(X3:TC) A question about marines (how they 'spawn' specifically)

[mouser9169]

So I scoured the universe visiting every military station and marine barracks I could get to (M148 doesn't like me very much, apparently) and found a grand total of six marines with four stars in fighting. I currently have them training their other skills in Rhonkar's Trial. I'd like to have at least a dozen or so trained up before I start boarding operations as I know I'll lose some as I go.

Will the whole list respawn over time or just the ones I bought? More directly, should I buy up all the 'garbage' marines and fire them to clear out the lists and get a quicker respawn?

[Nanook]

They only spawn if the station has less than the maximum allowed. So if you want a chance for better ones to respawn, you do like most other players do - you buy up the bad ones and either convert them to slaves at a pirate base and sell them, dump them into space, or use them as cannon fodder in your boarding attempts. Just so you know, you can use the many 2-star fighters and train them up on easy targets. Fight skill does train pretty quickly. Just don't train them up very high in the other skills until the improve their combat. But if you wait around for enough 4- and 5-star fighters to spawn, you could be waiting a long time.

[mouser9169]

They only spawn if the station has less than the maximum allowed. So if you want a chance for better ones to respawn, you do like most other players do - you buy up the bad ones and either convert them to slaves at a pirate base and sell them, dump them into space, or use them as cannon fodder in your boarding attempts. Just so you know, you can use the many 2-star fighters and train them up on easy targets. Fight skill does train pretty quickly. Just don't train them up very high in the other skills until the improve their combat. But if you wait around for enough 4- and 5-star fighters to spawn, you could be waiting a long time.

If my first pass was indicative of the chances, I'd say it's worth the trouble.

This way I can spend my time doing the Terran missions and when I'm done, I'll have a roster of nearly fully trained Marines waiting for me.

[Lea Flamma]

I usually pick all marrines with 40+ in fighting and train them to have at least 2-3 stars in skills. Then I look for a hard/very-hard Protect or Patroll mission and use my M7 to scrap any M6 or higher, that will show up, with IDs before attempting any boarding. It gets rid of those defence upgrades improving the odds of succesfull boarding and reduces the losses on your side.

Once they reach 4-5 stars in fighting, I will send them for some more training and keep them there untill they hit at least 4 stars in all. Repeat and get yourself some 4x100 ninjas

[mouser9169]

In clearing Rhonkar's Trial every day for two days and dumping all the defective marines a sector away I've already gotten another four star fighter. If I can remember to do the 'circuit', I'll probably get one or two every day.

That should be enough to have a good sized ninja army by the time I'm ready for it.


The game is a little like spinning plates - not hard in itself once you know how: keeping them all spinning is the real challenge. That's not to say they're aren't parts hard in themselves, there are - just that if you want to do EVERYTHING (Trade, Fight, Build, Think) you've got a lot on your list to keep going.

[Lea Flamma]

The bonus pack helps a lot with trading. And you can create some "no brainer" complexes, which you can simply start and forget. They will run by themselves while providing some nice profit. Universal Traders are also a way to get some easy cash without too much thought. CLS on the other hand will proove usefull a little later in the game, at least they do for me.

The game has so many features, that after playing for over a year I still haven't tried more then a half of them. But I like to play it as a Tycoon, so a lot of trading and looking for profits. Much more then fighting, but I do that too.... Sometimes


As for the marrines, it might be faster to clear more then just one Millitary Outpost. This way you will have much faster recharge rate. Dock an M5 in each of those Outposts just to see who's in stock for taking. then fly, buy who you want and the rest pack into an TP and then either enslave or kick out of the airlock.

If you are cruel, pack them into a TS with Cargo Lifesupport and then shift the CLS to another ship. they all die silently.

[DiArmada]

in TC I bought over 40 marines with three or four stars in fighting.
I'm not sure, but I think I read here somewhere that the best marines are for sale in the beginning of the game.
to get those marines I traveled up and down the entire universe,
in AP I've found 27 marines with combatlevel above 50. (3-4 stars)
I've all bought them within 48 hours of gametime.

[Gruber1232002]

I buy the marines with any high skill, fight or otherwise. At the end of the day I want them all maxed in everything anyway so the ones with high trainable skills get there sooner. With enough marines with reasonable fight skill your 'technicians' should survive training ops just fine until they too are ninjas.

Anyway, for outpost cycling buy a TP at a nearby shipyard, send it to the outpost, buy the crappy marines, sell the TP. Rinse and repeat.

[Honved]

You only need two marines in each group with the ability to cut the hulls an d to hack the core. The rest are just cannon fodder, and add a bit of firepower. I buy marines with 3 or more stars in combat, and even a few on the high end of two stars, and figure that they'll either learn on the job or die trying. You should train all of them to a passable level in Engineering, so they do less collateral damage to the ship while they're assaulting it, but as pointed out, only a few "top" marines need all of the skills. Since only the two marines with the highest level in the required skill are counted, why pay to train the rest (other than a 3rd man as a "spare") in a skill that will never get used?

[Gruber1232002]

You only need two marines in each group with the ability to cut the hulls an d to hack the core...... Since only the two marines with the highest level in the required skill are counted, why pay to train the rest (other than a 3rd man as a "spare") in a skill that will never get used?

Well, true but I've found over time that invariably the marines don't all land at the same time, so you don't always get to use the two 'experts'.

When I went on my Atmospheric lifter binge (stole 7 in ~40 minutes) about half of my boarding ops failed because I only had 3 high skill level mechanics. Invariably a pod or two of marines end up in space. Half the time one of my elite hackers is one of them. Then I have to go pick up marines in space instead of stealing another ship, meanwhile some Tokyo or other is out for my blood. To add insult to injury most of the time this happens I end up with a failed hack.

Sure, I could spend half an hour PBE-ing the hull polarizers and firewall software off each ship but that just gives the rapid response fleet time to get to me. I'd much rather eliminate the hassle by training up half my guys as hackers and the other half as mechanics. Everyone gets engineering training since I don't like paying for repairs and I don't have massive cash generating complexes.

When you have 60 marines cycling in and out of training ops, (Arenas, Hospital ships etc) you don't want to have to spend a bunch of time matching up teams for success. When my guys hit 100 fight skill I train up the remaining skill to 100 while I give the remaining noobs boarding practice. Now I have marines that will fit any role, and I can sprinkle in some numpties without fear of failure.

This is just a preference, not a requirement for success. Theoretically you are quite correct in that you can make it happen with just a couple of experts, but it adds a layer of complexity and potential aggravation that I'd rather not deal with. Now if you intend to board one or two ships just for kicks then I wouldn't bother making ninjas. If you intend to be the universe's most notorious pirate who has a thing for stealing self-aware toasters then I feel that having ninjas is the way to go.

[mouser9169]

You only need two marines in each group with the ability to cut the hulls an d to hack the core...... Since only the two marines with the highest level in the required skill are counted, why pay to train the rest (other than a 3rd man as a "spare") in a skill that will never get used?

Well, true but I've found over time that invariably the marines don't all land at the same time, so you don't always get to use the two 'experts'.

This pretty much sums up my thinking.

I can't see any reason NOT to train them up in everything, and several reasons to do so.

This way, when I'm ready to start boarding ships, I'll have a group of marines ready to go (btw, how do you see the stat numbers? I only see stars). It won't matter which marines get killed so long as I still have some on the job - they can keep working while I send another pod or two over.

[Honved]

(btw, how do you see the stat numbers? I only see stars).

I'm running TC, not AP, which might be the difference. I can definitely see the exact stat numbers with a Bioscanner when the marines are at a Marine Training facility or at a Military Base, and I'm at lease semi-certain that they're visible while the marines are on one of my ships. To me, the stars always seemed to be redundant, since the stats say the same in a lot more detail.

Once my marines gain a decent amount of fighting skill, I send a few of them back for additional training in whatever they're weak at. To me, there's no point in paying to boost a marine's Hacking and Mechanical skills to 90+ if they're going to die on their first mission due to a 35 in combat skill. Once it's up 60-80, they're worth the added investment, and I'll throw a couple of new trainees (only trained in Engineering to a "reasonable" level) into the mix with them.

Besides, if I've got a boatload of 20 marines, and 8 of them have Mechanical skills in the 80+ range, with 4 more in the 50 range, the odds of NOT getting at least one 80+ and another with at least 50+ in any boarding party of 5 are really low. You only need two survivors with decent Hacking skills to make it to the core from ALL of the landing parties, so you only need to train up about 25% of them in that. The cost of training them ALL up to 80+ in both Mechanical and Hacking is probably double or more, and will rarely or never make a difference.

The only exception is if you're trying to board Xenon ships, where you need the absolute best possible sets of skills. In that case, you can expect heavier than normal losses along the way, and will want to be absolutely sure than your survivors (if there are any) can still do the job at the end.

[IanFitzJo]

Having just read this thread, I made a happy discovery in applying what I've learned. By not harvesting marines/mercenaries, GoD had deleted all the Marine Training Barracks. Since starting to harvest, it has put them all back