[TC] Need a walkthough of how to bored ships please.

[DivinePhoenix]

Hello i am still getting the hang of the games finer points after a embressing misshap with the custem game i made a argon story line and now servel millon and servel staions later i am just now starting to get into trying to bored however i am completly and utterly lost and the manual was of no help to me i just want to know how they try to take teh ship and just want a walkthough of ganral tatics to use. PS why the heck cant my titen use borading pods?!!?

[Catra]

the -only- type of vessel that can use boarding pods are the m7m,

which are:

minotaur (argon)
Cobra(split)
Ares (paranid)
Kraken(boron)
Gannet (teladi)
Sirokos (OTAS, is only aquired after completeing the final reward mission with them)

as for tactics, theres a few,

for finding a ship:
1) easiest way to do this is to look at military outposts owned ships, itll display everyship to its name, even the big ones

2) if you have traders lurking about, checking in on them to see if a target is there and then seeing where its going,

3) have an m5 "follow target" on a ship you want

or you can plop down advanced satellites in:

1) pirate sectors, everyone now and again a race will send military ships to deal with pirates, this is a good oppurtunity to go cap happy

2)teladi space, piracy is legal there on ships that arent teladi

3) border sectors leading to EQ docks and military outposts, NPC big ships -do- go to these stations, for no purpose really, but a ill defended border sector is still a better capping area than a core sector,

as for the actual capture, youll need to either:

1) calculate how many hammer heavy torpedoes and flails youll need to use to keep the shields below 10% so your marines dont get fried.(does not work with the sirokos, its only missile weapon is the boarding pod)

2) do some fancy flying with a ship equipped with Ion Disruptors so you can destroy onboard weapons and all shields except one, then just keep that 1 shield below 10%(has to be done with the sirokos, as it cant use offensive missiles)

now as for the marines, as of 2.5, anything short of 4 - 5 stars in the 3 trainable skills isnt gonna get you much, so make sure theyre -all- trained to atleast 4 -5 stars in the 3 trainable areas.

[jwigeland]

LONG POST!!! EDITED PER CORRECTIONS POSTED AFTER

Here's some info (sorry if it's stuff you already know). Please correct me if I'm wrong on anything. ^_^

The concept of boarding is to get a team of marines to a target ship so they can a) cut into the hull, b) fight their way through the ship c) without damaging it too much and d) hack its computer to turn control over to you.

MARINES

Marines have four skills: Fighting (related to point b), Mechanical (related to point a), Engineering (related to point c), and Hacking (related to point d). Fighting skill only increases when the marine survives a successful boarding operation. The other three skills can be increased by training the marine at any military outpost (and some equipment docks). All skills are represented by a numerical score from 0-100 and a "star" rating from 0-5 stars.

During a boarding operation, the game will calculate your team's success in cutting the hull, "not" damaging the hull, and hacking the computer by evaluating the highest two skill levels for that activity (i.e., when cutting the hull, the game will consider the two marines with the highest Mechanical skill). Because of this, one may try to save on training costs by only training two marines in each skill, but...

CAUTION: I recommend training all marines in all skills. If, for example, one of your hackers is killed while fighting through the ship, your team's chances of hacking the computer drop significantly. If both are killed, your operation will almost certainly fail. Better safe than sorry.

In terms of how able your marines are to survive fighting the on-board crew, the game works off the sum of all your marine's fight skill (i.e. a team of five marines with 100 fight skill have 500 "fighting points" whereas a team of ten marines with 60 fight skill have 600 "fighting points" and are more likely to survive). For this reason it is best to use as many marines as the target will allow (more on that number later).

More training is always better, but the cost for each portion of training (and how long it takes to complete) increases as the skill level goes up. I would aim to get three stars in all trainable skills, and then train further as time and budget allow.

If you have a bioscanner installed on the ship you're flying, you can see what skill level each marine has before you buy it (even if you're remotely buying them using another ship many sectors away). Marines are available at most military outposts, marine training barracks, and some pirate bases (check this site for locations: eng.x3tc.ru - search for the ware "mercenary"). Always look for marines with high fight skill (four or five stars, or a three star with a high number) and purchase these first.

CAUTION: You need a cargo life support system on any ship in which you will carry marines. Take care not to remove the CLS while the marines are still on board or they will die. Also, do not sell a ship with marines still on board or they will be freed and you will lose them.

NOTE: Because you are the only person in the game who buys marines, after a while some of the marine training barracks will disapear due to inactivity. For this reason I recomend scouring the universe early in the game to make sure you get any "good" marines from these places before they disappear.

NOTE: After buying the "good" marines, you may want to clear out all the rummies from a barracks so new ones are generated (hopefully some of the new ones will be "good") and the barracks is made safe from the danger of disappearing due to the activity. Marines typically cost around 20k each. However, if you sell a ship at a shipyard with marines in it, each marine increases the value of the ship by about 30k. In this way, it is possible to buy a TP, load it with ten marines, and sell the TP at the shipyard, for very little lost money (you take a hit on the ship).

TARGETS

The ships that can be boarded are class TM, TL, M6, M7, M2, and M1 (difficulty increases with target size). Certain ships (like Argon One or the Tyr in the Terran plot) cannot be boarded at all, but other ships of that model are legitimate targets. Kha'ak ships cannot be boarded, and while Xenon ships can be, they are twice as hard to capture as any other ship.

Depending on the size of your target you can use a team of up to 20 trained marines to capture it. I believe the number of marines that can fit on a target is related to how many marines it could carry normally (an M6 can carry five, so only five marines can be used to capture one, whereas an M2 can carry 20, so 20 can be used). This is because once the operation is complete, assuming none of the marines were killed they will all need to fit in the captured ship's freight hold. Someone else will have to verify this is 100% correct, however...

Before you begin the operation it is imperative to scan your potential target and check for the following four things, each of which increase the difficulty of the capture:

1) On-board marines - these fighters are more dangerous than the on-board crew, so your marines are more likely to be killed, but of course they can be killed by your marines too.
2) Hull Polarization - this greatly increases the chance that your marines will fail to cut into the hull.
3) Sentry Lasers - this is equivalent to having two five-star fight marines on board that cannot be killed.
4) Advanced firewall - this greatly increases the chance that your marines will fail to hack the computer.

It is possible to destroy all of these defenses using the Ion Disruptor method outlined a little later, but this takes some patience. Often, players will pass over a ship with any of these defenses in favor of a ship without them.

METHODS

There are two methods for boarding, based upon how you get your marines to the target: 1) Spacewalk, and 2) Boarding Pod. Of the two, the Boarding Pod method is expensive to set up, but much easier to execute.

In the spacewalk method, you first lower the target's shields to below 10%. Then, you use either a TS or M6 class ship and eject your marines from the cargo hold. Next, you tease the target to "run over" the marines so they can start attacking the hull (all the while keeping the target's shields under 10%). Once the marines are inside, you can disengage the target and let your team do the rest.

NOTE: The spacewalk method is sometimes preferred by advanced players for the challenge it presents. However, as of game patch 2.5 the calculations for boarding operations have been changed to make things more difficult for smaller teams of marines. Specifically, it appears that the number of "fight points" (explained earlier) needed to survive the operation has been increased accross the board. For this reason, Spacewalk boarding is no longer as viable against some of the larger targets (prior to patch 2.5, it was possible to capture an M2 using a team of five well-trained marines ejected from an M6).

In the boarding pod method, you will have to lower the target's shields to 5% before using an M7M class ship to launch your marines at the target in a boarding pod (each pod holds five). While the pod is in transit and during the cutting phase you again have to keep the shields under 10%, and you can again disengage one the team is inside.

In both methods, during the operation you will hear special music and audio messages from your team. Key phrases to listen for in the first part of the operation:

"We've reached the target" - keep the target's shields under 10% or the marines will die.
"We're inside" - you can disengage and ignore the shields now.

EQUIPMENT

Spacewalk boarding allows the most flexibility in terms of what ships to use in the operation. The only rule is that the marines must be launched from either a TP or an M6.

For Boarding Pod operations, the player will have to purchase an M7M class ship and arm it with Boarding Pods (available from any military outpost, if they're in stock) for launching the marines.

Experienced boarders also recomend:

Advanced Satellites - these can can dropped into certain sectors to help locate a suitable target ship.
Fighter Drones - these can be ejected once the target's shields are reduced to help keep the shields down and the target's guns occupied (increasing the chance that it won't shoot your marines)
An M5 - this can be flown to "hunt" a target and then be told to follow it so you can keep tabs on the target while assembling your equipment in the sector.
Transporter - this allows you to quickly change between ships
Jumpdrive - this allows you to move to another part of the sector quickly
Salvage insurance - a lot can go wrong in boarding; this helps you restore to a point midway through the operation if need be. Don't forget to save often!

NOTE: It is especially important to save when your team reaches the computer core. The Random Number Generator is sometimes a little unfair and hacking may fail even with a well-trained team. Simply re-load until the hacking stage is successful.

NOTE: Having a ship with a transporter available and another ship docked in it allows you to beam over a "spare" jumpdrive and energy cells to your newly captured ship so it can be jumped out of the sector to a safe area for repair (especially useful if capturing in pirate sectors). TMs, certain M7s, M1s, and the Hyperion Vanguard M6 can be used in this way.

Also worthy of note are the Ion Disruptors. These Boron weapons can be used against a target to destroy all of its weapons, all but one of its shields, and all its installed equipment, while doing no hull damage. This eliminates the chance that your marines will be shot while in space or in a pod, makes it much easier to keep the shields down, and destroys all defensive mechanisms mentioned before (when the cargo life support is destroyed, the on-board marines are killed). However, it takes a very long time to disable a ship to this extent, during which time you are an easy target (IDs have very short range), so beware.

WALKTHROUGH

Here is my experience with a Boarding Pod operation to capture an otherwise unavailable M6 - the Hyperion Vanguard. I tried many variations (including a spacewalk) before finally succeeding with this sequence of operations:

I hunted through Paranid Space in my Advanced Discoverer (M5) until I found a Hyperion in Spring of Belief slowly patroling in the southwest quadrant. I Jumped to Cardinal's Dominion where I'd placed my Nova Raider (M3), switched over, and re-jumped to Spring of Belief to tail the Hyperion.

Next, I jumped in my Cobra (M7M) to the North Gate in Spring of Belief(about 35km away) and told it to "follow me." Then, I used F3 to watch as the Cobra turned around to face me (and the Hyperion), then I told it to stop. On the Cobra I had a Boarding Pod and a team of five marines with four stars in fighting and three stars in the trainable skills.

Then, I waited for a while until the Paranid Military Agamemnon (M7) left the sector. Note that when you open fire on a ship, any military ships in the sector turn hostile and move to attack you. I thought it best to let it leave, as the only other military ships in the sector were a couple of Paranid border control M4s.

On my Nova Radier I had eight Plasma Burst Generators, which I gingerly used to lower the Hyperion's shields to 0% and turn the ship hostile. As soon as that happened I turned to disengage and used roll-strafe to dodge the Hyperion's weapons. I ejected three fighter drone MKIIs to keep the Hyperion busy while I jumped to the North gate.

I flew to my Cobra and transported over. From the Cobra, I could see my three drones in the distance (about 30km). I moved forward until I could also see the Hyperion. I noted that his shields were 0% and his hull was 50% (nice drones!), so I told all but one of the drones to cease fire, and launched the Boarding Pod.

There was a chance that the Hyperion would shoot down my pod, but I knew that with SETA enabled that chance was very slim (thank you Mr. Reeves). I punched SETA, and at 1000% time the marines landed and entered the Hyperion in about 2 seconds. I told the last drone to stop firing.

NOTE: Since I'm running a game only patched to version 2.1, I could make use of an exploit whereby at this stage of the operation, I could comm the captian of the Hyperion and appologize for accidental weapon fire. He accepted my appology and his ship turned friendly (as did the two M4 border patrol ships) while my marines continued fighting. As of game patch 2.5, this doesn't work so I would have been forced to jump to a different gate when the Hyperion or the patrol ships got too close.

As it is, my marines captured the ship and all five survived the operation. The Hyperion's hull had dropped from 50% to 29% due to boarding. I transported back to my Nova Radier and docked at the Hyperion (it's the only M6 that can dock fighters), and transferred over all the equipment so I could navigate away to repair it.

Note that if I had been unable to comm the captain and appologize during the operation to turn all the military ships in the sector friendly again, now that the operation is complete I would had to have commed one of the remaining unfriendly ships and appologized to them instead.

LOOT

One aspect of boarding is that some of a target's shields, guns, and equipment may be left over from the boarding operation depending (mostly) on chance and (possibly) on how much hull damage was done. This is another reason to save when your team reaches the computer core. Advanced boarders will re-load if the left over loot is not to their liking, and in this way they have been able to re-capture the ship until the one time when the ship is left brimming with capital weapons (as opposed to a few random missiles).

I hope all this was helpful!

[Mr. Reeves]

any more questions?

[swgoddard]

I cant afford an M7M yet should I use my TP for boarding. And should I just fly and eject the marines or should I use the piracy command?

[jwigeland]

My attempt at spacewalk boarding with a TP was an epic fail... though some use this method with great success. I would give it a go and see how it comes out... and start saving for an M7M!

However, I think the piracy command is very unreliable as more often than not it will cause your ship to swerve around and do nothing... so better to eject the marines outright (I think).

[RainerPrem]

Hi,

Please correct me if I'm wrong on anything. ^_^

I will ...

During a boarding operation, the game will calculate your team's success rate using the highest two skill levels for that activity

This does not apply to fighting skill which instead is added from all participating marines.

If you have a bioscanner installed on your ship

that means YOUR ship, not the ship that is about to buy the marines.

I believe the number of marines that can fit on a target is related to how many marines it could carry normally (an M6 can carry five, so only five marines can be used to capture one, whereas an M2 can carry 20, so 20 can be used).

there is space for one more marine I heard.

Then, you use either a TS, TM, or M6 class ship and eject your marines from the cargo hold.

A TM is not possible AFAIK.

The spacewalk method is .. no longer as viable against larger targets.

From my experience: against ANY target.

In the boarding pod method, you will have to lower the target's shields to 0%

It's "lower than 5%".

The only rule is that the marines must be launched from either a TP, TM, or an M6.

Again: no TM

Jumpdrive - this allows you to move to another part of the sector quickly

Tip: Have another jumpdrive and enough e-cells ready to jump your just acquired ship out of trouble. A TM or a Hyperion with docked fighters is not bad.

Salvage insurance - a lot can go wrong in boarding; this helps you restore to a point midway through the operation if need be. Don't forget to save often!

Save at least when your marines reach the Computer. Hacking sometimes fails from pure RNG malignity.

NOTE: Since I'm running a game only patched to version 2.1, I could make use of an exploit whereby at this stage of the operation, I could comm the captian of the Hyperion and appologize for accidental weapon fire.

But it still makes sense to apologize after completion of the operation with the captain of the largest red ship in this sector and subsequently to all other red ships.

cu
Rainer

[Kapakio]

The spacewalk method is .. no longer as viable against larger targets.

From my experience: against ANY target.

Well, it's definitely harder, but not impossible. I boarded a Kraken using a TP with 10 marines. It took a couple of reloads, but I was not too hard.

In the boarding pod method, you will have to lower the target's shields to 0%

It's "lower than 5%".

Actually it depends on the kind if ship. IIRC it's 5% for M6s and 3% for larger ships.

[jwigeland]

Ah thank you! =)

[pincerfae]

The spacewalk method is .. no longer as viable against larger targets.

From my experience: against ANY target.

Well, it's definitely harder, but not impossible. I boarded a Kraken using a TP with 10 marines. It took a couple of reloads, but I was not too hard.

How did you do it? I'm dying to know..

[Kapakio]

Well, it's definitely harder, but not impossible. I boarded a Kraken using a TP with 10 marines. It took a couple of reloads, but I was not too hard.

How did you do it? I'm dying to know..

Just the regular way. Launched some hornets from my Hyperion to lower the shields, then jumped in the TP and launched the marines from very close, then jumped back to the Hyperion to keep the shields low. I just reloaded a couple of times until all 10 marines made hull contact at the same time, and then 2 or 3 more tries until they successfully boarded.

At the end, I lost 6 marines. All 10 were just 3* in fighting in average.

[jwigeland]

I think seasoned boarders will verify that losing 6 out of 10 marines trying to capture an M7M is a higher rate of attrition than prior to the 2.5 patch, hence my comment about spacewalking not being as viable a boarding strategy against larger targets.

The main change between 2.1 and 2.5 from all accounts seems to be that you need a larger number of marines to board larger targets successfully - players have taken an M7M using 20 marines trained similarly to yours with zero losses (versus your experience losing 6). It's very difficult to get that many marines in contact with the target via spacewalking.

[Kapakio]

I think seasoned boarders will verify that losing 6 out of 10 marines trying to capture an M7M is a higher rate of attrition than prior to the 2.5 patch, hence my comment about spacewalking not being as viable a boarding strategy against larger targets.

I find losing 6 out of 10 marines very viable, even logical. You expect to get a 56Mill ships with no losses? Especially if I used just medium trained marines.

Being more difficult than it was prior 2.5 doesn't make it not viable by any means. I'm among those who think it was too easy before. The only thing I think it should be fixed is the splitting of teams in spacewalking

[jwigeland]

Oh? Well, then, I guess it's reasonable then.

Bottom line between the two methods is to try both and decide which one appeals to you most.

[Mr. Reeves]

I don't lose any marines capping Akumas. My guys are LEET! ARRG!! I M7M board.

[DivinePhoenix]

Thank you all for your help i have actully been haveing a tad bit more luck now

[Vained]

Ok, so I have to ask because I seem to be missing something.

You use several ships in a M7M Boarding operation, and change between them. Is it so that a hostile ship will not fire at an abandoned ship? Or do you place them at a somewhat safe position before you transfer to the other ship? Wont the police/customs M4s or M5s hunt it down?

[brucewarren]

I know it's frowned on, but I use hired TLs for to train the guys in fighting.
Actually hospital ships and arenas are better for this because they
are unarmed and won't shoot down the pods.

As long as the marines fight skill starts above 30 or so, if you launch all
20 guys in 4 pods in rapid succession, they will often all survive.
If not reload.

Eventually you will have a full squad of 20 fighting machines which you
can then use on your real targets.

[FattyJ]

I know it's frowned on, but I use hired TLs for to train the guys in fighting.

With how difficult and casualty heavy Xenon boarding is in 2.5 I don't frown on it.

[jwigeland]

Vained, I used multiple ships in my M7M boarding as the Flail and Hammer missiles can only be launched at a hostile taget. I had to fly a fighter and fire at the Hyperion to turn it hostile (actually, I blew it up more than once while they were still warning me). Even without that hurdle, I hadn't yet found enough Flails to tackle a fully-shielded Hyperion.

I also captured a Skirnir recently by first destroying its escorts in my Hyperion and lowering it's shields, and then high-tailing it out to my Cobra (with the Skirnir in hot pursuit) so I could transport over and launch my two pods (and a few Hammers to keep the shields down). Against hostile targets, provided you have enough missiles, you can board using an M7M only.