Aran capping Questions/bragging over Aran caps

[Nanook]

Basically. It's the only ship in the (vanilla) game that can dock capital ships.

Or TS's or TP's or TM's, for that matter. Well, the only one the player can obtain, since the Goner Ozias isn't capturable.

[Snafu_X3]

talking about aran... what's that thing actually good for? kind of mobile base i guess??

It's the only ship that can dock any other class of ship, including itself

Its cargobay is huuuge, albeit only up to XL cargo

Personally I think it's a little disappointing that it can't defend itself (no compatible guns or missiles), even for missile defence, but fighter drones & 12GJ shields should go some way to alleviating that problem while it jumps away

[Ripskar]

In effect it's like a massive toolbox, sort of an M1 size TM.
Before you had to have a TL to do station builds, a TP to do taxi runs, a TM for Return Ship missions with a docked fighter for shooting missions and an M8 for assassinations.
Coordinating that is a pain, so dock 'em all at your Aran and be set for whatever the RNG throws at you!

[Ripskar]

Well so much for the handful of crappy marines plan...
And so the frustration begins.

I found an Aran in a sector with a Kha'ak station and to begin with a handful of Kha'ak fighters...

Just off standard gravidar, I pull alongside the nearest Kha'ak is 30 km away.
Repair-laser>Music>Launch Marines (20, 15 have good engineering, there's a fair few 4 star fighters, though 5 are cannon fodder). Hull breach in record time, first deck captured and I'm starting to feel like this will be a doddle. Then they all jump out of the airlock...
Reload, > same result
Reload and hold the cannon-fodder back > same result...
After a couple of attempts I decide to Repar-Laser the Aran for an extended period, after about 10 minutes I see red shapes at the side of the screen.
Corvettes coming in.
I blast 2 of them but they're all over me by this point and then the Flaks start firing on a new target, I spin round just in time to the Aran go bang!
Maybe this is one with just too little hull...
Maybe I'll try again tomorrow...

[StarSword]

I blast 2 of them but they're all over me by this point and then the Flaks start firing on a new target, I spin round just in time to the Aran go bang!

Maybe you should switch your flak turrets to "Attack Fighters".

Just sayin'.

[Lelouch]

(not quite on topic)

Before you had to have a TL to do station builds, a TP to do taxi runs, a TM for Return Ship missions with a docked fighter for shooting missions and an M8 for assassinations.

...or use a Hyperion equipped with Wraith missiles for everything except station building and luxury transports. (Taxi missions which don't state luxury or tp required can be done in any ship with cargo life support.)


(adding some on topic stuff)

there was some confusion about the marine skills:

fighting - how good they are in surviving the mission
hacking - how good at hacking the ship computer
mechanical - how good at hull cutting
engineering - how good at not damaging the ship during boarding

Engineering: It's a good idea to train all marines to 100. This way it is possible to cap ships with 100% hull integrity and to reduce the probability of a mission failure while capping the aran. If the ships hull drops below 5%, then the marines try to leave the ship.

It's usually a good idea to have a couple of marines trained up to 4 stars in mechanical and in hacking. For hacking 2 should be enough to successfully hack the ship computer. However even with fully trained marines there's a chance of a hacking failure.

I'm not totally sure but I think you need 2 marines trained up in mechanical on each boarding pod. After entering the ship they join forces, but IIRC every BP needs to crack the hull itself.
(Reason: @Patch 2.1 and below I was able to reliably steal ATF capships with just 5 marines and a BP, but when piggybacking another 15 "not so well trained" marines in order to build up their fighting skills I got a lot of "we can't penetrate the hull". BP's were launched remotely via MissileBarrage, maybe it works differently when using the Launch Marines command - but this command doesn't work in 2.1 and below.)


Just for curiosity value: It is not possible to board the Aran at patch 2.0 or below. The reason is, that the boarding script was replaced in 2.1. Before there was no option to "board nearest ship" and you always got dropped to the sector map to pick a target. "Blind firing" boarding pods into space didn't work either. Same as simply dropping marines out of the cargo hold.

Maybe it would be possible if there was a Xenon CapShip flying around. Launch BPs at Xenon, destroy Xenon while BPs are 'in the air' and hope the BP acquire the "hostile" Aran as their new target. However I didn't have the patience to try this out.

[[SOLAR]INFERNO]

Not sure about whether it will spawn in a sector with Xenon/Kha'ak stations.

Nah, there can be Xenon stations in the sector. I got an Aran with a Xenon station in the sector. Barely escaped with the Aran because of a Xenon P that decided to bother me.

[Ripskar]

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Thar she blows...
I'm still undecided as whether or not to continue trying to cap this one or go back to the previous save and wait for better marines to finish training.

[Triaxx2]

Such is why I went modded. Now I haven't got to worry about it.

But for now, what you do is jump out, repair laser PODS AWAY, and keep repairing until you have control. Your Repair laser should be enough to keep it going even for, as N-S would put it, complete Numpties to take control of it.

[Ripskar]

Well the decision has been made, the 'numpties' are back in school and I'm back to waiting for their replacements to graduate. 3 to go...

[nponoBegHuk]

Saw one after around 30 jumps (that's just over 200 including "several" attempts I did yesterday hehehe). Luckily the ship was just 60 km away on top of very bright background

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I captured it using 5 maxed marines. Yes, it's still doable, just very difficult, definitely don't recommend it unless you have 1hour+ time to waste on failed boarding attempts. The toughest part was getting them to survive deck 1 as it's impossible for them to land on the hull at the same time - no boarding pods on Hyperion Vanguard . After 20 or 30 reloads, the 5 marines that were split in teams of 2 and 3 during deck 1 miraclously all survived until deck 2 and I managed to cap the ship within 10-15 reloads (saved on each deck)

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[David Howland]

CONGRATULATIONS nponoBegHuk, on taking your new prize and the nice pic.s.
I am at the moment hunting the Aran with an Aran, so whereas you have used minimum resources, (five marines), I have forty-five at my disposal, I only hope to carry off my boarding with half the style you have accomplished!

[Ripskar]

I've got this one cold, bumped off a couple of Xenon fighters on the way and the Aran is sitting right in front of me, There's a Xenon Cap ship way off on the other side of the sector but doesn't seem to have noticed me and is heading in the opposite direction.
I remember to save (this time... ) and hop out with the repair laser.
Remembering the debacle last time I decide to give it a good 5 minutes after the threat music starts.
Then my Cobra decided to launch Flails.
Reload
Uninstall the flails, load boarding pods, RL > Music, Cobra launches Flails...
WTF?

[A5PECT]

Make sure the Cobra isn't running any commands and that the missile turrets are set to "None."

If that doesn't work, eject the missiles. AI ships don't care which (if any) missile you have installed. They'll fire anything in their cargo bay.

[Ripskar]

Right, try again...
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[Ripskar]

GOTCHA!!!
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*Slumps over keyboard, exhausted...

Cheers to all who helped!

[David Howland]

Nice One Ripskar, on the principle you only get out what you put in, I guess you will remember this cap. for a long, long time!

[Ripskar]

And set as desktop just for the hell of it!
I lost count of the number of UFJD sectors, there were 8 equipment burnouts.
She's got 7% hull and I'm towing her to the shipyard this morning, - even I'm not mad enough for 9.5 hours of Repair Laser...

[Dycor]

Just capped Aran #21 ( Now called Aran21) and might be the last one for me. 714 jumps for an average of 34 jumps per ship if I'm right. Anybody got more ships or/in less jumps.?

[kotorone1]

Well, ive got a rather sad story. I found my first aran on my 50th jump, and after a long flight to it, i save. Then i send in my 4-5 star marines... and they get spaced. I literally just wasted an hour of my life...