3.0 - Boarding now broken?

[J. Spartan]

Yeah, that was it. Found it out during an unrelated visit to the crew quarters... strange thing indeed.

[John McG]

Going to be honest, I haven't done any boarding since pre 2.0. But, from reading most of this thread it seems boarding difficulty has been ramped up too much.

Honestly I think it should revolve more around hacking/scanning ship sections with a drone to assist the marines rather then blowing up external elements.

You have the option of destroying them if you want to make marine landing easier but instead of having to trash your target to kingdom come, perhaps a hacking minigame for targets to shut down/divert power/open doors etc for the marines. IE you take out (via hacking or destroying) engines/jump/some turrets but then you have to hack the drone bay, open doors/vent sections, hack shield gens to complete capture. This way you actually capture a ship rather than capture a floating wreck.

Once captured hacked systems would come back online in a damaged/reduced functionality state and would need shipyard repair (not construction urv, to balance new methods) but you would have a semi functional ship (say maybe operating @ 1/3-1/2 shield/engine power w/ all weapons damaged from fire control overload).

I agree, I am disappointed in how difficult it has become to board. It was hard enough before Rebirth 3.0.

[Assailer]

...

Honestly I think it should revolve more around hacking/scanning ship sections with a drone to assist the marines rather then blowing up external elements....

I agree, I am disappointed in how difficult it has become to board. It was hard enough before Rebirth 3.0.

New boarding system tries to simulate the wrong thing. 'Boarding' should be renamed 'Destroying'!

[Jaxartes]

It supposed to be difficult because you can make a lot of money off it very easy.

[Assailer]

If you do not protect something, it should be OK to lose it.

A house in an abandoned city area should be demolished before robbing it? Add a few dogs, an alarm system and police patrol to make it harder to rob then... same analogy applies here.

As i suggested earlier, just mark the boarded ship as stolen, and do not let player selling it. In addition destroy some random portion of the cargo depending on how your marines do.

[pref]

My only problem with current boarding is that i have to spend lot of time shooting an already dead ship to get rid of the shield generators and adjust hull to the marine attack strength.
I dont feel safe using my own capships for this (partially because i have to find cover for issuing orders as all input is suspended while in menus/listening to npc speech).

Though i like the idea that the better marines the player has the quicker the ship is repaired and can be used. Also having to manage hull below the marines' attack strength is nice (in case of stronger ships).

If killing the shield generator during boarding could be made easier (hack for ex. with some marine help from within), it would reduce the time one needs to spend shooting at a brick in space. Or if we could do hacks to remove a % of hull instead of Yisha's pointless mini-missions that could also be nice.

Edit: by pointless i mean that with current logic, Yisha's missions can only hurt you (loosing marines on fail) - so clearing up the ship before boarding to shut her up is the obvious choice. With this change it would be worthwhile to do Yisha's quests, as they could grant a bonus (quicker ops) and not just punish the player.

[manpapper]

How to know ship resistance and your attack strength?

[w.evans]

You can see a ship's resistance (in-game written "boarding resistance") by double-clicking the ship, then clicking [info -> general] it'll be at the bottom.

You can't see your attack strength in vanilla. camus'/Clownmug's Boarding Options mod gives you a display whenever you board where you could see your attack strength.

[manpapper]

Thanks

[pref]

How to know ship resistance and your attack strength?

Iirc your attack strength is 5 * elites, 1.5 * veterans, and 0.5 * rookies, multiplied by the defence officer's skills.
DO skills is a weighted average (15/5/2) where boarding has 15 and morale 2 weighting, and is between 1 and 0. It's 1 for a full 5* officer, and 0 for one with no skills at all.

[w.evans]

It's 1 for a full 5* officer, and 0 for one with no skills at all.

Actually 1% bonus for a 5/5/5 Marine Officer, -79% malus for a 1/1/1 Marine Officer.

[Ognjen85]

Tried to board Arwan last night. Destroyed all surface modules that it had (including drone pad) reduced it's hull to 10% and may I say the losses have been terriable. 5* MO, 10 elite, 20 veteran and 20 rookie marines. Only two elite marines survived I guess i will try to bring its hull to 0.1% and then do bording again. Will let you know results...

Previously it was way too easy but this now is not improvement if you ask me. It seems that ES can either make something too easy or too hard, chalanging seems not to exist for them.

[Valen68]

I haven't tried capping any cap ships as of yet. I watched a video of a guy landing 50 marines on a cap ship (on the Steam Workshop) after he shot out engines and other modules. Seem to take it pretty easy.

Is it much harder since 3.0? Has anyone capped a ship since the latest patch? What method did you use if you did cap a cap ship?

[exogenesis]

Actually it's pretty formulaic & easy - IF you've got a good marine-officer & 50 elite marines...just got my 2nd Fulmekron capture without too much hassle.

If you're starting from scratch, having to train/ & lose rookie marines, it's a completely different story.

Thinking elite mariness could be still available, used to cost 300,000+ each,
maybe they'd be rarer /more-expensive than before the 'boarding patch',
but buyable so you can build a competent compliment without the training-up fail/loss/aggro.

[Valen68]

I just started playing XR again so I am just starting out. I figure i need to generate some income before i start capping heavies. Anyone have any good links to share on the best way to make some fast cash when starting out? Right now in have been fumbling around trying to find my way and figure out things. I miss the old system and sector in game maps. The maps feel a little not so user friendly.

[pref]

Tried to board Arwan last night. Destroyed all surface modules that it had (including drone pad) reduced it's hull to 10% and may I say the losses have been terriable. 5* MO, 10 elite, 20 veteran and 20 rookie marines. Only two elite marines survived I guess i will try to bring its hull to 0.1% and then do bording again. Will let you know results...

Previously it was way too easy but this now is not improvement if you ask me. It seems that ES can either make something too easy or too hard, chalanging seems not to exist for them.

There are non-targettable red fuel tanks on the surface (thanks UniTrader ) - if you get rid of those, the BR will drop by 40 or smthg.
What BR did your Arawn have in the end?

[dmk]

I just started playing XR again so I am just starting out. I figure i need to generate some income before i start capping heavies. Anyone have any good links to share on the best way to make some fast cash when starting out? Right now in have been fumbling around trying to find my way and figure out things. I miss the old system and sector in game maps. The maps feel a little not so user friendly.

current mechanic allows you to make several missions(0.5-2 mln each), and that will be enough for initial team, just needed to find marine officer with at least 4*4*4, that is enough to capture all light freighters, titurel, lightsul, and even succellus.
after team got trained to cap ships with 65 resistance - there is a lot of marauder phoenixes in teladi (TO) system, they can be captured without single shot fired to player, even if they initially hostile(after they fix bugs, you need approarch to them from very specific direction, but now while you don't fire on them, they do not fire on you).

[Ognjen85]

Tried to board Arwan last night. Destroyed all surface modules that it had (including drone pad) reduced it's hull to 10% and may I say the losses have been terriable. 5* MO, 10 elite, 20 veteran and 20 rookie marines. Only two elite marines survived I guess i will try to bring its hull to 0.1% and then do bording again. Will let you know results...

Previously it was way too easy but this now is not improvement if you ask me. It seems that ES can either make something too easy or too hard, chalanging seems not to exist for them.

There are non-targettable red fuel tanks on the surface (thanks UniTrader ) - if you get rid of those, the BR will drop by 40 or smthg.
What BR did your Arawn have in the end?

It had around 146 points.

Cheers for fuel tank tip, i have destroyed two radar dish as well, will try to locate tanks and reduce its hull to < 1% before i try to board it again.

[Valen68]

It had around 146 points.

Cheers for fuel tank tip, i have destroyed two radar dish as well, will try to locate tanks and reduce its hull to < 1% before i try to board it again.

Wow, do you really have to get the hull to 1% before you can try and cap the big ships?

[Assailer]

It had around 146 points.

Cheers for fuel tank tip, i have destroyed two radar dish as well, will try to locate tanks and reduce its hull to < 1% before i try to board it again.

Wow, do you really have to get the hull to 1% before you can try and cap the big ships?

It makes sense, isn't it?