Hi
I'm Currently playing X3AP, and now i'm getting interested in boarding. I already have an Argon Minotaur for that e few dozen of marines.
But I dont like that i have to expend a lot of money just on missiles. I created an Hammer and a Flail factory on Ore Belt to lower the costs.
But i was thinking, that i can buy another ship just to help me to lower the enemy's shields. I mean, I already have a wing of 5 Argon Novas, but i think they wont help so much on the big boys.
I wonder if i can buy another M7 ship or even an M2 to help me with those operations. Furthermore, i'm not worried about money right now. I have 200 million in my account, thanks to 13 profitable factories.
Any favorites?
Sorry for any english mistakes.
X3AP Boarding Ships Couple
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fireanddream
- Posts: 384
- Joined: Sun, 13. Dec 15, 07:15
I barely solo cap with M7M any more in AP because of all the AF/HPD installed ATF ships. Well, since I have to call in my griffon to fry equipment anyway, why not call in couple of capitals to lower the shield, too?
And bruh, just spend some money already, unless you, like a lot of others, got the mindset of a pirate. Are you fighting the terran? If so, for a typical "ATF odin and friends" scenario you need at least a "heavy" M7 to clear the escorts/fighter wings and lower the shield of your target, by heavy I mean capable of standing toe to toe against capitals, like tiger/panther/agamemnon/deimos, unless you're into kiting/missile spamming/crazy strafing.
I hesitate to post my favorites 'cause one second later I'll get bashed by statistics... Somebody will be like "with 7000 repeated testings under 5000 different conditions your favorite ships suck". But f**k it. Xenon I for the win.
Only a handful M7s can fight capitals even with you in the cockpit. I flew a Tiger in this save and wanted to find a new personal M7 for the next save, so far Aggy seems like the only candidate.
Pretty much all M2s are good in their own ways, even Akuma and Brigantine. For general purposes I found Ray somewhat better than the legendary Boreas because of its left/right turret placement; I never need to remotely turn it for front&side turrets to fire together. Its cargo bay even allows 24 PPC/GC auto switch if you're pushing it. As for M2+, Pteranodon can be difficult to outfit but Kyoto is the only bad one, in my opinion. Go cap an I already and enjoy every second from now on with this monster.
And bruh, just spend some money already, unless you, like a lot of others, got the mindset of a pirate. Are you fighting the terran? If so, for a typical "ATF odin and friends" scenario you need at least a "heavy" M7 to clear the escorts/fighter wings and lower the shield of your target, by heavy I mean capable of standing toe to toe against capitals, like tiger/panther/agamemnon/deimos, unless you're into kiting/missile spamming/crazy strafing.
I hesitate to post my favorites 'cause one second later I'll get bashed by statistics... Somebody will be like "with 7000 repeated testings under 5000 different conditions your favorite ships suck". But f**k it. Xenon I for the win.
Only a handful M7s can fight capitals even with you in the cockpit. I flew a Tiger in this save and wanted to find a new personal M7 for the next save, so far Aggy seems like the only candidate.
Pretty much all M2s are good in their own ways, even Akuma and Brigantine. For general purposes I found Ray somewhat better than the legendary Boreas because of its left/right turret placement; I never need to remotely turn it for front&side turrets to fire together. Its cargo bay even allows 24 PPC/GC auto switch if you're pushing it. As for M2+, Pteranodon can be difficult to outfit but Kyoto is the only bad one, in my opinion. Go cap an I already and enjoy every second from now on with this monster.
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MarvinTheMartian
- Posts: 1561
- Joined: Wed, 5. May 04, 19:52
Capping is huge fun and can be quite profitable too if you're thinking of selling the ships
200M Credits will just about get you an M2 with shields and guns so I don't recommend spending that all at once. you might find an M7, while not having the shields of an M2, will have the speed an manoeuvrability to be effective at lowering shields.
You have a choice to make though, do you want to personally fly an M7 and get up close and personal to lower the ships shields or do it from a safe distance using flails?
If you're going for up close and personal then you'll probably want something with cockpit lasers and good turret coverage
I've not used the Griffon in AP and don't know how well IPGs work for dropping shields quickly but I prefer IBLs, the shield damage is huge for an M7 weapon (750k v 2.8M shield damage per min respectively and you can charge IBL) and so long as you stop firing before the shields are gone completely you wont damage the hull, the Tiger would be my recommendation for this approach as its side turrets also fire forward and once you've flown an M7 with 3.5rpm turn rate it'll be hard to accept less!
Personally though, if you have the flails, I'd buy a Sirokos for launching Marines and personally fly the Minotaur to control shields. For some reason, in AP, the pods have a better chance of making contact with the target when they're not launch from the player ship.
As for dealing with the defences of the target ship, first up is missile defence: this is why I recommend flails, in AP missile defences are much more effective, flails will get you past this mostly. the caveat to this is PSG - avoid!
Next is Hull Polarisation Device (HPD): So long as you're using marines with high engineering skills this won't be a problem on anything other than Terran/ATF M1/M2
Then it's Advanced Firewall Software (AFS): marines skilled in hacking will not have an issue with this, it might just take a little longer to complete the hack. I did recently have an issue with a Tokyo with AFS failing the hack 4/5 times so sometimes the RNG is against you
Finally, Internal Sentry Lasers (ISL): these are no challenge if your marines are very high in fight skill, you may also want to use the extra marine (21 total) possible with a Sirokos to improve marine survivability overall.
But wait, there's more, Cargo Life Support: RRF and mission spawned ships in AP will come with their own marines on board and if you want to get rid of these you will need to destroy the Cargo Life Support extension (and unfortunately other things with it). With 21 high skilled marines of your own, mission capitals should not be a problem and the bonus is that at the end of the capture the onboard marines are now yours, usually with a couple of decently skilled grunts. RRF ships though will have a full compliment of highly skilled marines so if you really have to have that RRF ship (only reason is for a Jump Beacon) then this extension has to be destroyed before the operation can begin.
200M Credits will just about get you an M2 with shields and guns so I don't recommend spending that all at once. you might find an M7, while not having the shields of an M2, will have the speed an manoeuvrability to be effective at lowering shields.
You have a choice to make though, do you want to personally fly an M7 and get up close and personal to lower the ships shields or do it from a safe distance using flails?
If you're going for up close and personal then you'll probably want something with cockpit lasers and good turret coverage
I've not used the Griffon in AP and don't know how well IPGs work for dropping shields quickly but I prefer IBLs, the shield damage is huge for an M7 weapon (750k v 2.8M shield damage per min respectively and you can charge IBL) and so long as you stop firing before the shields are gone completely you wont damage the hull, the Tiger would be my recommendation for this approach as its side turrets also fire forward and once you've flown an M7 with 3.5rpm turn rate it'll be hard to accept less!
Personally though, if you have the flails, I'd buy a Sirokos for launching Marines and personally fly the Minotaur to control shields. For some reason, in AP, the pods have a better chance of making contact with the target when they're not launch from the player ship.
As for dealing with the defences of the target ship, first up is missile defence: this is why I recommend flails, in AP missile defences are much more effective, flails will get you past this mostly. the caveat to this is PSG - avoid!
Next is Hull Polarisation Device (HPD): So long as you're using marines with high engineering skills this won't be a problem on anything other than Terran/ATF M1/M2
Then it's Advanced Firewall Software (AFS): marines skilled in hacking will not have an issue with this, it might just take a little longer to complete the hack. I did recently have an issue with a Tokyo with AFS failing the hack 4/5 times so sometimes the RNG is against you
Finally, Internal Sentry Lasers (ISL): these are no challenge if your marines are very high in fight skill, you may also want to use the extra marine (21 total) possible with a Sirokos to improve marine survivability overall.
But wait, there's more, Cargo Life Support: RRF and mission spawned ships in AP will come with their own marines on board and if you want to get rid of these you will need to destroy the Cargo Life Support extension (and unfortunately other things with it). With 21 high skilled marines of your own, mission capitals should not be a problem and the bonus is that at the end of the capture the onboard marines are now yours, usually with a couple of decently skilled grunts. RRF ships though will have a full compliment of highly skilled marines so if you really have to have that RRF ship (only reason is for a Jump Beacon) then this extension has to be destroyed before the operation can begin.
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!
X3AP 3.1 Printable Universe Sector Map
X3AP 3.1 Printable Universe Sector Map
Dont worry about money, you ll have tons later.
An investment in a complex like the one you built, along with a good M7M like the Cobra, will pay off in the future in ways you cant imagine.
Just go with it and dont worry about cash, you will be glad you got them after a few dozen hours of game play.
Just focus on your marine training and max them all as soon as possible.
Also 2 ship cap the way you wanna do it, will work in situations with lone ships, plus keep in mind that the ship that will be in range to keep shields down will be getting shot.
There are ships that this strategy is fun, like the Yaki Akurei, which i used to orbit with the Hyperion,keep the shields down and board with a Sirokos.
There are others that depending on their configuration will make the task impossible.
Also capping in the war zone, will require you having ninja reflexes if you are capping with a team of ships.
Although i was all for such challenges and thrills, after a few dozen caps like this, i just went for the quickest, and easiest way to get the ship i wanted.
All these are combined in the M7M (shooting from range, speed, staying out of enemy fire range) and your only worry should be the extra jump drive to jump the capped ship out.
An investment in a complex like the one you built, along with a good M7M like the Cobra, will pay off in the future in ways you cant imagine.
Just go with it and dont worry about cash, you will be glad you got them after a few dozen hours of game play.
Just focus on your marine training and max them all as soon as possible.
Also 2 ship cap the way you wanna do it, will work in situations with lone ships, plus keep in mind that the ship that will be in range to keep shields down will be getting shot.
There are ships that this strategy is fun, like the Yaki Akurei, which i used to orbit with the Hyperion,keep the shields down and board with a Sirokos.
There are others that depending on their configuration will make the task impossible.
Also capping in the war zone, will require you having ninja reflexes if you are capping with a team of ships.
Although i was all for such challenges and thrills, after a few dozen caps like this, i just went for the quickest, and easiest way to get the ship i wanted.
All these are combined in the M7M (shooting from range, speed, staying out of enemy fire range) and your only worry should be the extra jump drive to jump the capped ship out.
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fireanddream
- Posts: 384
- Joined: Sun, 13. Dec 15, 07:15
It's so much fun capping in war zones. I earned my money exclusively from Kyoto/Osaka, sometimes Kyoto. Asteroid belt is my hunting ground; it's always filled with terran war ships, it's terran territory so capping is often a race against time 'cause RRF will show up. At earlier stage I had to call in a tiger to lower the shields, then switch to a griffon to ionD-ing my target, which always turned into "nervously biting fingernails watching my shield going down while checking the target's freight every 2 secs to see if AF/HPD were still there", and then tell my M7M to launch boarding pods, all happening while the RRF were chasing me across the map. At later stage I'd fight a huge fleet battles between terran RRF and my own army, and then went on with the actual capping. Using M7M alone is too anticlimactic for me, tbh. Few thing offered the excitement of capping in war zones in vanilla anyway.