Beware, you Xenon hunters...

[Hubert99]

Once i was killing some xenon in black hole sun with my vidar and i was attacked by a xenon q. Somehow, i killed it. unfortunately i died a second after that but WHAT THE...

"Once I was a young man and I carried me pack, and lived the free life of the rover"

[deca.death]

My biggest catch so far is a titan. Now he guards my Space Fuel complex from pirate vermin. :)

If you fight OOS, back it up with several fighters, any will do even M4/M5 are fine. That's because of OOS fight mechanics and dispersion of damage, it would make your M2 much more survivable.

[Hubert99]

Thanks. Do you think basic unupgraded ships will serve that purpose ? Sort of a chaff for big daddy ? Is that what you are saying ?

[nponoBegHuk]

Fighting vs Fighting: Deck 1

It's the difference between being in combat and having a nice break and playing Magic:TG (or some other TCGs).


Serious answer: no idea.

There is no difference. Your crew isn't split in two separate crews (like some people claim) but are accounted as one unit. I have capped several Qs with only 5 Marines fighting Deck 1, and the rest just Fighting. As long as the late batch gets through the hull before the early ones start dying, they join the same force.

[deca.death]

Thanks. Do you think basic unupgraded ships will serve that purpose ? Sort of a chaff for big daddy ? Is that what you are saying ?

Yes any ship will do. In OOS even M2 must spend whole turn to kill puny M5. Q with a little luck may take out any ship short of Osaka and Tyr and in general, ships (yours too) die much more easily to opponents they would never loose IS. Essentially - that means that enemy group will loose several turns on unimportant targets, making the death of your important units highly unlikely.

[nponoBegHuk]

Spotted this single PX trying to get to Xenon Sector 472 while doing a taxi mission in Black Hole Sun. Thought that it would be a nice addition to my collection, so called my Cobra, launched 6 maxed marines and... After 50+ reloads couldn't manage to get past deck 1 without casualties. Most of the time just 1 died, but sometimes 2 or 3. I tried reloading at different points - before cutting hull completed, before pods landed or even before launching pods - same result.

The last time I boarded one of those was back in 2.7 and it was pretty much effortless cap compared to this. I decided the ship was bugged or something, and just destroyed it to collect my police bounty (Yah, the missiles I just threw at him costed few hundreds of thousands, now give me my 5000!).

Now I got this xenon invasion mission in Elysium of Light - a Q and a P jumped in - boarded the Q no problem, went for the P: same story, at least 1 dies everytime.

According to some sources there is at least 30% chance for 6 maxed marines to clear a deck of Xenon M6 without casualties, and in any case I should have roughly equal chances of losing 0, 1 or 2 marines every time I reload, but right now I'm losing 1 marine ~70% of time, 2 marines ~20% and rarely I lose 3 marines. I'm reloading all the time while typing this, no luck.

Maybe Argon and Teladi marines suck at boarding Xenon M6 (did well on on ISL'd ATF M6, ironically enough). Ah well, there's a batch of 30 Boron marines coming up, I bet they will do better.

... And I thought that I had this whole boarding thing clear. either russians have it wrong (which seems to be in some cases - according to them it's impossible to pass a deck of a TM with 270 total fight skill amongst launched marines without losses, which I did once, but they wouldn't pass deck 2, though), or I'm doing something wrong. Anyway, any feedback / suggestions on your experiences at boarding Xenon M6 in latest patch will be apprectiated. Especially "how to not kill it while trying to suppress shields"

Ah, on the "Fighting" vs "Fighting (deck 1)" topic:

[ external image ][ external image ]

If they fought in different "groups" there would be absolutely no way to pass a deck of a xenon capital ship with no deaths (as long as it's not "Fighting..." which lasts around 1-3 seconds while marines are in transition from "Cutting Hull" to "Fighting"

EDIT: tired of reloading on that one, I continued with my patrol, and went for an another P in Treasure Chest - reloaded exactly 10 times with the following result:

• 1 casualty - 7 times
• 2 casualties - 2 times
• 3 casualties - 1 time

I'm thinking of buying some crappy marines and mix them into the boarding crew so amazing guys like this don't have to die:

[ external image ]

Something like, launch 5 maxed and 1 crappy marines first , and 1 more crappy marine 20-30 seconds later. Reload until the RNG chooses the first crappy one to be the one who dies, and then reload on deck 2 until the RNG again chooses the crappy one.

EDIT 2: Surprisingly enough, this tactic actually worked! Bought 2 marines in Black Hole Sun. One was decent in mechanics, the other had a little engineering. It took 1 reload to time both squad launches right, another 4 reloads to get all "elites" to survive deck 1, Deck two needed no reloads - RNG was good this time. I actually sent 4 elites + 1 crappy in the first team, and 1 elite + 1 crappy in the second team (or else the poor fella wouldn't cut the hull by himself). Now only need a PX! But there's no way I'm pulling off this tactic in Xenon Sector 695 - the only place in my universe where they can be found right now (according to Scorp's Find Ships script, anyway).

[deca.death]

Spotted this single PX trying to get to Xenon Sector 472 while doing a taxi mission in Black Hole Sun. Thought that it would be a nice addition to my collection, so called my Cobra, launched 6 maxed marines and... After 50+ reloads couldn't manage to get past deck 1 without casualties...

This only supports my theory about veteran xenon crews, well it's not really a theory, merely an observation and it's not mine really : ) many ppl notice the same. It seems that some ships are very hard to board for no apparent reason. It's almost like developer mask in some additional variable of ship general toughness.

BTW - My xenon corvette boardings went down very easy. Both P and PX fell in maybe 10 reloads. Just a tad harder then normal CW M6 (which IS hard)

I vividly remember pirate caravel (TM) which i almost accidentally boarded and which gave me some serious nightmares. My experienced crew (3-5 star marines, all stats) simply died and died over and over again. I must have reloaded 50 times or more to get past deck 1. Some ships are just not worth it.

[nponoBegHuk]

I vividly remember pirate caravel (TM) which i almost accidentally boarded and which gave me some serious nightmares. My experienced crew (3-5 star marines, all stats) simply died and died over and over again. I must have reloaded 50 times or more to get past deck 1. Some ships are just not worth it.

According to this http://x3tc.ru/abordazh-mehanika-igrovo ... a_110.html you need at least 380 fighting to pass a deck on a TM without casualties - which is very high - M6 only need "gasp" 45 (total, not average)

Still, I celebrated my capture with boarding another Q... why do I even need those for? Now only need a PX! Hope it won't be that tough capture this time!

EDIT: just wasted another half an hour trying to capture a PX - same story, my marines just won't survive. And I cannot supress shields from Hyperion Vanguard in Xenon Sector 695 - constantly respawning fighters end up frying me, so I guess I will have to look for another opportunity to grab this one. Something's definitely wrong with my game, will try reinstalling tomorrow.

[Hubert99]

Guess I was lucky, I took my PX on third or fourth reload, no losses.

I am not sure the xenon group she belonged to was a migrating one, or one spawned by a patrol mission. (Nyana's Hideout)

Apparently I can only fit it with ISRs, and I could not be bothered hunting those down.

[nponoBegHuk]

Got a PX in Terran Unknown Sector 1. 1-4 marines died each time (easily 30 reloads on this), so had to mix rookies again. 4 elites + 2 rookies for deck 1, and 1 rookie + 1 elite for deck 2 did it.

I don't know whether my game is bugged or I'm extremely unlucky, but now my ship collection is complete and I'm definitely not capping any more xenon P6 class ships anymore. Q, K or J? Bring it, anytime. P or PX? No way. No more. At least not until I have more marines for the replacement.

[Lelouch]

Anyway, any feedback / suggestions on your experiences at boarding Xenon M6 in latest patch will be apprectiated. Especially "how to not kill it while trying to suppress shields"

The slow way: Fry it to death with IDs. (Destroy at least all turret weapons.) Continue to suppress shields with PlayerShip and control marine launching remotely.

[deca.death]

I don't know whether my game is bugged or I'm extremely unlucky,

Oh, it's not a bug, it's a feature ; )

[Sovereign01]

Got a PX in Terran Unknown Sector 1. 1-4 marines died each time (easily 30 reloads on this), so had to mix rookies again. 4 elites + 2 rookies for deck 1, and 1 rookie + 1 elite for deck 2 did it.

I don't know whether my game is bugged or I'm extremely unlucky, but now my ship collection is complete and I'm definitely not capping any more xenon P6 class ships anymore. Q, K or J? Bring it, anytime. P or PX? No way. No more. At least not until I have more marines for the replacement.

I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get hold of a couple crappy marines then, as I find it impossible to board a P/PX without losing at least 2 marines- doesn't matter how many maxed marines I have in total, I hate losing any Of course it means reloading to before I boarded that Xenon P, but a small price to pay

[heratik]

Got a PX in Terran Unknown Sector 1. 1-4 marines died each time (easily 30 reloads on this), so had to mix rookies again. 4 elites + 2 rookies for deck 1, and 1 rookie + 1 elite for deck 2 did it.

I don't know whether my game is bugged or I'm extremely unlucky, but now my ship collection is complete and I'm definitely not capping any more xenon P6 class ships anymore. Q, K or J? Bring it, anytime. P or PX? No way. No more. At least not until I have more marines for the replacement.

I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get hold of a couple crappy marines then, as I find it impossible to board a P/PX without losing at least 2 marines- doesn't matter how many maxed marines I have in total, I hate losing any Of course it means reloading to before I boarded that Xenon P, but a small price to pay

I capped a P a couple of days age, 6 of my best marines, all 5* in most skills.
I had to save every deck cleared with no deaths and reload when one died, and it took me 20 or so reloads, but eventually I got all 6 marines out alive!

[Sovereign01]

Got a PX in Terran Unknown Sector 1. 1-4 marines died each time (easily 30 reloads on this), so had to mix rookies again. 4 elites + 2 rookies for deck 1, and 1 rookie + 1 elite for deck 2 did it.

I don't know whether my game is bugged or I'm extremely unlucky, but now my ship collection is complete and I'm definitely not capping any more xenon P6 class ships anymore. Q, K or J? Bring it, anytime. P or PX? No way. No more. At least not until I have more marines for the replacement.

I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get hold of a couple crappy marines then, as I find it impossible to board a P/PX without losing at least 2 marines- doesn't matter how many maxed marines I have in total, I hate losing any Of course it means reloading to before I boarded that Xenon P, but a small price to pay

I capped a P a couple of days age, 6 of my best marines, all 5* in most skills.
I had to save every deck cleared with no deaths and reload when one died, and it took me 20 or so reloads, but eventually I got all 6 marines out alive!

Were you on 3.1? No matter how many times I reloaded I would always lose 1-3 marines before clearing deck 1, I lost count of how many times I had to do this, just like nponoBegHuk did- I'll see if buying some cannon fodder works for me

[heratik]

Were you on 3.1?

Yes!

Guess I just got lucky

[Sovereign01]

Were you on 3.1?

Yes!

Guess I just got lucky

Very lucky I'd say

I'll give the cannon fodder idea a shot

[Sovereign01]

Update: it works! Sent in 6 marines (4 elite, 2 rookies that were 2*), one died on the first deck (only took a couple of reloads), a few reloads later to ensure only one dies on the next deck the other rookie bit the dust, leaving my 4 vets to hack the core.

The only losses were the 12 CIGs that had been dropped in the sector when I killed the Q that accompanied the P before, but this time when I turned up the P was on its own

[Hubert99]

I boarded a Yaki Centaur today, and for the first time, one of my marines shouted" we are meeting resistence". I guess it had it's own marines. To be true, I have been lazy with scanning my targets lately, being spoiled by top skill marines. They still took it, though.

I wonder if boarding difficulty increases as your fighter skill goes up, my expereince is that it does not really matter. But at higher fighting skill, the more internal defences M6 targets seem to have. Maybe your P-PXs indeed have invisible veteran crews ?

[Sovereign01]

I don't think it does go up, though it would explain why I'm having such difficulty, being at Xtreme and all Now I have to hunt myself a PX and LX to complete my collection. I found that a Carrack is very good for frying the systems off M6s for boarding. Still, once I've boarded a PX I don't need to board any more ships that will cause inevitable casualties- thank you HQ!