[TC] Why does training marines take such a ridiculous amount of time?

[quoick]

I'm not bothered about the reload thing. I have 2 Arans but I should have had 3. I did an unfocussed jump, found an Aran with no enemies around. Did the repair, sent in my marines and didn't bother saving because the frikken thing is empty. BOOM, 5 of my marines get killed. I reloaded from a previous save (which was before my unfocussed jump) because of the insane amount of time it takes to train marines. I would rather lose the Aran, than 5 marines..... that seems a bit crazy to me.

[Dycor]

Always save, before trying to board a ship.

[quoick]

Always save, before trying to board a ship.

Sage advice indeed. But for the Aran being boarded by 20 5 star marines I thought it unnecessary (it doesn't have any marines). I was almost out of Salvage Insurance.

[Bobucles]

But you don't NEED 100 in all skills across the board. Marines don't need higher than 50 mechanic skill for most ships, and only two marines per assault need any hack skill at all. Engineering skill is only REQUIRED to capture a few key ships (it prevents hull damage), and you don't need higher than 60 in most cases. That cuts four days off your training, easily.

You're wasting time getting marines up to 100 skill in everything, especially since the higher points take up the bulk of their training time.

[Rive]

Think ahead! With some management it's easy to have enough marines for operations, and the rest of them can 'rest' in school.

[Gizmocat]

Keep more in training - I usually have about 100 in various stages of training in Aladna Hill - and keep 2-3 TP's docked to jump them out when done, or to go fetch more "volunteers".

[Nanook]

i know this is going to sound stupid but first if your that much of a *#ch that you have to use a mod than do it leget then don,t play the game second how do you find the advance tarining thing

First of all, personal insults are not allowed on these forums, no matter how you state them. Don't do it again!

Second, if someone wants to use a mod to 'fix' something in the game, that's their choice and it's not up to you to tell them not to play the game.

....
Is it just me or do others think the marine training is a bit nerfed?

User error? You told them to go back for a full training regimen when you should've just given them the 'quick' version to top them off. Can't really blame the game for that, now can you?

However, it would be nice if the game gave us the option of popping a marine out of training if desired. There've been lots of times when I had a boarding opportunity that I missed because all my good marines were in training and couldn't be called up.

[Dycor]

I have 260 trained Marines, more that I'll ever use. Over half are max-out.

Train them in groups 20-25, or As great fighter become available put them to train quick (Not program quick).

Create Companys of 20 Marines with (5) teams each, Pods only hold (4) per shot. Collect the elite and put them in a Special Team Company (STC).

Setup Ships for the Special StikeForce, and don't forget to feeded them once in a while, a hungry Marine is not an effective soldier.

[Kitty]

Since patch 2.5 boarding is for afficionado.

It has been discussed in many thread, and my opinion is still the same:
the issue was real (making lot of money with no sweat) but the medicine was the wrong one (make it very expensive and hard to cap the *first* ship).

Reading the "how to"'s we get to conclusion that once you've your 20 overtrained marines you can get billions at no cost, and still have fair relations to various races.

I'd really had better have a much higher rep loss when caping, and the police/army comming after the caper the same way they come after the thief who steals the ship he promised to get back (lost ship mission).

Anyway...

[sleepy_head]

It has been discussed in many thread, and my opinion is still the same:
the issue was real (making lot of money with no sweat) but the medicine was the wrong one

Well said. No other issue with the entire game makes me as angry as what they have done to boarding. Capturing a ship was a joy, and they have utterly taken that out of this, at least for me. I cap now because I want the ships or blueprints, I don't cap for the "fun" of it. And after talking to some of the 2.5 beta testers, it seems the people who want things harder, take longer, more tedious, more costly, more risky and more frustrating have the devs' ears. I don't see things changing in future patches or their future game.

[Nanook]

After doing a lot more boarding since 2.5, I don't think the overall difficulty has changed that much. What has changed is the cost of boarding. And I can't say I disagree with doing this. You're much more likely to lose marines now, especially doing the 'simple' M6 boarding ops.

And by 'simple' I mean ridiculously hard from the very beginning. From the very beginning when they introduced boarding, I hated the M6 version, having to navigate all those menus while simultaneously trying to fly your ship AND keep the target's shields low enough.

Difficulty by interface, as I stated in another thread a long time ago, is NOT the way to do things. Make the NPC's fight back, challenge the player's flying skills, but DON'T make them have to navigate a nest of menus simply to order the marines to board.

That's the dumb part of boarding, and it's been there since the start. Change that and most of the complaints will go away, I think.

[Pyre]

After doing a lot more boarding since 2.5, I don't think the overall difficulty has changed that much. What has changed is the cost of boarding. And I can't say I disagree with doing this. You're much more likely to lose marines now, especially doing the 'simple' M6 boarding ops.

And by 'simple' I mean ridiculously hard from the very beginning. From the very beginning when they introduced boarding, I hated the M6 version, having to navigate all those menus while simultaneously trying to fly your ship AND keep the target's shields low enough.

Difficulty by interface, as I stated in another thread a long time ago, is NOT the way to do things. Make the NPC's fight back, challenge the player's flying skills, but DON'T make them have to navigate a nest of menus simply to order the marines to board.

That's the dumb part of boarding, and it's been there since the start. Change that and most of the complaints will go away, I think.

Agreed - I've boarded *one* M6, and never tried again. Its frustrating to try and keep the shields down, have my M7M launch marines, and dodge out of CIG fire.

In terms of difficulty, I find the training time not to be an issue, but in my game, the most annoying thing is the inability to train fight skill.

I dont see why this was excluded - i mean, aren't there any experienced marines to tell my dolts which end of the gun goes pew pew?

I'd pay 3x the normal training cost to teach my marines to not shoot each other - and especially since in my current game, 3 star fight marines seem not to spawn.

[quoick]

....
Is it just me or do others think the marine training is a bit nerfed?

User error? You told them to go back for a full training regimen when you should've just given them the 'quick' version to top them off. Can't really blame the game for that, now can you?

However, it would be nice if the game gave us the option of popping a marine out of training if desired. There've been lots of times when I had a boarding opportunity that I missed because all my good marines were in training and couldn't be called up.

I did the quick version for the other 20 and it did diddly (it didn't top them off it just cost me money) so I can still blame the game. I agree with your suggestion of being able to stop them from training. I check the Outpost and see my guys crawling through their training and I am pretty sure that in the end it will do little. I can handle losing the 10 million for no gain as it looks like that will be the result anyway, it is just the amount of time. They are only up to 38% and it has been days since I put those beggars in there.

I understand people's suggestions about having a huge cache of hundreds of marines so that you don't notice their training times but Boarding is not a big part of my game. I am okay at it but no expert (I have yet to capture a Carrick or a Brig as they always shoot my pods before they reach the target), so spending a King's ransom on a marine force seems wasteful and tedious to me.

[froger]

i am sorry nanook what i mean by my post was i think it is more rewarding to do it the hard way but serously what is the advance training opion

[Pyre]

I understand people's suggestions about having a huge cache of hundreds of marines so that you don't notice their training times but Boarding is not a big part of my game. I am okay at it but no expert (I have yet to capture a Carrick or a Brig as they always shoot my pods before they reach the target), so spending a King's ransom on a marine force seems wasteful and tedious to me.

Fire missiles at the capital ship you want to capture, then turn around and run in your M7M, while firing missiles at it to keep its shields down.

As long as the capital ship is chasing you, and is outside weapons range, ive found they dont really try and shoot the pods out of the sky...although there have been times when my pods cross a turret's field of fire...

[Dycor]

@ Froger, The Advance Training Option can be found at Stations or Bases that train Marines.

[StarTroll]

I understand people's suggestions about having a huge cache of hundreds of marines so that you don't notice their training times but Boarding is not a big part of my game. I am okay at it but no expert (I have yet to capture a Carrick or a Brig as they always shoot my pods before they reach the target), so spending a King's ransom on a marine force seems wasteful and tedious to me.

Fire missiles at the capital ship you want to capture, then turn around and run in your M7M, while firing missiles at it to keep its shields down.

As long as the capital ship is chasing you, and is outside weapons range, ive found they dont really try and shoot the pods out of the sky...although there have been times when my pods cross a turret's field of fire...

This is also due to the fact that no ships fires it's front weapons (turret or main) at pods.

[sleepy_head]

After doing a lot more boarding since 2.5, I don't think the overall difficulty has changed that much.

The difference between pre-2.5 and post-2.5 is vast. Before, people were able to capture an Aran using 5 marines from a Hyperion Vanguard. Before, people were able to board the Vidar with the crappy marines that the Terran plot gives you. Now these things are impossible. 2.5 introduced that spacewalking bug that the devs have left unfixed making TP boarding even more hellish. Then there is the stealth nerf, an increase to hacking failure on Terran ships with the Advanced Firewall Software, which I have made a thread about that you participated in. And there is also this bizarre and utterly ridiculous boarding pod death upon touching an UNARMED boarding target, experiences that have also been confirmed by Alan Phipps and StarTroll. Yes, I agree with you that the interface is utter hell, but with just about every patch and change, the devs had deliberately and methodically made boarding harder, more costly, more risky, more tedious, more frustrating and just plain more stupid. Yeah, don't get me started about boarding there is nothing I quite so despise as what they have done to an aspect of the game that I once found so much joy in. There is a vast middle ground between the "too easy" that was in X2 and the "absurd" now in X3tc and the devs have went off the deep end on this one.

[Flozem]

Fire missiles at the capital ship you want to capture, then turn around and run in your M7M, while firing missiles at it to keep its shields down.

As long as the capital ship is chasing you, and is outside weapons range, ive found they dont really try and shoot the pods out of the sky...although there have been times when my pods cross a turret's field of fire...

Or even easier, quicker and cheaper (Tyr + escort in Asteroid belt in 2.5):

Calculate the amount of hammer missiles to one-shot drop the shields on your target (I lost a bit of hull too), and fire the boarding pods with 20 (5*) marines right after at point blank range. Because this is your first volley, the Capital should only give a warning. Change ships, jump the M7M out, and apologize to any escorting hostiles left while you wait for your new ship to be captured...

Only M6 boarding was and has become harder imho...

[StarTroll]

The hardest in M7M boarding ops is when your target is brittle, with such low shields it goes back above 6% way too quicly, such as most TMs, M6s and to some extent the TLs, especially the AL (from 1MJ to 450 MJ at max seen in my game).
The easiest prey is actually the Tyr / Odin pair, since they have huge shields and react slowly to the attack.