AP Marines Fight Rank Increase Rate

[Raize]

Before I start trying to capture things, can anyone give me a rough estimate of how many boarding ops will need to be achieved to bring my marines from weak, 1-star or no-star fighters to 5-star pros? With the horrible shortage of marines in AP finding a nice army of marines who start with 4-stars fighting already just isn't feasible anymore.

[Cycrow]

between 10 and 20

[Raize]

I see. And assuming I use a full complement of marines for each boarding op and practice on mostly Pirate capitals, what can I expect my % attrition rate to be over the course of the "training", or on a single op? The marines will have 100 skill in Hacking, mechanical, and Engineering.

I have 115 marines training atm and I'm beginning to worry this really isn't enough... considering I intend to capture Q, K, I, J, P, PX, and all the other unbuyable ships...

[A5PECT]

It's sort of a waste to train fight-less marines to maximum technical skills; a lot of them are going to end up dead on their first op.

I prefer throwing raw recruits straight into actual boarding operations against easy targets (TMs, M6s). Then when their fight skill rises and their survivability increases I send them off to get trained.

[CharlieChop]

It's sort of a waste to train fight-less marines to maximum technical skills; a lot of them are going to end up dead on their first op.

I prefer throwing raw recruits straight into actual boarding operations against easy targets (TMs, M6s). Then when their fight skill rises and their survivability increases I send them off to get trained.

Its also recomended that you train to max 2 marines in each skill.. 2* hacking another 2 with 2* mechanical...etc. This increases our capture ration and reduced expenses from casualties.....( use your highest fight rank marines for this.)

[Cycrow]

if u always use a full squad and pick ur targets carefull, u should have 0 losses

they only time u'll likly to suffer from loss is if all 20/21 marines are really low in fighting.

once u have a few decent fighters it shouldn't be a problem.

u dont need marines fully trained, or even close to that for most boarding.
if you avoid terran/atf and xenon ships, and avoid any ships with marines or boarding defences on, u should be able to do it with minimum training

u can completly ignore engineering as well
as your only doing it for training it doesn't matter how based up the ship is by the end u just get abit less money when selling it

unless ur really bad at judging the power needed to surpress the shields and take the hull down alot before you even start

[swatti]

Top tip: ochracoces storm or something. Yaki chocaro's, no defences, slow, not much guns. 1-10 fighting skill marines can cap it without losses and they skill up fast. Just remember to use 9 marines. For some reason tenth will bail and no more will fit. Ninth will bail after cap so clean up escorts.

Spawn-rate for these ships is fast and you can do it all in M3+ player-ship. Chocaro also makes for a very good transport.

[Raize]

Right so I bought another 80 marines bringing the grand total up to 193...

The fightskill breakdown is as follows...
4x 4star
5x 3star
35x 2star

Rest are crappy skilled. I remember ships just blowing up in TC from full hull HP due to crappy 3-star marines, did they change the engineering requirements for this NOT to happen in AP?

You need 40 100-in-everything marines to cap a Xenon right? And there will still be heavy losses, right? Or did they change that too?

I'll chuck the next 20 marines to come out of training against a Carrack or something and see how it goes, lol.

[Sovereign01]

Right so I bought another 80 marines bringing the grand total up to 193...

The fightskill breakdown is as follows...
4x 4star
5x 3star
35x 2star

Rest are crappy skilled. I remember ships just blowing up in TC from full hull HP due to crappy 3-star marines, did they change the engineering requirements for this NOT to happen in AP?

You need 40 100-in-everything marines to cap a Xenon right? And there will still be heavy losses, right? Or did they change that too?

I'll chuck the next 20 marines to come out of training against a Carrack or something and see how it goes, lol.

I've never seen a ship in TC blow up from boarding damage alone- normally when a ships hull gets too low due to low engineering skill the marines are forced to bail.