Boarding: we go too long with ZERO feedback

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I started fresh again for the Beta, but as this is general feedback I'm posting here. As it's a fresh game, I only have total rookie Marines. A side effect of this it that you can be waiting AGES after Boarding Pods land for anything to happen at all. I've been stuck at the "Stage I - Approach: Complete" and "Stage II - Infiltration: In Progress" for well over 20 minutes at this point. Now, I know all I have to do is wait - *sigh* - but the totally and utter lack of feedback for this stage is painful. Can we have at least some feedback please? Some sort of timer perhaps, or regular voice updates from the Marines regarding their progress?

As this stand, this is lonely gameplay. No feedback at all. I'm just sat there, occasionally taking out the ship's engines. That's it. Surface module are already all destroyed - ship is entirely neutered - and I'd really like to feel a bit more involved in things. Dare I say it, the immersion is lacking! I've got a team of Marines supposedly trying to gain access to a disabled enemy ship and I'm being told nothing.

Does anyone else dislike this part of boarding? I LOVE boarding, but this bit I always find a bit dull without any feedback from my Marine team.

As an aside: In the time I've been waiting for my taciturn Marines to progress, I've had a whole new batch of 20 Marines arrive aboard my ship via crew Transfer. I'd LOVE to send another batch of Marines over, but I cannot. We do need a "reinforcement" mechanic to help speed things along. I could have brought extra ships to board with, but I didn't. So, a sneaky remote crew transfer to this ship it was. I'm anticipating failing this first attempt... once my Marines actually penetrate the hull, so I've got a backup squad ready.

[vvvvvvvv]

Now, I know all I have to do is wait - *sigh* - but the totally and utter lack of feedback for this stage is painful. Can we have at least some feedback please?

I think the first wait time should be shortened. There was no such long wait in Rebirth, and boarding was very lively. It does get lively too in x4, once the initial phase is over.

[TruePikachu]

So, my understanding is that the delay is when the marines are actually drilling through the hull, though as I haven't done too many boarding operations in X4 I could very well be wrong. This is the impression I get from the boarding screen, at least, but I understand that there were changes to how boarding works between when it was introduced in X4 and now, and so I understand that the boarding screen very much could be misleading in the current state of the game. I do think I read that the time needed to go from stage 2 to 3 used to be much shorter, however.

I probably wouldn't consider X:R to be comparable, as the mechanics there are far simpler than in X4; for purposes of this discussion, the marines would break through the hull of the target ship instantly once no more boarding pods were in flight, which basically meant that "stage 2" consisted only of the time the pods were in transit. While I suppose it could be reasoned that the Skunk had a self-breaching boarding pod launcher because boarding operations would have been considered one application of the ship (considering the apparent size of the toilet), but in X4 you can have basically any ship launch marines, including ones which logically should only be used by non-piracy-minded merchants, so clearly self-breaching boarding pod launchers aren't always going to be in play here, if they exist at all anymore.

I do agree that there needs to be better feedback to the player about stage 2 (and possibly stage 3, but that's another topic entirely). Perhaps a progress bar of sorts can be added, indicating how much progress the marines have made towards starting stage 3.


What was it like in X3TC? I'm under the impression there were two kinds of boarding pods back then, one of which was a lot better, but I haven't played X3 yet so I don't know if there was time needed for breaching the hull back then.

[blackphoenixx]

It's because you're using fly-by boarding. You can shorten the time by damaging the hull. You can even do this when the marines have already started cutting.
Even bringing down the hull to 70-80% already reduces it a lot. Burning it down to under 30% takes that down to 1-2 minutes or even less.

You also don't have to stick around after the approach phase, after your boarding pods have safely landed you can just take off and let your marines do their thing OOS.

[vvvvvvvv]

I probably wouldn't consider X:R to be comparable, as the mechanics there are far simpler than in X4;

Are they? X4 boarding partially reuses XR boarding process. And XR boarding was quite more involved.

Lyramekron boarding meant taking out all turrets, whittling down hull to put boarding resistance into acceptable value, then pounding it further so it doesn't regenerate too far. Meanwhile copilot could issue missions to hack the ship, take out surface element etc. Now Yisha trying to "help" was definitely very annoying.

[TruePikachu]

I probably wouldn't consider X:R to be comparable, as the mechanics there are far simpler than in X4;

Are they? X4 boarding partially reuses XR boarding process. And XR boarding was quite more involved.

Lyramekron boarding meant taking out all turrets, whittling down hull to put boarding resistance into acceptable value, then pounding it further so it doesn't regenerate too far. Meanwhile copilot could issue missions to hack the ship, take out surface element etc. Now Yisha trying to "help" was definitely very annoying.

X:R needed the player to do things (including parts of boarding), but overall I feel the X4 version of boarding is mechanically more complicated.

X:R is:

• Destroy jumpdrive, engines, and turrets
• Have marines fly to the target ship
• Once no more boarding pods are in flight, survive 5 rounds of marine combat, which is largely governed by the attack/defense strengths but can be influenced by completing/failing random tasks that Yisha gives you during the operation

X4 is:

• Approach: Reduce target ship's combat effectiveness (presumably turret capabilities), launch pods at a specific target effectiveness (this is less strict than X:R)
• Infiltration: Reduce the target ship's hull strength, pods start breaching at a specific target hull strength (this step is completely omitted in X:R)
• Assault: Continuous rounds of marine combat until one side is dead, based on randomly-selected team matchups of attackers and defenders (this is far more complicated than in X:R)

I might also note that, in X4, during all stages, successful hits of the target ship's hull have a chance of having crew bail from the ship.

A lot of the changes between the two games are likely due to the fact the Skunk is involved in all stages of the operation in X:R, whereas the player doesn't even need to be anywhere nearby in X4 (assuming boarding pods continue to work low-attention/OOS). Most relevant for the topic, the infiltration stage is absent in X:R, probably because it would result in the player needing to wait with the target ship for however long it takes the marines to get through, where they can't really do anything else because there's a potential cost to failing the randomly-assigned tasks. X4, by contrast, doesn't really require the player to remain nearby during the operation, so it's technically fine if it takes longer to complete.

[Scoob]

It's because you're using fly-by boarding. You can shorten the time by damaging the hull. You can even do this when the marines have already started cutting.
Even bringing down the hull to 70-80% already reduces it a lot. Burning it down to under 30% takes that down to 1-2 minutes or even less.

You also don't have to stick around after the approach phase, after your boarding pods have safely landed you can just take off and let your marines do their thing OOS.

Nope. I'd taken a large chunk out of the hull as well as destroyed the Engines, Turrets and L-Class shields. I've done several boarding operations recently, and it's always 20 minutes - or a little over - before Marines advance to Stage III - Assault. Current target - SCA Behemoth E, I'm playing right now - has a hull of under 20% yet I've still be waiting a while for my Marines to progress.

I do generally like to stick around, to ensure the target doesn't stray. They tend to repair engines quickly, then fly right in to the middle of an enemy (to them) sector and get wiped out. So, I keep them disabled.

So, yeah, a delay drilling through the hull is fine, we just need active feedback on this. Like we have once at the Stage III - Assault stage, though the comms sometimes don't make sense with "retreat / argh!! / back to the pods" voice comms when the Marines are totally owning the target.

[TruePikachu]

the comms sometimes don't make sense

"They say it's safe to engage." "Aaargh!"

If it helps, my headcanon is that sometimes you're hearing the enemy's chatter. I do agree this needs rework, though, listening to the comms while watching the attack/defense numbers.

[Raptor34]

Well, how does boarding work under the hood? Someone mentioned rounds of marine combat, so a UI showing them could be useful. Just a simple sprite of our marines vs. their marines. What about the other stages? Are there anything there that could be shown? Cutting hull seems predetermined and not RNG right? OP's suggestion of a timer is simple and would be nice. A timer and a progress bar perhaps.

[Falcrack]

It might be nice to have an estimated time to cut through the hull.

[TruePikachu]

Well, how does boarding work under the hood? Someone mentioned rounds of marine combat, so a UI showing them could be useful.

I'm trying to find the source again, but IIRC it was a developer comment on the forum here. Meanwhile, I don't think we need a UI for this, since we already have the number of crew and their combined strengths in the boarding panel; the information is already available to the player on a single UI.

EDIT: I can't find the original source, but both a guide on Steam and a comment from Alan that attributes a developer say it's based on smaller skirmishes.

I think a dev once described it something like this: for each mini-combat round the RNG chooses variable selections from the available attackers and from the defenders to put against each other for that mini-round which then itself has a selected party skill totals-biased range of outcomes managed by the RNG. This simulates chance encounters of small groups of attackers and defenders in different ship locations with varying attack/defend tactical advantages, etc.

So if the defenders have say just one 4 star marine left and the attackers are all recruits, then the 4 star should repeated win against a motley bunch of recruits until a time when the RNG (rarely) deems that the chosen recruit party finally overpowered the 4 star in that mini-round. Of course, you could in theory win the lottery and kill the 4 star in the first mini-round and before suffering huge recruit losses to them - but don't expect it every time.

Additionally, that guide on Steam has this table showing how long a marine takes to get through the hull, worst case scenario (in seconds):
https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... A690A746A/
Note this maxes out at 23m20s for a marine with no skills against a 100% hull.

[vvvvvvvv]

X4 is:

• Approach: Reduce target ship's combat effectiveness (presumably turret capabilities), launch pods at a specific target effectiveness (this is less strict than X:R)
• Infiltration: Reduce the target ship's hull strength, pods start breaching at a specific target hull strength (this step is completely omitted in X:R)
• Assault: Continuous rounds of marine combat until one side is dead, based on randomly-selected team matchups of attackers and defenders (this is far more complicated than in X:R)

I might also note that, in X4, during all stages, successful hits of the target ship's hull have a chance of having crew bail from the ship.

Err, NO.

In x4 first two steps you listed are COMPLETELY optional. You can just fire pods and attack hull at max strength. Even with turrets still intact. And then you wait.

[LameFox]

IMO once the ship has been rendered unable to fight back, the rest of the time taken to board or bail is mostly needless tedium. Its chances of turning things around at that point are so low they round down to zero.

[Nadja]

Another option is:
- get 20 low budget medium class ships with 20-25 crew members each
- buy the better military crew
- give each ship the order to board one target
- spend ~30 minutes doing whatever you want
- you now have 15-20 new ships

For ships with a larger crew, you will need to send out 2+ ships at the same time.
If you really want to, boarding can be as easy (or boring) as trading.

I think the boarding time is absolutely fair because you don't have to wait!
Still, it would be cool if active boarding were significantly faster.

And SCA is ideal for boarding ships at the beginning of the game.
Until the first Cobra, you can steal, repair, and sell (cloacked) Minotaur Raiders, which easily fetch 1-3 million each.
But there are also other ships that fetch significantly more money.

X4 is a really good game!
The longer you play it, the more you learn and the faster you reach your own goals.

If you exploit every option and mechanic to the limit, you'll become a billionaire in less than an hour of play.
But in a sandbox singleplayer game, the only rules are in your head. And you alone decide whether the game should be challenging or boring.

I have been enjoying the game immensely for many hours now and am sure to enjoy hundreds more, because I don't use certain mechanics that would definitely ruin the game for me (e.g. the advanced satellites abuse).

[GCU Grey Area]

IMO once the ship has been rendered unable to fight back, the rest of the time taken to board or bail is mostly needless tedium. Its chances of turning things around at that point are so low they round down to zero.

Events inside the target ship may well be a foregone conclusion, however the time it takes can still have a significant impact on what's happening elsewhere. I usually board ships belonging to -30 rep hostile factions in their own sectors. The longer a boarding operation takes the more time it gives opposing forces to interfere with my plans. During one particularly memorable operation in Argon Prime a rather lengthy boarding op (due to early game low level marines) gave the Argon shipyard sufficient time to finish an additional Behemoth to send my way. That rather complicated matters. It's only 'needless tedium' if you're passively waiting for a boarding operation to conclude, if you have to deal with an entire sector's worth of enemy ships at the same time it's another matter entirely.

[LameFox]

IMO once the ship has been rendered unable to fight back, the rest of the time taken to board or bail is mostly needless tedium. Its chances of turning things around at that point are so low they round down to zero.

Events inside the target ship may well be a foregone conclusion, however the time it takes can still have a significant impact on what's happening elsewhere. I usually board ships belonging to -30 rep hostile factions in their own sectors. The longer a boarding operation takes the more time it gives opposing forces to interfere with my plans. During one particularly memorable operation in Argon Prime a rather lengthy boarding op (due to early game low level marines) gave the Argon shipyard sufficient time to finish an additional Behemoth to send my way. That rather complicated matters. It's only 'needless tedium' if you're passively waiting for a boarding operation to conclude, if you have to deal with an entire sector's worth of enemy ships at the same time it's another matter entirely.

Eh. I've boarded Terran Asgards and destroyers in Argon Prime while both factions hated me and each other. I just kill the engines, kill the random ships, and only then lower the shields and worry about boarding. Leave the shield gens intact so it goes back up after you deal your hull damage. Easy to deal with anything else that wanders in at that point.

[Raptor34]

Well, how does boarding work under the hood? Someone mentioned rounds of marine combat, so a UI showing them could be useful.

I'm trying to find the source again, but IIRC it was a developer comment on the forum here. Meanwhile, I don't think we need a UI for this, since we already have the number of crew and their combined strengths in the boarding panel; the information is already available to the player on a single UI.

But isn't that a whole screen? I'm imagining something small you can pin to your cockpit while you do something else.

[Scoob]

It might be nice to have an estimated time to cut through the hull.

I think it's an essential feature. It doesn't have to be down to the second, but a rough estimate "It'll take us just under 5 minutes to get through this" or something like that. I know many over the years have assumed something is broken due to apparent lack of progress. Of course, there was a bug - fixed now I think - that broke the time it takes to get through the hull. Imagine how quickly we'd have spotted that error if the game had told us "Yeah, it'll take over an hour boss". For me, during a several boarding attempts this game start, it's always about 20 minutes give or take before my Marines actually get through the hull. I timed 20 minutes for a hull at 81% and actually slightly longer than 20 minutes for a hull at 16% (it dropped to 14% when another ship started shooting it). That's with the same number of total rookie Marines.

Boarding often feels disassociated with the main game. I mean, where are all these decks my Marines are progressing through? The ship has like three rooms... One can assume Marines are travelling between the bulkheads I suppose. I wonder if there will ever be first-person elements to boarding, even if just a "Marine Cam" type view. The game engine could likely support it, but ships would need a lot more space to roam around in. Corridors, junctions, security stations, automated defences. I imagine a "Fallout 4" type thing where we're progressing through a building, shooting or hacking turrets (if we have a specialist who can do that), disabling traps, blowing through doors etc. Currently it's just a numbers game of course, but to have some visual representation of what's going on would be cool. I like boarding, it provides my early-game fleets, but it remains a very hands-on activity that really cannot be left to the AI at all, unless you want to lose more asset value than you potentially gain.

[GCU Grey Area]

Eh. I've boarded Terran Asgards and destroyers in Argon Prime while both factions hated me and each other. I just kill the engines, kill the random ships, and only then lower the shields and worry about boarding. Leave the shield gens intact so it goes back up after you deal your hull damage. Easy to deal with anything else that wanders in at that point.

Sounds like you clear the sector of everything except the target first, then board it. Doesn't that just make the whole process (from entering the sector to leaving with your new ship) take a lot longer than it needs to? I use much more of a hit & run approach - torpedo the target's engines, smash it's turrets, damage the hull & drop off the marines. Then I defend it & myself from any enemy forces that might try to interfere. That keeps me really quite busy (single frigate v an entire sector of enemies) while the boarding op takes place in the background. Barely even notice how long that's taking - too busy trying not to die. Also makes extracting the target more fun if there are still hostiles on the field to chase it towards the gate.

[LameFox]

Sounds like you clear the sector of everything except the target first, then board it. Doesn't that just make the whole process (from entering the sector to leaving with your new ship) take a lot longer than it needs to? I use much more of a hit & run approach - torpedo the target's engines, smash it's turrets, damage the hull & drop off the marines. Then I defend it & myself from any enemy forces that might try to interfere. That keeps me really quite busy (single frigate v an entire sector of enemies) while the boarding op takes place in the background. Barely even notice how long that's taking - too busy trying not to die. Also makes extracting the target more fun if there are still hostiles on the field to chase it towards the gate.

It isn't super long really. I'd do it in a destroyer (itself probably borrowed from SCA or FAF) so the turrets take care of fighters and if anything bigger comes along I'll clean it up with the main guns. But if anything was going to take up most of the time I guess I'd rather it was combat.