X3AP 3.1: Carrier based scouting

[CTHM]

I was looking for boarding ops that aren´t fatal to reputation.

So i aquired a TM and 4 M5 (Triplex/Patrol/Explorer-ware), grouped the M5s as a fleet after i named a leader, homebased them at the TM (with carrier command software) and jumped in an unknown sector.
1 M5 mapping the sector -> working
3 M5s scouting for enemies -> hang around the TM, speed at zero (but flickering)

I dissolved fleet, canceled homebase and canceled leader, each accompanied with reissuing the scout command to no avail.

The canceling and reissuing was chaotic, not planned, so i might have overlooked something there.
Also. i gave them (M5s) all the same name.
Apart from that, i am stumped.


Thank you for your kind regard.

[ajax34i]

All boarding ops are damaging to reputation. No matter where you are, you will lose reputation with the race of the ship you're boarding. People talk about boarding in unknown or pirate sectors because if you're in empire space, the target calls for help, and you end up fighting a lot of police and military ships, which means even more reputation loss.

A TM can carry marines (if you install cargo lifesupport) but cannot do boarding with them. You need a TP personnel transport for the piracy - boarding command to be available. And M5's are good for scouting, but aren't scary enough to get pilots of even small fighters to bail out.

If by "unknown sector" you mean unfocused jump sector, you usually can find Xenon ships there. It's usually easier to just go to known Xenon sectors, as you can bring in support ships and find a greater selection of ships to capture.

You pretty much have two options:

- Forget about reputation and just board the ships that you want. This works well with Xenon, who are red anyway, and may work with pirates, who are difficult to raise up in reputation.

- Build your reputation to 10, then capture 1 ship, then repeat. This works with a race that has a good ship to capture but you don't want to become enemies. Obviously it's a lot of work.

[riceygringo]

All boarding ops are damaging to reputation. No matter where you are, you will lose reputation with the race of the ship you're boarding. People talk about boarding in unknown or pirate sectors because if you're in empire space, the target calls for help, and you end up fighting a lot of police and military ships, which means even more reputation loss.

A TM can carry marines (if you install cargo lifesupport) but cannot do boarding with them. You need a TP personnel transport for the piracy - boarding command to be available. And M5's are good for scouting, but aren't scary enough to get pilots of even small fighters to bail out.

If by "unknown sector" you mean unfocused jump sector, you usually can find Xenon ships there. It's usually easier to just go to known Xenon sectors, as you can bring in support ships and find a greater selection of ships to capture.

You pretty much have two options:

- Forget about reputation and just board the ships that you want. This works well with Xenon, who are red anyway, and may work with pirates, who are difficult to raise up in reputation.

- Build your reputation to 10, then capture 1 ship, then repeat. This works with a race that has a good ship to capture but you don't want to become enemies. Obviously it's a lot of work.

That's not entirely true, as long as you don't destroy any escorts. Boarding ATF ships cost no rep, although doing this is quite risky as the escorts can easily take out your prize & your marines after you hacked the core.

Strangely, taking out ATF ships will only cost you 1/3 to 1/4 the Terran reputation points of an equal class USC or Aldrin ship. So I usually just opt to take out all the Valis and Aegirs before doing boardings operations.

Obviously, for newer players boarding Terran ships is out of reach until they have 5 star mechanical skill marines. But they offer excellent fight experience for your marines.

[CTHM]

Thank you for your help.

Indeed, my main problem is to find training partners for my boarding crews.
My first victim was a lone Boron M7 in a war sector. If there was any loss of reputation, i didn´t notice it. My guess is war sectors are fair game, but i consider the "lone M7" as a rare ocassion.
I want to train my marines a little bit more, before I engage Terrans.
But I don´t want to place satelites in potentially dangerous sectors, as my CAGs use them to define trade sectors.
So, I tried the described mini-carrier-group. They have nothing to do with boarding, I have M6, M7 and M7M for that.
They only have to find big ships, preferably hostile, in sectors possibly far away from my shipping lanes.
I started this experiment in an unknown sector, only to find M5s launched with the "scout for enemies"- command, becoming stuck in the carrier. When I issued the "dock"-command, they immediately landed.
I repeated the trial in Maelstrom by launching the M5s, before issuing the scout command. This worked until one M5 got shot down, whereupon the remaining three seemed to sit idle in space until the command was reissued.
Finally, since OOS, a 60m/s Nova can gun down a 600m/s Scout, forward scout carriers seem to fail.

Thank you for your time and effort.

[Infekted]

You may have to take a more proactive role. Automatic scanning will tend to be a liability in hostile space.
You'll get better results manually issuing them to various parts of the sector. You'll light up even terran sectors relatively quickly.
The main advantage of 600m/s over 60 is that you can use this speed to never get within 3km of a red ship. Making them effectively invulnerable.

[CTHM]

Thank you.

I guess I would have to be IS for that, as I have read that range doesn`t matter OOS. I am IS in Maelstrom right now and they do the scouting just fine, even the launching worked well. Well, all pirates are friendly for now, so no more losses anyway. I would hate to have to meander the M5s manually through a huge sector like Maelstrom. Maybe placing one each over the gates, but then there would be no messages, again an IS solution.
On second thought, TM and M5s cost me about one million credits and I have lost about 100000 credits in one M5, while scouting a pirate sector for hours, maybe its not such an epic fail. But in an entirely hostile sector, only micro-managment will work, I agree.
Anyway, I am not ready for boarding Terrans, my best marine is at 98 fighting. I tried a P and lost five times, there weren`t even soldiers on board!

Btw, have found another Boron loner in a war sector, worked like a charm.
One Argon M7 fast response went hostile, but was too far away.
I have remembered my reputation this time. It`s a loss of one or two levels, from Jeoman to knight (sorry, german version).

[DiArmada]

in X3TC my favorite place for shipboarding was the unknown sector of the Duke.
south of Heaven's Assertion.
his HQ is guarded by an M1, escorted by four M6's.
the only rep. you lose is from the Duke himself.
I haven't been there yet in X3AP, so I can only assume the Zeus will be there.
once you've captured it you should do something else for a couple of hours before it respawns.

[Infekted]

I was talking about OOS. Range does matter in that it's effectively set to ~3km for everything in OOS combat calculations. For combat to initiate your ship has to get within that range.

Also, about boarding that P. Xenon are the hardest to board ships in the game. Even with maxed marines losses are quite probable on those.