Ship Capture Guide: X2 Version 2 (Updated for 1.4)

[Fragile Ego]

Woohoo! Just captured my first Bayamon with my nearly-stock Disco thanks to this guide. Thank you so much for walking us through it, Al!

For the record my Disco has:
2 x Alpha IRE
1 x 1MW shield
Partially upgraded speed
Stock steering

It took several reloads, but 3 WASPs and a flurry of AIRE fire and it was all mine!

[Nymrod]

I would like to say Thanks you Al for this thread. Certanly the time it has been active shows out its value without doubt!!
Im practically a complete noob at this game since i got it a bit ago, (just started 3 times, my very first getting in the plot till i got stuck by the need of a bigger ship , and the second was better but did not get too far from the begining when i got a PC issue (HD death) and had to restart this thirth time after fixing my PC)

Your Guide really boost me up fast in the game, i would like to share this little sand grain to your big mountain...


Fast way of getting money early by CAPing:

- since i did the second misson "stripping out the TP" to get those nearly 400k, ( and toke note of what Saya tells you of carring E Cells with u to boron territory ) end with around 450K, then fixed my disco. (personally belive is the faster way to do it)
- i headed to the pirate sectors, but i finded better results at "Priest´s Pity"
i did almost all my caps here (besides get u good rep with the Paranide ).

- with a little patience u can cap a bayamon following Al´s GUIDE, for me was quite easy ( just reloaded twice till i learned to STAY BEHIND HIM!! )

- i got it with a hull of 68% so is not difficult to

- If u administrated your roughly 450k from second mission when equiping the disco, then u should have enough to fix it, arm it with 4 GIRE and 2 5MW shields that u can get from, oh surprise! the paranid factory at Priest´s Pity! (this if u killed enough pirates to get the proper rep with them, no difficult, 3 or 4 Mandalays will do it),else u can get them from the teladi at Sizewell sector.

- now u can go and cap more bayamon till u have enough to pay for 4 BPAC, ( not difficult either)

- i have my Bayamon with 4 BPAC and focused in CAPing Orinocos, they worth 300k+ even for a badly dmged hull and the BPAC does a wonderfull job, just pay attention to the target´s hull since once the shield is down, hull is easyly wasted by the PACs


in less than 3 hours from begining managed to cap like 3 Mandalays (this because they bailed when shoted since i proly blow them out, they dont worth the effort),4 Bayamon and like 6 Orinocos and a couple of pirate ship (those TS class)and had to stop due to the fact that i did like 2 millons from them ( minus some fixing, restocking wasp missiles, changing from ire to pac).



TIP: My best tactic with Bayamons, close from behind, fire 2 wasp in a row (give it a second of timeing, more or less or the second wasp will blow the first in your face) (they drain practicaly the whole shield) drain a bit the hull and let it regain a bit of shield, keep buggin it till it bails

TIP 2: If u want to cap a BAY or an ORINOCO that come with escort of Mandalays and/or Bayamons, u can "dispose" of that escort: 2 wasp for a Mandalay and 3 for a Bayamon do the job
Personaly i target the Mandalays from behind at around 1 Km and fire rapidely a serie of 2 wasp at each before the first one get hitted so none escape ( they break formation once the first get hitted) in 4 or 5 second the escorted ship find itself "alone", get behind your targeted ship before it have time to turn on you and begin the "bugging till bails out" procedure

These tactics worked terrificly good for me, (take note that im noob at this wonderfull game). now i have to investigate furter in the game to know what do with the money

[Spaceweed Adict]

have to investigate furter in the game to know what do with the money

Buy a few Ion Disrupters and go hunting Khaak M3's cap one of those with weapons and you'll net about 5 million a ship.

[Nymrod]

Buy a few Ion Disrupters and go hunting Khaak M3's cap one of those with weapons and you'll net about 5 million a ship.

MISSION ACOMPLISHED!!!

On my first try hehehe

followed that damn Khaak swarm for like 15 mins trought Ore Belt ( frome safe distance of cource ), then happened, the M3 breaks following a Mercury and the rest got caught by the Colossus patroling there. The M3 is away and distracted with the Mercury, fall behind him with my Bayamon (is now armed with 4 BPAC and 2 ION so i can shoot 4; 2-2 or only 2) switched to 2-2 till i almost blew him and then switched to only 2 ION and bugged him like 10 mins...
then, the magic happened, targeting switched from red to blue and i was jumping in my seat.
My first try and CAPed an M3 Khaak

[Spaceweed Adict]

My first try and CAPed an M3 Khaak

Well done Nymrod, congratulations

Did the ship still have those unknown objects in its weapon mounts if it has your in the money.

But before you decide to sell it take it for a spin.
You'll find its the most orsum killing machine you can lay your hands on
With fight commands fitted and auto aiming you'll be able to destroy Khaak clusters in no time with that baby.

[Nymrod]

Saddly no, i think i hitted it way more than needed cuz was trying to avoid him to get behind me, when finally got it was smashed, but well, was my first try, and succeded. There will be more.

Damn, last night i did not even pay attention to the clock, i tryed Al´s sugestion on Pirate bases and got awsome results, after a few try i realised that fireing a missil, just one against the base (from around 14km to stay well away from Laster Towers so you have space to manouver) trigger a soft response, always like 3 or 4 ships, no more ( if you shoot more than 1 missile, then do comes more patrols) and all of mixed ships, (maximun response i got was 3 Orinocos, and 1 Bayamon and managed to capture all 3 orinocos ), with patience, not rushing on them, useing the head, u can CAP them practically all.

i got 1xAHEPT, 1x25MW shield, like 6 drones and a few more little stuff that i sold (i kept the hept and shield of course) and armed my own wing of Orinocos , if they dont give me good result i will sell them too.

makeing counts, i captured like 16 Orinocos (plus only 3 destroyed), 3 Bayamons and 4 TS class.

I think i had beed way lucky of reading this thread so early in my game, following Al´s tips i found a few strategies that really gives me great results ( makeing numbers i have more than 90% of chance of CAPing the targeted ship, even more if i caught it alone, if is the case then the CAP is almost sure).

I discovered 1 thing last capture session, they bail out when they lost all their shields, regardless if they have still weapons or not, but if they still have shield and no weapons, they will continue acting like if they can harm u. From all my caps only 1 bailed out without weapons an lefting behind 1 shield.

Oh, one more thing, ION cannon are spectaculars for shooting down incoming missiles, when i get a missile warning i do a couple of fast spins shooting the cannons, as they have that "chain" effect, a close missile got easily hitted.( i discovered this when i runned out of mosquitos for the missile defence system )
God bless ION cannons!!!!

I dont presum this is a piece of cake, i have reloaded several times in the process of learning the correct metod, and if u are not greedy (rushin in the middle of several ship, or o something thats way too big for u) just a bit of planinng your own strategy will give u great results.

Salvage Insurance, a pilot´s best friend

[korcan]

Pirate base milking can be dangerous sometime. Be sure to check each ship for exotic weapons, almost all pirate ships can equip PSG or Ions. A bayamon with 4 ion drive among the group will kill all your upgrades/shields/weapons in seconds, plus you do not see anything due to the white sparks all around. Same problem with PSG equipped pirates. It is wise to detect those from a distance and destroy them using missiles. Those weapons do not miss even at the hands of ai.

Another profitable capping scenario involves khaak clusters. Approach to the intact cluster from behind. send away 5 shots from twin bPSGs. Depending on the cluster size 1-5 kM5 would turn to green. Very quickly transport kyons to your ship. Orinocco, Perseus or Osprey do this very nicely. One may sell each cannon from 800k.

[Diche Bach]

Well this seems to be the 'go-to' thread for mastering combat in X2 The Threat, so I guess I'll try to implement some of this advice and see if I can become a ship capturer.

[TTD]

Old thread,but I am glad you find it useful.

There seems to be a lot of new X2 players lately.
Maybe it's the X-Superbox from Steam that has gained it some followers.

I cut my pilots teeth on this version.
Tried so many different ships to get missions done.

[HashtagMC]

Thanks for the guide! Before, I thought you had to shoot the hull down to almost zero to get pilots to surrender. I'm making a fortune by capping pirate ships right now, turned one into a cheap replacement M3.

One thing I'd add would be nebulas. If you know where the shield-deteriorating ones are, you can lure pirates there. More of a risk, since your shield is also going down, but you can get the hull value down without having to get through the shield first.

[perceval]

Hey everyone,

I just got back into X2 after sevberal years and I find it to be a bit more difficult than I remembered. First, it seems that a lot of factories are empty on missiles, lasers and so on. I have difficulty finding wasp and dragonfly. Heck, everything!

Now onto the capture thing. I'm not sure if I goofed early in game, but I followed some sugestions I rapidly gfot rid of everything, to buy myself an Argon Buster, with 2 5 MW shields, 2 Alpha PACs and everything useful. So far, I've been successful only once to destroy a poor Mandalay, only to get destroyed by another ship, that wasn't even a pirate! I'm following this guide to the letter and those damned pilots simply won't eject. Am I missing somehting, or as capping become more difficult in 1.5? Thanks for any tips!

[Alan Phipps]

I'm pretty certain that patch 1.5 was to add the vanilla stats upload facility and did not affect ship combat and bailing in any way.

The usual sweet spot for capping is generally held to lie between the target losing all shields (as quickly as you can do that) and the hull dropping with you using as small damage shots as you can to less than 80-90%. Keep trying!

[perceval]

I'm pretty certain that patch 1.5 was to add the vanilla stats upload facility and did not affect ship combat and bailing in any way.

The usual sweet spot for capping is generally held to lie between the target losing all shields (as quickly as you can do that) and the hull dropping with you using as small damage shots as you can to less than 80-90%. Keep trying!

OK thanks. But is the buster good enough to capture, or should I have stayed with the Disco?

[Alan Phipps]

It's the weapons that count - quick shield reduction and slow hull reduction but with lots of impacts - and not so much the ship. A Buster has probably better weapon options and combat survivability than a Disco but, either way, just keep trying.

[perceval]

It's the weapons that count - quick shield reduction and slow hull reduction but with lots of impacts - and not so much the ship. A Buster has probably better weapon options and combat survivability than a Disco but, either way, just keep trying.

You were right. I've managed to capture a few, now. The real trick is not capturing them for me ; it's simply finding some that are not among a cluster of 5-6, in which case I'm often outnumbered and overpowered. Even if I'm starting with the one most at the back and hit no one else, they always all turn on me.

[jlehtone]

When you attack someone, they interrupt their current task and focus on killing you.
If your target's current task was to escort someone, they do one more thing: they notify their leader that they are under attack.
When a leader of formation gets signal that one of its escorts is under attack, it will (1) attack that threat and (2) tell all its escorts to do the same.

[Alan Phipps]

My tip would be to kill or bail out the leader first and as quickly as you can; that tends to confuse the followers for a while as they debate who is the next leader and then what to do about you after that is decided. This short period of confusion leads to further opportunities!

It's actually quite realistic in that respect!

[Praefectus classis]

It's the weapons that count - quick shield reduction and slow hull reduction but with lots of impacts - and not so much the ship. A Buster has probably better weapon options and combat survivability than a Disco but, either way, just keep trying.

You were right. I've managed to capture a few, now. The real trick is not capturing them for me ; it's simply finding some that are not among a cluster of 5-6, in which case I'm often outnumbered and overpowered. Even if I'm starting with the one most at the back and hit no one else, they always all turn on me.

For groups, try the following. Carry a few mosquito missiles with you. Check the speeds of the other ships. Fire one mosquito missile at one of the ships from a distance. They get their attention without destroying them. If you fly away they will follow and gaps develop between the ships because of the different speeds. You can then attempt capture or take out the smaller, faster, less valuable ships first. You may have to rinse and repeat a few times. This works best if your ship is faster than the opposition.