Suggestion re: H capture

[Submarine]

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I searched for a suggestion forum and there was none, thought spoilers was most respectful as it deals with H capture.

Simple idea, capturing H is really hard if not impossible because of automated internal defences currently 1600, I dont even know how I am supposed to find 16 marines who can beat that. From what I have read I have never done terraforming missions and even if I got close it would still be RND roulette and save surfing, like with ship mods which is not compelling gameplay stimulating game activity, unless you count pressing the load button.

Sun Tsu says victorious warriors win first and then go to war.

So I was thinking better play might be to require using a suit launched EMP bomb to knock out the internal defence grid as EMP defeats electronics. Plus it is tricky to pull off, requiring personal hazard in the suit with defence drones launching etc.

I did try this at hull 1% for good measure and I got four leaks all to stop engines, which were already destroyed anyway in order to enable the procedure in the first place, so not a very useful reward.

I was thinking it would be useful if one of those leaks disabled internal defences for an hour or so, long enough to launch a boarding operation with a reasonable chance of survival.

Just a thought.

[CBJ]

Suggestions belong in the main forum. Moved for you.

[-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-]

I got an H with a save with 36 days of play. Many marines are terraformed, but the 16 used for boarding were the result of long gameplay.
To be honest, all boardings should be as difficult as the H, with a difficulty equivalent to the boardings of X3.
Boarding should not be as easy as it is now, and the difficulty of the H is a great expression of a future improvement in boarding.

[adeine]

I found capturing one a fun challenge without being too difficult. It's entirely possible without maxed out marines (I did not use any training beyond actual past boarding experience).

[vvvvvvvv]

Simple idea, capturing H is really hard if not impossible because of automated internal defences currently 1600, I dont even know how I am supposed to find 16 marines who can beat that.

That's 16 4+ star marines, half of which will probably die. It should be quite possible to train them through boarding missions, though with terraforming it will be perhaps more efficient.

like with ship mods which is not compelling gameplay stimulating game activity, unless you count pressing the load button.

That is not how you use shipmods. You place a ship on repeat order in conflict zones to gather materials, Fuel Containers, Nividum Oxide, etc. When you have hundreds of secondary materials, you burn them to get the perfect roll and keep reassembling until you get what you need. There are also mods that provide strong result regardless of the roll (Digger, Mirage, etc). And for rare parts they require you hunt them down from valuable targets.

[Imperial Good]

I understand the H being difficult to board is an Easter Egg for X3, where they were notorious for wiping entire maxed marine teams due to instant fail RNG rolls. But it just does not make sense from the perspective of the ship value. The H is an alright ship, but it is nowhere near the Erlking and the Erlking is orders of magnitude easier to board. The only time people would want to board it is for bragging rights that they defeated the challenge.

For people who are not aware, the H spawns its own marines up to the boarding resistance every time you board it. As such you cannot wear it down, matching it gives you a 50:50 chance of success and anything below starts to go towards certain loss.

From a balance perspective it would make a lot more sense to have half or even a third of the boarding resistance. Given the marine count it will still be a challenge to board (newbie marines will as good as always fail) and even for 5 star marines there would be a good chance for significant losses.

No Xenon ship justifies this boarding resistance and effort to board currently. Even a Destroyer I just is not that good, if it was boardable.

[LameFox]

Xenon being hard to capture at least made sense in X3, since you could reverse engineer the ship and start building them yourself. It was a bit of a tedious kind of challenge because it's less skill and more chance, but it had a reward at least.

It's only perplexing and offputting in X4. The worth of the ship will simply never justify the effort.

[Thomas2052]

The worth of the ship will simply never justify the effort.

This.

I really like the H. I like the idea of drone control ships (modern warfare seems to be going that way, why wouldn't it continue?)

But by the time you can reliably capture one this way (trained / experienced marine team ready) it will be massively outclassed by any fleet you can buy / mass produce.

Now, if it was 1600 defence to capture an I with self-repairing boarding resistance, that would be worth it. For a H, half it and don't let it regenerate.

As for boarding in general - I think it was X2 where shields had to be down to a certain level, or it fried your pods, and certain ships had internal turrets that made it difficult. That to me was more fun, having to scan the ship and assess it's defences, as well as meaningfully attack it - I still insist on lowering shields in X4 just to add challenge when boarding.

Regards

[BitByte]

I captured 1 H for test purposes in my long-term game as I had lots of elite marines to spare.
I have tested couple scenarios in my current game (<10d gametime) as I have boarding educated marines (almost 4 stars veterans and some 4 stars elites) but so far it was failure.

What makes H boarding even more problematic is that player does not have any clue how operation itself goes. You can hear comments from your marine team and they can be happy but when 1/3 is out their comments change.
It would help understand the situation more better if also defence resistance number would reduce during the boarding operation like it does with others.
1600 defence points is equal as 16 marines with 5 stars skill. But what have been said it H have 32 "defence systems" so it would make 2,5-3 stars per unit. For 4+ stars marines this shouldn't be impossible task (when there's normal marines from other factions against) but machine seems to be.

I wouldn't mind if using EMP (missile or spacesuit bomb) would cause partial defence disabling (not fully because that would make H too easy to capture).

[Raptor34]

Or just make it unable to be captured. But that's a discussion people aren't ready to have.

[Submarine]

Or just make it unable to be captured. But that's a discussion people aren't ready to have.

but... is this because we can't have nice things? I was thinking more along the lines of, what would be fun here?

Also what's the point of making a ship interior if hardly anyone will use it, though there is that Timelines abandoned ship fixer upper opportunity.

The question noone is discussing is why Xenon drop spacefly eggs. I have a pet theory the Xenon are being used as vehicles by spaceflies who are like Trisolarans from the Three Body Problem, gifted with communal computing powers which make them able to subvert the computer controlled terraformers into useful habitats through which they wage war on the beings responsible for destroying their natural homes in asteroid based hives.

Which leads to the obvious suggestion, that Boso Ta could genetically engineer spaceflies to act as programmable micro marines, specifically to invade any Xenon ship or structure and take it over. Suggest a research project and a station blueprint for a spacefly breeding chamber requiring materials to produce engineered spaceflies to combine with a programmable field array and security slicer, container and trigger to make a space suit bomb device enabling takeover of any Xenon ship or structure. Point being they are difficult to make and limited by PFA drops so you need to choose your targets carefully.

That would be preferrable to 'you can't touch this', imho.

[vvvvvvvv]

but... is this because we can't have nice things? I was thinking more along the lines of, what would be fun here?

It would be more interesting if we could board K and I instead. Or if there was another xenon ship.

Xenon ships in general are quite underpowered, and H has high capturing cost compared to what it offers.

I played with the free H you get from timelines, trying to get it to work, and basically it is the same problem as with F and B - I can't find configuration I'm happy with.

Basically the first thing I tried with H after slapping nanotube and slingshot on it was slasher on all turrets. It can pound things with seismic charges, but by default the range is short, and for example, when facing K, at the range where H can shoot K, K can shoot back. This can be solved with Expediter instead of Slasher on seismic charges, then it will outrange K, but then there's a problem that its needler turret are short range. So they do nothing unless mosquito ships get really close. If you boost their range with Expediter, range increases but then the damage is very low.

So I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with this. Use it as a trader?

Similar problem happens with F and B. Even purple modded they end up fairly underwhelming. I like B, for example, but plasma cutter range is very short.

[BitByte]

Similar problem happens with F and B. Even purple modded they end up fairly underwhelming. I like B, for example, but plasma cutter range is very short.

I have paired few Bs with PEs as fleet (5-7 PE + 2 B) and put them to guard mining areas where Kha'ak appears from time to time. So far they have been decent in that job without any mods.

What I have tried B by myself it's tricky ship as you need get steady aim to your target to make damage. Plasma cutter even it's quite powerful weapon when hitting is also slow if you miss and need try again (or after steady shot to cooldown). That's why I more prefer use PE by myself from Xenon ships.
F was... hhhmmm... ship I won't much use but it's nice to have "trophy"

[vvvvvvvv]

Similar problem happens with F and B. Even purple modded they end up fairly underwhelming. I like B, for example, but plasma cutter range is very short.

I have paired few Bs with PEs as fleet (5-7 PE + 2 B) and put them to guard mining areas where Kha'ak appears from time to time. So far they have been decent in that job without any mods.

What I have tried B by myself it's tricky ship as you need get steady aim to your target to make damage. Plasma cutter even it's quite powerful weapon when hitting is also slow if you miss and need try again (or after steady shot to cooldown). That's why I more prefer use PE by myself from Xenon ships.
F was... hhhmmm... ship I won't much use but it's nice to have "trophy"

On steam forums I had a suggestion to use Dragon raider with beams instead B. Tried it, and it indeed felt right. Would be great if Xenon had improved weapons though. Even if it is just for the player.

[Pesanur]

As for boarding in general - I think it was X2 where shields had to be down to a certain level, or it fried your pods, and certain ships had internal turrets that made it difficult. That to me was more fun, having to scan the ship and assess it's defences, as well as meaningfully attack it - I still insist on lowering shields in X4 just to add challenge when boarding.

Nope, in X2 the capital ships crew just bail out. Was in X3TC, X3AP and Rebirth were you need to low the shields.

[Vedmo]

but... is this because we can't have nice things? I was thinking more along the lines of, what would be fun here?

So I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with this. Use it as a trader?

That’s what mine does. Solid, liquid, and container storage while very unlikely to be destroyed makes it rather unique and competent trader as well.

I had no idea they were hard to board, so I must have claimed mine after finding it abandoned.