X3AP: Could use some boarding help

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manollette
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X3AP: Could use some boarding help

Post by manollette » Sat, 3. May 14, 10:50

Okay, so I've got my empire pretty much set up. I've got a fleet of M2's, M1's and M7's, as well as about 10 screen's worth of smaller ships. I've successfully completed dozens of boarding operations.

I've been trying for 2 weeks to capture a Xenon I, and have so far been completely unable to. I've gotten all of my Marines to at least 4 star fighting rank, with roughly 80% of them being 5 star. Every one of them is also trained in every other skill to either 4 or 5 star level. And the furthest I've made it is deck 4 before my boarding party is wiped out.

Is there something I'm missing?

RayF
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Post by RayF » Sat, 3. May 14, 12:01

boarding a xenon capital is nothing like any other capital (except terran Capital with hull polarization thing but thats another aspect of difficulty).

Its very very very very rare(if not impossible) to capture a xenon cap ship with the level of training of your marines.
You will need at least 21 marines all trained to everything to 100%

and even with this setup be prepared for casualties and reloads:)

pr0nflakes
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Post by pr0nflakes » Sat, 3. May 14, 12:45

They need to be all 5 stars and you need to keep reinforcing them.
You will lose a lot boarding Xenon ships.
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Wheem
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Post by Wheem » Sat, 3. May 14, 12:48

I've heard people mention using "waves" of marines to capture Xenon capital ships, which I assume means launching more of them as some start dying. If I'm wrong, and that doesn't work, I guess you just need a lot of saving and reloading (and, of course, make sure you didn't overlook an Internal Sentry Lasers upgrade on the target ship).

pr0nflakes
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Post by pr0nflakes » Sat, 3. May 14, 13:36

Wheem wrote:I've heard people mention using "waves" of marines to capture Xenon capital ships, which I assume means launching more of them as some start dying.
Yes you need to keep firing in more marines, some people use the Otas Sirokos as it holds 30 marines i prefer to use 2 cobras and transport between them. Either way it's a tricky procedure and often needs a few reloads.
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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Sat, 3. May 14, 20:06

Try 30 or so marines trained to 100 in fight skill; launched in waves. Xenons are intentionally hard.

You will have to experiment to get the timing right. It can sometimes help to watch your marines in the property sheet (r).

Marine Tips

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Black_hole_suN
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Post by Black_hole_suN » Sun, 4. May 14, 02:53

I always do Xenon boarding ops within 10-12kms. using Sirokos-Kraken combo with 29 marines (21 in sirokos and 8 in kraken

as for launch patterns for Boarding Pods, I generally launch 21 marines from Sirokos. Then launch 1 pod from the Kraken when the first batch entered the hull.. so that they could join the main team in the middle of deck 2.. I fire the last pod when the main team entered deck 3.. so that they could join the fight at the middle of deck 5

if this fails.. I would have to reload

you dont need marines with 100 in everything.. you just need them with 100 in fighting skill

RayF
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Post by RayF » Sun, 4. May 14, 09:48

Black_hole_suN wrote:...

you dont need marines with 100 in everything.. you just need them with 100 in fighting skill
I am playing TC not AP,
you may not need 100% in everything but it highly recommended if you are going to use 21 marines only. Better survive chance i guess..

Vanilla style, training marines it is a lengthy procedure and especially the fighting skill which requires hands on to increase. This makes the marines (to me at least) highly valuable. Losing a single marine in a boarding op is not acceptable.

It takes usually around 10 reloads if everything is done correctly. It may sound that its cheating(using reloads) but as i said, marines are valuable..
this is with no mods installed that will alter the boarding or training procedure.

manollette
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Post by manollette » Sun, 4. May 14, 10:17

Alright, I'll keep at it. Honestly, this is the last time I'll be boarding, so I don't much care how many Marines I lose.

But I WANT THAT SHIP.

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Black_hole_suN
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Post by Black_hole_suN » Sun, 4. May 14, 12:58

RayF wrote: marines are valuable..
Yup!! in TC that is.. In AP I have recently discovered an "exploit-y" way of obtaining high level marines in a Vanilla game, so marines lost some of its value to me.. Besides, in both games, when you have so many marines trained to max skills they would just sit there in you ships doing nothing.. unless you have mods..
manollette wrote:But I WANT THAT SHIP.
Good Luck!! the Xenon I is the BEST destroyer in the game.. and it is the only ship who could defend itself properly against an M7M and M8 missile barrage..

hisazul
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Post by hisazul » Mon, 5. May 14, 06:45

Black_hole_suN wrote:
RayF wrote: marines are valuable..
Yup!! in TC that is.. In AP I have recently discovered an "exploit-y" way of obtaining high level marines in a Vanilla game, so marines lost some of its value to me.. Besides, in both games, when you have so many marines trained to max skills they would just sit there in you ships doing nothing.. unless you have mods..
manollette wrote:But I WANT THAT SHIP.
Good Luck!! the Xenon I is the BEST destroyer in the game.. and it is the only ship who could defend itself properly against an M7M and M8 missile barrage..
It's no better then any other M2+ :P Especially terran ones. On top of being generally most durable they all dock medium ships. Valhalla docked with 30 bombers will obliterate anything. Hell... it will obliterate anything w/o bombers. Kyoto is same deal tho with fewer docks and slightly fewer guns... but best steering in capital ships bar nothing :P. Then there is Pteranodon.... properly used its simply too small(smaller then most m7s....) and fast to get hit by cap ship fire. Due to turret placement it fires both broadside turrets at frontal targets... making its frontal assault as devastating as it gets unless you count missiles. And it has 30 fighter docking capacity.
Megalodon is also excellent ship but its... HUGE. I mean that sausage is MASSIVE. If Kyoto is more meuvrable then some M6 ships and can dodge fire then that thing cannot dodge anything and always gets hit. That's the downside.
I unlike all other M2+ has the best weapon choices. It mounts even some terran weaponry. Also has highest m2+ shield recharge(I think... it also has highest capital shield recharge period) and great shields. Second highest hull... with kyoto slighly behind. Sadly worst steering ever. But unlike fat sasage like Mega its FLAT and can use that to dodge fire. Its really good... yes but not really any better then others :P But epic trophy unlike others.... well except Valhallas. They are still one ship army and can take anything OOS.

On defending against missiles. It gets rolled by missiles same as everyone else. Only ship immune to missiles that I can think of is Agamemnon and only IS, just load it of full PSGs and there is no way in hell anything will get past it. Barrages or otherwise. It's a tactic I use sometimes when I deal with sectors/enemies that have multi M7M defenders or RRF ships. I park Aga somewhere in the back and just hide behind it while m8s and m7ms burn thru their missiles.

But back on topic. Someone already mentioned this,when it comes to I and other xenon capitals in general, Sirokos is actually very useful :P You cannot cap xenon cap ships w/o losing a good chunk of your marines. And fighting has to be 5 stars, this isn't really even debatable since without 5 stars they will die instantly in my experience. Sirokos being able to store 30 marines on default allows less micro on your side when you launch waves. Tho same can be done by just using 2 cobras I guess. Just more switching around but anyway!

Capping I is rewarding. I do it occasionally just as the... one thing that still takes effort in my save. Wiping out all life doesn't take much effort anymore with amount of valhallas I amassed.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

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