Boarding always failing

[piep]

Hey there,
I've been trying to find some info regarding this issue on different platforms to no avail and therefore I'm opening a new thread.

Few days ago I started to get into the boarding part of the game and decided to go with a destroyer set up exclusively for this task. This due to the marine capacity, punishment resistance and defense ability while in the third phase, everything in a single package.
The issue: Phase Three is always failing even though my boarding "attack power" is way above the target's one (mine around 140 and target's sub 95). I've tried it on different kind of miners and freighters (Teladi and Argon) in an unclaimed sector.
During phase 3 I've been keeping the hull under 20% hp and shields down. On my last try I sent 40 marines against -only- 17 crewmen and I took 100% casualties while the target took none. On youtube I've seen guys with 0 star marines and reduced amount of them capturing L ships without any issue with basically 100% success rate.

The destroyer I am using is the Phoenix Vanguard. Has anybody had this issue before?

edit: version is vanilla live.

[radcapricorn]

1-2 Veteran defending Marines can wipe out dozens of your attacking crew seemingly with ease. I don't think the attack/defense strength numbers tell the whole story.

[piep]

interesting. IIRC in rebirth the boarding value took into account the skills of the marines. It's getting a bit confusing.

[pref]

Destroyers aren't the best for boarding like that as they have low max crew.
I took a couple destroyers and carriers with a Shuyaku under 2.x just by overwhelming them in numbers. Carriers are much easier. Even if you loose the ship it's well worth the trade, but you can just drop all marines on them and fly off. With some careful timing you might even do it with travel drive on.
40 rookies vs 17 vets or elites is suicide. 100 vs 20~30 can work. Either make some of them bail or board in multiple waves if they suffer significant losses in the first wave.

Also tried to make an elite crew, but it takes an insane amount of attempts to get any skillup after 2-3 stars. Had 7 vets on my nemesis, and could take ships with 13-15 lower skilled defenders or so.

The 0 skill boarding works by making the target ship's full crew (except captain) bail, you might have to hit it for quite a long time for that to happen. Doable even in a basic ship like elite and with 1-2 marines but is really boring.

[Waltz9]

I only have a cerberus vanguard with 4 crew members and 10 marines.
I hunt the SCA Plunderer Behemoth Vangaurds.

I start with scanning the ship and shooting the engines.
When all weapon modules and shields are gone I start the boarding.
At first I kept firing until only the captain was left.
Now my Cerberus has 9 1 star veterans and 1 recruit.

I successfully boarded a Behemoth Vanguard with 24 crew members left without getting a single casualty.
This doesn't sound like its intended to me but because of this I don't think it should be this hard.
The only anoying thing which I worry the most while boarding is sector security always killing my boarding target.

[piep]

wow, awesome feedback, thank you all!

[Imperial Good]

Keep hitting the ship before boarding to get crew to bail. Even just 10 dunce marines can take down an elite captain with 0 other crew.

[burger1]

Choose the options very weak and very weak. I am not sure there is stages it seems like the ships crew just keeps getting killed. Some boardings are very short if there's only the captain left.

Destroy every thing shields, turrets, engines

I think an apprentice is worth 1, able/veteran 3 and elite/specialist 5. Service crew and marines seem to count as equals? You might lose some crew before you start fighting?

[pref]

I think an apprentice is worth 1, able/veteran 3 and elite/specialist 5. Service crew and marines seem to count as equals? You might lose some crew before you start fighting?

There are turns in which each marine attacks a random opponent, and their damage is randomized between 1 and combined skill. Service crew has a chance to participate but their damage is between 0 and their boarding skill.

Since targets are random they fortunately won't focus strong marines or follow a predictable logic so those numbers aren't that meaningful.

[Imperial Good]

Service crew and marines seem to count as equals?

Service Crew do count to some extent, but their combat capabilities are considerably worse than marines.

You might lose some crew before you start fighting?

This was once intended to be a feature but was cut. One will only lose boarding crew before fighting if pods are killed in transit.

To test this I literally boarded a SCA Behemoth without bothering to damage its hull. The only losses were due to fighting and the boarding usually had 10-15 casualties. These casualties were all as good as 0 star marines that were obtained for free from my own shipyard/warf.

On my last try I sent 40 marines against -only- 17 crewmen and I took 100% casualties while the target took none. On youtube I've seen guys with 0 star marines and reduced amount of them capturing L ships without any issue with basically 100% success rate.

It really depend on what the target ship is. Trying to board a ARG Colossus in Argon Prime with 0 skilled marines will end in failure as the ship is filled with elite staff which slaughter them. On the other hand SCA Behemoth Vanguards can reliably be captured with 10-15 losses of untrained marines without reducing crew.

Losses can be further reduced by getting some of the crew to bail before boarding. Additionally recycling the same surviving crew for multiple boarding operations will start to reduce losses as survivors gain more skill.

[pref]

Trying to board a ARG Colossus in Argon Prime with 0 skilled marines will end in failure as the ship is filled with elite staff which slaughter them.

Has ES changed the crews for carriers? This was easily doable before 2.6.

[Imperial Good]

Has ES changed the crews for carriers? This was easily doable before 2.6.

It certainly was not doable around 1.00. The crew had anywhere from 0 to 4 stars in all stats so it had some near perfect marines. Hundreds of them.

I know this because one used to be able to hire crew from these ships (poach). They were the best source of 3-4 star pilots at the start of the game.

[pref]

They were the best source of 3-4 star pilots at the start of the game.

Ah you mean that. Boarding skill is much more rare (or always low for service crew perhaps). And i have yet to see a fully crewed ship - ime crew count rarely reaches half the capacity.