X4 boarding mechanics

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What kind of boarding you would like to see in X4?

X3 style
36
30%
XR style
53
43%
My idea
8
7%
Other idea
11
9%
Don't care / don't use boarding
14
11%
 
Total votes: 122

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Thu, 12. Oct 17, 14:48

MegaJohnny wrote:For visualisation, how about a kind of AR overlay on the target ship showing the marines' movement? The rooms could be just cuboids and the marines colour-coded dots. Nothing has to correspond exactly besides the number of dots and their distance to a different cuboid representing the bridge.
Oh nice, I rather like this idea :) It would give it a modern sci-fiesque look, too. And almost certainly considerably less work than even the semi-scripted interior trooper-cam.
MegaJohnny wrote:I've just packed away my plot game saves and am about to start a fresh no-boarding playthrough. All the stations just feel like ill-gotten gains now.
LOL! I completely understand :D In my latest plot game, I think I boarded all of three ships - and I'm not even sure what I did it for, as I didn't sell any of them. Oh yes, they got pressed into service, then thrown at the PMC Overwatch as cannon-fodder :twisted:

Cabrelbeuk wrote:The idea is cool but well, I would far prefer Egosoft to focus on polishing main 4X gameplays aspect as automation and management.

This interactive map already give us what we were all waiting for very long time : RTS aspect to the game.
I completely agree. At the end of the day, those boarding bits as suggested would be cosmetics for the sake of immersion - nice to have if possible, but not at the expense of any important stuff. (Hell, just record a boarding soundtrack a la TC/AP and that would already provide some atmosphere, with almost zero effort.)
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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Thu, 12. Oct 17, 21:01

X-Series' boarding thread merged with previous boarding mechanics thread.
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Hassie
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Post by Hassie » Mon, 23. Oct 17, 11:14

Most games just do some hidden calculations based on your boarding party and some stats you have, and you are told if you win or not. Recently however, some games have tried to expand on this, and made the boarding and capturing of ships more interactive, which is definitely should be. Naval Action for instance, has a basic fight system, where you choose from a variety of actions as your crew attempts to win the day for you, while still largely leaving it up to numbers in the end. Slightly more or less recently, depending on how you look at it, Starpoint Gemini: Warlords, created a tier based system where you can either choose to raid the current section of the ship you are on, advance to the next section, or to run away. This is again largely based on a numbers game though unfortunately.

I do not have a problem with numbers playing a large role in boarding actions, as it obviously makes the most sense, and I am all for mini-games being used for boarding actions, unless a game has a dedicated 1st/3rd person engine to go in with your troops and do the work, or some bird's eye view tactical mode to have your troops go in and capture the ship, Wasteland style. Those options seem beyond the boys at Egosoft unfortunately, so I would propose to use minigames that do not require you flying a ship around shooting turrets and other modules on the outside of the ship. I don't see the in game reason for this, and while it was fun the first dozen or so times, it does become exceedingly tedious after awhile. The fact that modules on the outside of the ship, would somehow allow your marine to advance further in the ship, has never made sense to me, while hacking a ship does have some in game logic.

I like to feel immersed in a game when I play it, and the X series above almost all over games to this effect. I want to feel like I am helping my marines, and doing mini-games similar to how some games use quick-time events during the CGI moments to connect the player with the action. There are SOOO many electronic lockpick, hacking and other mini-games that are both easy to understand and complicated at the same time. Being given puzzles like this, while sitting at the ops position, while you give the helm to an npc to fly your ship while you attempt to assist your marine by opening up passages for them, sealing off enemy combatants behind airlocks, as well as a dozen other options. You can very easily give the player the choice on what they want to do, and choosing to lock off enemies, without knowing exactly how many you will trap, or opening up a passage without knowing if you are leading your marines right into the main enemy defense force can be borth terrifying and immersive at the same time. This would also give a lot of benefit to advancing your sensors, so you can get a more detailed map of what if happening inside that ship, so as captain you can make the most informed choice to board and capture/raid that ship.

I really like this idea, and hope Egosoft looks into creating a more immersive experience for players, by building on the mini-games from other games that have really worked, and avoid the ones that most people detested. I of course would really like a tactical combat scenario where you control your squads of marines from a bird's eye view if you choose too, but I think that may be 3 or 4 iterations of the X series away from being anything close to a reality.

KRM398
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hmm some good points here

Post by KRM398 » Tue, 24. Oct 17, 15:45

I see people say they don't like boarding one way because its too tedious (think too hard) that's exactly how boarding should be...its not easy and you will lose people. something XR doesn't take into account a lot. I boarded repeatedly and lost no one, not a single soldier...ridiculous. Every attempt, especially against a larger and more powerful enemy ship will cause losses, and should. Yes it makes it harder and more expensive...you're tryng to capture a ship after all. and attacking a cruiser with a corvette or frigate SHOULD be really hard, since smaller ships should have less room for marines.

Now soldiers should definitely be of more than one class, and should gain experience with each try. so buying green marines gets you bodies, but little experience, so you board freighters first, then bigger ships later. Experience needs to mean something, and also ship size...a corvette can NOT hold 50 marines and a Commander like in XR, BS. where did they sleep and eat? In the Commanders pocket? Be more realistic, a fighter has zero chance at boarding anything, a corvette can carry maybe a dozen people. frigates maybe 2 dozen, and so on. Having better tools needs to help to, buying handguns or salvaging them from battles adds +1 to your marines skills, get them body armor, +5. Grenades..+7 etc, no robots or AI fighters, its all us and our men and women.

RAVEN.myst
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Re: hmm some good points here

Post by RAVEN.myst » Tue, 24. Oct 17, 17:14

KRM398 wrote:I see people say they don't like boarding one way because its too tedious (think too hard) that's exactly how boarding should be...its not easy and you will lose people. something XR doesn't take into account a lot. I boarded repeatedly and lost no one, not a single soldier...ridiculous.
I completely agree - that's a problem I also have with XR boarding, the fact that it's too controllable for a zero-loss outcome. Hell, I seldom have casualties in X3TC/AP boarding, even, except when I expect losses (for instance, when "selecting" recruits for further training... :twisted: )
KRM398 wrote:...a corvette can NOT hold 50 marines and a Commander like in XR, BS. where did they sleep and eat? In the Commanders pocket?
Maybe before the last boarding op before the player gets the Skank was the TARDIS, and now that's where the marines hang out... Or maybe, as I suggested at some point long ago, marines are actually blow-up dolls (hmm, well, they DO quite possibly blow up doors and such, once inside, so the moniker may be more apt than I intended...), and the Marine Officer's first task is to operate the air-pump... Yes, it IS absurd :D
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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 24. Oct 17, 18:01

If the maximum boarding party were more of the order of 6 marines and an officer (a bit more like X3 M6 boarding) then there could be these advantages:

The marines could have individual names (or nicknames) and you would get to know and take care of each individual as they gain experience and skills.

You would actually feel a loss when you lose one and they could be far more expensive to replace. Loss chances would obviously scale appropriately for the participant numbers and operational situations. There should be some risk of losing the officer too.

Taking reckless chances or lack of preparation and so perhaps losing marines or the officer carelessly would be far more of a lesson.

Each marine could be individually trained in specialist skills as with other NPC crew.

Boarding pods could be replaced by manoeuvrable marine combat armour.

It might even be possible to have the officer address individual marines by name/nickname and so help immersion.

The Skunk-Tardis situation (should it still apply) would be much reduced.
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Arsynth
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Ability to act as a marine

Post by Arsynth » Tue, 31. Oct 17, 20:23

I like XR style boarding, but it would be nice to capture ships with other marines together

gbjbaanb
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Post by gbjbaanb » Fri, 3. Nov 17, 15:38

Alan Phipps wrote:If the maximum boarding party were more of the order of 6 marines and an officer (a bit more like X3 M6 boarding) then there could be these advantages:

The marines could have individual names (or nicknames) and you would get to know and take care of each individual as they gain experience and skills.

You would actually feel a loss when you lose one and they could be far more expensive to replace. Loss chances would obviously scale appropriately for the participant numbers and operational situations. There should be some risk of losing the officer too.

Taking reckless chances or lack of preparation and so perhaps losing marines or the officer carelessly would be far more of a lesson.

Each marine could be individually trained in specialist skills as with other NPC crew.
So mainly X3 boarding, which was very good all in all, but with a bit more colour to the voice-over, not just "we have secured the deck", but more "Vasquez, Hicks, secure that bulkhead", and "man, this is a bughunt, I knew it was going to be another bughunt".

Shooting off bits from the enemy ship is a worthy addition to X3 boarding, but ultimately it should still be able training your marines and sending them in to fight the defenders and the ships computer with the chance that not all of them make it back.

Rabiator der II.
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Post by Rabiator der II. » Sun, 5. Nov 17, 12:20

On mini-games vs. "comfortable" boarding in general:
I think it would be desirable to have several options ranging from hands-off to doing things yourself, but with the chance of better results from personal involvement. Possibly for several different aspects of the boarding action.

A few suggestions and examples...
1) For preparing the boarding by taking out defenses on the surface of the ship, you have two options:
  • Tell the ships in your fleet to "suppress defenses". They will start shooting specifically at turrets and drone bays of the target, but try to leave the hull alone. Unfortunately, their skill in that is limited, so you may end up with a badly damaged ship or even a complete wreck.
  • Do the suppressing with your own fighter. Depending on your skills, you may get a much better relation of defense suppression to hull damage.
2) For the actual boarding, you can
  • just dump your marines near the target ship or tell your fleet to do so
  • organize the boarding by planning the operation in more detail, such as assigning the marines to the boarding ships yourself and sending them in a sequence that makes best use of their skills. For example, first the hull breachers, then the hackers who can disable internal defenses.
  • or even personally fly your marines to the most suitable entry point.
The latter might require some extra work on part of the devs, because they would now have to do at least some modeling of the different routes through the ship and the resistance encountered there. Plus maybe some overview of each ship in the in-game database.
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bugkill
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Post by bugkill » Mon, 19. Mar 18, 22:02

I'm a bit late to this topic, but I'll share my thoughts. I believe that there should be a mixture of both x3 and XR boarding actions, but you have to create 2 separate types of "marines". The first type of "marines" (prefer naming them Assault Troops or Assaulters) should be the forces that you would use to seize large ships and they would be launched in breaching pods (much like in XR). Their sole purpose is to go in large numbers to battle strong enemy spacecraft and control it.

The other type should be called Special Forces/Commandos. They would be featured like the astronaut/marine in x3 where they can exit your ship and use a thrust pack to get to the target (a stealthy approach). They would only be able to be used on small to medium sized ships for specialized missions like gathering intel, rescue, or even assassination. They would also seize the ship as well. Hell, they could be used on certain stations. I know it would require a number of ships and stations to have scripts supporting this, but I think it would be worth it.

DavidGW
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Post by DavidGW » Tue, 20. Mar 18, 02:21

I'm hoping for more variation, planning and preparation.

There are some related balancing changes I think are needed, for example, I think all shields should protect surface elements. What is the point of a shield, if it can't protect critical systems like engines and weapons? That will make boarding much harder.

It should also be possible to hack a ship covertly, and have them remain unaware.

I also think that marines should be able to covertly enter a ship, and start softening it up without being detected. So marines should have a stealth stat, as well as the combat, engineering, hacking, etc.

So, we can go in guns blazing XR style, crippling the ship and taking it over with overwhelming force. Or, we can get close, hack the ship, throw a couple of high level marines out the airlock to clamber into the enemy ship through their hacked airlocks. Those marines then benefit from a low, unaware boarding resistance to soften up defences, and maybe plant some charges. Weaker ships could be completely taken over in this way. If they are discovered, ship goes on alert, boarding resistance goes way up, and you are forced to finish the job with force, and lots of extra scrambled marines. But, maybe your covert marines could have had time to plant charges on some surface elements, engines, shields, etc in the mean time to make things easier.

The other thing I'd like to see is progression. You start out by throwing marines out your airlock. You can then upgrade to boarding pod missiles or dedicated ramming boarding ships. But most of all, I want to see the transporter finally be able to be used offensively. Teleport marines over. Teleport missiles over. Steal cargo. But of course, this is only possible with appropriate upgrades and research, and most importantly, only when all shield generators are destroyed.


EDIT: Oh, and also importantly, anything you can do to other ships, they can do to you. Big organisations should have access to teleporting technology right from the start, and you're catching up to them. This would be great for realistic pirates.

ajime
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Post by ajime » Tue, 20. Mar 18, 04:06

X3 plus the ability to kill turrets and subsystems. I'm sold.

DavidGW
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Post by DavidGW » Tue, 20. Mar 18, 04:49

I should also add that I don''t think the gravity well business in XR is bad. It is actually 'realistic', as any large ship (100s to 1000s of metres long) would require an "inertial field generator" magic device to stop them breaking apart when turning, or to stop crew and passengers being squished (or even just falling over, stuff falling off tables, etc) when accelerating.

Araknis
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Post by Araknis » Sun, 25. Mar 18, 14:59

I voted for X3 but i liked the XR surface element destruction.
I would love to see a combination of both.
I hated the fact that in XR i was forced to have only 1 team to carry around.
X3 felt more detailed and in depth in the whole boarding / boarding teams preparation etc area. with skills to lvl up for the marines, multiple teams on various ships that could potentially lead to unimaginable boarding fests in a sector.

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