Any hints for capping ships?

[nephi]

For some reason I cant get pilots to eject consistanly, wouldn't you think a freighter with no help, no sheilds, and no weapons would give up?

Any input is helpfull.

[taronas]

Good question, I wonder myself

I still fly around in my "Explorer" Discoverer, exploring the universe. Sometimes Pirates cross my way. If there is no M3 in the group I take it as an Invitation. Killed a lot of their M5 (Harriers?). I think that about one out of ten leaves his ship. One hat it's hull at 70% and I got some money for that. Another gave me two 1MJ shields, another one a freight scanner But those were nearly down to Zero and got destroyed on their way to the next ship yard by other pirates.

I came across my first Xenon invasion. Some M4 and M3. Managed to shoot down 2 M4 (with some help, my Disco is no match against 20MJ shields) - no captures.

Need a better ship to try my luck on some freighters

[nephi]

Where was the invasion?

I just cant seem to find as many pirates as I would like, and its diffucult to gain rep trading.

[Dhore]

Best way to cap is to not think about it - hit hard and fast till you get at least 90% hull damage getting the shields down FAST.

OR

Get the shields down fast and then switch to lesser weaps and keep a barage of fire up. Simply put some ships prolly wont surrrender - its best not to waste time time like 30 mins on one ship - if he wont submit move on to the next

But theres many theorires on this

My Assasin starting position is now on 5.6 million from capping ALONE - no trading. After 11 hours. Dont try to cap just hit hard and stop when u see it go blue.

Capping is easier in X3 imho

[alevel17]

For me this may purely be a personal thing but I feel like i get more caps on frieghers when:

I tap my weak weapons at him once, little damage but he comms me to say what the hell are you doing

Tap again and he goes aggro, calls for help and releases drones if he has them (which I take out)

Once im done, I then destroy his sheilds in the next volley and he usually either:

a) Drops his cargo and begs for his life
b) If he has no Cargo will start insulting me (empty haulers seem to bail less as well in my experience and full food haulers bail the most )

Afer he's done dropping or insulting me i'll send another volley at him.
If they are going to jump they will usually jump now and the freighter will have minimal damage.

If he's not jumped by 50% hull i switch to full weapons and blow him up and move onto the next target.

I get far more caps this way than just pummeling him down to hull straight away but as I say this may just be my own perception.
(doing this takes longer but every other ship seems to jump, I smashed through to the hull on dozens of ships in fast succession and only 1 bailed)

[reaper8654]

Well i only got the game today but so far i have been able to get the majority of freighter Captains to jump.

Still using the Buster I started with, got 4 BPACS and 2 BIRE's use 2 and 2 for a full volly to take the sheilds down and inflict some damage first pass, they will then either Jump or launch their Droans....take out the droans and hit the friehgter hard again and if they are going to jump they will.....otherwise I blow it up....

Has anyone else noticed that if you stick to Paranid Freighters/Ships in Argon Space your Argon Rep go's up no matter if you Cap or Kill...Teladi and Split seem to make no difference to Argon Rep and Boron Kills are Rep drainers.....

[fusion23]

Not sure how I managed it, but I was able to capture a Slith freighter worth 1.2 million. My send slith is worth 480k.

[KingsGambit]

Though I'm no expert, I've had a fair amount of luck with capturing ships, firstly in the Buster you start the storyline game with, and now with a shiny new Nova (captured ). Quite possibly the best weapon for helping with ship caps is the ion disruptors. They annihalate shields very fast and use very little power, though are fairly short range. They won't go on a normal buster, but if you can capture a single Pirate Buster, they can fit ion disruptors.

So with a normal buster, just fight as you would, geting shields down as quick as poss, then doing as little hull damage as poss while keeping shields down. Usually if they're going to eject, they do so quite quickly. If not and you really want the ship, if you're faster than your target, you can hit autopilot/seta and let them recharge their shields a bit, then have another go.

Once you have a pirate buster or another ship with ion disruptors, it makes life a bit easier. I set two ions and one other weapon on a seperate control group and my main weapons on another. Use the ions and another weapon to rip their shields down and hopefully take out a few offensive mods too. The one weapon will do a little damage enough to convince them to bail out. If they don't, auto/seta again so their shields can recharge, and have another go. Adantage of these is that ships take less damage, preserving your profits

Those ions are great...well worth the investment, though they are quite short range. They can take out an M5s shields almost instantly, and with two on the Boron Nova Raider (my main ship with a flaming paint job) I pinched from Olmancetslat's Treaty, I managed to take out a Corvette....shame they didn't eject

[alevel17]

Yep Ions and plinking are a tried and tested method that yeilds great results

I've not found any Ion D's for sale yet but when I do you can rest assured that they will be going on my M3

[fusion23]

how much did the argon rating change when you captured the nova with your Buster?

[Al]

Well i've still not had that much playing time but after a little trip round Boron space I headed back to the pirate sectors to see about capping. As I started on Xtreme you only have 1x5MJ shields and a couple of Beta IREs. Not exactly great! I'd managed to buy another 5MJ shield and another couple Beta IREs. By this time my hull was down at 60%. Anyway the extra shield makes a big difference and I'm now happily taking down pairs of pirates (M4/M5). I managed to capture a Pirate harrier with one shield and 60% hull which fetched 40k and bought me my 3rd shield. Still not had any further luck with capturing although my max speed of 132 isn't helping. Managed to take down a Falcon which took ages and despite my best efforts didn't result in a capture.

I need to capture a Buster with a good hull so I can switch over and start on some real capturing

I'm beginning to wonder whether starting at Xtreme makes a difference to the chance of getting a capture. Probably not as it never has before but it certainly seems like it at the moment.

Al