Boarding Civilian TLs

[Bill Huntington]

I've got my marines fight trained to 100. Now I'm training them up in the rest of the categories, with the priority for Mechanical. I've kept a crew for boarding, mainly to earn $. Paranid Hyperions sell for about 20 Mil, even with battle damage. TLs sell for about 18 Mil.

I noticed that Civilian ships can be an asset through much of TC/AP. Early in the game they're a safe ship to cap, since they can't fight back. Later the Civilian TLs provide boarding experience and $. Arenas are always TLs. Casinos and Hospital Ships are sometimes TLs.

Here's what I want to report, mostly for the benefit of newer pilots looking for the best boarding targets. The make-up of the Civilian fleet isn't set until you check on it, either by entering the sector or looking via Satellite. There's more than 100 sectors after all. If you check via Satellite, sometimes the Civilian fleet is completely different when you jump in. If you find the ship you want via Satellite, you can make sure it's still there by putting it into one of the overhead windows. If it's a TL you want as a Casino and it's not there when you check via satellite, don't put the Casino in the overhead window. It just might be a TL when you jump in.

There's a life cycle for a Civilian fleet, how long it will last before it'll be different. That's if you're OOS. If you're In Sector, it doesn't change while you're there. At least the whole sector doesn't change.

Any pilots want to add their experience with civilian ships?

[Alan Phipps]

That civilian shipping can drop unusual almost valueless 'fluff' wares that you wouldn't normally trade in when destroyed (vacuum cleaners, promotional plates, etc). Some will appear as ware headings in Stock Exchange listings.

These wares can make for another in-game personal challenge if you want to collect examples of the whole set available (only OCD-tendency players need apply ).

[DrSuperEvil]

Boarding civilian TL ships is easy money earning over 100 million an hour but will wreck your Race Rank with the owner race.

To board TLs your boarding crew needs 710 combined Fight skill, 2/5 need 53-80 Mechanical for space walk boarding or 27-40 if using boarding pods and 2 need 31 hacking. I advise aiming for 40-55 mechanical since that is enough to board an M7M.

I prefer to space walk board using a highly trained boarding crew of 8 marines launched from a Heavy Centaur Prototype (3IPG, 3CIG, 6PRG and 6ID) since the presence of an M7M tends to scramble more RR ships to spoil the party.

Use a ship able to equip Ion Disrupters for wiping anti-boarding equipment off and save once the shields are down so you can reload until you kill the anti-boarding equipment but not the Jump Drive. Also save at the end of Deck 5 to be able to roll for the Jump Drive. You can then transfer enough Energy Cells off the player ship to jump it to the nearest friendly sector and have enough for more boarding.

For Argon TLs I recommend Montalar (hospital ship) Light Of Heart (2-3 civilian and a supply TL), Red Light District (1-2) and Ringo moon (0-1 but has an M1 so be careful). I usually launch my raids from the solar power plants in Empire's Edge or Trinity Sanctum.

[Bill Huntington]

Rep loss is the same for civilian and military ships. Best advice is to keep rep at the top step while you're capping and boarding them. It takes a lot longer to drop a level from the top. That means doing missions for same race that you're attacking.

[DrSuperEvil]

That assumes you do not have a nemesis (not the ship).

[jlehtone]

I haven't done any civilians. X3AP has the RRF. Not that I would fear them, but I'm not fond of explaining the technical errors that cause lethal misfires.

I worship the Almighty RNG, and she grants me generic missions. Occasionally.