Boarding TL's quickly for pure Profits Guide

[efernal]

This is a Guide based on Boarding TL's in a way that most would see as either lazy or unchanging. What this guide will provide is a method to easily Board a few TL's for the most cash possible using the least amount of time possible. Read on If this is of some interest to you....[X3:TC] version 3.2


Things you will need

#1. 1 TP class ship
#2. 25 fighter drones per TL
#3. 1 M7M class ship
#4. 1 TM Class ship
#5 Ammo ( Flails, Fighter Drones mk1 And boarding pods)
#6 Salvage Insurance
#7 SETA device on every ship you own. (Never know when you will wish you had one)


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The order in wich I start my plan for future profits.

#1... Dock a TP class ship at the Split Military Outpost in Ghinn's Escape.
Use it to buy any marine with 2 or more stars in fighting. Once bought trade with the Outpost to train up the Marines other skills.

#2 Raise my race rank with all races until I am near the highest rank.

#3 Look for Return Abandoned ship missions where the ship is a M7M.

#4 Equip that M7M with a Jump Drive, Navigation command software, Shields and some energy cells. Open universe map and press Z. Jump the M7M to Zrt's Domination's shipyard. (beware of any Xenon Q patrols there)
Wait for the time to run out and the cops to show up. Just jump this ship between Zrt's Domination and Grand Exchange. This will force the Police ships to fly through a Xenon sector. Do this a few times and the Police will be killed off.

#5 Once free and clear of any cops dock the M7M at the same place as the TP from #1.

#6 Buy ammo for you M7M. Flails, Boarding Pods and Fighter Drones MK1.

#7 Start scanning TL targets for any annoying addons like sentry lasers.
Either order any that do have those into a Xenon Sector or take your chances with the RNG.

#8 Order all TL targets to to a Unknown sector and form a line with them being at least 30 KM apart. should look like this on the map.

#9 Salvage Insurance. Save and Save often! Old saying but highly needed for this.


--------------------------------{TM}--------------------------------------------


West - G..........O................O....................O.................O..........G - East

G = Gate while O = TL

I prefer the Unknown sector near New Income for doing this. As you can order alot of TL's to form a line in this sector.

Order target TL to Montalaar, Once there Order it to move to position in the Unknown sector to the East. Just move the arrows to select the placement of the first TL. Additional TL placement do the same thing except press #5 on the number pad. Use the up or down arrow keys to select the first TL you ordered there. Then move the cursor over going twords the East gate. Just remember to keep enough distance between them. Doing this you will get the above example with all the TL's facing East. This will help in shortening the time it takes to align your M7M with the TL just right before you go boarding.
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Now Time to place that TM north of the center of the Unknown sector and get into your M7M.

Put all your Flails, Boarding Pods, Trained Marines and Fighter Drones into your ship.

In sequence head to the TL nearest to a gate and Align perfectly with it. As in your ship should be directly under it, facing the same direction as the TL and around 500 m's close.



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SAVE! SAVE! SAVE!



OK now we are ready to gain Our profits! Press F select the fighter Drones and launch 25 of them. Order them to attack the TL. After that you will start to press L to launch the Flails. When the TL is under 6% It is time open the command menu "shift - C".


Don't change the missiles by pressing M, Shift - G and above all else Do not press L to Launch the pods! I have seen many Guides that say it really is up to you but unless you have perfect Marines press shift - C and use the piracy option to launch your Marines. Doing so insures that they will be in the same group ready to steal your prize for you.

Should your Marines make it through the hull Order you fighter drones to Protect your TM. Remember that odd fellow I said to place in the north of the map?

Save! Pressing R to bring up your Property menu you can use the --> arrow key over to personnel to see how well your troops are doing.
Pressing Shift - S will allow you to save your game while this menu screen is open. Try not to let them die by saving after every deck is cleared and reloading should half you men die or fail.



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OK, Your marines have hacked the core and handed control over to you. You need to transfer the Marines back your ship & jump out of the system if any fighter drones show up on the map still. Then Jump back in and start over with the next in line.

With your Marines well trained at 4 stars or better in all skills except fighting this should work out good. It does get more easy as they train up in fighting.

Another good idea is to dock any capped freighters at a Military Outpost to buy up flails and boarding pods once they are available to be bought. Use the TM to jump to those ships and transfer the flails over to it.


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Notes about my setup...

I Have 2 Flail fabs in a mini complex in Aladna Hill. There I also have a TL parked with a fighter wing attached and a small group of M6's attached to the Military Outpost there. I use a M3 fighter to Pick up flails from my complex to the TL on an Infinite trade loop. When I have enough Flails I Board 4-5 TL's in as little time as possible.

In between doing missions to raise my rank up, I find and order my Targets to the Unknown sector to wait until I have the ammo to board them. Needs more cowbell..er Flail fabs.

In my current game save I have over 40 Marines training with only a few at 4 or more stars in the Fighting skill.

To sum this up it is an alternative to the other guides I have seen out there. This guide is more about profits than it is to train for bigger fish.

A big thanks goes out to Infekted for pointing out a menu option that needed changed.

Thanks to Nanook for pointing out a Redundant part that I had put in.

A few edits on info and 1 edit to add in additional info.

Any feedback is welcome!

[Masochisto]

Thank you for the guide efernal

[Infekted]

You can press M to quickly switch between missiles (including pods), rather than having to go into the G menu.

[efernal]

You can press M to quickly switch between missiles (including pods), rather than having to go into the G menu.

Fixed! And thanks for pointing that one out.

[Nanook]

If you're using the piracy command, there's no need to switch missiles. The command bypasses the missile loading. In fact, don't switch to pods before issuing the piracy command. That way, your flails are still mounted and ready to fire if needed once the marines are away.

[TTD]

My marines are almost ready for practice.
I was thinking about TLs the other day, funnily enough.

Does the old "fighter in center of TL" trick still work for bringing down the shields in AP ?

re... while still friendly to you, position yourself as close to the center as possible...use straffe and fire to reduce shields.
He can't fire at you as you are in a blind spot.

[efernal]

Thanks Nanook, I was up a bit late when typing that one out. It really sounds better on the note pad I wrote my draft on.


Sorry guys I only have X3:TC atm. I might just hold out for Rebirth. Currently having alot of fun with my current TC game to want to give it up for a fresh start.

And curse my add, I just thought of something and now I need to edit the guide and add more it.


Adding more info is not a bad thing either.