M3 + TP Boarding. Wow!

[Frostynso]

What a rush! If you haven't done it yet, give it a try.

This last capture of mine, I used a Nova Raider and an Express loaded with 10 fresh marines. I had done a lot of M6 and M7M boarding operations before, but never an M3/TP one.

I located a pirate Centaur and determined which gate he was going for, and then waited on the other side of the gate, leaving my TP a short distance away on standby. Once he came through, I immediately went through to the sector he came from in order to eliminate his four M3 escorts while they were separated from him. I took out the escorts, and then gated back to the Centaur.

At this point, I ordered my TP to begin his boarding op. I managed to get the shields down on the Centaur, but my shields were pretty low. The TP passed by, dropped his marines, and I kept the Centaur circling after me. Unfortunately, one of his turrets had picked up on my marines, and was shooting away. After they latched on, I kept his shields down for a bit longer and then booked it out, ordering the TP to follow. In a few moments, I was clear, and in a bit more, the Centaur was mine.

I ended up losing 6 marines in total. Three enroute, and three in the fighting.

Sure it would have been easier to use Ion-D's and then order my TP after a toothless target, but this was more fun!

[Ozkar]

I plan on doing OPs like that in my next game, so glad to hear such an exciting story doing just that!

A couple questions though... Are you running the 2.5 patch? How well trained were your marines? Seeing as getting 6 marines to 3* in everything can be quite expensive.

But still, congrats on your exciting and successful boarding op!

[Frostynso]

Yeah, I am running the 2.5 patch.

I didn't bother training up the marines after I bought them. I bought four with 2-3 stars in mechanical, four with 2 stars in hacking, and two with as many stars in fighting as I could get.

After that, I pretty much threw them straight to the meatgrinder for some on-the-job training, lol.

[Rive]

Well, the M3 part of the things... A fighter is not necessary Just a TP with a load of Dragonfly missiles, some fighter drones - and a bunch of marines.

You have to choose a defend station mission, and let the fighter escort to rush for the station. The local police will take care of them. Then send out the drones against the M6 - preferably an Osprey, without any nasty anti-board equipment or heavy marines. Six MKI drone can keep those shields down. Or you can use more and set them to 'Attack shields'. A salvo with missiles can speed up the process.

Then launch marines.

Ps.: about marine training: some extra engineering skill can be useful for them: my first Centaur had a very thin hull left at the end of the process... That's why I recommend Ospreys as targets. They have more hull to loose. And the lost hull is costly.

[GCU Grey Area]

Well, the M3 part of the things... A fighter is not necessary Just a TP with a load of Dragonfly missiles, some fighter drones - and a bunch of marines.

That's the way I do it too - having an M3 along too just complicates things unnecessarily. My preferred ship for the job is the Angel since it has better missile options than the other TPs (it can also use Silkworms, Wasps & RGWs) & the front turret is handy for keeping up continuous shield suppression, even while going through all the menus to order drone deployment, the marine assault, etc. The large hold is also very handy for carrying plenty of missiles & drones.