3.0 - Boarding now broken?

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 20:35

Well,
I heards some good and bad feedback about new boarding system, so after 3.0 release I decided to take a look myself.

I picked PMC Fedheilm with boarding resistance 154 after destorying jump drive and engines it's resissatance dropped to 134. I launched my 50 rookie marines with 4 start Officer thinking that this should be enough for something crappy as mining ship.

After Yisha selected my first "distraction target" I went to destroy it immediately. Then after I destroy that target I recieve message "boarding failed".

I made two attempts with same results - always failure after first target destroyed.

Either boarding is broken or absurd - 50 marines with 4*start officer should be capable to board random minning ship. The whole point of capping fterighters/minning ships is to train your marines in the first place.

ty_cho · Post by **ty_cho** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 20:51

Boarding now has many more nuances than just taking out the engines/jump drive and marine level.

You now have to take out many subsystems, and reduce the hull % to reduce that boarding resistance number. You also can now only get recruit marines, who die easily, but will level up, so it takes time to build up an elite boarding squad.

See their new help video they made for 3.0, it walks you through boarding as well as many other game play elements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQijj2-DEw

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 20:56

But this is now a total bull - they change boarding from extremely easy and cheap to extremely hard and expensive.

I say it again - 50 marines with semi competent Officer should be able to board a random freighter with ease - some losses are acceptable, but not a total stupidity that is now that they all die at the end of phase 1.

It's not like they try to board Arawn with a ****** captain Philips on board.

ty_cho · Post by **ty_cho** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:04

It is different and may require some balancing. I do know that a few people who tested it in the beta forum were able to do ok once they took out most subsystems (turrets, shield gens, etc) and reduced the hull to around 20% before attempting boarding. Boarding was ridiculously easy before, so the change is welcome, again, may need some additional balancing.

Artean · Post by **Artean** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:08

ty_cho wrote:It is different and may require some balancing. I do know that a few people who tested it in the beta forum were able to do ok once they took out most subsystems (turrets, shield gens, etc) and reduced the hull to around 20% before attempting boarding. Boarding was ridiculously easy before, so the change is welcome, again, may need some additional balancing.

This. Take down hull and any drones in addition to surface elements. I REALLY like how much more difficult it is now, and that it requires planning both ahead and how to get your captured ships on its feet after a successful boarding.

Ebron · Post by **Ebron** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:14

I've got 50 rookie and a 3 star marine officer and still fail capping a ship after I lowered its resistance value to 40. That may be a bit harsh

VincentTH · Post by **VincentTH** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:23

I use this rule of thumb: Issue boarding when

(r*1 + v*2 + e*3)*mo_skill* K > BR

r: Nbr of recruits
v: Nbr of vets
e: Nbr of Elite
mo_skill: Boarding Exp of Marine Officer (4 stars = 4)
K is an experimental coefficient. For me, it's 0.13 at normal game difficulty.
BR = Boarding Resistance of target ship.

[EDIT] If I use the 1,3,5 progression for marines, K=0.09

and assuming that you do everything Yisha asks you to do within the allowed time frame (because if you don't you'd lose marines, and the left hand side of the inequation becomes smaller).

Forgot to say the value of K=0.13 was from testing RC2 and from 4 boarding ops. Boarding may have been adjusted since RC2.

Applying the formula above, with 50 recruits, and a 5* boarding Exp marine officer, you should only launch your marines when BR <= 30

I would welcome your formula contribution. Tell us what works for you

Namyboy · Post by **Namyboy** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:40

Well like here described http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 06#4468506"

The boarding calculation now includes all stuff. How many turrets are activ how many DRONES does the ship have and and and.

Found a taladi freighter shot down all besides the drones hanger leaving me whit a 50% hull + full drone bay whit a defense number 137. So my 5 star Boarding Captain and his recruites are NOT ABLE TO BOARD IT. Well boarding works if i shot the drone bay down leaving the defense number to 5.... Question how does a Freighter/collecter drones add to the defense ?

Someoen said whit all elite and star 5 Boarding Captain the max atack value is 260 ??? Keep in mind even whit full elites, u would loose a lot of marines. Did i say i play on easy ?

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:45

@Vincent: thanks for the numbers, this will be handy for checking what I'm able to cam and what not.

Additionally I boarded again the OP Mining ship and before pod launch I destroyed eveything that I could to reduce it to BR 22.

After this the boarding was sucessful and I lost 9 rookies, but gained 11 veterans.

From what I see the biggest BR vaule (~100) on Freighters and Miners are drones, so if you destroy the drone hangar (which is the biggest boarding loot except the ship itself) it become boardable.

Fist ist's absurd that drones are counted towards BR. If they need to count them then why no 10 maybe 20 instead 100.

This mean that to board a freighter with drones I have to have 50 elites and destroy some stuff, but I will still take some serious losses.

It totally wrong. I'd exclude drones from BR. The drones should matter if they would be able to shot down boarding pods, but apart from this they shouldn't matter to BR or matter very lightly (like moving obstacle/target in close quarter fights - and I don't wanna ask how did they would move drones to corridors from launch hangar in a matter of seconds?)

VincentTH · Post by **VincentTH** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:45

Some of us don't have access to the Beta forum, so I take the liberty of quoting Xenon Slayer's message here:

Xenon_Slayer wrote:Hi all,

I'm looking into the reported problems with boarding. As you can see, there have been some rather drastic changes in RC1 and I'll highlight the main points below to hopefully shed some light on any problems your having or any issues left with the feature.

The major changes include:
- The removal of Veteran and Elite marines from traders. You can only acquire recruits
- Marines can now die during a boarding mission, even if it ends in success (with lower level marines having a higher chance of dying)
- Surviving marines have a chance of being promoted to Veteran and Elite
- The 'boarding resistance' of a target is visible in its info menu
- The strength difference between the different types of marines is now greater

The boarding resistance is the new major factor. Previously, the strength of a boarded target was based on if it was a L or XL sized ship. Now, it is similar to how the sell price is calculated.
So that includes:
- The base worth of the ship
- The current hull value
- The state of surface elements
- The drones on board

With 50 recruit marines and a decent Marine Commander, you can expect to be boarding L sized freighters/miners once their surface elements are mostly gone and hull is below 50%.
Damage the ship more and you increase the survivability of your marines in a trade off for the value of the ship.

After a successful boarding, you may have lost some marines but some may have been promoted so after acquiring replacements, the overall capability will be higher for the next boarding. You'll be able to board bigger ships or have ships be less damaged.

Hopefully that info will let us know if there's a problem with the balancing.

(and according to XR's message, I may have to rework my formula in order to give more weight to Vet and Elite marines, may be in a 1,3,5 progression.)

wwdragon · Post by **wwdragon** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 21:51

Hopefully that info will let us know if there's a problem with the balancing.

Be sure to speak up if you think the current balancing is ridiculously hard.

I think Xenon_Slayers view of how many it should take is still way to hard.
I believe a rahanas shouldn't take 50 recruits and a decent officer.... but rather 15 recruits and crappy officer, then ships go up progressively from there.

VincentTH · Post by **VincentTH** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:01

wwdragon wrote:
Hopefully that info will let us know if there's a problem with the balancing.
Be sure to speak up if you think the current balancing is ridiculously hard.

I think Xenon_Slayers view of how many it should take is still way to hard.
I believe a rahanas shouldn't take 50 recruits and a decent officer.... but rather 15 recruits and crappy officer, then ships go up progressively from there.

I tend to agree with Mr. WHO that currently, taking out the drone bay would drastically reduce BR. I wish that XR only take combat drones (and may be Const drones) into account. I believe taking Cargo drones into account inflate the BR value unnecessarily. Otherwise, I think boarding is fine as it is.

Also, people with the Teladi Outpost DLC will be at an advantage over those who don't, because the TO add-on allows access to the Heavy Laser, which is a crucial weapon in taking out the Shield Generator Mk2 and higher.

Meme Turtle · Post by **Meme Turtle** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:06

How much does a recruit cost? 25k? So, 50*25 = 1.25kk is you pay to get 5kk rahans(not mentioning cargo). Besides you might not loose all marines so the price is even lower.

When talking about hard always consider the price tag. If you want to cap rahanas with 15 novices, expect their cost to go up.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:13

Maybe for the cheapest boardable targets but from memory, a Rahanas costs more than the mining ships, about 2x Stryvok and about 3.5x Lepton.

If the boarder isn't willing/able to hire or train a decent MO or spend about a million on 50 recruit marines, I don't think they should be able to capture much at all. After all, we can get 100s of thousands of credits per mission and for those that get it, the TO offers refuge and missions to those that want to be red to ever race.

Patholos · Post by **Patholos** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:21

Yay

Boarding is where it finally should be.

Risky, hard as a coffin nail and costly.

Clownmug · Post by **Clownmug** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:38

So risky it's a waste of time and resources now.

Meme Turtle · Post by **Meme Turtle** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:41

A pirate life is never easy, pal.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:47

Exactly! Yarrr! etc.

Captain Black can't just buy a dinghy and take on a galleon, he's gotta work his way up in the world, starting with that cheap old yacht over there first.

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:48

WHo said about pirate? I'm a freedom fighter who liberates Albion from too many PMC freighters

wwdragon · Post by **wwdragon** » Thu, 11. Dec 14, 22:49

Sparky Sparkycorp wrote:Maybe for the cheapest boardable targets but from memory, a Rahanas costs more than the mining ships, about 2x Stryvok and about 3.5x Lepton.

If the boarder isn't willing/able to hire or train a decent MO or spend about a million on 50 recruit marines, I don't think they should be able to capture much at all. After all, we can get 100s of thousands of credits per mission and for those that get it, the TO offers refuge and missions to those that want to be red to ever race.

Well if there are smaller ships, then maybe that should be the baseline for 15 + crappy officer.

However, I rahannas is still JUST a transport ship and should not be particularly hard.
See my comment in the beta thread on this topic; see what ya think.

Sparky Sparkycorp wrote:Exactly! Yarrr! etc.

Captain Black can't just buy a dinghy and take on a galleon, he's gotta work his way up in the world, starting with that cheap old yacht over there first.

Actually, if he's good that's exactly what he'll do.
Get a transport ship, setup a bunch of guys hidden in his thing and put up flag for help.
Help comes and they are all yeah come aboard, then after they are facing the other way, he'll blow the whistle and all the guys hiding will board the galleon, taking it for his own!

Clownmug wrote:So risky it's a waste of time and resources now.

That summarizes what I think of the balance of it now.

To be clear, I think the new system is great and adds to gamplay... just difficulty on normal is batshit.