Capping ...AHHH HAAAAA I think I understand

[Frank Johnson]

It came to me as i was trying to cap a stationary unguarded Treu Light Seeker in the New Home Plot.

Capping a ship is an attention consuming event. I could not imagine doing it in the middle of active combat. I now totally understand the appeal of using flail missiles at a range of 50 KM. At this range you can totally concentrate on the boarding process and make saves at each deck ...provided things go well for your marines.

How do you maintain fine control over shield damage at that range though?

To use lasers you must be very close and be in a ship that can take an ass beating and walk away from it.

[rwhiteruff]

Calculation and timing, to answer your question re: flails. You have to know how much shield damage the target ship is going to take per flail launch, and develop a rhythm for firing that allows the shield regeneration to creep back precisely the amount needed to take another hit. This can take some serious reload humping to get right, but once you do you can keep the target flooded with enough flails to keep shields under ~5% as well as keeping turrets busy when your marine pods are launched.

[Frank Johnson]

Once the shields are down to 10% or so might attack drones be capable of keep the shields below 5%?

[ajax34i]

It's no longer real-time, it becomes delayed-response.

50 km is too long; use 15-17 km. Point your rear at the target and as soon as it starts chasing you, match speed. That keeps a constant distance, for easily predictable results.

You do practice runs to get a feel for how many missile barrages it takes to take the shields down about 20 seconds later, and how many to keep them down for 20 seconds as your pods travel the distance to the target.

Then you shoot your predetermined number of missiles, wait for 5% shields, and shoot missiles - pods - missiles to provide cover against turret fire, and then you cross your fingers and wait.

RE: drones, probably, but I don't really know, I just use missiles.

[Jeraal]

And might I suggest NEVER using marines on the TLS. Those marines cannot be retrieved. I think they get their hands on some Goner literature and change their evil ways.

[nponoBegHuk]

How do you maintain fine control over shield damage at that range though?

To use lasers you must be very close and be in a ship that can take an ass beating and walk away from it.

I'm pretty sure everyone has his own style.

Concept 1: staying close to your target. The closer you stay - the faster the flails and pods land. Both travel at around 0.5 km/s, quite easy to figure how long it will take for them to land. Personally I'm pretty confident at staying at 5-10KM range from the target. If you use Cobra your max speed is enough to outrun most targets you'll be aiming at, and you can use short busts of Turbo Booster MK2 to keep the pace when aiming at those pesky Qs or whatever (Here's a vid of me not using one and getting pounded by his PPC but still getting the cap at the end, I should post a better vid some day, seriously). By the way, the shortcut to match target speed is shift-f by default (it gets overlooked sometimes ).

Concept 2: keeping shields low Seems difficult at the beginning but annoyingly easy after several successful operations. What I usually do is inspecting target ship prior to the boarding and checking how much shielding he has installed. A perfect flail impact (all 8 warheads hit) deals 5k*8 = 40k damage to shields. The only thing you need to do is divide 40k by the total amount of shields. For example, if the target ship is a TL and has 1GJ of shielding, each flail will hit for 4% of his shields. Say you are running away at matched speed and his shields are at 12%, you fire 3 flails. While these 3 are still travelling to the target, keep an eye on his shields, when they reach 16% (4% increased since the last missile launch), launch another flail, and keep launching one per each 4% increase in his shield power. This way when the initial group of flails reaches the target, the shields will fluctuate around the same fixed value. If it's 0%-4% to 3%-7%, you're fine, just keep the rhythm and fire pods away, than keep firing flails to keep shields down. If it's somewhere between 4%-8% to 7%-11%, mix one extra flail then keep the rhythm.

Targets like M1 and M2 with more shielding are easier to manage, since they regen is slower. You'll find a lot of destroyers with 3.2Gj shielding. Each flail hits for 1.25% his shielding this way. You can just keep firing a flail each 1% increase until he goes low enough then slow down a bit and fire pods.

You might want to remember to keep shields below these thresholds to avoid marine casualties:

Code: Select all

	M1	M2	M6	M7	TL	TM
   4	 4	 10	8	 6	 10

Some TLs are actually are pretty challenging targets. I remember going for a bunch of Atmospheric Lifters and some of them spawn with something like 400k shielding. So actually you have to fire a flail for each 10% and keep shields below 6 so basically you have to hope that some of the warheads land late enough so the ship has the chance to regen a bit. 800k-ones are pretty easy though, 1 flail per 5% easy enough to manage.

Here's a free pic for you:
[ external image ]

Concept 3: saving and reloading. Unless you're playing DiD or prefer not to reload during boarding process because of a personal challenge, I would recommend saving at the following steps during the operation (green = 100% recommended, rest = convenient, but can be skipped).

1- Target engaged and speed matched
2- Target shields at 5-20%, ready to fine tune them
3- Target shields at boarding threshold, ready to launch pods
4- Pods mid-travel (useful if boarding from a certain distance)
5- Pods reached target
6- Marines entered ship (all fighting)
7- Deck 1 is clear
8- Save on each subsequent deck clear
9- Reached central computer (useful if you want to reload a couple of times to try to get better equipment)
10- We have access!

Go to property options (r, last tab), and enable only show marines boarding and in space. Check the property-personnel tab before each save.
- If you launched 20 marines and some of them died, reload from the last step when they were still alive.
- If the pods get shot down by ship anti-missile defense, reload from step #3 (or #4), and when the pods are within 5km-ish range from the ship, launch an extra flail and use SETA - such trick helps avoid anti-missile defense, disable SETA right after the pods land and fire flail again - you will need to maintain shields down for some time.
- If the marines fail to enter the ship at the same time (some "Fighting", others "Cutting hull" in property screen, try reloading from #5 a couple of times, if you can't get them all to fight at the same time reload from #3 or #4.
- If your marines fighting skill is high enough for you to expect them all to survive, you can keep reloading on each deck a couple of times until you complete the boarding op without casualties. Buying and training a marine is far more time consuming than reloading a bunch of times over the course of 5 minutes to save his life from RNG death, so it's worth saving on each deck IMO, however a lot of people dislike this somehow.

[Frank Johnson]

And might I suggest NEVER using marines on the TLS. Those marines cannot be retrieved. I think they get their hands on some Goner literature and change their evil ways.

I lost 6 marines on the TLS mission. two got killed 4 were converted to goner path. One was my best marine 3*. Oh well I went and hired 7 more 3* and 2 more 4*. life goes on. I'll go back and find more good marines as time allows.

Say I have picked up 9 pirates who bailed from ships. What do i do with them?

[Darkhymn]

Once the shields are down to 10% or so might attack drones be capable of keep the shields below 5%?

In a recent experiment with that concept, 30 Mk 2 drones will in fact kill an M2 all on their own. The target ship was a fully shielded Paranid Odysseus. I dropped the shields to about 6% with a Hammer barrage and set the drones on it. They quickly brought the shields to the needed 4% and I launched my pods from about 12km away. By the time my pods made contact, the Odysseus was at 87% hull. Called off the drones and got the Oddy at about 80% hull (and with 16 ppc onboard ). Point is, I like the drone concept much more than flails. I'm planning on testing different numbers out soon, to avoid future hull damage. I should point out that I generally get at least one pod shot down in an M2 boarding using the flail tunnel (not to mention tons of unwanted hull damage), and that this method landed 16 marines in 5 pods (the last four were feeling lazy, I guess). I should also mention that I am terrible at M7M boarding.

[garv222]

Say I have picked up 9 pirates who bailed from ships. What do i do with them?

You can bring them to a pirate station and convert them into slaves. Click on the passenger while docked and you should be able to do it. Atleast I think it was a pirate station. You can take said slaves and store for missions. You can also find a rehab center if there are any still around in pirate space, and turn them into marines.

People also recommend using captured pilots for primitive anti-missile chaff. If you manage to stop a missile like this, thumbs up to you! They should put an achievement for that or something....

[Frank Johnson]

Correct me if i am wrong but is it possible to tell your drones to attack shields only?

[Darkhymn]

Correct me if i am wrong but is it possible to tell your drones to attack shields only?

One at a time, yes. Without scripts, there is no bulk command for attack shields.

[Triaxx2]

Personally I like to use captured Pirates as targeting drones. Drop a hostile pirate, boost away and flip out a firestorm as you're leaving. The boost will push you out of range and the pirate will get tagged by the Firestorm.

Waste of a missile you say? Sure, until you master doing it in the midst of an escort of a ship you're intending to board. Sweet...