The Return from 2010.

[RAVEN.myst]

I'm certainly very familiar with various large chip plexes - usually I built "CPU towers", heheh, though also did not-quite-Borg cubes, and others - I'm sure many a player here also remembers building serious Silicon Valleys in Space... A word of advice: you can also, if you can afford it (which I'm pretty sure you can) to be buying up all the chips that your CAGs and/or CLS2s can get their hands on - that will help with reaching that quota.

Oh, PS: don't stack too many chips in one place, as they may gain emergent sentience, and then we're ALL in a heap of trouble! ;P

[Dreez]

Another Update:

Finally finished building the complex that ended up twice as large as planned and a small miscalculation on the solarplans were
saved by building the station to handle above its requirements.
Boron Shores only had 100% sun instead of the 150 that was calculated for, but the amount of solarplans
were still enough to keep the complex selfsustaining .

http://grangegame.co.uk/x3tcocc.html?fa ... Boron,M,20

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I got really lucky with all the tube-drawing and the complex is somewhat clean of them, i can actually fly some M2's through there,
looks and feels amazing taking a flyby once in a while.
Took me 3 days to wrap it up... omg.


Question: Is it normal to lose half your boarding-crew with rank 2-5 fightingskill on "retrive ship" missions on M7 ships ?.
I've been reloading a Retrieve Cerberus for 30 minutes and my boardingcrew keeps dying in droves...
The Cerberus is scanned and doesn't have any defenses...

Sidenote: Paranid did an incursion into Home of Light with 2 Diemos and a Oddy and were ripping the place apart,
so i took the opportunity to board the oddy and took 0 casualties,
while saving the sector from destruction.

Question: Is it normal to NOT lose any boardingcrew on an enemy M2
while the same crew dies on an abbandoned M7 ?.

[jorganos]

Did you do a pod-less boarding? The first deck can result in losses if only one team made it to fighting while the rest was still busy clawing through the hull. Once the rest of the marines have united, losses on undefended objects are pretty rare.

My Barren Shore complexes usually produce crystals for distribution to not-quite self-sufficient solar power plants (like those M-plants on a 6 Silicon L mine) or SPPs in sectors lacking any silicon. Chips are only a side product for the Hub, ship-building and income generation once those two needs are cared for; if I have five plants stacked there, it's a lot.

A Tiger or Panther with me at the helm usually has a hard time maneuvering through my factory towers, so I wouldn't want to risk the trip in a M2 or M1, not even of Split design. On the other hand, Carracks come in handy for cleaning up attackers between these towers.

[RAVEN.myst]

I like the architecture of that complex, very impressive (and a lot more patience required than I am generally willing to devote hehehe) When you mention that you can drive capital ships through it, it provides scale - imposing!

Regarding boarding: for starters, what Jorganos said about the staggered timing of initial breaches is spot-on: if one group arrives before the rest (which often happens in spacewalks, but a lot less often using boarding pods), then they are alone vs the ship's challenges. If you are doing a spacewalk with a lot of marines, they are divided into several groups, and so the above situation can repeat. Another thing that vastly affects success is the marines' fight skills. If you have only inexperienced ones, then even with a large number you are likely to take casualties, unless the RNG is particularly kind to you. It is a good idea to take a long a number of veteran "mentors" to show the green scrubs the ropes. I tend to like to keep it to close to 50% experienced (3-star minimum, preferably 4-star) fighting marines. If you don't have that many of that calibre (which can happen if you don't train them on softer targets while "younger") then simply take along the best 20-21 and hope for the best. Your marines will gain experience, and with that will come better results.

An M7 has 4 decks, while an M1 or M2 has 5 - this means that the M7 should normally claim fewer casualties, as it has one less opportunity to inflict them.

[Dreez]

I'm always using my Cobra no matter what, even on boarding M6's because if i "free float" M6's, the crew usually spacewalks
way too long for my taste, and its much more convenient with a pod.

What i do is accept a "retrival mission" and depending on if its an M6 or above i continue with the mission
by jumping in with my Blossom+Cobra.
I then jump fast into the Cobra and fire as many pods as the target can handle marines and quickly jump back into
the blossom and start approaching the retrival-target with both my Cobra
and myself while scanning the ship.

I save just as the boardingop is about to breach the hull and then i start watching them die like flies.
Out of a crew of 10 marines, 2 of them usually are rank5 while the rest are 2-3, but that doens't explain why i don't lose
any marines when boarding the Duke's Zeus's in Unknown sector,
or didn't lose a single marine when i boarded that Oddy in Home of Light.

But i spent aprox 45 minutes trying to board the Cerberus for retrival and ended up losing 4-6 out of 10 every time.

But now i'm setting a new rule for my boarding crew. No less then 50% of the crew needs rank4 pref 5 in fighting,
and as few rank2 as possible for each boarding, rotate for each boarding event.

I did try to board a Yaki Ryu, but each time they shot down my pods... Funny how its easier to board an M2
then a frikking TL piloted by pirates.

I just bought a Panther as well and appointed 10 fully loaded Spitfires with EMPC's to it to use as a form of SRT
if a sector gets overrun by enemy fighters.
My plans are to buy about 20 fully geared Solanos using massdrivers
and appoint them to the Panther,
alot of massdrivers makes short work of anything smaller then M7,
and that's where my Panther uses the 6xIBL +spamming Hornets.

I'm approaching Battlemaster and i still don't see many M2's during missions so i'm hoping that'll change once i rankup,
and i'll start using my bomber+Tomahawks more.

I've had a few Baldrics monitoring the earth-sectors and feeding the forges there so i can buy PSS/SSC,
and once i get atleast 15 maxed marines, i'm setting my eyes on boarding a Tyr and grabbing it,
its hands down the best looking AND strongest M2 in the game,
i just have to refuel it alot due to it's inability to carry alot of E-cells.

That's all for now.

[RAVEN.myst]

Just so you know, it is not necessary to fire the boarding pods personally - you can issue a boarding order from within your personal ship. Also, I suspect that firing those pods manually may be part of your problem: when you issue a piracy command to the ship instead of manually firing those pods, all the necessary pods are fired simultaneously, and thus arrive at their target together. Firing the pods FIRST is also a strange option, and simply asking for trouble, because you then have very little time to get the target's shields down, and if the shields are still up above ~5% (it varies), the pods will go 'splat'.

You mention using 10 marines at a time - you really should use twice that many at a time, to be on the safe side. When boarding a capital vessel, the most marines you can use in a boarding op is 21 - I recommend not using less than 20 - apply as much force as you can muster. Also, the more you use at a time, the more marines are being trained per boarding operation.

You mention previously that you scanned and found "no defenses", so I assume no Internal Sentry Lasers - however, do you have a bioscanner fitted? Because if not, you won't see whether there are marines on the defending ship. an M7 with a bunch of marines on board WILL be tougher to board than an M1 or M2 without any.

You mention Ryus shooting down your BPs. This is something you should be expecting all targets to be trying to do, and taking measures to circumvent. Two basic approaches exist: the first and more tedious one is to first fry the guns off the target (traditionally done with Ion Disruptors - other guns work too but damage the target hull), while the second involves spamming medium-yield missiles at the target in order to both help keep down the shields and engage its anti-missile defenses (Missile Defense Mosquitoes and turrets set to Missile Defense) - the the target suitably occupied in this manner and it will not shoot down your pods, regardless of what ship it is and what weapons it's using.

Good luck, and good hunting!

[Snafu_X3]

You mention previously that you scanned and found "no defenses", so I assume no Internal Sentry Lasers - however, do you have a bioscanner fitted? Because if not, you won't see whether there are marines on the defending ship.

OP says this is a 'return ship' mission, so there should be no defences or 'cargo' (marines etc) other than the default minimum.. at least, that's how it is in TC..

With AP increasing hull strength so much for most ships perhaps this is a factor (excluding Terran auto defences ofc)?

[jorganos]

I guess my boarding tactics are rather inelegant. When spacewalking an active enemy, I fry off any turret weapon before sending in the marines, and if the target is faster than 110 m/s, I serve out hull damage until the marines have a chance to catch up when I start the merry-go-round keeping the shields down (preferably using twin prgs or pbes).

For pod-based boardings, I make heavy use of fighter drones and wasp missiles both to keep the shields down and keep that missile defence occupied (backed up by a Tiger using two ISRs or IBLs in case the spam isn't enough to keep the shields lowered), reducing the chance of my pods being selected as target. I don't trust hammers or flails to keep the target intact, but I use them for softening up the target. Suffice to say that two fighter drone factories and their massom and silicon supply usually figure among my first forays into station building.

Understrength boarding (like sending in only 10 out of 21 possible boarders) invites losses, too. It doesn't have to be 20 marines, but less than a dozen making it through the hull usually means slaugther of my valuable marines.

Boarding pods are the most expensive missiles in the game - a fully loaded pod with fully trained marines is easily worth a heavy M6, so losses are major setbacks. I find boarding active M6 or TM to be hardly economical - the time I spend on frying the turrets alone could earn me more than the ship's worth with passenger missions (or tour of a lifetime jump-fests), and that's not counting in repairs.

I train up marines from virtually zero fighting skills because I like to have Boron marine teams, so I am constantly on the look for ship retrievals, but relieving indestructable pirate factories from besieging M7 or M1 marauders offers good training opportunities, too. An average of 50% in fighting usually suffices with commonwealth ships, regardless whether they have defending marines. Collecting up those defenders before they can reach nearby stations often is the greater challenge.

[jlehtone]

Just so you know, it is not necessary to fire the boarding pods personally - you can issue a boarding order from within your personal ship. Also, I suspect that firing those pods manually may be part of your problem: when you issue a piracy command to the ship instead of manually firing those pods, all the necessary pods are fired simultaneously, and thus arrive at their target together.

I've had two recent incidents now regarding the "all necessary". X3AP.

1. Cobra OOS issues the Piracy command with a "Return abandoned M7" target. Only 10 out of 20 marines do the op. I did expect an all out assault.

2. Cobra in sector (but not personal ship) issues the Piracy command with a Brigantine spawned by "Defend Station" mission as target. Only 16 out of 20 marines do the op. I did expect an all out assault. Two marines were lost in the op.


The Piracy command will not launch pods unless the target's shields are sufficiently low.


Lets add third oddity from past: Spacewalk boarding of a "Return abandoned" ship OOS. The suits did gather near the target but made no effort to actually contact the hull. Redone in sector successfully.

[RAVEN.myst]

Yes, glitches (or whatever causes partial launches) do occasionally happen, though I find them pretty rare. As for the piracy command not launching unless shields are low enough: that's an advantage, to keep them from getting fried. In fact, the pods will hold back until the shields are low enough, then launch (there seems to be a time limit, and also I think the command will fail outright if shields are too high, but my recollection here is hazy.)

Never tried (in fact, never even THOUGHT of trying) boarding from OoS - thanks for the idea, I'll test it out at some point.

[jorganos]

I tried boarding OOS years ago in TC, and lost a load of marines in the process, in some limbo. Never tried again, so keep on reporting on these OOS boardings.

I have seen partial boardings, too, a couple of times, both with pods and spacewalking. I regard these as legitimate cause for reloading.

[RAVEN.myst]

I tried boarding OOS years ago in TC, and lost a load of marines in the process, in some limbo. Never tried again, so keep on reporting on these OOS boardings.

OK, perhaps I'll skip my experiment - I suspect boarding was never meant to be an OoS activity (and intuitively that makes sense to me, or I would have tried that already, I gues.)

I have seen partial boardings, too, a couple of times, both with pods and spacewalking. I regard these as legitimate cause for reloading.

I agree - I'm quite anti "turning back the clock" to re-roll an outcome, but boarding is already too randomly swingy, so if a given order was not fully obeyed for no reason, I don't accept that.

[Nanook]

...and also I think the command will fail outright if shields are too high, but my recollection here is hazy.)...

Hazy, indeed. In fact, I will issue the boarding command before I even engage a target, and the pods always launch on schedule as soon as the shields are low enough. It's the only way I board anymore - me personally lowering the shields and keeping the turrets distracted while my M7M of choice launches the assault. Haven't used a Hammer or Flail during such ops in a very long time.

[RainerPrem]

Regarding marine training rotation, I would add the following to the good advice above: specialise about 2/3 of them in Mechanics and 1/3 in Hacking. When those reach 100% in their chosen field, then train their Engineering to full.

Alternate approach: Train around 10 marines in Hacking, 10 in Mechanics, and all others (normally ~30 or so) in Engineering. Create a team of 20 from 4 * 4-5 star hacking, 4 * 5 star mechanics all other at least 12 * 4-5 star Engineering. Constantly replace weaker ones with better ones finishing training. If you got more than 4 100% Hackers/Mechanics train them in Engineering. An optimal crew for me has 4*100% hackers and mechanics and ALL 100% engineering.

The latter because my main source of income in the "middle" part of the game is boarding M2s from all factions and selling them.

cu
Rainer

[Dreez]

A small update on my adventure.

First the story about the finally captured Tyr .

A few days ago i first gave it a shot, as stated previously in this thread, and despite welltrained marines,
failed due to the ship having very thick hull.

2 days ago i sent a Mistral named "Tyr Jumpdrive" on follow on a Tyr that was marked for capping,
and when all the marines cleared bootcamp with 100 mechanic, i made sure my Cobra was loaded up on E-Cells and missiles
then i set it to follow the Mistral that was shadowing the Tyr...
and i waited, sorting other business meanwhile.

After monitoring the Cobra's position for a while, it finally started to get somewhat close to the Tyr, in Neptune,
so in fear of losing the Mistral containing all the upgrades and E-cells for the capped Tyr, i set it to dock at a station closest to Pluto gate.

I then took personal control over the Cobra after hitching a fast ride with my Enhanced Jaguar, and started to set things in motion.
The plan was to outright start capping the Tyr right there at the gate but i noticed it had plans to proceed into Pluto
due to it's alignment with the gate, so i jumped through with it... my heartrate increased at this time because
i've boarded Tyr's in 2010 and i remember how much has to be done.

So i took a dive straight beneathe the Neptunegate in Pluto and started to create distance between me and the Tyr..
at about 24km from it, and 10km from the gate, i saved my game in the top spot after making sure i hadn't lost any ships to any unforseen incidents...

I set my Cobra's standing to hostile ATF, and began my tests, i didn't recall how many volleys of Hammers a Tyr could handle
considering it's insane 12GJ shielding.. after a few failed attempts that
ended either in too many missiles used, or simply blowing up the Tyr,
i finally launched all marines with the Tyr's shields stable at 2% by flails.

Just before the Marines hit the Tyr's hull, i saved again, i know from experience that some ships
LOVES to surprise boardingpods with a burst of flak .
After a few reloads, the marines hit the Tyr and boarding commenced....
and here i hit the brickwall..no pun intended, seriously.. Tyr with HPD, an impossible nightmare to board.
I think i spent about 2 hours trying to board, reloading... to the point where i was afraid my save would get corrupted.

So i did some research on these forums where it said to simply destroy the current Tyr to respawn another,
hopefully without the dreaded HPD, so i loaded the game to just before i started nuking the Tyr,
gave the order for my Mistral to pick me up.
As i transfered to the Mistral and got ready to jump out, i set the Cobra as hostile to ATF and from the safety in Family Whi,
i ordered the Cobra to nuke the Tyr with 7 volleys, didn't work so i reloaded and sent 8 volleys that did the trick... phew..
8 volleys is ALOT of damage.

I took a reputationhit from Solar Sentinel down to 13% Guardian of Earth, nothing that could be helped,
and i jumped into my Springblossom to start sorting out my empire that i had neglected during this botched operation.
After sorting out the pile of messages from my empire, and noticing that another Tyr had spawned in Moon/Earth,
i jumped over to Asteroidbelt and moved full speed+SETA towards the new Tyr for a scan....
/sadpanda /cryariver /saltinwounds.... the newly spawned Tyr had HPD... .

At this point i started to question wether is actually was worth the hassle and the grey hairs to capture an M2 with insufficent cargo
that couldn't support its weaponry, but i recalled with delight how powerful a 12PSP charged broadside was,
so i decided to do more research... and got an advice, a grasp for the final haystraw to cap it.
The tip was to actually bring the Tyr down to very low hull and hope to cause enough damage to destroy the HPD...
So i reloaded the save i made just before i engaged the Tyr the last time and did as suggested, i recalled 7 volleys was required to kill it
so i sent 5 volleys and it exploded.. /reload and send 4 volleys+individual hammers,

After a few reloads i finally got the hull to 27% and the very weak shieldings on the Tyr was keeping
the flails from eating up the rest. I then send the Marines and saved...
After a few reloads of this, the HPD was finally destroyed and my marines boarded successfully /saved.
Once they reached deck 4 i jumped out and checked all standingsettings and when the marines reached central core /saved.
I then closely monitored the Tyr and openend its cargo as it was capped,
i really needed SCC's because for some reason
the SCC-forges are REALLY slow at producing them (even with me feeding them).

Then i finally capped the Tyr with 12SCC at 15%, basically only the paint holding it together..
/saved, i then swiftly sent the Mistrial to jump into Pluto and transfer all upgrades+E-cells to the Tyr,
started the SETA and after a few seconds *Attention, one of your ships are under attack*
and my Tyr was gone... i reloaded the save and checked all standings, and nothing was out of order,
they just decided to destroy it after a few minutes out of pure fun i guess.
(literally all standings were checked).
So i cursed at myself... i need that Mistral to reach the Tyr faster...

/reload, start the entire capping all over again .

This time, before i even engaged the Tyr, i ordered my Mistral to approach the Pluto-gate, the pegleg only moves at 130 m/s
so atleast i knew it wouldn't jump into Pluto before combat was over, and get nuked...
/Check settings and start everything again.. capping saving..
Finally after repeating everything and reloading a few times, i get the Tyr with 12SCC again and order it to approach the Neptune gate,
and while i hold my breath, the Mistral jumps in, i quickly transfer all upgrades and E-cells then order my Tyr to jump.. ANYWHERE JUST JUMP.
It landed in Family Whi at no shields 15% hull.. blinking red..
and at this point i'm releaved, until i see a Split military Tiger flying straight for my unshielded 15% wreck.. *panic*.
I quickly transfered into the Tyr and since its "strafing" is still fast,
i move out of the way of the Tiger, saved in the last second *phew*.

So .... after all that - finally i got the Tyr, fully loaded with weapons,
and now i can start relaxing again.

As far as complexes goes, i setup a new complex that was placed in Siezewell.
http://grangegame.co.uk/x3tcocc.html?fa ... lit,L,3,25

Selfsustaining and doing really well, earned about 12mil only selling the rifles in 2-3 days and i'm considering opening the
sales for the PBE's and MD's as well.
I built this complex because i felt a huge lack of access to PBE's and MD's whenever i'm gearing up fighters... i hate PBE's so why not use them.

Current wealth is approaching 1.5bil liquid funds..

Bought a new ship. M7 Panther named Donnager, equipped with FFA's, IBLS, and 30 Solanos... very angry M7.

Also bought a Mobile Miningship+10Super Mistrals that are currently housing in Ore Belt set to mine Ore
that i then store in Mammoth's in Legend's Home...
Currently have about 6 of them fully loaded with Ore for the Hub-plot and there's going to be more.

My next complex-project will be located in Ore Belt.

http://grangegame.co.uk/x3tcocc.html?fa ... on,M,1,106.
Not looking forward to buildling that one, going to take a day atleast, but once it's done it's going to make a lot of money.

Selfsustaining ofcourse.

That's it for now .

/Edit for cleanup.

[RainerPrem]

A small update on my adventure.

...

As i transfered to the Mistral and got ready to jump out, i set the Cobra as hostile to ATF and from the safety in Family Whi,
i ordered the Cobra to nuke the Tyr with 7 volleys, didn't work so i reloaded and sent 8 volleys that did the trick... phew..
8 volleys is ALOT of damage.

I took a reputationhit from Solar Sentinel down to 13% Guardian of Earth, ...

Hi,

absolutely unneccesary rep loss. Stay in the sector, only send the Cobra away (to a jump beacon, so there's no delay) and wait until the now ownerless missiles kill your target. No rep loss, because you didn't kill it.

/sadpanda /cryariver /saltinwounds.... the newly spawned Tyr had HPD...

If I remember correctly there is one Tyr without the HCP patrolling Segaris, Megnir and Althes.

cu
Rainer

[Nanook]

absolutely unneccesary rep loss. Stay in the sector, only send the Cobra away (to a jump beacon, so there's no delay) and wait until the now ownerless missiles kill your target. No rep loss, because you didn't kill it.

Dreez, note that this is considered an exploit and may cheapen your experience. I personally don't use it for that reason. But hey, everyone plays differently.

[Dreez]

Dreez, note that this is considered an exploit and may cheapen your experience. I personally don't use it for that reason. But hey, everyone plays differently.

Yeah i prefer to play without resorting to exploits. Reloading to get better rng on cargo is ok, its rng.
If i wanted to exploit, i could just beat anything in the game on the first day by making it easy.


Right now i'm settings up 2 Mammoth's fully loaded with Ore in every major shipyard to stockpile the 450k Ore i need.
Working slowly on OTAS rep for the Venti, and doing the Kha'ak plot as well, and once the Venti is secured,
im starting on the Goner plot. Can't get to the Aldrin Missions fast enough to gain access to Terran stationbuilding,
i really need better producing stations.

I keep feeding the SCC/PSP stations in the Terran sectors, but their staff must be spending half the time on the toilett,
because their manufacturingspeed is subpar to everything else.

If those were employes my mine, they would've gotten canned long ago.

[jlehtone]

If those were employes my mine, they would've gotten canned long ago.

The GoD (of X3TC) is eager hand out "Negative Economic Events" to Terran workers.

[Dreez]

The GoD (of X3TC) is eager hand out "Negative Economic Events" to Terran workers.

Yeah i had a personal experience of the GoD myself, either that or some stupid faction decided
to blow up all the pirate-stations in Dannas Chance, lost my hauler docked at the PBG factory there that was buying the weapons.

So now i have to find a stationhack for the remaining IBL/PBG in the deeper pirate sectors and start feeding them.
IBL's can be found rather simple by capping M2's, but PBG's are rare and excellent on M6 for light sector defense.