[TC] No marines launch from my TPs. Is EVA boarding broken?

vhsod · Post by **vhsod** » Wed, 16. Dec 09, 22:56

I'm using version 2.5

I'm at the point in the terran campaign where they want me to board things. Yet the marine-filled scabbards they have provided me with seem incapable of boarding succesfully. I tell it to board and it just flies around the target and the marines never get off of idle. I've read elsewhere on the forums that EVA boarding was possibly turned off in 2.5?

All I know is I tell the thing to board and nothing ever happens, and I can't continue in the campaign unless I get some boarding pods and an M7M which is not something I want to have to do. Is there some easy way to fix the game so TPs will launch marines?

Post by **CBJ** » Wed, 16. Dec 09, 23:20

I think you might have posted in the wrong place as X3R doesn't have marines. And since you're talking about the plot and the answers are more likely to be spoilers than technical help, I'll move this over to the X3TC Spoiler forum rather than X3TC Tech Support.

Koruth · Post by **Koruth** » Wed, 16. Dec 09, 23:23

Have you tried piloting the scabbard yourself and launching manually? You can find it in additional ship commands, launch all marines. Get in close to (what I assume is) the Vidar and you can launch.

Oh, also, you need to make sure you've stripped its shields below 10%, and you KEEP them there. Else you can't launch, and it fries the marines if they're on the ship.

Post by **Terre** » Wed, 16. Dec 09, 23:42

I too could not get the Marines to leave the scabbard, despite one of my other ships keeping the shield of the vidar down, after a while of flying around in circles the mission continued - and off we all went.

fairywhipper · Post by **fairywhipper** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 02:09

tried capping with eva marines, but noticed sometimes the marines don't leave the carry ship, thinks it might depend on the range the ships get to the target before marines would do it, so ships could fly in circles till your target is dead, and still not launch.....

vhsod · Post by **vhsod** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 04:05

I've tried using the launch all marines command with the same result. The marines never launch. I've never tried capping anything not part of a campaign mission though.

jwigeland · Post by **jwigeland** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 04:49

As in the other thread, this mission is broken.

Just let it alone and the Terrans will give up after a while and turn the Vidar over to you. Near as I can figure, the Scabbard attempts to line itself up such that it can eject the marines where the Vidar will run over them. But, oh yeah... the Vidar isn't moving! DOH.

Velglarn · Post by **Velglarn** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 15:36

I couldn't get the piracy command to work as long as the vidar was blue to me. Even clearing its shields didn't turn it red. After shooting its hull for a bit it finally turned red and the scabbard got to work.

All this caused significant damage to the Vidar. It was around 30%. Seeings as how it's more or less a tutorial, its easier to just let the mission complete on its own.

This was before I patched to 2.5 by the way.

Musicker · Post by **Musicker** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 17:21

I experienced the same issue last night when trying to board a Supply Hercules in Heaven's Assertion. I had my starting Angel from my Lost Lar start plus a Toucan, the Angel was filled with 10 marines all trained almost 100% and between 3 and 4 stars each in fighting. The Toucan had 6 more marines, almost as well trained as the ones in the Angel.

I could get one of the TPs to launch marines at the Hercules, but the second one absolutely would not launch its marines until/unless the first boarding party were all dead, then the marines would launch, and of course get slaughtered. I tried many times on each boarding attempt, using both the Piracy menu and Additional Commands/Launch All Marines, didn't make a difference.

I eventually sent the Toucan back home and just concentrated on the 10 marines in the Angel. Eventually I succeeded in capturing the Hercules, with only 3 marines left. That was a very expensive Hercules.

I am wondering if there is something buggy with the boarding scripts that is causing this as well, nothing I tried would allow the marines in the second TP to launch unless there were no other marines in the air or on board the Herc.

The one thing I didn't try was bouncing into the Toucan and trying the commands from there.. maybe I will experiment with that tonight, but it should work remotely in the first place, shouldn't it?

A TL can (ostensibly) fit 20 marines, so if I'm not mistaken, one should be able to launch up to 20 marines at a time at the target..

ndp183 · Post by **ndp183** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 19:55

EVA boarding is a broken piece of shit.

I've been trying it for the last couple of days. One out of 10 tries or so the marines actually launch. Regardless of command. If the target shoots at my TP at all it won't launch marines. I have to re-issue the command again and again and again. I don't use the script/hotkey so that @!#$# sucks.

And don't tell me to pilot the ship myself. I don't want an annoying workaround that compromises play. Besides I've tried it and it doesn't work much better.

Hey Mr Mod guy, how bout you move this back to tech support, as the feature clearly doesn't work.

Goodfeller · Post by **Goodfeller** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 22:03

It would seem that during the design stage, someone got too carried away with his own genius and overdesigned the feature with too many rules and regulations and menus. I mean why put in a simple launch button when a half dozen back-and-forth clickable menus will do, right ?

pincerfae · Post by **pincerfae** » Thu, 17. Dec 09, 23:26

Well, well..

I had mentioned an issue just like this about a month ago and it got blown off.

Seeing this post confirms I'm not losing my fibrofog-affected mind.

Loading up two TPs worth of marines, where only one will actually launch 40% of the time, while the other TP is flying around doing creation-knows-what is maddening as hell.

Though 1 out of 10 tries (10% of the time) is much worse than my experience.

I did this with my M6 Skiron (manually lowering shields) while using the TP to launch marines (sometimes it works with the piracy command, other times it's the special option). This was an attempt to board an Argon Supply Mammoth
I've heard suggestions to have a transporter device on both the TP and the M6/attack ship you're using so you can switch between both. I actually haven't tried this yet.
It's possible to have both TPs and the ship you're flying in a wing.
But I still agree that the using TPs for boarding has been deliberately nerfed to promote the use of M7Ms (which, to be honest, if you have enough money with factories or missions, you could probably get within a game day or so).
If using TPs full of marines is an option for boarding, then you should NOT have to use an M7M.
Way to go Egosoft...

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vhsod · Post by **vhsod** » Fri, 18. Dec 09, 19:16

Its not a bug in that mission either. I can't launch marines with the scabbard in the aldaran mission to cap the deca either. Maybe its a bug with the scabbard. Has anyone tried launching marines from other races TPs?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Fri, 18. Dec 09, 19:45

The immobile #Deca/Vidar boarding issue is not over the type of TP, it is the need for a precise release distance from the target. A shade too close and your fragmented groups of marines appear miles away from the target due to collision detection displacement, a shade too far away and they all or some sub-groups may take no interest in the target. Any more than a shade either way and they won't launch at all! The AI just can't get it right with stationary big targets and even personal piloting and launch can be frustrating. Even when the launch goes OK, the lead marines can get hung up on bits of the ship and not start cutting.

By the way, only bother trying to board the #Deca if you have read the thread on how to use the group launch sequence exploit. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=258984

vhsod · Post by **vhsod** » Sat, 19. Dec 09, 18:32

Its not that I don't successfully board the ship. It's that no marines launch. Let me say it again: NO MARINES LAUNCH. The marines never leave the TP, ever. No matter how long I wait they never get off "idle" status. Eventually the TP gets tired of escorting the target and forgets its command.

BigMistake · Post by **BigMistake** » Sat, 26. Dec 09, 20:24

After downloading and installing v2.5 on my vanilla game, I found out about the breaking of my pirate enterprise. To say the least, I was saddened at the aspect of not being able to do boarding missions with a lone M6. I then scoured these forums in search of a guide to get me cap'n again and I did find one, which involved two TPs, a M6(the player), and support fleet (aka a couple wings of random fighters) capping a M7M. So, I did a test run on a Supply Mammoth using 2-4* marines and the two Scabbards you get for free. Both of my TPs launched all their marines but only one team made it inside to die, as one TP's marines spawned really far away and one spawned really close. It didn't help that I had forgot to properly train everyone so several marines were left floating about, "The hull issss too thick!"
In summary, I think that the issue with the boarding of stationary targets lies in that EVA boarding is designed to work on moving ones now. (The EVA boarding I did pre-2.5 was with my Hyperion Vanguard on TLs) My advise is to cool off, save lots, and try, try again. Happy hunting.