Marines and Boarding questions

[Sinxar]

I have been reading up on boarding a bit and successfully captured the Light Sul that was blockading the DeVries gate in my game.

My boarding party was quite terrible to say the least all recruits with a fairly bad officer (she is 3 star IIRC). I destroyed everything on it and had to get the hull down to 9%, that gave me a boarding resistance of 11. I had to use 50 marines to board it in this state and still lost the majority of them, only 10 survived.

On the guides I have found they all say a difficult ship can take up to 20 marines to board it, is this simply outdated information?

My other question is, with 50 recruit marines with a value of 0.5 each, shouldn't that give me a 25 strength vs 11 resistance?

Passive combat loss results are determined by the difference between boarding strength of the Marine Officer and the boarding resistance of the target. No losses will occur as long as boarding strength is larger by at least 10 points than <target's> boarding resistance and all active tasks are successfully completed.

Source: X Rebirth Wiki

If this is indeed the case, shouldn't all the marines survive since the difference is 14?

My last question I can think of right now is regarding the Xenon K. The wiki states

Since version 4.0 it is possible to board mission spawned Xenon K (but not I?) FIGHT ships.

What does the FIGHT ship designation mean exactly? I ask because I was loaded up with marines and wanted to board a Xenon K. I had two of them spawn at once from taking two station protect missions, I was able to disable one of them outside of the stations firing range and tried to board it but there was no option to do so. I proceeded to destroy everything on its surface and still no option to board it, had to slowly just kill it (for a nice 8m reward but i wanted the ship more ). I did get a free P out of the deal but it died at the first sign of trouble after repairing it and putting a good pilot in it.

So what am I missing about the Xenon K?

[UniTrader]

the MO with his 3 boarding stars* adds a 0.6 multiplier** on top of the raw marine strength. sp practicay your strength was pobably at roughly 15.
The Ship Info of the Skunk, which displays your Boarding Strength, does porperly account for this



*in fact its 85% boarding and the remaining 15% are from the 2 other relevant skills

**0.2 for every Star, so to use the full marine Strengh you need a perfect MO

[Sinxar]

Ah that makes sense thank you!

I added the part about the Xenon K after you responded. Do you happen to know about that?

[RAVEN.myst]

If I recall correctly, in 4.1 the ability to board Ks was patched out (I believe this was the originally intended behaviour, and Ks being boardable for a while was in fact an oversight, but I stand to possible correction on this point.)

Some tips on boarding: I tend to not lose any marines ever, by choosing boarding targets appropriate to my marines' (and MO's) skills, so I start with something like a Rahanas or Styrvok or Balor, and that gets some marine promotions without any losses, and then I gradually scale up my ambitions - this means that I can either move onto more challenging vessels, or not need to soften up my target as much (or some combination of both.) If you choose your targets in this fashion, you will find your attrition rate to be low to non-existent, and your boarding party's strength will improve pretty quickly.

Good hunting!

[Sinxar]

Aww thats too bad. I like the way it looks and seems fairly strong, reminds me a lot of the Tormentor from Eve Online:
[ external image ]

[RAVEN.myst]

Aww thats too bad. I like the way it looks and seems fairly strong, reminds me a lot of the Tormentor from Eve Online

I always thought that thing looked like some weird space prawn - well, those are sea-bottom bugs, I guess... Personally, I mainly fly Gallente and Caldari. Anyhow, I digress not just from the topic, but from the entire game! (My apple-orgies...)

PS: Clicking to that post confused me at first, lol - I thought I had clicked on the wrong browser tab and ended up on an EVE page instead, hehehehe!

[Sinxar]

Well here is a less confusing image. Been looking for boarding targets and turns out it is much like X3 where boarding counts as a kill (yay free capitals!).

Grabbed a Balor and another Light Sul. It was weird though, the Balor just sat there while I disabled the Sul, then I disabled the Balor. Boarded the Balor first (those missiles are nasty) then grabbed the Sul. Was a good time.

(links to full size image)
[ external image ]

[Sinxar]

Well the Balor died a horrible death to a K. It just sat there "calculating parameters" and died like an idiot. Was unable to give it a command to run or anything (new order was greyed out). No clue what was wrong with it. I even restarted the game before it died to try and make it run but nope, fully repaired and stocked it all for nothing.

Oh well I guess, I would like to learn from that but I don't actually know what happened.

[UniTrader]

just a guess: i think it wanted to jump but had no fuel left, so it wented to refuel. but because there was no fuel Station in the current Zine it tried to perform a slow charge jump (10 minutes charge time) to the nearest fuel Station Sector

[Sinxar]

just a guess: i think it wanted to jump but had no fuel left, so it wented to refuel. but because there was no fuel Station in the current Zine it tried to perform a slow charge jump (10 minutes charge time) to the nearest fuel Station Sector

That is what I thought too as I was googling the issue and that seems to be the most common thing. Sadly it still had over a half tank. The command was for it to dock at a shipyard for some reason. No idea why though, its commander was my light sul that is following me in my squad and I didn't give any orders to either of them.

I already overwritten the save, I do have some screenshots though but none showing the fuel remaining as proof. Not too worried about it but it was just weird.

[RAVEN.myst]

Another possibility is that its jumpdrive hadn't been repaired to a usable level yet, except that you say it was fully repaired, so I guess that wasn't it.

However, I've had the same problem once before without any apparent reason, and it was with a ship that was subordinate to another, out in Fields of Opportunity, not far from the gate to Albion and supposed to go through it to Exhaustless Mines.

Well, whatever the case, at least that Balor contributed to your marines' education Perhaps its passivity while you boarded the Sul in the first place was a sign that something wasn't quite right with that ship, and it was a lemon to begin with (quite a serious manufacturing defect! However, given your mode of "purchase", you get no warranty reimbursement...)

By the way, the new order command was greyed out because its commander was the Sul - you would have to free it up from that first, by adding it to your squad.

[Alan Phipps]

I have found that the greyed out orders problem with your ships most often happens when it is in your or another's squad and thinks it should be doing something like following, protecting or running errands. Sometimes getting it to leave the squad gets your normal commands menu back.

Oops - I just noticed that Raven has already identified the issue as something like that.

[Nanook]

...
On the guides I have found they all say a difficult ship can take up to 20 marines to board it, is this simply outdated information?...

This sounds more like an X3 boarding guide, where 20 marines were normally used to board large capitals. In XR, I always go with the full 50.

[RAVEN.myst]

...
On the guides I have found they all say a difficult ship can take up to 20 marines to board it, is this simply outdated information?...

This sounds more like an X3 boarding guide, where 20 marines were normally used to board large capitals. In XR, I always go with the full 50.

+1

[Sinxar]

Here is where I seen it: https://roguey.co.uk/xrebirth/help/starters/page10.php that leads to https://roguey.co.uk/xrebirth/help/starters/page15.php

I know now that it is just wrong. Saying "they all say" isn't true. Was some conflicting information that I wasn't sure if it was just outdated or what.

Since I got a Fulmekron i'm not too worried about boarding a K anymore. Seems weird though they spawn two at a time in easy Xenon missions. So many Ps spawn in very easy station protect missions too. Just seems weirdly unbalanced. Guess it would be too easy to farm them for money if you could board them since they are so common.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Boarding calculations have had a couple of substantial chances post-release. I'd guess that in this case, the text on Rougey's site predates changes that increased difficulty.

Thanks for noting the 4.0-era Xenon K text. I'll find and fix that (edit: fixed).

[RodentofDoom]

What does the FIGHT ship designation mean exactly?

A ship that just shoots stuff.

s/m ships with the FIGHT designation have no cargo space at all
l/xl ships have a 10000 unit fuel bay

all other ships will have a TRADE, MINE or BUILD designation
m ships will have cargo space (and usually 0 weapons)
l/xl ships will have both a 10k fuel bay, a seperate cargo bay and can have a limited weapons loadout

If you have the Teladi DLC there is a FIGHT ship that also has a limited cargo bay, afaik it exists purely to justify the PRIVATEER flag the 2 pirate factions have for hostile actions with limited/zero consequences in relations with the Teladi.

[Ezarkal]

What does the FIGHT ship designation mean exactly?

A ship that just shoots stuff.

s/m ships with the FIGHT designation have no cargo space at all
l/xl ships have a 10000 unit fuel bay

all other ships will have a TRADE, MINE or BUILD designation
m ships will have cargo space (and usually 0 weapons)
l/xl ships will have both a 10k fuel bay, a seperate cargo bay and can have a limited weapons loadout

If you have the Teladi DLC there is a FIGHT ship that also has a limited cargo bay, afaik it exists purely to justify the PRIVATEER flag the 2 pirate factions have for hostile actions with limited/zero consequences in relations with the Teladi.

In addition, ship designation will affect how hostile factions will react towards your ships. Factions with whom you're at -10 relation or worse will shoot your FIGHT ships on sight, but they won't shoot at your TRADE ships until you hit -20 relations.

[Sinxar]

What does the FIGHT ship designation mean exactly?

A ship that just shoots stuff.

s/m ships with the FIGHT designation have no cargo space at all
l/xl ships have a 10000 unit fuel bay

all other ships will have a TRADE, MINE or BUILD designation
m ships will have cargo space (and usually 0 weapons)
l/xl ships will have both a 10k fuel bay, a seperate cargo bay and can have a limited weapons loadout

If you have the Teladi DLC there is a FIGHT ship that also has a limited cargo bay, afaik it exists purely to justify the PRIVATEER flag the 2 pirate factions have for hostile actions with limited/zero consequences in relations with the Teladi.

In addition, ship designation will affect how hostile factions will react towards your ships. Factions with whom you're at -10 relation or worse will shoot your FIGHT ships on sight, but they won't shoot at your TRADE ships until you hit -20 relations.

Neither of those answer the actual question though (the quoted one is slightly out of context).

The question was about this:

Since version 4.0 it is possible to board mission spawned Xenon K (but not I?) FIGHT ships.

What does the FIGHT ship designation mean exactly?

Note how it stated specifically that it had to be a FIGHT Xenon K, as if there were other variants such as THINK and BUILD or PROTECT mission spawned ones that were somehow different. (they aren't)

It doesn't matter regardless, it is unboardable anyway.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

[quote="Sinxar"
Neither of those answer the actual question though (the quoted one is slightly out of context).

The question was about this:

Since version 4.0 it is possible to board mission spawned Xenon K (but not I?) FIGHT ships.

What does the FIGHT ship designation mean exactly?

Note how it stated specifically that it had to be a FIGHT Xenon K, as if there were other variants such as THINK and BUILD or PROTECT mission spawned ones that were somehow different. (they aren't)

It doesn't matter regardless, it is unboardable anyway.[/quote]
I don't think your question was as specific as you may think.

They helpfully answered the question you wrote and it's a bit of leap for us to realise you meant "Why has the Xenon K been called "Xenon K FIGHT ship"?".

To which I'd reply, it may have seemed a bit verbose but it wasn't inaccurate. It did provide game-mechanic relevant info to readers that were not familar with the ship from past games.