Boarding Xenon H

[Just1Ace]

Has anyone been able to take over a Xenon H, I've been able to board it and try several times but it always fails doesn't matter if I try boarding the same Xenon H 10 times it still fails

[flywlyx]

Xenon H has a resistance of 1600, so you need something like 17 4 starts marines to take it.
I heard people succeed with 17 3 starts, but I am not sure how many times he tried.

[Just1Ace]

you can only board with 16 and every attempt I made was with veterans 2-3 stars or better, does being a 3 or 4 star veteran make a difference being the same rank in game?

[vvvvvvvv]

Has anyone been able to take over a Xenon H,

Yes. 16 four star marines in Tharka (5 star boarding, 4 star morale --> 4 star). I think half of them died. Killed a dozen Ks and what felt like half a hundred small xenon ships in the process. Extracting that H out of there was an interesting puzzle.

Would frankly prefer a way to unlock Xenon blueprints. The boarding difficulty does not match utility of those ships.

[Just1Ace]

Has anyone been able to take over a Xenon H,

Yes. 16 four star marines in Tharka (5 star boarding, 4 star morale --> 4 star). I think half of them died. Killed a dozen Ks and what felt like half a hundred small xenon ships in the process. Extracting that H out of there was an interesting puzzle.

Would frankly prefer a way to unlock Xenon blueprints. The boarding difficulty does not match utility of those ships.

I agree they are nice but take forever to deploy the drones and turret coverage is meh, only good thing about it is the speed. crew capacity is meh, the capture difficulty should be lowered to be more compared to the utility, or the H needs a rework given a capital cannon or like 4 more L Xenon turrets, like its got 2??? really?

[ChrisGG]

Has anyone been able to take over a Xenon H,

Yes. 16 four star marines in Tharka (5 star boarding, 4 star morale --> 4 star). I think half of them died. Killed a dozen Ks and what felt like half a hundred small xenon ships in the process. Extracting that H out of there was an interesting puzzle.

Would frankly prefer a way to unlock Xenon blueprints. The boarding difficulty does not match utility of those ships.

rather than permanently unlocking them through a blueprint, i'd give them as a reward for completing the crisis. currently there's no reward for the crisis and this could be a good way of incentivizing the player to start it

[LameFox]

That would not really solve the fundamental mismatch between the ship's cost and utility. Nor the issues with the crisis. That players would even need to be baited into starting it, when players long asked for it because the game was sorely lacking a late game challenge, speaks to how uninteresting it turned out to be. It needed deeper mechanics not a reward.

[vvvvvvvv]

rather than permanently unlocking them through a blueprint, i'd give them as a reward for completing the crisis. currently there's no reward for the crisis and this could be a good way of incentivizing the player to start it

(opinion)It is not valuable enough to be a reward for the crisis. It is basically the same deal as with capturing it. Too much hassle and for what?

This ship is valuable primarily as a blueprint. Because it is cool/interesting. However, because it is so hard to obtain, this ship ends up collecting dust in practice.

[jlehtone]

"The journey is the reward." seems to apply to both H and Crisis.

"I have H" is bragging rights more than "I own useful ships".
Likewise, the Crisis was hoped to give us things to shoot at. Does it?


Yes, I do have H. Boarding did succeed on first try, with many marines lost. They were of the type "has just reached Elite".

[LameFox]

The journey isn't very interesting in either case. The difficult part of boarding an H is just the invisible stat check and the tedium of acquiring the marines to pass it. Otherwise it's the same process of disabling capitals that we've all done before, and it's not even a particularly dangerous ship to do it to. There's nobody in this game who sees my ships but me, so not really any bragging to do. If I won't use them because their deaths mean I have to repeat a tedious process to replace them, they have no worth to me.

And "things to shoot at" isn't even a low bar, just a mark on the floor. Sure, it provided that, in about the least impressive way it could have done so.

[Socratatus]

ha. The only Xenon H I ever boarded was by myself in my spacesuit.

[GCU Grey Area]

I had fun getting mine, which was the main point as far as I'm concerned. Never going to use it (playing a Boron-only game), it's just a trophy to keep parked at HQ. Did however enjoy going aboard & having a good look around. Boarding op itself was unremarkable, same as any other, albeit with quite a few more casualties than usual. My Ray however carries a lot of marines (all 4-5*) so had sufficient for multiple attempts had it proved necessary. In the event though they got it on the first try. What was most memorable about it however was extracting it from Savage Spur II, defending it from numerous waves of Xenon ships as it slowly plodded towards the gate (engines weren't exactly in the best possible state), with reinforcements from Savage Spur I replacing Xenon losses almost as fast as I was shooting them. Fun times.

[flywlyx]

(opinion)It is not valuable enough to be a reward for the crisis. It is basically the same deal as with capturing it. Too much hassle and for what?

This ship is valuable primarily as a blueprint. Because it is cool/interesting. However, because it is so hard to obtain, this ship ends up collecting dust in practice.

I think giving the blueprint for the H makes more sense. After all, it’s a fancy ship.

[Raptor34]

What's interesting about the H is the concept as a drone carrier.
I'm hoping the H is a test, and if it works we'll start seeing faction drone carriers we can actually mass produce.
It seems like a good middle step towards a full on carrier and expensive fighters and trained crews to replace.

[vvvvvvvv]

"The journey is the reward." seems to apply to both H and Crisis.

Hmm, not really. The journey is the reward only when it is challenging in interesting way. In my case, extracting captured H from Tharka was more interesting than capturing it, because capture does not require a whole lot of brainpower. It is a mechanical number barrier.

Because it is a ship, it is meant to be flown. Otherwise it would've been just another office trophy figurine. It is a cool ship, but because you can't rebuild it, it'll be less likely to be used.

If the game handled Xenon ships the way it handled erlking or racing ships, this would've been much better. I.e., for example, you capture it once, then you can rebuild it when it is destroyed. Perhaps capturing more would increase how many of them you could rebuild. I.e. you captured two Hs, you can build up to two Hs if you lost all of them. That would give an actual incentive to bother with it.

[flywlyx]

If the game handled Xenon ships the way it handled erlking or racing ships, this would've been much better. I.e., for example, you capture it once, then you can rebuild it when it is destroyed. Perhaps capturing more would increase how many of them you could rebuild. I.e. you captured two Hs, you can build up to two Hs if you lost all of them. That would give an actual incentive to bother with it.

The Xenon I might be an exception, but the H is just too weak. Unless I’m in the early game, I wouldn’t even bother building it in the late game.
If it were a mining ship, I’d be more interested in assembling a fully armed mining fleet, but as it stands, drone carriers aren’t really suited for the end game.

[LameFox]

I genuinely think you could make all Xenon ships buildable with Universal wares and not break game balance, because their economy is their main strength anyway. Were they not building them out of two rocks and sunlight very few of them would be remotely competitive in their class, and then only due to graviton turrets and the AI being bad at aiming L/XL main guns.

[blackphoenixx]

What's interesting about the H is the concept as a drone carrier.
I'm hoping the H is a test, and if it works we'll start seeing faction drone carriers we can actually mass produce.
It seems like a good middle step towards a full on carrier and expensive fighters and trained crews to replace.

We already have drone carriers. They're just called supply ships.
You can also fill an Albatross with defense drones and set them to escort. They have the capacity. Just be aware it'll take literal hours for them to land again so it's basically useless unless you just want a big cloud of drones in one spot.
I know neither of those are what you want, but they illustrate the main issue - drones are kind of terrible unless you use them in huge numbers, and the only method we currently have that can manage those numbers are supply ships. A drone carrier would just be a stripped-down version of that i suppose.

As for the expensive fighters and trained crews, you can get a basic mk1-equipped Kyd with a pair of missile launchers + ammo for ~50 hull parts and a couple hundred ecells with Closed Loop eco. And pilots are free if you don't have habitats.
Which basically makes them "defense drone mk2" in terms of cost but much more effective.

The problem with replacing them was never cost, just the hassle of constantly having to manually rebuild and reassign them.
And 7.50's lost ship replacement feature deals with that issue rather nicely.

Not that i'm against the concept of a drone carrier, i'd like for the other potential drone-using ships - mainly frigates, which arguably could fill that role and currently get basically nothing out of their drone slots - to get some love first.

[Raptor34]

What's interesting about the H is the concept as a drone carrier.
I'm hoping the H is a test, and if it works we'll start seeing faction drone carriers we can actually mass produce.
It seems like a good middle step towards a full on carrier and expensive fighters and trained crews to replace.

We already have drone carriers. They're just called supply ships.
You can also fill an Albatross with defense drones and set them to escort. They have the capacity. Just be aware it'll take literal hours for them to land again so it's basically useless unless you just want a big cloud of drones in one spot.
I know neither of those are what you want, but they illustrate the main issue - drones are kind of terrible unless you use them in huge numbers, and the only method we currently have that can manage those numbers are supply ships. A drone carrier would just be a stripped-down version of that i suppose.

As for the expensive fighters and trained crews, you can get a basic mk1-equipped Kyd with a pair of missile launchers + ammo for ~50 hull parts and a couple hundred ecells with Closed Loop eco. And pilots are free if you don't have habitats.
Which basically makes them "defense drone mk2" in terms of cost but much more effective.

The problem with replacing them was never cost, just the hassle of constantly having to manually rebuild and reassign them.
And 7.50's lost ship replacement feature deals with that issue rather nicely.

Not that i'm against the concept of a drone carrier, i'd like for the other potential drone-using ships - mainly frigates, which arguably could fill that role and currently get basically nothing out of their drone slots - to get some love first.

Don't Xenon H have a new drone recovery system? As in they launch and land through launch tubes?