[X3AP] Musical chairs on board?

[jlehtone]

Some Boron Pirates had stolen an M7 and help was requested. Mostly rookie Mercs they had.

Standard operation. 20 Marines drop in to learn some Fight, and proceed quite predictably. After the last deck the Mercs bail out and my Marines hack the core. Time to pull Marines back to their barracks and collect the suits. Not a single RRF ship to mess my day either.


Here comes the odd part. Among the 20 "Marines" on board there was one rookie. Among the suits in space there was one of my decent Marines, the "20th man".

Is there some small chance that boarding Marines can be kicked out even though the operation is a walk in the park? (I don't think this was the first time either.)

Similarly, are the defenders kicked out only due to the lack of space, when the limit (of 20) is enforced? My observations on cases with defending crew are rather limited and more on the "all or nothing" side.

The 21th (or 9th) member bailing is a clear case.


How else one could explain a rookie Boron clinging to its seat? Sticky tentacles?

[Nanook]

...
Is there some small chance that boarding Marines can be kicked out even though the operation is a walk in the park? (I don't think this was the first time either.)

In short, yes.

Similarly, are the defenders kicked out only due to the lack of space, when the limit (of 20) is enforced? ...

No. All surviving defenders abandon ship no matter how many slots are available, or at least that's been my experience. Of course, my experience could be incomplete. I'm suprised that you had a 'clingon' Boron.

[jlehtone]

Indeed. One would rather expect a pleasant journey with Mi Ton than a turncoat.

[Jimmy C]

Yes, after you clear the last deck on the ship, there is a chance that one of your marines gets kicked overboard after the core is hacked and boarding is complete.

To check, look at the Personnel tab of your Properties screen when your marines are hacking the core. If it lists the number of boarders as (N+1) where N is the maximum capacity of the ship's marine spots, one of your men is going to get kicked overboard. From what I've seen before, even if you boarded the ship with fewer than N marines, the game will still leave enough formerly-enemy marines onboard to resulting in needing to kick one of yours overboard.

If you consider the situation unfavourable for a drifting marine, you can reload a savegame from before the marines cleared the last deck and let it reroll whether one of yours gets kicked overboard or not.

[Alan Phipps]

What is even more annoying is when your boarding target has RNG/damage-limited cargo space but lots of bulky loot left on board after the operation. This leaves little or no room for marines or passengers in whatever cargobay capacity is left. (Sometimes the target is even left with negative cargospace!)

You can lose some or even all your successful marines then because there is not enough cargospace for them on the ship - and in that particular case they don't get evicted to space, they just disappear.