Can't get M7M to launch boarding pods

[Idgy]

I'm in a Paranid Core sector trying to cap a hospital ship. I have an M6 that I fly personally to suppress shields, and an M7M safely tucked about 20 km away with all my Marines on it.

I cannot figure out how to get the M7M to actually launch the pods. All these attempts have been done with the target shields below 10% so I don't think that "safety check" is the issue.

I have tried ordering it to Launch All Marines from the Additional Ship Commands menu. It rejects the order but doesn't say why. I have tried loading the Boarding Pods as the active missile, and then ordering the ship to fire 1 barrage. (I get a barrage of Flails and a dead target instead. ) If I order it to board the ship via the Piracy menu command, it starts flying closer (which I don't want due to proximity of Paranid military ships) rather than launching boarding pods from afar.

I have verified that the Paranid are set to Foe on both my Cobra and my M6. Oddly, no matter how much I shoot at the Hospital Ship nor how angry the rest of the sector gets, the Hospital Ship never changes to red/hostile (I guess because it's a civilian ship).

Is there any way to get my M7M to launch Marine Boarding Pods at this hospital ship besides flying it manually? If I do have to fly it manually, what's the best way to keep its shields down? I don't have enough Flails on hand to do it myself from the M7M.

[Allan F]

Are the shields below 5%? Only TM and M6 type ships can be boarded between 5 and 10% sheilds.

The target has to be enemy to you, otherwise you can't board it.

[_Zap_]

as far as i know you have to keep the shields below 5/10 % depending on weathter your'e doing spacewalk or podding over, not depending on whats your target. 5% would be the max. for pods if i'm right.
how to shoot them, i dunno since i just bought my own cobra yesterday and have not done anything with it except stuff some 1gj shields into it i had to collect in the universe...

[Idgy]

Sorry, a clarification. The Hospital Ship will be red to me if I set Paranid as Foe, but if I check to see who's pissed about the weapons fire by setting Paranid as Friend again, it's only the military and cops who get angry. No matter how much I shoot the Hospital Ship, it never goes red unless I've set Paranid as Foe.

I just tried again using your suggestions and I'm still having to do it the hard way. With Paranid set to Foe on my Cobra and my M6, and with the target's shields down to 3%, the Cobra still refused to launch Marines from the Additional Commands menu.

Is there any way to get it to launch boarding pods aside from flying it myself, or having it drop all other missiles and using barrage?

[Kirlack]

I use the exact same boarding method, personal M6 for shield supression, then pod my mercs across from the Ares. I always use the Launch All Marines command, has worked every time for me. I only have BPs on my Ares though, no flails, no hammers. Don't know if that makes a difference?

EDIT: Also, I don't need to set the target race as hostile, my current target is always the first choice in my boarding menu.

[Idgy]

I dumped the Flails and Hammers, and at that point the Barrage command sent my Marines out. So it looks like there's some hangup related to other armaments.

I should also point out that I'm playing the OS X version, where the latest patch is only 2.1. So maybe that's got something to do with it as well.

Regardless, it makes me slightly nervous to send my Cobra into hostile territory with just pods and no missiles, but at least the method works now.

[Spaceweed Adict]

Well Idgy so long as u got plenty of energy cells aboard your cobra and a jumpdrive no problem.
The Barrage command has always worked that way you order a Barrage on any ship your missile boat will always defualt to its heavist armorment and launch.
The number of missiles launched depends on what ship you have and how many missile launch tubes she has, If I'm not mistaken the Cobra has 8.

Personally thou I don't use your method I prefer to fly my Cobra and use missiles and Fighter drones With my Trusty Hyp following

[Idgy]

Personally thou I don't use your method I prefer to fly my Cobra and use missiles and Fighter drones With my Trusty Hyp following

How many Fighter Drones do you deploy for shield suppression? And is there a better way to manage them than ordering them to "Attack Shields Of..." one-by-one?

[deca.death]

well, it's easy

first go to your cobra /m7m (with transporter, btw for this operation it could be close) and set paranid to enemy, and arm boarding pods, then return to M6, then issue cobra a command for piracy, then select TL, then assign marines (15 is enough but send 20, to get more exp) and command to start boarding. m7m will wait shields to get down and when they do, will launch pods. you just keep shield down which is no problem with that ship type.

[Nanook]

...
I should also point out that I'm playing the OS X version, where the latest patch is only 2.1. So maybe that's got something to do with it as well...

That's exactly the problem. It wasn't until patch 2.5 that we could remotely launch marines from the M7M's. Before then, it was either fire them yourself from the M7M, either manually or using the piracy/launch all commands. I don't recall if the barrage command worked properly prior to 2.5.

[Idgy]

That's exactly the problem. It wasn't until patch 2.5 that we could remotely launch marines from the M7M's.

Bummer. Good to know, though. Thanks for the info.

Now off to VP's offices to hand out Red Bull and candy in hopes of getting that OS X 3.1 update sooner.


In case any other Mac users find this thread, I was able to get a somewhat workable system by ordering my M6 and the M7M to follow the target. They both end up close enough to each other that you can teleport back and forth easily (as long as you have a transporter device installed), so holding the shields down and manually launching Marines just takes a bit of trickery with the hotkeys.

[_Zap_]

so, yesterday i made my very first successfull boarding ops. it worked remotely using the pirates-option - my only objection was the cobra tried to pod all 20 marines over to the HCP and not just 5 :-/
with the nice shield regen of the HCP i didn't had the time to click 15 times "no".

[Lelouch]

I don't recall if the barrage command worked properly prior to 2.5.

pre 2.5: Missile Barrage works (remember to drop flails and hammers beforehand)


However if the ships aren't exceptionally missile-unfriendly (old ATF Skirnir due to front turrets[1] or M6, TM, TL due to small shields) then a missile-only boarding operation is quite manageable. (Hammer to reduce shields, properly timed flails to keep shields suppressed. No other ships involved.) It takes some time to learn, but capping ships at 100% hull is relatively easy.

I didn't try to strip M7/M2/M1 with Ion-Ds beforehand. Capped a Skirnir by overwhelming the turrets with flails. M6/TM/TL can be capped with M7M + flails, but some hull damage will occur unless going all out and doing the seta-dance to keep flails from hitting the target.


[1] Around Patch 1.3 the Skirnir has two front turrets which can be equipped with 8 MAML each. However one of the Terran M7M-missile equivalents has a whopping top speed of 45m/s making the ship quite useless otherwise.