[X3AP] Boarding questions hype/war zones

[pref]

Hey!

Just started AP, and i already found a hyperion *yay*.
Only problem it has internal sentry lasers, and i'm not sure if my 3-4 star marines can do the job (would hate to loose trained marines this early). No other defences on the ship.

I have another question too - was really happy when i saw the war zone - looks like a boarding paradise... then i saw some posts about boarding issues in war zones - like captured ships vanishing. Is there a way to spot boarding-safe targets?

And the last is i havent seen any cobras flying around - has that ship become very rare, and im better off buying it, or it's just luck compensation for the hype?

Any help welcome!

[firestorm79]

Welcome to the wonderful world of boarding!

Funny my Hype also had internal laser sentries - I wonder if they are standard in Hypes. I believe the internal sentries act like two 3/4 star fighting marines in the hype. So your boarding crew will have to have good fighitng stats (3/4 stars on all 8 should be sufficient). So go for it!

Trouble with boarding in war zones is that the Argon (or Terran, if you're fighting for the other side) will kill off your target rather quickly once you get its shields down to 10%. Also if through some miracle you manage to keep it alive long enough to hack the core, there's nothing stopping another enemy ship from jumping in and blowing it up before you get to transport it to safety. In other words, do NOT attempt to board in war zones.

Re cobra, I found my baby coasting along in Ghinn's escape. No escorts, no anti-boarding equipment, just 48 hammer heavy missiles and some mosquitos (and PACs in the rear turrets)! I had previously been tracking one, which was just sitting in the middle of patriarch's conclusion...but it had a ring of panthers and tigers! After that ran into a couple of Rapid Response ones in zyarth - they were armed to the teeth with 20 4* marines on board!!! So I was reeeaaally pleased when I found the lone Cobra.

Congrats on finding the Hype, I hear they're quite rare. I got mine from the poisoned paranid start, but might try and find another one to reverse engineer at my PHQ...

[pref]

Thanks!
I only bought 3 and 4 star fighters, so that shoud be fine =)

With war sectors i hope i can lure my targets away a bit, then board and jump them out before help arrives. But if the ships can vanish after boarding thats annoying.
Or new ships will keep spawning near my pos when im in fight with one?

It would be a shame to pay for the cobra, but i need that sheep really soon - have to get the TLs for complex building and enough ATF capitals to equip a few of them fully.

Thanks for the help and have fun!

[BurningMan]

Board all you want in War zones just not in areas with heavy fighting e.g. Circle of Labor and Omicron Lyrea i have boarded quite a lot of terran ships in Asteroid Belt and Jupiter and never had a problem getting them out (just have a spare jump drive and some E-Cells to get out once the RRF arrives).
The problems with War Ships disappearing after being boarded are fixed now, at least i never had that problem occuring after the 2.5 patch for AP.

[Vector_Gorgoth]

In other words, do NOT attempt to board in war zones.

On the contrary!

With some creative use of various manipulation tactics it is fairly easy to ensure which side (and sometimes which ships) survive a military encounter.

It can take some saving/reloading if things go south, but that's what salvage insurance is for.

Anyway, it's very convenient if the enemies of your target are kind enough to remove its shields for you, before being destroyed, and all you have to do is keep them down while boarding commences . . . admittedly this works better for M7+ ships, but the Hyperion is a tough little beast. It will probably work out okay if you're clever enough.

Remember, AIs are not smart; freak luck is a huge determining factor in virtually every battle that's even REMOTELY close to evenly matched. In other words, if you reload and replay the same AI battle a dozen times, you're liable to see at least half a dozen different outcomes.

And if you're dealing with a real prize, then it can't hurt to "help" your target destroy its opposition before boarding it yourself.

[firestorm79]

ok... i stand corrected...

gonna give it a try myself now

problem is that nearly every M7 and up ship I find in the war zones have received hull damage!

[pref]

That's great news
Can't wait to get my hands on the cobra now. First i was surprised that terrans are not attacking me (started as bankrupt assassin) - even got me thinking if i should raise rep with them. But then i realized not having to apologize after boarding will be so awesome
Dont think terran rep is of any use anyway...? Hope i can just take everything from them in the war sectors.

I also found a lone cobra in boron space (she is asking for that boarding i swear). And lost the hype, because the follower ship got wasted by a laser tower. luck is a .....

@firestorm maybe you could just kill those and then get a new spawn?

[pref]

Just figured another question, i have 7 marines now, all finished training and have 3-4 fight skill, rest skills are 4 star.
I spotted 2 cobras (figured there is no chance to spacewalk RRF ones, they are a bit better equipeped then standard military as i see )

One has internal sentry lasers, the other has 62% hull. Do you think these 7 marines with their 4* engineering would do the job? It would be awesome if there was no need for more marines since i could only get rookies, and they would waste the hull completely. Next 15 marines would need a day to finish training at least.

And wow this plays much better then in TC - the Cobra actually looks dangerous finally! Before it was way too easy to board one.
Have no idea yet how i can manage its missiles - they kill my TP in one shot.
And it seems my TP has higher priority then the Skiron im sitting in - which is also good thinking on the cobra's part.

[BurningMan]

boarding a M7 with only 7 marines seems a little too optimistic i would put in another 13 as cannon fodder that will make it much more likely to sucessfully board it.
To get it to empty its missiles aggro it with a mosquito with your skiron and keep around 10-20km distance to shoot down the incoming missiles manually, if it shoots too many missiles just make an emergency jump to the other side of the sector. A normal NPC M7M carries around 50 missiles of each type so it might take a while before its empty, but after it has no more missiles it is an easy boarding target.

[GCU Grey Area]

Doubt 7 marines would be enough. Could do it with 8 marines but they'd all need to have 100% fight skill & you'd still need to get rid of sentry lasers & any defending marines first. Guns with low hull damage & a high rate of fire (e.g. PBE, MD, IRE) can be used for a quick & dirty method of getting rid of anti-boarding countermeasures, as long as you don't mind making a mess of the hull in the process. Alternatively use IonD if you prefer a dreadfully slow approach (often requiring almost infinite levels of patience), but which does however leave the hull more or less undamaged.

[pref]

Thanks for your thoughts!
So if i get it right, the 62% hull ship is a no go because the rookies would blow her up while fighting..

Guess i have to fry the sentry lasers on the other one and add the rookies..
I only asked because i have some memories from TC that with 6-10 nice marines and a little luck i could cap any commonwealth M1/M2s...
Maybe this changed. Or my memory fails

[Sabrina Bergin]

I think you might be in danger of rushing this.
To get a cobra I used 20x Elite marines with no loss's and negligible hull damage.

Just put it on your right monitor and come back to it when you have the marines on hand and it is in a border sector or attack it and get it to follow you way out beyond the sector centre.

As for the boarding if the hull drops below 15% its all over and your marines will abandon the target at which time you get losses.

[pref]

I think you might be in danger of rushing this.

That is quite likely... but im so hooked on boarding.
Las TC game i bought the cobra, but now i dont want to pay for any capitals.
Would be a shame for any decent pirate

[pref]

Well i got her

Was very easy - the cobra had like 20 flails and 3 hammers on her, i fried the sentry lasers at 99% hull.

Only 15 marines were deployed, 5 stayed on the TP for some reason. No idea why that happened, i ordered all 20 to board. Then i noticed my IonD locks on the marines instead of the cobra if they happen to be closer - maybe i killed a marine, or made him turn on me - one of them was red after the ionD incident at least

There were 3 skilled marines with 3 star fighting and rest skills 4 star, the rest 12 of the marines were 2 star fighting, and nothing else. Seems m7m's still dont require skills that much. And all could cut the hull even without any mech training! That was surprising.
Got the cobra with 0 reloads, only 1 untrained marine loss (maybe my frag?) - hull at 55%

It was very painful that i had to kill its 6 escort ships - rep dopped a lot. Now i can go start questing.
Have to listen to their You want split?

Hope with the m7m i can get my Panther without much rep loss... i just couldn't zero the shields with hornets and wasps quickly enough, the escorts would have killed me if i dont remove them.
Is it possible still to apologize and turn the escort back to neutral after a theft if the number of hits was low enough (i think in TC only that mattered, not damage)?

Thanks for all the help!

[firestorm79]

well done! once you have the cobra you have everything else

did you cap him in a war zone??

Have you had any luck with boarding in a war zone? I find it nigh impossible...

[pref]

well done! once you have the cobra you have everything else

did you cap him in a war zone??

Have you had any luck with boarding in a war zone? I find it nigh impossible...

Thanks
I got her in wastelands - had to act quick because she was heading through a xenon sector to a shipyard according to its destination.

Havent even tried the war zone without boarding pods, but now i have the cobra and enough marines so ill head over there next. Will post my findings

Hope to find an atmo or smthg at least for my 2-4* marines.
If terran capitals are equipped similarly as RRF ships, i will probably have to wait till i have 20x5 star ones. But i hope i can find an M2 without marines.

You could fry them with ionD but then the loot is lost as well.

[firestorm79]

well done! once you have the cobra you have everything else

did you cap him in a war zone??

Have you had any luck with boarding in a war zone? I find it nigh impossible...

Thanks
I got her in wastelands - had to act quick because she was heading through a xenon sector to a shipyard according to its destination.

Havent even tried the war zone without boarding pods, but now i have the cobra and enough marines so ill head over there next. Will post my findings

Hope to find an atmo or smthg at least for my 2-4* marines.
If terran capitals are equipped similarly as RRF ships, i will probably have to wait till i have 20x5 star ones. But i hope i can find an M2 without marines.

You could fry them with ionD but then the loot is lost as well.

my prob with war zones is that the ship is always being bombarded with missiles etc so as soon as I can get shields down they'll get blown up... Can't lure them away as well, they have bigger fish to fry than my pesky m6!

[pref]

my prob with war zones is that the ship is always being bombarded with missiles etc so as soon as I can get shields down they'll get blown up... Can't lure them away as well, they have bigger fish to fry than my pesky m6!

I hope a few missile barrages will get their attention. Maybe they fear an M7M more then an M6
A well planned attack can rip her shields in seconds - that should generate some anger (or aggro if you prefer).
Im off to the war zones, will post soon whats up

I will go in terran space, beyond the war zones if needed.. havent even explored TUS sectors (if they exist still in AP).

[pref]

Well i have no idea whats up... have some more questions, hope someone has the time to help out..

Do you have terran ships in war sectors? Might this be fight rank related?

And is it still impossible to board ATF ships with hull polarization? In TC it never worked, no matter if the whole 20 man team was 100 in mechanics.

Can i get a terran police license to scan without rep loss somewhere?

Aynyway..
I went through all war sectors, and all i saw was a few Thors... being attacked by several argon M1/M2s and like 30 escorts

I think the terrans dont take this war too seriously... they dont show up for the war, let me dock to their stations, do quests for them even though i have quite a bad rep (was 3rd from bottom i believe, terran military was hostile).

So where are the terran forces? Duh. Had to go deeper terran space.
There i seen a woden with negligible internal defences somewhere, but couldn't take a good look rushing past in the kestrel. Hope it does not need all 5* marines
Seemed like an easy target.
And there is also everything from ATF - seen like 3 or more odins, 2 tyrs at least and numerous terran capitals too. Just lovely. And i didnt even check the parts to the east from Saturn. And jump beacons too! That was an awesome addition!

I started to do a few missions to see how it goes, and i went to 2nd top rank really quick. Now i have better standing with terrans then the argon - hope it wont break the war quest (think the argons attack me now lol - i never did anything bad to them).
At least i can build a plex for terran weaponry quick while i still have the rep.
Seems there is nothing to do for me in the war zone (at least for now)
Wonder how ill start the plot like this

[firestorm79]

Well I finally managed to cap my Kyoto!

And it was in asteroid belt, which is a war sector, but Terran sector.

The Kyoto was way back near the north gate, but I'm friends with the Argon and the Terran so I was able to fly up to it scan it scout the area etc.

Jumped my Cobra in, who flew past all the warring terrans and argons near the south gate. Then started the flail barrages and sped away towards the west - where there are no gates, hence no traffic. Traffic from either Terran or Argon would have put an end to my boarding operation. In the end I only lost one marine.

I managed to drop from Warrior of Io to Terran renegade! As I had to destroy his Yokamhoma/katana escorts!! Fortunately I had my Megalodon camped out near the xenon gate of Segaris and after he obliterated a few Qs and one J my rep shot back up to Servant of Terra!! Didn't even have to do any missions!