Hey guys. I've recently been thinking of attempting a boarding mission. If I were to equip my fighters with HEPTs and PBEs, the former for dealing with any ships I want to destroy and the latter for ships I want to cap, is the ai smart enough to switch weapons? For example, say I tell a ship to "damage shields," but it's been using its HEPTs. Will it switch to the PBEs since they are the better weapon for the job?
More importantly, is any of this even necessary? I really want to minimize initial hull damage because I have very inexperienced marines.
One final question set, can marines board with the shields up? I've heard they can't. What happens if I've had a ship at 0%, then a spacewalking marine crashes into a ship with 1% shields? Do they die?
Also, please tell me if I'm overcomplicating things (though that is almost never the case in this game).
[X3:TC] Fighter Ai/Gun Bays
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Shields need to be below 5%. If they're above 10% the marines die.
This actually ironically makes it easier to board big ships than it is to board, say, corvettes, since you need to be more careful with a corvette's smaller overall shielding, which its shield reactor does a better job of replenishing compared to even the bigger ships' reactors restoring shields measured in the gigajoule.
This actually ironically makes it easier to board big ships than it is to board, say, corvettes, since you need to be more careful with a corvette's smaller overall shielding, which its shield reactor does a better job of replenishing compared to even the bigger ships' reactors restoring shields measured in the gigajoule.
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The fighters are definitely not smart enough to switch weapons.
The shields need to be kept below 10%. This can often mean dipping them below zero once or twice depending on how good you are at moderating your fire.
I've personally never tried boarding with the AI shooting the guns. The only time I use more than one ship to board is with my Sirokos. I fly whatever ship I need to attack the shields and have him fire the boarding pods from a distance.
For intro to boarding, I'd say use an M6+ and focus on things like TMs or other M6s to get your marine's fight ranks up. Keep a few in training
at all times. When you get some decent fight skill marines, switch a few of them out by sending them back to school in other areas.
The shields need to be kept below 10%. This can often mean dipping them below zero once or twice depending on how good you are at moderating your fire.
I've personally never tried boarding with the AI shooting the guns. The only time I use more than one ship to board is with my Sirokos. I fly whatever ship I need to attack the shields and have him fire the boarding pods from a distance.
For intro to boarding, I'd say use an M6+ and focus on things like TMs or other M6s to get your marine's fight ranks up. Keep a few in training
at all times. When you get some decent fight skill marines, switch a few of them out by sending them back to school in other areas.
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johnfrancisv
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Mon, 8. Jul 13, 21:23
Awesome. I think I'll start out capping frigates with my Vidar and my Scabbard. Since Imgran said it can be difficult to manage my fire, I think 14 hardpoints will give me enough wiggle room to find the sweet spot.
Also, how many marines should I have attempt to board? The absolute maximum it can take? I'm not sure about the M6s, but for the M2s and M1s I know I can't transport that many in my scabbard.
Finally, the easiest question: How do I get the marines to go to the ship through spacewalk? I don't have the credits to spare on buying a missile frigate and... well... as far as capping one...
On the issue of using the marines/training: Ingame it looks like training levels are measured in stars, but on the wiki it measured them in numbers (to cut through the hull of an M2 you need a Mechanical skill of 100, etc.) What is "max?" Is each star 20 points, 5 stars being max? I read in a guide that I should really only even mess with marines that have a fight skill of three stars or above. In your experience is this true, even for the smaller frigates?For intro to boarding, I'd say use an M6+ and focus on things like TMs or other M6s to get your marine's fight ranks up. Keep a few in training
at all times. When you get some decent fight skill marines, switch a few of them out by sending them back to school in other areas.
Also, how many marines should I have attempt to board? The absolute maximum it can take? I'm not sure about the M6s, but for the M2s and M1s I know I can't transport that many in my scabbard.
Finally, the easiest question: How do I get the marines to go to the ship through spacewalk? I don't have the credits to spare on buying a missile frigate and... well... as far as capping one...
From personal experience, you're setting an awfully high starting point. There's nothing wrong with just trying it and seeing what happens, though. Unless you have decent mechanical, your boys probably won't even make it through the hull.
Make sure you have a bioscanner on your personal ship; you'll see the numbers when you look at the marines in cargobay of your ship and even more info if you press "i".
A frigate is a frigate is a frigate, unless it's Terran or Xenon in which case it's more difficult. The only difference will be how hard it is to take the shields down and to get your marines to spacewalk to it without getting left behind or shot. (PSG if very bad news for space walkers.) You also might want to scan it first to check for things like internal sentry lasers or hull polarizing devices which make it effectively a no go for inexperienced marines.
The more marines you have fighting, the less likely you are to suffer casualties and the more likely that some or all of them will make it to the end. This is another reason to focus on smaller targets; especially in TC.
There are three ways to get them to spacewalk:
Piracy menu: board ship. This will tell the ship to attempt to fly in front of the target and drop the marines in space, of if the ship is an M7M with boarding pods to launch the pods once the shields are down.
Additional ship commands: launch marines. This will simply kick them out of the airlock. You'll have to make sure the ship is in a good position.
Target the ship, press "i", scroll down to "launch all marines". This is my preferred approach. It is by far the easiest to do in a hurry. It's the same as above, but can only be done from your personal ship.
Once in space, your marines will attempt to fly to the target, but if somehow they end up behind it or too far away they may never catch it. One good technique if your ship can handle it is to stop it in one place, keep the shields down on the target, and just strafe to avoid incoming fire. This way the target hould circle around you and be far easier for your marines to catch.
Make sure you have a bioscanner on your personal ship; you'll see the numbers when you look at the marines in cargobay of your ship and even more info if you press "i".
A frigate is a frigate is a frigate, unless it's Terran or Xenon in which case it's more difficult. The only difference will be how hard it is to take the shields down and to get your marines to spacewalk to it without getting left behind or shot. (PSG if very bad news for space walkers.) You also might want to scan it first to check for things like internal sentry lasers or hull polarizing devices which make it effectively a no go for inexperienced marines.
The more marines you have fighting, the less likely you are to suffer casualties and the more likely that some or all of them will make it to the end. This is another reason to focus on smaller targets; especially in TC.
There are three ways to get them to spacewalk:
Piracy menu: board ship. This will tell the ship to attempt to fly in front of the target and drop the marines in space, of if the ship is an M7M with boarding pods to launch the pods once the shields are down.
Additional ship commands: launch marines. This will simply kick them out of the airlock. You'll have to make sure the ship is in a good position.
Target the ship, press "i", scroll down to "launch all marines". This is my preferred approach. It is by far the easiest to do in a hurry. It's the same as above, but can only be done from your personal ship.
Once in space, your marines will attempt to fly to the target, but if somehow they end up behind it or too far away they may never catch it. One good technique if your ship can handle it is to stop it in one place, keep the shields down on the target, and just strafe to avoid incoming fire. This way the target hould circle around you and be far easier for your marines to catch.
You can board TM, TL, M6, M7, M2, M1
The amount of marines you can send in to board a ship, is the amount of marines it can carry +1, so for TM and M6, you can send in 6 marines, and for LT, M7, M2, M1 you can send in 21.
My advice is to start with a TM for a few reasons:
Most of them have pretty crappy laser regen, so they can not sustain a decent amount of fire on any ships you are utilising to board them
They only have 2 decks for your marines to fight through unlike M6 which have 3 and the others which have 4-5
They usually only have a couple of escort ships so destroying them won't incur such a heavy rep loss
As your marines sound like they have pretty low fight skill, you will need to use the full 6 marines to take one, so your best option is to use a TP to deploy the marines and either a decent M3 or an M6 to manage the shields.
If you give us a list of the combat ships and TP class ship you own, and the fight skill of you marines, it will help us give you advice on the best way to start your boarding.
As mentioned earlier, I would advise having a bioscanner so you can see your marines in full detail, and a freight scanner, so you can check possible target ships for anti boarding equipment.
The amount of marines you can send in to board a ship, is the amount of marines it can carry +1, so for TM and M6, you can send in 6 marines, and for LT, M7, M2, M1 you can send in 21.
My advice is to start with a TM for a few reasons:
Most of them have pretty crappy laser regen, so they can not sustain a decent amount of fire on any ships you are utilising to board them
They only have 2 decks for your marines to fight through unlike M6 which have 3 and the others which have 4-5
They usually only have a couple of escort ships so destroying them won't incur such a heavy rep loss
As your marines sound like they have pretty low fight skill, you will need to use the full 6 marines to take one, so your best option is to use a TP to deploy the marines and either a decent M3 or an M6 to manage the shields.
If you give us a list of the combat ships and TP class ship you own, and the fight skill of you marines, it will help us give you advice on the best way to start your boarding.
As mentioned earlier, I would advise having a bioscanner so you can see your marines in full detail, and a freight scanner, so you can check possible target ships for anti boarding equipment.
Stars are a bit odd, but basically it crudely reflects a more accurate skill level of 0 to 100. I think it's rank 10 = 1 star, 30 = 2 star, 50 = 3 star, 70 = 4 star and 90 = 5 star, and 100 = max. Or something similar.
About the 3 star fighting thing. If you have explored well you should be able to find a lot of places selling marines. If you scan all these places, it's usually quite easy to get around 20 marines with a fight skill of over 50 (3stars). In fact if you have a lot of spare credits it can be worth it to buy scrubby marines and remove their cargo life support deliberately to make room for new spawns in places selling marines to hasten this process.
You cant buy fight training, but can train the others. But this takes a lot of investment in credits and more importantly time, so it makes sense to buy fight ranked marines if you can. 3star or better makes it far easier to get them up and capping whatever you want, with less risk of losing those highly trained guys.
Even if you cant find 3star+, fight rank is the only thing you should really give a damn about when buying them.
About the 3 star fighting thing. If you have explored well you should be able to find a lot of places selling marines. If you scan all these places, it's usually quite easy to get around 20 marines with a fight skill of over 50 (3stars). In fact if you have a lot of spare credits it can be worth it to buy scrubby marines and remove their cargo life support deliberately to make room for new spawns in places selling marines to hasten this process.
You cant buy fight training, but can train the others. But this takes a lot of investment in credits and more importantly time, so it makes sense to buy fight ranked marines if you can. 3star or better makes it far easier to get them up and capping whatever you want, with less risk of losing those highly trained guys.
Even if you cant find 3star+, fight rank is the only thing you should really give a damn about when buying them.
He's playing X3TC - high fight rank marines tend to disappear early and don't seem to ever be replenished. Or have they fixed that? I know it's fixed in X3AP.
In any case, yeah if you check all the Military Outposts (except Boron), and the few Marine Training Barracks that may be around randomly, and a couple pirate bases that may have mercenaries randomly, you should find some high fight rank marines. Just make sure you have Bioscanner.
And they're expensive - your cash is going to go fast if you over-do it.
Pair up 2 high rank marines with a few low-rank ones, and they should all survive and get trained with each op. The high ranks take charge and lead the others, you see.
In any case, yeah if you check all the Military Outposts (except Boron), and the few Marine Training Barracks that may be around randomly, and a couple pirate bases that may have mercenaries randomly, you should find some high fight rank marines. Just make sure you have Bioscanner.
And they're expensive - your cash is going to go fast if you over-do it.
Pair up 2 high rank marines with a few low-rank ones, and they should all survive and get trained with each op. The high ranks take charge and lead the others, you see.
Well the point is, when you buy them the other skills are irrelevant. Just go for fight ranked ones. Even if you only get a few really good ones, fight rank is a cumulative score and every little helps.
But as I said the problem usually lies in that any good marines you buy, then the place selling them fills up and stops making more. If you empty them, then they can spawn more, some of which can be decent fighters. An expensive hobby ofc, but if you "dispose" of the cheapest ones, this can help.
But as I said the problem usually lies in that any good marines you buy, then the place selling them fills up and stops making more. If you empty them, then they can spawn more, some of which can be decent fighters. An expensive hobby ofc, but if you "dispose" of the cheapest ones, this can help.
You can fairly easily get one- and two-star marines trained up by boarding TM's and M6's. You just have to accept some losses, and that's ok since they're cheap to buy.
I would, however, recommend that they get half the marines trained up to at least two stars in hacking and the other in mechanics so they have a good chance of getting into the ship and hacking the core.
Once they get their fight skill up to three stars, it's time to give them better training, especially in engineering so they don't do so much damage to the target ship.
I would, however, recommend that they get half the marines trained up to at least two stars in hacking and the other in mechanics so they have a good chance of getting into the ship and hacking the core.
Once they get their fight skill up to three stars, it's time to give them better training, especially in engineering so they don't do so much damage to the target ship.
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X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.
X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.