Xenon I. no marine losses !!!

[Araknis]

Just capped it, was my 1st try.

I had pretty much every ship apart from Xenon ones cause i value my marines very much and since i 've read i had to send in wave after wave i never tried it.

I wanted the I badly though so i started looking for it. I thought i could live with max 5 marine losses. I found quite a few around Xenon Core but the respawn rate of the other xenon ships was insane.

I jumped in Segaris, went to Xenon Sector through the East gate and there where 2 Ks, 1 J, 1 I, a couple of Qs and a ton of Ls, Ms and Ns on the gate.

Apart from the Megalodon jumped 2 Osakas in Segaris, and had them on standby. I jumped in with one destroyer cleared as much as i could till 30% shield then jumped out, hopped to the next destroyer and back to Xenon sector . I wanted to control the dmg on the ships so i didnt accidentally kill the I.

After about 15 mins, only the I with its escort was left.
Jumped to the south gate of Xenon Sector to flank the I that was on the western gate (eastern gate from Segaris).
Bumped on another K with its escort.

As soon as the I left the gate and came towards me i jumped out, hopped in the Cobra, jumped in Xenon Sector, had Sirokos with 21 5 star marines follow, and had another 20 5 star in cobra.

Hammer barrage, flails, hammer barrage, flails, hammer barrage, 4% shield...
flails again, didnt care if i went into hull i would repair it , i just had to get it and i wanted to get its shield recharging from zero in order to have sirocos send the pods, then jump it out, then switch to flails and save as the marines were cutting before shields get to 5%.

I also had Hyperion jump in with sirocos and follow, to transfer jumpdrive and kill escort after cap.

Marines are in, Hyperion goes berserk and starts fighting on its own.... and sirocos is not jumping nooooooooooo panic!!!!
I jump Hyperion out at about 5% shield and sirocos too, dunno why i had to give the command twice.
But wait the cobra has stopped moving and the I is in range barraging torpedoes ... nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
Cobra goes from 100% shield to 68% hull just from torpedo blast radius as the back turret destroys them close by.

Wasnt really paying attention to the marine messages, flail barrage again to get the shields down from 7% and switch to pods on cobra to send extra wave of marines.... but wait ... that wasnt flail barrage... it was.... hammer barrage noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! At this point i was praying the I would shot down my Hammers cause it would be pretty much dead and i was thinking to reload.

As i am about to reload i hear deck 4 clear, i open personnel and see 21 marines going to deck 5!!!! OMG OMG.
Hammers HIT the I and its going from 97% hull down to 40% noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
Deck 5 clear with 21 marines alive i save as they start to hack, jump the Hyperion in again, switch and jump Cobra out.

The I is mine!!!! the escort turns on the I i start killing them off with the Hyperion, after i m done i collect the extra marine from space and jump both out!!!!

It's mine!!! my preciousssss!!!!

http://tinypic.com/r/eg1d6w/8 my marines all alive!!!

http://tinypic.com/r/2zeccgh/8

Now, since i have the save at the point where the marines are cutting the hull, i ll try to get it without all the mistakes i did, although i doubt i ll be so lucky again.
Anyway the cobra and the I are going for repairs back at the PHQ

[Araknis]

oh i forgot, i m running AP Vanilla, no mods

[hisazul]

No loses on I cap that is pretty rare.

I'm like you, value my marines too much to deal with xenon ships. Heck my retired marines that I drag on my hyperion include a teladi that space walked to I and lived to tell about it.

[Lone Jedi]

I believe losing marines or no all depends on RNG, since almost every player uses the same resources and technique.

[Araknis]

Well after about a hundred reloads or so, i didn't manage to pass deck 1 without losses again.
It probably was 1 in a million chance, so instead i reloaded a few times when they were hacking to get better loot, after the 5th time i got the ship with
11 Firestorm Torpedoes
36 Ion Shard Railguns
9 Photo Pulse Cannons
26 Point Singularity Projectors
30 Tempest missiles
The freight was full
What I haven't manage to get till now is a ship with both shields and weapons.
I only get either the shields or the weapons.

[rzadzins]

Some people mentioned in other threads that it matters when you save, ie, the chance boundaries for losses of marines are determined as the boarding pods hit the ship surface. Not sure if this was confirmed though.

[Orion1632]

[TTD]

iirc...

TC you can save at each stage and get a better chance of capping the ship.

In AP it is determined at start.

So in AP save before you start.

Going by other comments in this thread,it seems that if it has been determined you will get the ship, then only the other variables , ie marines killed and EQ remaining can change at each stage.
But not done boarding for a long time,so can't confirm this.