How to Board Xenon capital ships, TC 2.6 Vanilla (Updated)

Flaming Blastclaw · Post by **Flaming Blastclaw** » Tue, 8. Jun 10, 12:42

Why capture the Q when you need 21 maxed marines, a sirokos and 1-2 support ships, with 20+ reloads ?

A Boreas can be captured without reloading, with up to 32 IBL's and with just one frigate with 20 average marines.

Gruber1232002 · Post by **Gruber1232002** » Tue, 8. Jun 10, 18:14

Flaming Blastclaw wrote:Why capture the Q when you need 21 maxed marines, a sirokos and 1-2 support ships, with 20+ reloads ?

Because I can...

. Why do people hike over mountain ranges when they could just drive...?

Nabbed another Q last night. 6 reloads, which is pretty good. In all not very interesting except for the fact that for the first time I didn't use my Sirokos to do it. I used an Ares (1 marine) and a Gannet (20 marines). I'll link the 'how to' shortly.

dbrowdy · Post by **dbrowdy** » Tue, 8. Jun 10, 19:35

Gruber1232002 wrote: Nabbed another Q last night. 6 reloads, which is pretty good. In all not very interesting except for the fact that for the first time I didn't use my Sirokos to do it. I used an Ares (1 marine) and a Gannet (20 marines). I'll link the 'how to' shortly.

The OTAS grind does NOT appeal to me, so I'd be curious to hear how it goes with 2 ships (M7M's? Gotta look those names up... Ares is an interceptor in Eve

)

Gruber1232002 · Post by **Gruber1232002** » Tue, 8. Jun 10, 20:19

Well it's on my signature too, but as promised here it is...

Boarding with 2 M7M's

dbrowdy · Post by **dbrowdy** » Sat, 19. Jun 10, 06:42

I'm about halfway thru the OTAS grind and I own 2 M7M's now so I'm thinking about capping Xenon soon. I have 20 marines almost all at 100 fight, but various levels of other skills (all 4-5*). Do they need to be maxed in the non-fight skills too? I can get fight trained up easily enough, it's the other ones that drive me crazy.

sleepy_head · Post by **sleepy_head** » Sat, 19. Jun 10, 09:10

dbrowdy wrote:I'm about halfway thru the OTAS grind and I own 2 M7M's now so I'm thinking about capping Xenon soon. I have 20 marines almost all at 100 fight, but various levels of other skills (all 4-5*). Do they need to be maxed in the non-fight skills too? I can get fight trained up easily enough, it's the other ones that drive me crazy.

You want 21 marines, 20 won't do against a Q. And yeah, 5* everything else is highly recommended for that.

dbrowdy · Post by **dbrowdy** » Sat, 19. Jun 10, 09:20

sleepy_head wrote:
dbrowdy wrote:I'm about halfway thru the OTAS grind and I own 2 M7M's now so I'm thinking about capping Xenon soon. I have 20 marines almost all at 100 fight, but various levels of other skills (all 4-5*). Do they need to be maxed in the non-fight skills too? I can get fight trained up easily enough, it's the other ones that drive me crazy.
You want 21 marines, 20 won't do against a Q. And yeah, 5* everything else is highly recommended for that.

Yeah, sorry didn't mean to imply I'm only using 20, just that I have nearly 20 ready to go and I'm training more as we speak. Just curious if I need 4x100 on all my guys or 100 fight and 4-5* everything else.

Gruber1232002 · Post by **Gruber1232002** » Mon, 21. Jun 10, 21:19

dbrowdy wrote:Just curious if I need 4x100 on all my guys or 100 fight and 4-5* everything else.

Technically you don't need them maxed out except for fight skill. However, I do. Because I have 300+ marines I just train them to completion.

In theory as long as they all have 100 in engineering the hull will stay at 100%.

In theory if at least one guy in every pod has 100 mechanical skill all marines will make it in.

In theory if at least 2 of the team have 100 hacking then they will be the two who hack the system.

My personal feeling, (no tests to confirm) is that it's just safer to have elite marines. Then there are no unexpected screw-ups etc.

For regular boarding I have used some hackers and some cutters and it's worked out OK. But for xenon, I just use ninjas.

dbrowdy · Post by **dbrowdy** » Mon, 21. Jun 10, 21:24

Methinks this calls for some testing on my part. As soon as I get 21 guys at 100 fight I'm gonna go for my first Q. I'll let you know how it goes. I honestly can't be bothered to train them all to 100 on everything, but they're all 5* in pretty much everything with some 100s scattered about.

betc · Post by **betc** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 09:19

Hi Guys,

got a question on a boarding a 'k'. I found one in the sector to the right of aldrin 2 > unknown > xexon...

got the sheilds down with my cobra, launched the pods from my sirikos (100 in all skills x 21, boarding pods, some 10 boards under their belt)

cant seem to keep the 21st marine alive during deck 1...
17,18,19,20 is what i get remaining out of 21 so that drops off way too quick after deck 1.
i have tried about 30 reloads.

thought i might ask before getting back into it tonight;
> are all 'k's boardable?
> are all xenon sectors with k's in them boardable?
> can you have 21 marines survive after deck 1?

KLF07 · Post by **KLF07** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 16:36

betc wrote:Hi Guys,

......i have tried about 30 reloads.

thought i might ask before getting back into it tonight;
> are all 'k's boardable?
> are all xenon sectors with k's in them boardable?
> can you have 21 marines survive after deck 1?

are all 'k's boardable? - Yes, 15/1
are all xenon sectors with k's in them boardable? - 534, 597, 101, 596 confirmed
can you have 21 marines survive after deck 1 - reload game from before start pod (also need to train the marines, not less than 30 successful captures: 0 - 8 reloads per ops)

Gruber1232002 · Post by **Gruber1232002** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 16:55

betc wrote: > are all 'k's boardable?
> are all xenon sectors with k's in them boardable?
> can you have 21 marines survive after deck 1?

Haven't met one that couldn't be boarded.
AFAIK
That's the whole idea....

In my experience, what sometimes happens is that the pods don't quite land together. Hit R, then in the options turn marines to NO except for the boarding/fighting option. That makes your boarding marines show up under the personnel tab.

Now take a look at their status. I have the impression that it takes a lot more reloading when it looks like this;

Fighting (Deck 1)......... 16 marines
Fighting....................... 5 marines

What you want is;

Fighting (Deck 1)......... 21 marines

If you have any marines still cutting hull while the rest are fighting you are screwed.

Fighting (Deck 1) ......... 20 marines
Cutting Hull................... 1 marines <-- SCREWED

There will be no way to avoid losses.

So, as KLF07 suggested, if you aren't getting past deck 1, go back to the save just before pod launch and try the op again. Good luck and don't give up.

betc · Post by **betc** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 17:41

ah ha, that does make sense

> i will get my guys with heaps more boarding ops out and dust them off

> i am almost certain this op was slightly mis matched in terms of fight and fighting deck 1

thanks guys about to try it again...

Gruber1232002 · Post by **Gruber1232002** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 17:47

betc wrote:
> i will get my guys with heaps more boarding ops out and dust them off

I'm not convinced about the # of successful boarding ops making a difference. I mostly use my xenon crew, ~45 successful ops + counting. But as a test I used a less experienced crew ~8 successful ops and it didn't take significantly more reloads. Still within the noise since on average I get a range of 6-12 reloads for J's/Q's. I have a feeling that the simultaneous landing of pods is the key factor.

KLF07 · Post by **KLF07** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 18:09

I agree that the crucial initial phase of the operation. Regarding the # of reloads the game, depending on the experience of the team - yes 6-12, to a certain time .. And then takes K and zero reloads

betc · Post by **betc** » Fri, 25. Jun 10, 11:03

you guys rock with all this information!!! finally cracked their skull. it was all about the landing and getting every marine to Fighting (Deck 1) synchronised..

1 x K
1 x Q

got the q in about 15 mins this morning, man its easy with this sirikos and cobra. now its time for a J

bung_dorji · Post by **bung_dorji** » Tue, 29. Jun 10, 08:08

so the conclusion is :

fighting deck 1 ==> 21 marines
Fighting deck 2 ==> bla bla bla.

if somehow one or more marine is not doing what it suppose to do,then it mean it screwed ?

maybe that marine doing the job with coffee on his hand

or to much spaceweed

damn lazy troop.

Also how to launch a boarding pod at shield still 7% above ? because in my game i always had betty said "boarding pod cannot be launch target operation shield still high" or something like that. Is this normal ?

sleepy_head · Post by **sleepy_head** » Tue, 29. Jun 10, 08:17

bung_dorji wrote: if somehow one or more marine is not doing what it suppose to do,then it mean it screwed ?

That is correct when it comes to capping Q's and Js and Ks. If you cannot get ALL 21 marines to survive on deck 1, they will ALL wipe and ALL die before the computer is hacked. The person who designed this part really ought to be slapped upside the head for making it so utterly unforgiving, because it is exactly crap like this that causes people to keep reloading until they get the results they want, instead of just accepting some partial losses. If you don't save and reload on Deck 1, chances are your team is wiped even if all 21 marines have 100 in everything. I found 1 out of 7-10 reloads will allow all 21 marines to survive when boarding the big xenon cap ships. Even when you finally win you feel like a cheater, which is such a dumb thing for an aspect of a game to be designed around.

nponoBegHuk · Post by **nponoBegHuk** » Mon, 12. Jul 10, 22:04

Long time reader of this post, finally decided to give it a spin and attempt some larger boarding op.

While on the aldrin mission about defending TUS1, several Qs, a J and a K jumped in the sector so I tried to steal one of the Qs.

Boy that was much harder than everything I capped before (including #Deca, Vali, lots of Chokaros, Ryus and hired TLs I've stolen to train my marines).

Q is very fast, agile, has PPC and lots of shielding. Trying to de-shield it from Hyperion was a mistake (takes too long and PPC fries your ship) so I jumped in Cobra and Sirokos and it definitely was easier to prepare the ship from Cobra and board from Sirokos. After some trial-and-error game I achieved to have all 21 marines fighting on deck 1, I saved when they started fighting.
Afterwards they were reaching deck 2 with 2-7 casualties but I couldn't achieve them to survive all 21. Anyway the Terran Osaka kept destroying the ship shortly after deck 2 so I had to abort my very first Xenon contact.

Despite the operation wasn't succesful at the end, I think I'll do much better next time (in some sector without friendlies frying the target!). I've got a question though... After 10 reloads (all marines fighting on deck 1) I haven't got them to pass to deck 2 without casualties. All the marines are 100% all with 10+ successful boarding ops. Is it possible to get them all to survive the op or am I missing something?

Catra · Post by **Catra** » Mon, 12. Jul 10, 22:10

keep reloading untill they all survive.

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How to Board Xenon capital ships, TC 2.6 Vanilla (Updated)