3.0 - Boarding now broken?

[Scoob]

It's still a bit of a pain though CBJ. Assume the "average" Marine Officer is 3/3/3 and make that level give neither bonus nor penalty maybe?

Additionally, as we're talking skill levels, training is a little frustrating. I've started doing the extended small talk missions with appropriate NPC's in order to obtain Virtual Seminars to boost various crew - MO included as she only levels ONE of her stats after a boarding mission, and that one has been maxed for ages.

Problem is, every time I've "won" the smalltalk, I either only get offered a VS I don't want (though I'm hoarding them of course) or I simply don't get the "gift" option, despite having successfully done so with the same type of NPC previously.

I do like the new boarding mechanic but, as I've said elsewhere, we do need to lose Yisha's instructions bar engines and JD - unless our Marines are strongly over-matched. I.e. I neuter a ship before I start the boarding op so resistance is low enough for an easy win. However, as I've left say the Cap Ship Shield Generators online Yisha picks these as a "must destroy" target even though there's no need. The frustration is we get a mini fail state (huge lossess) if we ignore Yisha, even though these elements add very little to the resistance.

I'm fine destroying everything if that's what it takes, but now I have a fair few vets in my Marine Squad I don't need to. Recruits are fodder anyway so I don't really care about their losses lol.

I think some further tweaks would make boarding a lot more fun, while maintaining the challenge and putting the onus of what to destroy on the player rather than Yisha's forced and often pointless choices.

To be honest, I just destroy everything now so Yisha will stay silent

Scoob.

[CBJ]

It's still a bit of a pain though CBJ. Assume the "average" Marine Officer is 3/3/3 and make that level give neither bonus nor penalty maybe?

I think you've missed the point slightly. There is no "penalty". The base level is set and every level of Marine Officer above 1 improves that. The fact that it is calculated as a subtraction from a maximum rather than an addition to a minimum is neither here nor there.

By all means discuss whether you think boarding is too easy or too hard, and what should affect it; I was simply pointing out that a logical or mathematical error in the formula was not a factor in this, as these things tend to have a nasty habit of being recirculated as "fact" when that simply isn't the case here.

[Scoob]

Thanks CBJ, that makes sense - I was sure I read some math somewhere showing a "poor" Marine Officer effectively reducing the base effectiveness of each Marine.

Either way, that issue is fairly minor (in my view) compared to the bossy Yisha thing

Scoob.

[Maliken]

Some people find boarding to hard, some to easy. Maybe make it so that it is affected by what game mode you choose (easy, medium, hard) ?

[VincentTH]

It's still a bit of a pain though CBJ. Assume the "average" Marine Officer is 3/3/3 and make that level give neither bonus nor penalty maybe?

I think you've missed the point slightly. There is no "penalty". The base level is set and every level of Marine Officer above 1 improves that. The fact that it is calculated as a subtraction from a maximum rather than an addition to a minimum is neither here nor there.

By all means discuss whether you think boarding is too easy or too hard, and what should affect it; I was simply pointing out that a logical or mathematical error in the formula was not a factor in this, as these things tend to have a nasty habit of being recirculated as "fact" when that simply isn't the case here.

I beg to differ. The following data are from attempts on at least 3 different Titurels and 1 Feldhem on a vanilla 3.0+TO started plot-game:

Titurel original BR: 120, have 20 cargo drones and 10 Const drones.
Feldhem original BR: 160: 20mk1+20mk2 Surface miner drones + 50 Cargo drones.

After shooting engines, all guns, and the Mk2 Shield Generator, BR = 100

In the mean time, Const Drones are shot down by zone defense fighter. Hull is down to around 50-60%. BR=80

Shoot down Drone hangar: BR=10.

The Drone hangar (and the drones in it) is worth half the BR value of the ship thanks to the Cargo Drones (and Surface Miner drones in the Feldhem case).

Someone posted, and I have verified it, that an empty Drone Hangar itself is only worth 2 BR points.

I believe this is an error in the BR calculation. 20 Cargo Drones (or 50 Cargo drones and 40 surface miner drones for the Feldhem) should not be worth 50-70 BR points (emphasis on Boarding Resistance value)!!!! Compare this to a guesstimated BR value of a boarding party composed of a 5-star marine officer + 50 Novice marines, of around 30-50 BR points.



If the BR value of drones are adjusted, I believe the current boarding scheme would be acceptable to most players.

[Heavily edited for clarification]

[CBJ]

*sigh* Please stop trying to read something into what I said other than what I actually wrote. The discussion I responded to was about the Marine Officer level specifically, and the calculation there is correct. I'm not aware of there being any calculation errors anywhere else either, but that's not what I was responding to.

More generally, your disagreeing with the factors used in the calculation is not the same as there being a bug in them. Feel free to provide feedback, but we will be looking for a little more than a couple of days' worth of people playing with the new boarding model before we start looking at whether the balance needs adjusting, as opposed to fixing actual bugs.

[VincentTH]

*sigh* Please stop trying to read something into what I said other than what I actually wrote. The discussion I responded to was about the Marine Officer level specifically, and the calculation there is correct. I'm not aware of there being any calculation errors anywhere else either, but that's not what I was responding to.

More generally, your disagreeing with the factors used in the calculation is not the same as there being a bug in them. Feel free to provide feedback, but we will be looking for a little more than a couple of days' worth of people playing with the new boarding model before we start looking at whether the balance needs adjusting, as opposed to fixing actual bugs.

Sorry, I hit quote, but I really wanted to only discuss the last part of your message, namely:

By all means discuss whether you think boarding is too easy or too hard, and what should affect it;

I submit that the current boarding scheme is too hard because the value of drones (combat or non combat) inflated the BR value of the target ship. A novice user, not knowing the fact that shooting the drone bay would halve the BR value, would find it impossible to board any ship (r.f.

this thread titled "The best defended Feldhem or what"

[wonkers]

I like the boarding rating for ships now but I am confused how a drone bay, effects the internal battle between marines on board a ship. Destroying turrets I can understand because perhaps they are manned positions and destroying damages the defending crew. How a drone dispensing subsystem could effect the BR so much is amusing. I picture the break room or the restroom "subsystem" being destroyed and the crew flinging their arms in the air shouting "ALL IS LOST!"

[Olterin]

Nonono, clearly, the drone dispenser is also in control of internal defense drones along with other mundane drones - yes, yess, that must be it! That explains how a crew of 3 can fly a whole carrier! ...


On a more serious note - I like the new mechanic overall, but I do think that a single subsystem contributing as much as 1/5 or in some cases 4/5 of a ship's boarding defenses is a bit unreasonable (now, if the drone bay counted for more than any other surface element, but the drones didn't contribute at all that'd make at least some semblance of sense). Also, Yisha bossing around is rather annoying - even if you destroy all surface elements she'll order you on a hacking task every now and again. What's there left to hack, pray tell, dear copilot? The shot wiring? The dead nav computer? The flaming turret controls? Or is it perhaps the sparkling shield emitters?

[Scoob]

I think the difficultly level for boarding is ok for me, I'm fine having to destroy a ships weaponry before my Marines even have a chance - I often wiped out much of a capture targets weapons before the recent changes. So, that still has a similar level of challenge & is still fun for me.

What I don't like, as I've said before, is being FORCED to destroy certain elements I might not want to. I.e. I wish to preserve the Drone Bay to speed up repairs once the ship is mine. Or maybe I choose to leave the Capital Shield Generators because either they take too long to take out, or I want to leave the ship with some defence, even if it's passive.

As the player (the most important person in the X Universe!) I like to choose which items to take out to get the Resistance Level as low as I feel is appropriate. I might get it wrong, that's 100% fine. However, I don't want to be forced to take out extra needless elements that either i) I might want to preserve, or ii) are of no value as Resistance is already "low enough".

An example of my experience lately...

I wanted to capture a Titurel that was raiding an OL Zone before it got in range of the nearest Stations guns. Without any guidance I knew to take out the Engines first, so it got no closer to the station & was an easier target, then the Jump Drive so it could not flee. These are fairly obvious tactics.

Next I stripped the ship of weapons, so it'd be 100% safe for my Marines to travel to the Target - again a very sensible tactic. This did not lower the Resistance quite enough, so I remove the small Shield Generators. Resistance is still a little high, so I take a few chunks out of the hull.

So, we have a ship that is immobile, weapon-less and with a damaged hull - one assumes this "distracts" the crew due to air leaks or somesuch. The resistance level is now dead low, in theory an easy capture with minimal expected losses - most of those coming from the "cannon fodder" pool of Recruits

I finally initiate boarding proper. The pods carrying the Marines connect without issue, exactly as planned, and the math game begins.

I'm asked by Yisha to destroyed a Capital Shield Generator - if I don't 25-30% of my Marines die, if I do I "win" the stage, but resistance is not lowered in any significant way. I'm next asked to take out the Drone Bay, same success/fail state here with excessive (in my view) losses for not taking out a component that adds very little to the Resistance level. Note: this ship had NO DRONES - I'm aware drones count for a lot, even "civilian" ones, such as Cargolifters and Construction URV's etc apparently. Is this latter bit right?

So, I've taken out all the things I was told to and the ship is mine - which it technically would still have been if I'd NOT been forced to take out those additional element by Yisha. I.e. I've had successful captures where I've left a few other Surface elements and Yisha chose those instead. Basically, resistance level was perfectly low enough after my personal choices of elements to take out.

So, now I have a freshly captured ship, very nice. However, it will repair VERY slowly as it cannot use drones - I can only transfer the Construction URV's it needs for a speedy repair once the Drone Bay is fixed. Guess what's fixed last in the repair order? Yup, the Drone Bay lol.

Additionally, this ship hasn't even got a shield - it can't charge as the Capital Shield Generators were taken out. So it's a sitting duck - which is sorta fun in its self if I'm honest.

Anyway, if I'd been able to simply take out the surface element I wanted, boarding would still have been successful, maybe with the odd additional Recruit loss, but I'd have a ship capable of taking Construction URV's right away for faster repairs - thanks to me THINKing and preserving the Drone Bay. Additionally, due to me leaving at least one of the Capital Shield Generators intact, the ship would have basic protection against light fire while the hull repairs proceed.

This is my experience so far in boarding, I love it bar being forced to destroy certain surface elements I may choose (if allowed) to preserve as part of my capture strategy.

I will add that if you're just using 50 recruits then needing to take out EVERYTHING as well as trash the hull in order for boarding to succeed is perfectly fine with me. However, after a few successes and some Veteran and maybe even the odd Elite Marine, being able to choose to preserve certain elements to make post-capture operations (repair and re-equip) easier / quicker would add a lot to the game for me.

Bottom line I'm in command of boarding operations, not Yisha. Failure or success is 100% down to me. Currently, all of my post-capture inconveniences have been down to Yisha forcing me to destroy something I'd really rather not, or face a VERY harsh penalty.

Hope this explains my reasoning clearly CBJ? I love capture, love that it's potentially very hard - or even impossible without the BEST possible Marines and Officer - but I would like to be in control and not have Yisha mess with my tactical planning of the operation. That's really my only whinge about it really

Cheers,

Scoob.

[Kaldo]

I think the difficultly level for boarding is ok for me, I'm fine having to destroy a ships weaponry before my Marines even have a chance - I often wiped out much of a capture targets weapons before the recent changes. So, that still has a similar level of challenge & is still fun for me.

What I don't like, as I've said before, is being FORCED to destroy certain elements I might not want to. I.e. I wish to preserve the Drone Bay to speed up repairs once the ship is mine. Or maybe I choose to leave the Capital Shield Generators because either they take too long to take out, or I want to leave the ship with some defence, even if it's passive.

As the player (the most important person in the X Universe!) I like to choose which items to take out to get the Resistance Level as low as I feel is appropriate. I might get it wrong, that's 100% fine. However, I don't want to be forced to take out extra needless elements that either i) I might want to preserve, or ii) are of no value as Resistance is already "low enough".

If I could speak as well as you, I'd be famous right now! I liked our chat so much tha.... ughgh.

I totally agree. For me, getting the objective to destroy a Capital Field Generator in most cases mean I'm going to fail it because I don't have enough damage. I tried bringing my Taranis once to help and he proceeded to completely miss most of his shots and destroy the hull instead (if I left him there any longer he'd completely destroy the ship along with my 51 marine).

The drone bay I can understand having to destroy simply for balancing purposes - drones are a big part of a ship's value so it's reasonable to assume that we have to spend at least some money on repairing this boarded ship - hull repairs by itself, all subsystems repair too ... drones are the only thing for which we have to pay few mil credits.

HOWEVER, I don't want to have to wait for hours for that ship to actually repair the drone bay afterwards! I mean, I couldn't transfer any construction drones to a boarded Titurel for hours after it happened, and since it took me 10 minutes to figure out why I can't transfer drones to him, since we don't have any alert that the drone bay is destroyed and the option is just grayed out, it's even more frustrating! So I totally understand how you feel in this issue

It's just another case of us depending on idiotic manager/crewmember AI - an engineer incorrectly prioritizing subsystem repairs. I willing to deal with 1 % hull, with 0 shields, with 50 marines or with all subsystems destroyed. But I hate it when we're limited by an unnecessary AI that is imposing artificial barriers that don't even make the game harder, just more lengthy.

[VincentTH]

If I could speak as well as you, I'd be famous right now! I liked our chat so much tha.... ughgh.

I totally agree. For me, getting the objective to destroy a Capital Field Generator in most cases mean I'm going to fail it because I don't have enough damage. .

The Mk2 Shield Generator can be dealt with, with 2x Traitor drones. Also, I don't know if it is a feature or bug, that Traitor drones now replenish themselves, after docking the drone back at the Skunk. Have not tried to board any ship with mk3 Shield Generator, so I don't know.

[Scoob]

With the right equipment we CAN deal with any target Yisha gives us. As VincentTH says, Traitor Drones are pretty potent.

Personally, with just the Plasma Cannon Mk1 and Particle Repeater Mk1 - both readily obtainable once the player has the cash - I can take down a Titurels Capital Shield Generator fairly quickly. I literally overheat the Particle Repeater Mk1 on target, switch to the Plasma Cannon Mk1 for SEVEN shots, then back to the Particle Repeater Mk1 which will be fully cooled by that time. It's not quick, but the window of time given is enough for this approach to work - they did increase the time limit on this in response to player feedback IIRC.

However, that aside, my point is of course about the importance of player choice during boarding actions. Doing what Yisha asks is easy, given the right equipment, but what she tells you to do isn't necessarily the smart thing. Well, it wouldn't be if it wasn't for the artificial penalty applied for ignoring her.

A player early-game taking on their first Rahanas Freighter being required to take out EVERYTHING beforehand in order for their Recruit Marines, and not so hot Marine Officer, to be successful is GOOD in my view. After all, early-game that Rahanas is a HUGE asset, so the work involved really pays off.

Later game, players like me who have a high level Marine Officer and a good selection of Elite and Veteran Marines with the "filler" Recruits should have a little more flexibility in their approach. They can afford resistance levels to be a little higher and, in theory, should be able to pick and choose some surface elements to NOT destroy.

So, boarding is perfectly possible now, given the right equipment, a well-trained / experienced Marine Officer and some competent Marines - it's just the approach to boarding feels a little inflexible due to Yisha's commands.

Btw: does anyone know the math regarding the Resistance given by the various Drones? Do you think "Civilian" drones such as Cargolifter and Construction URV's should really be counted? What if ships actually regularly carried "hacking" class Drones to boost resistance levels, would that make sense lore-wise? I'm not sure of the logic of free-flying drones being able to contribute to internal defences though.

Do you think there are other actions the player should be able to choose to take that affect boarding? Special weapons for example to lower resistance temporarily? EMP type missiles spring to mind - a consumable ware, so boarding has an additional cost, would be pretty cool. I.e. to realistically lower the resistance on the larger Military vessels the player needs an "EMP Torpedo Mk6" costing several million credits...it's illegal needless to say. Just brain storming here how boarding could evolve. It might even be fun to allow the player to perform a "special" hack to lower resistance, but it consumes the drone.

Basically, give the player options on how they choose to board and the tactics they use. If they fail they fail, but maybe with more experienced Marines they'd be successful. Fun rather than frustration

Scoob.

[longshooterman]

i tried boarding again. stripped a marauder titurel of all components. all the turrets, shield generators, and the cap field generator. the hull was still at 80%. I STILL FAILED! what did i do wrong now?

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Capital shields are not so hard to take out.

- Limpets for softening up hull shield generator's shield.
- New command for telling any ship to focus on the hull shield generator's shield.
- TO laser that penetrates shields.

If the formula was re-balanced to place a reduced emphasis on docked drones and Yisha could avoid calling the drone bay a target (or if was moved up the repair priority list), I think it would cover most issues without just making it easy again or 1-dimensional.

I like that she calls targets because it fits with her being in the military and being able to offer advice and what's best on the battlefield is never going to be what is perfect after a battle. It provides some variation too.

Ideally, rather than limit her targets to be ways to being only avoid deaths, I think it would it interesting if her targets were also always to reduce BR values by more than the bonus gained by the targets destruction. That way we may be able to complete tougher boarding Ops without having to strip all elements, which prevents Yisha giving guidance at the moment.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

i tried boarding again. stripped a marauder titurel of all components. all the turrets, shield generators, and the cap field generator. the hull was still at 80%. I STILL FAILED! what did i do wrong now?

Most likely some combination of the following possibilities:

1. Low-skilled Marine Officer.
2. Less than 50 Marines.
3. The hull wasn't reduced enough (dropping the hull % lowers BR).

[MAUCorp]

Really appreciating the difficulty spike on boarding. Refreshing. I don't think its a frustratingly unfair difficulty: which would be problematic.

I do side with those questioning our need to do exactly as Yisha says (or lose marines). Its essentially a (S)QTE (Slow) Quick Time Event) and I'm not a fan of such things, finding QTE's to be the opposite of play and learn "fun" and more a reprimanded chore.

I would prefer some kind of abort mission option when finding resistance onboard the target to be too strong. Feedback that leads to player decision: push on or retreat. And acceptance of losses thru player agency. Could we get a kind of counter on marines dead/alive? Maybe an 'Aliens' styled vitals/flatline function that we can keep tabs on while operations away? Even Yisha telling me each time theres a man down (adding without subtracting from her copilot value).

Thoughts?

[Blower68]

i tried boarding again. stripped a marauder titurel of all components. all the turrets, shield generators, and the cap field generator. the hull was still at 80%. I STILL FAILED! what did i do wrong now?

I did my first boarding also with the Titurel Marauder. I had luckily found a 5/3/5 star Marine Officer with the smalltalk minigame and had 45 recruits. I took off every surface element and lowered hull to around 15% - afterwards the BR was at something like 19.

With this Yisha didn't want any additional tasks (everything was already took out) and the ship was an easy win - including the promotion of some of my recruits.

In the meantime I have 9 Titurels and 1 Balor captured with my staff. All without any losses.

[JoeTheDestroyer]

Btw: does anyone know the math regarding the Resistance given by the various Drones? Do you think "Civilian" drones such as Cargolifter and Construction URV's should really be counted? What if ships actually regularly carried "hacking" class Drones to boost resistance levels, would that make sense lore-wise? I'm not sure of the logic of free-flying drones being able to contribute to internal defences though.

From my test yesterday, it appears each drone (non-combat drones are all I tested) counts for 1 point in the BR.

I picked a random freighter yesterday and destroyed the drone bay after checking BR and drone counts. There were 66 drones onboard (combination of cargo and construction). After destroying the bay, the BR dropped 68 points. This led me to conclude that, after the 2 points for the surface element (drone bay), each drone contributed 1 point.

i tried boarding again. stripped a marauder titurel of all components. all the turrets, shield generators, and the cap field generator. the hull was still at 80%. I STILL FAILED! what did i do wrong now?

As Sparky says, you need a high quality officer and a full complement of marines. After stripping everything you need to keep hitting the hull until BR drops to what your crew can handle.

For example, with a 5 star officer and 50 recruits:
0<=BR<=15.25 guaranteed a win with no losses
15.25<BR<=35.25 likely to suffer losses and those losses could cause failure (you could probably save-scum yourself to victory here)
35.25<BR<=90 Massive losses, success unlikely but not completely impossible (if the RNG loves you)
90<=BR Success impossible

For lower star officers, subtract 5 for each level lower.

(Note, that last number 90 is from a very rough calculation, so take it with a shaker of salt.)

[Bernd]

Reading this I was thinking that maybe one easy thing we could do to make boarding easier to understand would be to always make a "destroy drone launcher" the first mission that Yisha gives you if there are still more than X numbers of drones inside. That way the player would better understand that this surface element is contributing more strength to the defense of the ship than the randomly selected targets.

Would this help those of you who consider boarding too hard?

-Bernd