Boarding in AP ?

[Bill Huntington]

What's new with boarding in AP? Is spacewalk boarding is possible now? Can you start boarding without fully trained marines? Thanks!

[Erqco]

Yes it is possible spacewalk boarding. Boarding is a little bit more difficult now, if your boarding team is not well trained it add more complexity.

[DrBullwinkle]

Boarding is mostly similar in AP.

The main differences are:

• TP's hold 40 marines.
• TM's and M6's hold 8 marines, so you can have a boarding team of 9. This makes boarding TM's and M6's a bit easier. In TC, boarding an M2 could be easier than boarding some M6's.
• There is no point in reloading on each deck anymore. (Personally, I would never consider reloading like that, but some players did).
• More ships have marine defenders. That means that your team must be strong enough to defeat them, but the good news is that you will often gain some partially-trained marines after a successful boarding op.

That's it, I think. If I am wrong, then I am sure that Cycrow will straighten me out.

[Cycrow]

Thats mostly right.
There was also a few tweaks to the boarding logic and a bug fix where it based the calculation on all ships having 20 marines, not their max amount, which is what made m6 boarding harder than it should have been

[dannyxx30]

Do the npc ships ever attempt to board the players ship?

[pjknibbs]

Do the npc ships ever attempt to board the players ship?

No, they don't.

[Jimmy C]

Do the npc ships ever attempt to board the players ship?

While they don't. I've seen RRF M7Ms launch boarders onto enemy ships. I have yet to see a successful capture because the rest of the RRF usually kills the ship before the capture can be completed.

[Getsune]

Do the npc ships ever attempt to board the players ship?

While they don't. I've seen RRF M7Ms launch boarders onto enemy ships. I have yet to see a successful capture because the rest of the RRF usually kills the ship before the capture can be completed.

I've seen that as well. It's hilarious how helplessly the marines try to return to the RRF ship
which flies through the sector as if nothing is following it. Poor marines!

Is it possible to collect the marines once they've been depleted? I've never tried it myself.

[Bill Huntington]

Occasionally I've seen marines that weren't mine floating in space. If I pick them up, they become my marines. Sometimes marines bail out of a ship I am boarding. If I pick them up, they are my marines. Sometimes they even have a high fight rating.

[Alan Phipps]

Marines may bail out of a RRF capital in vanilla X3AP if it is about to be destroyed. You can pick them up to gain them as marines and they are usually fairly well trained. The clue is when you enter or are in a sector in person and suddenly hear the boarding soundtrack music when you are not boarding anything yourself; that means there are some NPC marines floating in space and escaping towards a station somewhere in that sector.

[TomatoAE]

Boarding in AP is extremely profitable

Getting Set up

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I first start my games by training up marines. I normally fly all over the place finding the marines with the highest "fight" skill.... the rest don't really matter. As early as possible dump them in an equipment dock and train them up, even if it slows your economic progression. Train all skills, max amount.

I then work on my economy.... probably by creating a few 6 quantum, 6 microchip/6 computer full complexes, probably in Barren Shores, Elenia's Fortune, and Rhonkar's clouds.

I then create a 8 Hammer, 16 Flail Complex, probably in Patriarch's retreat.

By the time these 4 major complexes are set up, I usually have trained my 20 marines 2 or 3 times.... I usually wait until they are maxed out in all by fighting. Take the opportunity to finish some plots and pick up a Cobra.

Get in your Cobra loaded with at least 200 hammers and 200 flails and fly to Ocracoke's Storm. I normally also have a ship with at least 2 fighters in a station nearby, loaded with jump drives.

Capture a few of the Yaki Ryu and Akurei. Get your marines to at least 60 fighting. Then, head to senator's badlands and hit the akuma

Boarding Made Easy

Spoiler

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Take out all of the fighter escorts with your flail missiles. Depending upon the number of fighters, you may want to launch a missile assault instead of individual flails

Close within 12 miles of the target ship, then head the opposite direction. Try to match speed (for the Akurei you might need to make it 15 instead)

Knock down the shields of the target. This takes a lot of practice, so save if you are able. Launch Hammer Torpedoes and then launch a flail every second. This makes the enemy aim at the flails instead. Depending upon your target you may need to adjust the number of torpedoes you send. Ryu's normally take about 8, Akurei's take 10-12, and Akuma's can be hit by 2 full assaults if you time them apart. Remember to spam Flails.

Save game!

When the shields are down to 1 %, launch 3 flails and then launch your marines (use the left click on target option instead of launching 4 boarding pods.) Once the marines are in the air, hit SETA and make sure it stays on. This helps hinder the target from hitting your boarding pots.

All 20 of your marines should hit the boat. Make sure the shields stay below 5% until they are in.

Reload if you lose a marine.... they are costly (mostly in time)

This should be very easy to master.

FYI, if you feel like increasing your odds of getting good stuff, save game as soon as you get to the last deck (deck 5 for the akuma). hit SETA, and reload if you don't get anything good. Once you hit the CORE the freight is locked in

When the ship is captured, call in your ship with the 2 fighters. I would recommend having a transporter, as it allows you to transfer freight very easily. Transfer a jump drive from the carrier to the captured ship as well as energy. Transfer a jumpdrive from a fighter to the carrier.... jump out.

Easy money.

An Akuma with 100% health is worth about 67mil. Since it reloads every 5 minutes or so, and takes 10-15 minutes to capture, you are looking at about 200mil per hour!

I end up waiting for boarding pods and flails

[Jimmy C]

Is it possible to collect the marines once they've been depleted? I've never tried it myself.

Very. Marines that bail from a ship are yours for the taking like cargo crates.
In fact, my game right now is pretty much capturing mission-spawned ships to get their marines. I could write a whole guide on how to optimize your capture operation to focus on capturing marines.

Occasionally I've seen marines that weren't mine floating in space. If I pick them up, they become my marines.

I've only gotten that lucky once in my entire game. I was wrapping up an Abandoned Ship mission in Emperor's Ridge when I noticed two marines floating near a distant gate. I checked their Info page and saw they had originated from an RRF ship. So, I knew they'd be worth going after. I quickly ordered an available TP to pick them up and add them to my army.