Xenon I bullnonsense

[doktorkatz]

To hell in a handbasket with this I. Trying to cap the POS. All my boys are 100 across the board in stats. They are master neurosurgeons of the boarding world. But this I. Screw this thing. I have no idea why, but they clear deck 5 with 9 dudes, and 5 cutting to join in and the boarding op fails. The 5 cut the hull and start in on deck one. What. The. Nelly. Deck 5 clear, and durr dead for no reaason. Boarding op failed, boarding party encountered a crappy magician and they all dissappeard. The 5 cut the hull and start on deck on, die, and I rage quit. There is hard, and then there is being stupid. And this is not the first time I have had team wipes after deck 5. Good thing I have 9000 or so hammers stored. Gonna just smash the plumbs off every Xenon sector several times over. Nuts to their ships, who needs 'em.

[Black_hole_suN]

I can cap an I with as little as 28 marines.. others can do it in an even smaller squad.. the key is the timing of when to launch reinforcements..

This is how I do it...

- you need to have at-least 2 M7M and one of them should be piloted by you

- have all involving ships to follow you in a formation that keep the ships as close as possible (Line or X formation is preferred)

- make the I empty all of its missiles against you

- I should be no less than 9Km but not farther than 12Km. Lower its shields

- launch 1 flail missile every 2-5 sec.. this will be you "flail tunnel". this will act as distraction for the turrets at the same time it keeps the I's shields low

- Quickly order one of your M7M to launch marines via Additional commands, this will not break the autopilot of the ship.. after the marines launch quickly fire 4 flails at the I, then after that maintain the "flail tunnel"

- the first 20 marines reach the hull they will start cutting away. after the first batch of marines successfully entered the hull launch 1 boarding pod (that's four marines) from your ship. they will (hopefully) reach the hull before the 1st batch cleared deck 1. if they do these reinforcements will
join the fight at the before or at start of deck 3.. keep lowering the shields of the I

- when the 2nd batch entered the hull, fire another Pod (that's 4 marines again). they should reach the hull before your 1st and 2nd batch cleared deck 3.. if they do they should join the fight at the start or on the middle of deck 5.. at these moment you can stop firing flails..

You can try altering these by messing with the timing of when to launch marines to make it more comfortable for you. the core idea of these method is that there should be at least 16 marines still alive before the marines start hacking the core.. or else they will all die..

It is ideal that there are 21 marines in the first batch, this is why you might need a Sirokos

[DiArmada]

after the first batch of marines successfully entered the hull launch 1 boarding pod (that's four marines) from your ship. they will (hopefully) reach the hull before the 1st batch cleared deck 1. if they do these reinforcements will join the fight at the before or at start of deck 3

can each deck hold a max of 21 marines?
if your second batch marines cut the hull before the first batch cleared deck one, will the second batch still enter deck one?
once I launced 30 marines and it resulted in a bunch of spacewalking marines....

[Alan Phipps]

I believe that you have to have at least 16 marines alive somewhere inside a target Xenon M1/M2 when you clear the final deck and before you start the hack or you autofail boarding at that point. It may be 17 for a Q (!) There is an old formula that seems to hold pretty well here.

Of course X3AP may have changed some aspects since those X3TC days, but I think this one still applies. P and PX may be even more problematic to board in X3AP now that they can hold more marines than in TC.

[samoja]

Funny thing, when i was capping a K i actually managed to put 40 marines on it at the same time, dunno bout I but could be the same.

[Black_hole_suN]

can each deck hold a max of 21 marines?
if your second batch marines cut the hull before the first batch cleared deck one, will the second batch still enter deck one?
once I launced 30 marines and it resulted in a bunch of spacewalking marines....

yes, any number of marines can try to cut the hull but only 21 marines can actually enter the ship and fight.. any extra will be spaced out of the airlock..

If reinforcements successfully cut the hull and entered the ship before the first batch cleared the any deck they will automatically join the fight in that deck..

I believe that you have to have at least 16 marines alive somewhere inside a target Xenon M1/M2 when you clear the final deck and before you start the hack or you autofail boarding at that point. It may be 17 for a Q (!) There is an old formula that seems to hold pretty well here.

Of course X3AP may have changed some aspects since those X3TC days, but I think this one still applies. P and PX may be even more problematic to board in X3AP now that they can hold more marines than in TC.

its still 16 for xenon J/K/I

for P and PX, 6 marines required to hack the core in AP

[Alan Phipps]

So the formula for the minimum needed alive onboard when going into the hack still works for X3AP. (Xenon M6 formula 8+1 -3 decks = 6 needed).

On that basis a J/K/I should need 16 (5 decks) and a Q should need 17 (4 decks) but let's not quibble over one marine or so. The principle seems good.

[doktorkatz]

HA! Thanks to the info here about needing lotsa dudes on the hack, I went full on meat spam sandwitch and had 21 on the hacking portion and got the stupid thing! Think I lost only... 10 guys? Not too bad. Not too great, but hey. Thanks for the info ladies and gents.