Make low/destroy shields for boarding mandatory

[Pesanur]

Just now the only requirement for board a ship is to low is hull value, but not the shields, so with the Thermal Desintegrators, that damage the hull directly ignoring shields, is quickly easy to achieve this, making boarding even easier than before.

With those weapons you don't need to take care of the target shields, is enough disabling it and keep shooting until the hull is enough damaged, that with a Nemesis or a Dragon, not take too much time.

[chew-ie]

You don't even need to lower the hull. Just set all dropdowns in the boarding UI to "very strong", launch the pods and move away and wait. Ship is yours as long as the pods aren't shot down. (#blindspots)

[Shehriazad]

The damage of the Thermal Disintegrator through shields is 51 and 279 shield damage on an M Thermal Disintegrator.

The Tau will do 810 damage to shields and no penetration.




So let's say you use a Nemesis to board the enemy with ALL Thermals vs ALL Tau. Let's make your Target a Behemoth (Attacker variant with low hull even)
150K shields and 93K hull (Teladi Shields).

Tau will do 10125 damage per second to shields until they are depleted.
Thermals will do 5133 damage per second to shields and 938 damage to hull per second before shields go poof


Now let's go a bit DEEPAA


The Tau will need 15 seconds to get through the Behemoths shield to start doing hull damage
The Thermals will need 30 seconds to get through the Behemoths shield to start doing FULL hull damage.

Within those 30 seconds the Thermals will do 53.325 damage to hull.
After 30 seconds the Tau will have done 151.875 to hull...having DESTROYED it by that time.


What exactly makes the Thermal OP now?


My math of course ignores hull/shield repair and weapon heat...and mods.

Thermals aren't actually that insane.

This gets even worse on the super high hull ships like the Raptor that has like what...somewhere between 2-3 times the amount of hull compared to shields? Taus are acceptable at best. Please do not try to get stuff nerfed that is only okay to begin with


TL;DR - Thermals will need longer than other weapons to get the hull low. Even though I'm glad you like the Thermal...it's not a "best in slot" for boarding except in edge cases where shield is a LOT higher than hull.

[Ranix]

you forget that shields and hull both regenerate simultaneously on L size ships and bigger, which makes thermals substantially worse than your numbers suggest

[csaba]

You don't even need to lower the hull. Just set all dropdowns in the boarding UI to "very strong", launch the pods and move away and wait. Ship is yours as long as the pods aren't shot down. (#blindspots)

Doesn't hull strength factor into marine losses? Cause if this is not the case I'll start using my 1000 boarding strength veteran group more liberally. Let says launching them at docked ships in neutral sectors.

[LameFox]

To be honest, I spent a long time thinking shields DID need to be kept down, and keeping them that way did not increase difficulty in any appreciable way. Take out that stupid magnetism mechanic that makes them totally unable to protect their engines from even the smallest fighter and then you might see it get harder, at least in the first few hours.

[Shehriazad]

you forget that shields and hull both regenerate simultaneously on L size ships and bigger, which makes thermals substantially worse than your numbers suggest

I ignored repair rates, heat and player weapon-mods on purpose for simplicity!But on full calculation I think the general idea would stay the same because Tau which I used as example heats up faster...so I guess they'll still come out just about even...except on Xenon I which repairs so fast that the Thermal damage will hardly make a difference....but you can't board those, anyway!

[radcapricorn]

...but keeping the shields intact may provide enough time to board if sector authorities bring some guys to deal with the ship

[Shehriazad]

...but keeping the shields intact may provide enough time to board if sector authorities bring some guys to deal with the ship

That is so incredibly niche of an issue to me that I don't see the use of that...but hey whatever floats your goat.

[Sandalpocalypse]

How is that a niche issue? It happens all the time.

[Shehriazad]

How is that a niche issue? It happens all the time.

It is an issue I do not have when capping ships... which is why there is the little "to me" in that sentence.