Marine Boarding Question

[WishmasterSR]

I have a team of six pretty decent marines on a Carrack. The carrack has no defensive systems or any marines on board. Yet these marines are getting fried usually before deck 3, very rarely on deck 4.

Their fighting skills: 3x5star, 2x4star, 1x3star

I see no reason for them being killed so easily and fast. They have never suceeded on several reloads and are being killed way too fast.

Is there some kind of rule that you need to bring them onto the ship in teams of 5 rather than 3+3 (my sirokos sends two pods with 3 marines each)???

I can easily board m6s with boarding pods but an M7 Carrack is simply, for some reason beyond my grasp.

Please help!

[WishmasterSR]

So I had to reload, aboard the whole operation and go for a marine hunt to boost my numbers. It seems no amount of save/loading has helped. I also noticed that the advice: "save after every deck" is pretty useless since after the marines get in (cut through the hull, not before) their fates already seem predetermined (they die in the exact order, number and manner every time)

[Sabrina Bergin]

It is usually better to have a full team of twenty marines five star in all skills for boarding especially if the target ship has hull polarisation, internal defences lasers or marines on board.

Six marines have to get to deck one to meet up and you will lose up to a third of them on each level if not all if they are not fully skilled.

Also it is best to just use the Piracy command rather than just firing of the pods yourself as they will land near each other and have a greater chance of success.

I would suggest you keep training them in all skills then practice on Arena's or casino's with your target race ships to get them up to five skills in fighting.

Once you have a successful team start building a second team to account for casualties.

In My last play through using this method I had a 100% success rate with no losses in over fifty caps against all comers except the Xenon ships. With those expect a minimum of fifty percent casualties.

[WishmasterSR]

I wanted to avoid cheats, but training them takes forever. I just bought a new batch of trainees and they were greena as hell (all they could do was fighting - 3 stars mostly). The training times are insine for marines.

[Sabrina Bergin]

That is why I always start training marines as soon as I have the credits to do so even if I cannot buy an M7M at the time due to low rep etc.

In the interim you can still board Arenas etcetera to train them up in fighting whilst you wait for the number of fully skilled marines available.
It also helps finance the procedure somewhat.

It is possible to capture an M7M using a limited number of Marines as long as it does not have the defences I mentioned earlier or a stock of missiles.
That alone will give you a short cut if your intention is Piracy on a large scale. Failing that you can use ION D's to fry of those defences but that is in itself an art form or just pad your numbers of boarders with meat bags (erm Daring volunteers) those that survive will be worth training those that don't may mean the difference between success and failure.

It is possible to add mods to allow marine training but that will tag your games as modified and get this thread moved to the scripting and modding forum and prevent you getting achievements awards etc.

I don't play modded games myself but I know others claim the game is better for such modifications just be aware they can be a pain to install and may introduce unexpected crash's or other unwanted game events that only the mod creator may be able to resolve. But as I said this is not the forum for discussion of such.

[Jimmy C]

Wish, are you playing TC or AP? If you're in AP, the fates of the marines are determined before they enter the hull. The only savegame that will make any difference is when they're cutting the hull. The only other savegame you need on the boarding is just before they finish hacking the core.

[WishmasterSR]

Thanks. I kinda figured that out already by trial and error . I am currently boosting the number of my marines. It seems they need more friends to get a party on an M7 started

[WishmasterSR]

BTW are the marines persistant in the universe as well? I raided most known places for 4 star fighting marines and right now I am wondering whether there is a chance some new will appear (didn't find that many)

[Sabrina Bergin]

To find a 4star in fighting is a rare event, you can improve the odds some what by buying all the cheap ones and ejecting them in a hostile sector or sell the ship they are stored on at a shipyard and hope that when they are replaced the new ones have better stats even so it takes a while and the marine barracks or rehab centres need stocking up.

[WishmasterSR]

stocking up? How?

[Araknis]

stocking up? How?

you dont need to look for marines to buy,
you can get excellent marines in the warzone (all argon capitals come stocked with 20) and generally from rrf ships anywhere in commonwealth

[Sabrina Bergin]

With Low yield side arms and space fuel. Look at their resources list.

[Black_hole_suN]

your not gonna go anywhere with just 6 marines in an M7. I suggest you buy more marines then just hunt down M6 and TMs until you have them all at 100 fighting

[MarvinTheMartian]

AP or TC does make a big difference with boarding - in AP there's little point in reloading, I can't recall now but either the equipment left at capture or the survival rate of the marines or both is determined at the start of the op (I think just the equipment) but you certainly need more than 6 and "some" training

the more marines the better your outcome, if you can get the OTAS Sirokos M7M it can hold 21 Marines which gives you the best odds when boarding, you'll need something else to drop the shields though as it doesn't do Flail/Hammer

I feel your frustration at training times, I have 78 Marines that I've been buying as soon as I could afford them, after 7 in-game days only 5 are ready (I'm aiming for 5* in everything except fighting before I go all out). My tactic for getting good fighters is to park a TP at every Military Outpost I'm friendly with and periodically buy the good ones that show up, then send another TP to scoop them up and drop them off at a single MO for training. Save time and don't even look at Marines that cost less than 230k Cr, you should only be looking at > 60 points for fighting that way

AP is again different to TC when it comes to Marine supply, AP will swap out Marines in outposts etc. over time so you will see some churn but as has been said you can buy up all the Marines you don't want but sell the TP at a shipyard so it's not a total waste. In TC I used to do this but leave the good fighters in the MO so I could go back and top up without having to pay for them up front

Other differences TC/AP
M6s now carry 8 Marines in stead of 6
TPs carry 40 instead of 20
Your target is far more likely to shoot down your boarding pods so more care/technique is needed
Your target is far more likely to have its own Marines on board

you dont need to look for marines to buy,
you can get excellent marines in the warzone (all argon capitals come stocked with 20) and generally from rrf ships anywhere in commonwealth

Are you saying that you keep the enemy Marines that don't get killed in the op?

[Jimmy C]

AP's true source of new marines aren't the production facilities.
It's the mission-spawned hostile capships. Once you have your first 20 marines at 3 star in fighting, engineering and hacking, go after these ships for all your future marine needs.
Board them and their marines will be ejected once your boarders reach the core. If you sell the ship, it'll pay for all the training the new marines will need..
You'll never need to spend any credits on marines again!