3.0 - Boarding now broken?

[Assailer]

What is the point in destroying drone launcher? To lower the sell price only?

[StormMagi]

Going to be honest, I haven't done any boarding since pre 2.0. But, from reading most of this thread it seems boarding difficulty has been ramped up too much.

Honestly I think it should revolve more around hacking/scanning ship sections with a drone to assist the marines rather then blowing up external elements.

You have the option of destroying them if you want to make marine landing easier but instead of having to trash your target to kingdom come, perhaps a hacking minigame for targets to shut down/divert power/open doors etc for the marines. IE you take out (via hacking or destroying) engines/jump/some turrets but then you have to hack the drone bay, open doors/vent sections, hack shield gens to complete capture. This way you actually capture a ship rather than capture a floating wreck.

Once captured hacked systems would come back online in a damaged/reduced functionality state and would need shipyard repair (not construction urv, to balance new methods) but you would have a semi functional ship (say maybe operating @ 1/3-1/2 shield/engine power w/ all weapons damaged from fire control overload).

[NZ-Wanderer]

Reading this I was thinking that maybe one easy thing we could do to make boarding easier to understand would be to always make a "destroy drone launcher" the first mission that Yisha gives you if there are still more than X numbers of drones inside. That way the player would better understand that this surface element is contributing more strength to the defense of the ship than the randomly selected targets.
Would this help those of you who consider boarding too hard?
-Bernd

honestly no....
IMHO having Yisha "force" you to destroy parts of the ship to be able to suceed in capturing it is just plain wrong, along with having to destroy the drone bay when the drones that are within it have nothing at all to do with combat yet they can make you fail the capture..

[NZ-Wanderer]

Honestly I think it should revolve more around hacking/scanning ship sections with a drone to assist the marines rather then blowing up external elements.

No I disagree, there are those of us out there that are not able to handle the "hacking" side of things due to many reasons (age, medical conditions etc)
Having things like "hacking" as a MUST for capturing a ship would be penalizing players. - I for one several times have tried using drones etc, and every single time I have failed because of 1) my eyesight and 2) reaction times in trying to complete something in a set period of time.
I know they cannot cater for all players but capturing ships etc should not have to rely on mini games just to get them.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Reading this I was thinking that maybe one easy thing we could do to make boarding easier to understand would be to always make a "destroy drone launcher" the first mission that Yisha gives you if there are still more than X numbers of drones inside. That way the player would better understand that this surface element is contributing more strength to the defense of the ship than the randomly selected targets.

Would this help those of you who consider boarding too hard?

-Bernd

Hi Bernd,

Although I don't fall into that chatagory, I think the answer in the short-term would probably be a "yes". However, I think it would leave people on both sides of the fence still scratching their heads as to why drones stuck in the bay (assumed based on them dieing with the bay) are protecting against a ship-wide (based on pod dispersal) boarding Op so much.

Regards,
Sparks


edit: typo

[werewolves?]

Honestly I think it should revolve more around hacking/scanning ship sections with a drone to assist the marines rather then blowing up external elements.

No I disagree, there are those of us out there that are not able to handle the "hacking" side of things due to many reasons (age, medical conditions etc)
Having things like "hacking" as a MUST for capturing a ship would be penalizing players. - I for one several times have tried using drones etc, and every single time I have failed because of 1) my eyesight and 2) reaction times in trying to complete something in a set period of time.
I know they cannot cater for all players but capturing ships etc should not have to rely on mini games just to get them.

I agree, I know a number of people who like X series games precisely because they're not twitch based.

On Bernd's question: personally I think disabling a drone bay first would be good, if..... it didn't destroy the drones, and if it was a post-capture repair priority.

[NZ-Wanderer]

On Bernd's question: personally I think disabling a drone bay first would be good, if..... it didn't destroy the drones, and if it was a post-capture repair priority.

I personjally do NOT have a problem taking out the drone bay "IF" it contained drones that were dangerous to the skunks health.. but taking out a drone bay just because it contained 80 cargo drones is just plain silly

[Bernd]

Honestly I think it should revolve more around hacking/scanning ship sections with a drone to assist the marines rather then blowing up external elements.

No I disagree, there are those of us out there that are not able to handle the "hacking" side of things due to many reasons (age, medical conditions etc)
Having things like "hacking" as a MUST for capturing a ship would be penalizing players. - I for one several times have tried using drones etc, and every single time I have failed because of 1) my eyesight and 2) reaction times in trying to complete something in a set period of time.
I know they cannot cater for all players but capturing ships etc should not have to rely on mini games just to get them.

I agree, I know a number of people who like X series games precisely because they're not twitch based.

On Bernd's question: personally I think disabling a drone bay first would be good, if..... it didn't destroy the drones, and if it was a post-capture repair priority.

I see your point, but isnt the ultimate answer to any kind of twitch based gameplay as you call it always "more money" in X games?

Yes the player is rewarded for fast action in hacking and stealing, but this is also true in traditional space combat and the counter balance to that is always to own the bigger guns or missiles which simply cost you more money.

There are multiple ways how you can get these ships if you invest more credits. Simply buy the ship instead of boarding it of course, or taking more time to board smaller ships first to have a much stronger team etc.

If your team is much stronger than the counter party, you will always win the boarding. You only loose a certain amount of boarding crew if you fail a mission.

Talking about the Yisha missions: Without these, the whole boarding would be fully automatic again and there would be no incentive for personal involvement once you have your 50 veterans and elites.

-Bernd

[Olterin]

[...]

Talking about the Yisha missions: Without these, the whole boarding would be fully automatic again and there would be no incentive for personal involvement once you have your 50 veterans and elites.

-Bernd

Hello Bernd,

with regards to the Yisha missions - what I think might be the problem is a problem of perception. Currently, they are a "you do this or you lose, hard" kind of deal that happens as long as there's at least one surface element left (*). If they were instead more balanced around a neutral ground and based on the "actual conditions on the ground", I don't think they'd be getting as much ire as they are. More specifically, they should be indicative of how well your boarding party is doing and what odds they are up against - if your boarding crew is already overwhelming the internal defenses ("random" value: 50% stronger attacker than defender), Yisha and Ren would hardly have to intervene, and if by chance they get the option to, deciding to not act shouldn't cost more than one or two marines. However, if your boarding crew is overwhelmed by internal defenses, Yisha should be throwing assisting tasks at the player at every opportunity.

Basically, it comes down to what others posted: why should we be forced to take out certain surface elements we decided were valuable enough to be left alone if our boarding crew can win with no or minimal losses even without intervention?

Edit: we seriously need EMP weapons that disable elements, not destroy them, but are costly and don't penetrate shields.

(*) I still got hacking sub-objectives with all elements destroyed. It just stopped after the first hack without any losses. Bug? Intended? It makes little sense either way

[wwdragon]

Talking about the Yisha missions: Without these, the whole boarding would be fully automatic again and there would be no incentive for personal involvement once you have your 50 veterans and elites.

Good!
I am annoyed by Yishas nagging!

The only real difficulty on boarding should be the external combat, since the drone bay apparently houses every single drone.

[pref]

I hope too they used the price formula just because they were in a rush.
That logic really does not fit boarding - it deserves its own calculation.

Reduce drones' effects, and increase effect of ship class - a trade ship's BR value should not be near a military 'carrier' if one wants to be fair.

Also i'd appreciate if i did not have to rely on other ships of mine - they dont know about LOS, cant hit surface elements reliably, make up their own minds about the targets they attack - in general they make me rage and do not help too much.

[astreus]

Typically for Rebirth.
First too easy - then near impossible or better say, too hard to have fun.
Back in the early days right after the 1st release, where you are forced to change code to get the main things work.
Now:
Save file before boarding (Of course). Search for the (undamaged) target code, copy it.
Search for your skunk data, go marines. Make them max stars and 50. (any limit?)
Save and start game, boarding.

After boarding, save file and adjust data of your new (heavy damaged) ship
with the undamaged data - but don't change position data and owner.

Yes some work, but not less fun as just playing.
It's a new aspect. Hacking from a other point of view. In X3TC there was some hacking feature in the mission involved and so in the next games.
Maybe code hacking is a well planned option in Rebirth? No doubt it's also challenging and I even don't need a trojan drone or hacker chips.

[VincentTH]

i tried boarding again. stripped a marauder titurel of all components. all the turrets, shield generators, and the cap field generator. the hull was still at 80%. I STILL FAILED! what did i do wrong now?

You missed the memo The Drone bay accounts for 50 BR at least!!!!!

[VincentTH]

Reading this I was thinking that maybe one easy thing we could do to make boarding easier to understand would be to always make a "destroy drone launcher" the first mission that Yisha gives you if there are still more than X numbers of drones inside. That way the player would better understand that this surface element is contributing more strength to the defense of the ship than the randomly selected targets.

Would this help those of you who consider boarding too hard?

-Bernd

Taking out the drone bay first is OK with me (actually I do it against drone-based carriers, like the Sul), but we also need to change the order of repair. The Drone bay should be repaired right after the jump drive and may be 10% of engine has been done, but before anything else.

[mr.WHO]

Just make a new factor for current drone weight on BR where:
combat drone weight = 1.0 (can lay supressive fire in corridors)
construction drone = 0.5 (can repair dammage and do some door welding)
other drones = 0.1 (movable target practive/obstacle)


That way we significanlty reduce freighters BR while keeping high BR for other ships, especially military ones.

[NZ-Wanderer]

(*) I still got hacking sub-objectives with all elements destroyed. It just stopped after the first hack without any losses. Bug? Intended? It makes little sense either way

This is my biggest problem with the capturing ships, the having to use hacking drones on a timer to be able to succeed.. IMHO this type of thing should not be a "have to do it or you lose" thing..

[NZ-Wanderer]

Talking about the Yisha missions: Without these, the whole boarding would be fully automatic again and there would be no incentive for personal involvement once you have your 50 veterans and elites.
-Bernd

As someone else above said: GOOD!!

We have enough to do taking out engines, jump drive, shields, weapons etc without having to worry about or co-pilot interferring and telling us we "HAVE" to take out something or lose...
PLEASE get rid of the Yisha interfering... (Or at least give us an option in options to turn this off...

[VincentTH]

(*) I still got hacking sub-objectives with all elements destroyed. It just stopped after the first hack without any losses. Bug? Intended? It makes little sense either way

This is my biggest problem with the capturing ships, the having to use hacking drones on a timer to be able to succeed.. IMHO this type of thing should not be a "have to do it or you lose" thing..

I just don't carry any Trojan drones (they are illegal in most space anyway), so hacking problem is not a problem for me!

[NZ-Wanderer]

I just don't carry any Trojan drones (they are illegal in most space anyway), so hacking problem is not a problem for me!

Hmmm so what you are saying is that if you don't carry the drones you don't get told to hack?? - never tried that.. Thank you, might have to give it a go

[Snafu_X3]

Sounds reasonable to me..