Honved wrote:Boarding an abandoned ship is a great compromise between just "claiming" them (I HATE giant "freebies" in games) and having to blow them up every single time, but there are still a few issues with it.
First, if the ship has any remaining shields, it's nearly impossible to keep them below 10% (especially with only one left) without destroying the ship, while simultaneously launching marines. You can't use other ships or fighter drones to do the job of suppressing the shields, because they just ignore it as an "already defeated" ship. Of the few ships which can carry marines for boarding actions, most (TP, M7M) don't have forward armament to do it yourself.
Getting a mod that adds repair lasers (Mobile Ship Repairs?) helps out a lot. I just started using a TM as a Fleet Tender to fix up the wreckage, which still takes quite a while, but at least you don't need to sit there and hold down the "fire" button throughout the entire repair process.
I do have a mod that adds repair lasers (and commands for ships to carry out repairs) and youre exactly right, that greatly alleviates these issues - you can repair BEFORE attempting to board, and having to do such a thing to a ship shot up to the point it is derelict actually makes sense! - an M6 with 8x repair lasers will pretty quickly repair a ship to the point where you can board
Honved wrote:
Second, it's no easier to board an abandoned ship than one that's fully crewed. I can understand where there's still an element of risk, automated defenses, accidents, and so on, but it should be a bit easier than having to fight a hostile crew. I don't know if it's possible to tone down the crew's fighting ability or not. You also get the usual messages, "...a lot of people here....", "...where's OUR marines?", etc., which don't always make sense under the circumstances.
Yes, this is true and a problem, and theres also the problem of Khaak capitals and some other ships not being boardable altogether!
But at least boarding a stationary ship that doesnt fight back is much easier (and far less ridiculous, given how MARS shows trying to board a capital ship that properly targets boarding pods should be a suicide mission (I think MARS is actually designed NOT to actively attack them over missiles, which is certainly what id order my ship to do!)) then trying to board a fully MARS equipped capital ship! It would be nice if the marines didnt face as stiff a challenge though
Overall, i find that combining the traditional boarding with this new capital ship bailing THEN boarding is a great addition to the game! I just wish Khaak capitals were boardable!
I still cant understand how the community can talk about how great micromanagy things like the new boarding are while posting guides that involve dozens of loads per ship or even level and guides on how to steal friendly ships and abuse the game to avoid any repercussion (and call it 'hunting' as if it were some kind of challenge or sport!). If having fun with boarding requires these illegitimate tactics, then how can we praise it as a game mechanism?
Fact of the matter is that even in the Age of Sail with its supremely poor gunnery boarding was something that could not be attempted on ships of the line until they had been significantly disabled.
Frigates and under often featured boardings, but such boardings usually involved a mismatch of power, a significantly disabled ship or crew or piracy against untrained merchant crews.
By the time of WWII gunnery and higher speeds had made trying to board a ship that was not disabled or surrendered ludicrous.
With the kind of tech that X is supposed to have, the concept of boarding the equivalent of ships of the line (anything M7 and up might fit this category) with but a few boarding pods and a handful of marines is just ludicrous - as is the idea that those pods would somehow survive the barrage of fire these ships ought to send their way (boarding in reality involved ships lassoing each other after all!)
Even then the only reason it works in X is because SPECIFIC CONCESSIONS are made to allow boarding pods to make contact, even by MARS.
If the AI/turrets defended as they should wed only be able to board weaker M6's and TS/TPs. The rest of the time the opponents ship would have to be disabled first, then boarded - and thats exactly what i like to think this mod allows!
