X3ap: Board ship or Launch all Marines?

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Gersidi
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X3ap: Board ship or Launch all Marines?

Post by Gersidi » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 21:00

I have an outfitted m7m and was wondering which command to use. Looking to cap tl's and zeus's

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 22:11

I usually fly the M7M and just launch all missiles and pods myself. If you do that each pod you launch will load 5 available marines.

If you remotely use the piracy command for the M7M from another ship then it should launch pods with all available marines when the target shields are lowered sufficiently by whatever means you use.
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ajax34i
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Post by ajax34i » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 22:20

Neither.

M7M is a missile frigate; you are supposed to use Boarding Pods to shoot your marines at the target.

If you have marines in the ship, and have boarding pods in the cargo, use your Missile Select button (key 5 by default, I think, and you can re-map it) to select the Boarding Pods and pull the trigger to shoot them at the target.

Of course, the target will shoot your marine pods down. This is why you shoot swarms of Flails, then quickly switch to Boarding Pods and shoot them, then back to swarms of Flails, so that the target tries to defend against the Flails rather than the Boarding Pods. You should have a cloud of Flails going, with the marine pods mixed in the middle of the cloud, so that the target is confused about what to shoot at.

Otherwise, for an M6 or TP ship, the command to use is Piracy->Boarding. This will engage the autopilot and try to position the ship across the front of the target so the marines have a chance to reach it, once they eject.

Launch All Marines just spews them into space. You need to then select all of them and order them around from your list of ships using the command console. Their speed is 14 m/s they will NOT catch any target ship, even the slowest transport is 70+ m/s.

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 22:50

If you use the board ship command on an M7M, you get the result Alan described. My common boarding technique is to fly close to the target in a big ship and lower its shields. Meanwhile, I've issued the 'board ship' command which tells the M7M to launch 20 marines in 5 pods as soon as the shields are low enough. This takes all the menu fumbling out of the operation.

There's no need to fly the M7M yourself and launch missiles and marines manually.
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Jimmy C
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Post by Jimmy C » Sat, 20. Sep 14, 03:59

Does the board ship command launch all 20 marines even if the target is an M6?

riceygringo
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Post by riceygringo » Sat, 20. Sep 14, 04:35

If I remember correctly, Board Ship launches ALL available marines on your ship. It's advised to only load your M7M with the number of marines you need

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Sabrina Bergin
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Post by Sabrina Bergin » Sat, 20. Sep 14, 09:06

If you have an M7M why go for an M6 unless its a Hyperion?

If you are after the Hyperion be advised your precise use of drones and missiles is critical in getting the shields down without destroying the ship.
You should really get a ship with Ion D's to strip of its weapons and internal defences before even attempting to board it.

I would also advise you have an exit strategy pre-planned as well, you need to get that ship equipped with all it's bells and whistles get it to a ship yard for repairs and freight transfers as required where the Paranid who will show up soon after you succeed will be eliminated for you. Plan on them being confronted by a hostile Race military force or even Xenon presence. If you have a UFJD all the better. But I would still advise having weapons, shields and missiles ready to put on the Hyperion.

In My last play through I got it with a single boarding pod launched from my Cobra but it was down to 20% hull even with elite ninja marines with 100 in every skill.

Araknis
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Post by Araknis » Thu, 25. Sep 14, 00:22

If you wanna launch all your marines you can also use missile barrage : boarding pod.
The ship will use enough pods to launch your marines and give you a mesg that cant launch anymore as there are no more marines available.
I find this method more convenient as i coordinate my barrages of other missiles from there too.

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