[TC] Boarding mini-guide

[BigVern]

Well my marines are all toughening up nicely now, most at 4 star mech and the rest at 3 star so almost time to give it another go. ISTR reading that with a hired TL you have to relinquish control to the Captain as otherwise things can get a bit buggy afterwards?

So I assume the order of business is:
1. Get the TL shields down.
2. Comm and apologise.
3. Launch marines.
4. Dismiss TL Captain.
5. Keep pecking at shields until the GROPOS are in.

I would imagine the sequencing needs to be fairly tight as if you dismiss the TL too early it will fly off before the marines can attach themselves?

On a sidenote I did my first successful marine cap yesterday evening on the Goner Truelight Seeker mission, albeit it cost me nine rookies (wasn't wasting my expensive "Special Forces" as I know from the FAQ's you don't get them back). So at least I've proved I can do it.

[BigVern]

Further to the above, I'm now having serious problems initiating the boarding. (Vanilla, not using the HotKey mod).

Get the TL shields down, fine.

Comm, apologise and dismiss.

I then go through the piracy menu commands:
Command Console
Option 5
Select Ship
Launch Marines

Instead of launching the marines, autopilot engages and my ship moves approx 3km astern of the target vessel. No marine launch, no manouvring abeam of the target, just sits there not moving.

Have tried this several times now, varied the technique a bit, i.e. leaving the target red but the same results. My M6 is a Heavy Nemesis, I've now jumped in the Vidar and going to try it with that but ran out of time this evening. Is it me then, or is there a bug with boarding.

Guess worst case scenario is I'll have to use the boarding hot key script but I would prefer not to.

[shanrak]

I've found that you can apologize and dismiss after the marines have attached and before they've broken through. The TL doesn't move at all in that case

As for the optimal location to launch, fly slightly ahead and above the tip of the TL worked for me. I use a macro on my keyboard to do the boarding action

[Col. Blackwolf]

Hey BigVern. That's the piracy option. It autopilots you and fails pretty badly. Instead, go to "Additional Commands" in the command menu for your ship. There should be a "Launch All Marines" command under that (which is all the hotkey script does, incidentally; it maps that additional command to a hotkey). I don't have the script installed, so I have to navigate my ship's command menu. Works pretty well, esp. against TLs.

[BigVern]

I'll give that a try, thanks.

[GCU Grey Area]

Another handy way to smash CBLS & kill defending marines: an excessive number of fighter drones (is there anything they can't do? )

During my latest acquisition (Condor) launched slightly too many drones. 30 should have been about the right number, but I guess because it was a slow target more of the drones stayed in range for longer - shot through the shields, started doing hull damage & smashing installed equipment, including the all important CBLS. Seemed to do it a fair bit faster than Ion-D too - maybe it's just the sheer number of shots hitting the target? - 30 drones equates to about 200 IRE shots per second...

EDIT: after further testing - even works if your marines are already on board the target ship. During another boarding op my marines were having a hard time (they were slightly outnumbered), so knocked the shields back down to 0 & sent the drones back in - drones destroyed CBLS & suddenly my marines weren't being slaughtered any more. I guess at this point they're still in their spacesuits (so don't need CBLS) whereas the defending marines aren't & die instantly as soon as life support fails.

[BigVern]

After switching to the Vidar and coming in over the top, I was able to get the marines to launch. Successful capture ensued, but not much left by my crew who were more Clumsy Force than Delta Force despite all having at least 2* engineering, also I forgot to cancel the hire agreement while still blue so after turning green, the ship still carrying the "Hired" label.

Decided to reload but this time although the marines got in, my hacker must have been killed as after they reached the CPU, they couldn't hack in.

Will try again today - the Mammoth has a nice sweet spot underneath where none of the turrets can get you. This one, from Omicron Lyrae has IBL's and CIG's but as I said these were destroyed by my grunts.

It may be worth just capping and selling the ship as I expect a TL with 50% hull damage will cost half the value of a shiny new one to repair.

But at least I'm making progress!

[Tha_reaper]

boarding is driving me crazy... i tried it quite some times now in my Skiron, but i cant get the hang of it.

Ive tried it a couple of times on TMs, and M6s, but i cant drop the marines close enough as it seems. It also doesnt help that i just cant find the launch all marines option, but only the boarding operation in the piracy menu. I have fight command software MKI and MKII, but i still cant find it.

the only target where i could actually get my marines on board was a TL that i hired (non-moving targets are so hard to miss ), but they fail everytime in the hacking attempt (2 4* hackers in the crew... maybe they get killed everytime as soon as the boarding starts)

any pieces of advice, and please the exact locations where i should find the launch all marines option (and under which circumstances it should be there (unavailable or not))

[fullmetal66]

I think the Launch all marines is an "additional command" which is in the command console (shft+c).
You maybe right with your hacking marines dying, a balanced crew is great but a fully trained set of marines is much better.

[Al]

If they are reasonably well trained then try it on an M7M, something like a Cobra. I had trouble getting my marines to catch the target when going for M6 and TM class ships and couldn't get them to even try against TLs. The M7M was great, very little defense and they latched on quickly when deployed just below. Now using the Cobra and boarding pods life is so much better - recent captures are 3x Carrack and 1xGalleon

[Tha_reaper]

ive capped my first TL and indeed, it was under additional commands, but its only there when there is a ship nearby that you can capture apparently.

now i should try to board a moving target

[Frav]

After reading all the horror stories about the difficulty of boarding, I think I was put off from attempting it for a long time. I don't know what I was worried about.

I decided to give it a go yesterday. I'd trained up a set of Marines so I had 2 x 4star Hackers, 2 x 4 star Mechanical, and a 4 star Engineer.

My chosen target: A pirate Carrack. Simply because I have good rep with all other races including Yaki, and it was there.

I jumped in the Vidar, and cleaned up the few m3 pirates in the area, and the Carrack was already on my tail. I moved him away from the trade lanes, and started the M6 vs M7 dance. Eating away some of his shields and then rolling and strafing away. You know the drill.

When his shield were getting low, I switched from 8 EMPC's to just 2, and finally 1. He was giving my shield a bit of working over but not too bad.

Then as so many people suggested I pilotted my Vidar fight into his face, nose to nose. Hit the release marines hotkey, straffed to avoid colliding with the Carrack, and rolled away. My marines got attached a moment later. Keeping the shields down was much easier than I thought. They recharge so slowly I think I only needed to hit him twice with a single EMPC shot. I think one would probably even have been enough. So don't worry about the shields below 10% part, it's easy.

The end result was that they got to the hack terminal and failed to hack. I guess both my hackers died. This was understandable because I think my marines only had a total of 6 stars in fighting between them.

I reloaded, tried again, same scenario as last time, but this time they succeeded. One of the hackers survived along with the 2 star fighting marine. Heavily damaged Hull though due to lack of Engineering.

Today, I went around the universe buying all the marines that cost more than 20k. 90% of them had 2 star fighting. (There's a good tip) Trained them all up like before to 4 star in one disipline.

Picked a new target, the Hyperion Vanguard. Got him alone, slid in behind him, and unloaded with my 8 EMPC's. He was at 25% shield before he even turned aggressive and started to turn on me, so I just stood my ground and hammered his shields down, and released my marines.

I have had zero problems getting my marines to attach. Each time I'm right in the targets face when I release and then power right past it. I think the fact that they have to stop and turn, gives the marines plenty of time to latch on.

I was successful on my first attempt. 3 Marines survived, my 3 star fighter making it to 4 star fighting for his efforts. I totally messed up his hull to like 10% but that's because I made the mistake of leaving my turrets on. But who cares. It's part of the learning process, and I still haven't bothered using drones. The cost of the repairs didn't bother me, so I didn't reload and do it better.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you have dogfighting skills, boarding is no harder than having trained marines and releasing them right in the face of the enemy as you fly past them.

Use this script. Boarding needs a hotkey because timing is so important I think. I don't think I would have liked trying it without a hotkey. Too clumbsy.

BTW, I love the Hyperion, it's so much better than the Vidar. Any suggestions on what I might try next?

[fullmetal66]

BTW, I love the Hyperion, it's so much better than the Vidar. Any suggestions on what I might try next?

Time to get an TL and a M7M, then start catching the bigger fish.

[zymurg]

Can someone tell me why my "Board Ship" command is greyed out?

I was fighting a fleet of Xenons and wanted to see if I could board the Xenon-Q (M7).
I was fighting in my Springblossom and also had on hand my Cobra (M7) equipped with 5 Boarding Pods and plenty of Marines.
I got the shields of the Xenon-Q down to zero, made sure the boarding pods were loaded in the missile bay of my Centaur, had it target the Xenon-Q, but could never issue the Board Ship command because it was grayed-out.
So I changed ships and targeted my Cobra at the Q, got plenty close, its shields at zero, boarding pods in the missile bay, and the Board Ship command still grayed out.
I have marines, life support system, and a ship that is suppose to be able to board ships and launch boarding pods. I know you can't board an M8, but M7's should be fair game.
I don't get it. What am I missing?

[zymurg]

missile bay of my Centaur,

that should read Cobra, not Centaur.

[Tha_reaper]

are you sure you have enough marines? (5 minimum i think)

[zymurg]

nevermind, I see what happened.

Even though the weapons bay of the Cobra, as seen from my Springblossom, is set for Boarding Pod, when I changed ships to the Cobra the weapons bay had the missiles set instead of the boarding pods, so I was launching missiles.
I don't know why the Board Ship command from a remote ship doesn't know to load the boarding pod and launch it tho. I also don't know why it would say different as far as which weapons are lodaded depending which ship I was on either.

[cale_online]

wooh, greate lil guide just what i was looking for

i shall now proceed to board the entire galaxy...

but i only have an argon elite... lol

[zymurg]

I have used the Boarding hotkey in attempts to board about 4 different ships so far. One a Pirate Elite, one a Xenon-Q, and I forget the others.
Each time on all the ships I got the shields to below 10.
Each time I got a verbal message that said "Warning, this ship cannot be boarded"
Whats that about?

[zymurg]

I should mention I have 10 highly trained marines in my Springblossom.