one level at Warlord. And whilst it was a lot of reloads, most of them were on deck 2.

I'm now at Crusader, again one level up and I just took a J in 11 reloads.

Maybe it's all just coincidence, but its some helluva coincidence. If I get bored over the next couple weeks I may do some testing.

Gruber1232002
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue, 14. Mar 06, 21:16
x3

Post by Gruber1232002 » Wed, 5. Mar 14, 21:07

WhizzB wrote:I really am starting to wonder if your own personal fight rank is a factor in boarding on Xenon ships only.
Interesting hypothesis. Perhaps someone who knows how to rummage around in the code can give us an answer. I've never heard of it being a factor though so I suspect it's the RNG messing with your head... :)
AP 3.1 Vanilla + Bonus Pack. For now....

XENON
Boarding the Xenon TC 2.7

Exotic Boarding Maneuvers TC 2.7
2 TP's
2 M7M's

Nanook
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 27829
Joined: Thu, 15. May 03, 20:57
x4

Post by Nanook » Wed, 5. Mar 14, 21:30

WhizzB wrote:...
I really am starting to wonder if your own personal fight rank is a factor in boarding on Xenon ships only.....
I suspect it's more your personal skill at running boarding ops than anything coded into the game. That, and, as Gruber said, the RNG messing with you. :wink:
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

IanFitzJo
Posts: 152
Joined: Fri, 31. May 13, 06:34
x3tc

Post by IanFitzJo » Sun, 9. Mar 14, 14:29

I'm trying to get set up in readiness to try out some of your methods and wondering how the logistics work.

Do you have the Sirokos full of marines follow the Cobra, then transfer more across once you've depleted your supply in the Cobra?

What do you use to pick up any marines that get booted out of the target? Do you have a TP following as well?

Do you keep firing BPs at the target once boarding ops are already underway?

How do you maintain your supply of BPs?

User avatar
Sabrina Bergin
Posts: 2239
Joined: Sat, 12. Apr 08, 10:53
xr

Post by Sabrina Bergin » Sun, 9. Mar 14, 16:10

Yes you fire more marines at the target as necessary and have a tp with 40 aboard for that purpose.

To be honest all this has been gone through before just look up boarding tips and you will see how it works.

Post Reply

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”