[X3R Expected Capture Percentage

[joefitts63]

I have been trying to capture ships to dissect at my HQ to get their blueprints. I have been using Ion Disruptors to strip their shields and then a pair of AIRE to peck away at them and try to get them to surrender. I haven't had much success, though. I think I have one capture in ~20 tries. What kind of success percentage should I be expecting?

[Sinxar]

Anywhere from 5% - 10% is about normal. Don't use an ion disruptor though. It reduces the chance that a pilot will bail by a lot.

PBEs are great for this job.

[joefitts63]

Thanks for the info. I have to admit I am surprised; it never crossed my mind that weapon choice would affect enemy bail out percentage.

[TheGoldElite]

People are very superstitious about what does and doesn't work. Remembering back to Reunion, I had success with the PBEs mounted on my LX. That said I find that anything will get good bail results, providing it drops the shields quickly.

Alot of people say the weapos like PRG and PBE are good, because they strip shields quickly, and score many hits. I find that speed is the most important factor, from first hit landed to shields gone should be as fast as possible, I often opted for Hepts and PRG simultaneuosly to great effect.

PBE will strip shields instantly and grind hull down at a controlaable pace, but you need several mounted and they drain ALOT of power, with a 1km range. They are insta-hit though.

I remember that Ion-D used to bail anything and everything with massive success, so they added in something to tone it down.

Ion Disruptors+Mass drivers are what everyone used to swear by, but I think that was in X2.

Someone dismantled the code once i remember, IIRC the most important factor was time from first hit to hull at 80%, after that just quickly keep going down, there are several key hull values which means a bail-check.

[Snafu_X3]

weapon choice would affect enemy bail out percentage.

It doesn't /except/ in the case of IonD's. This was changed from X2 because it was too easy to cap a ship (& make loadsa money by selling them) it was regarded as an exploit back then

There are several ship capping guides around, & a fairly detailed recent thread (linking back to some guides) if you use the top /left/ topic search facility