dropping factories on enemy capitals?

[wwwolf]

I was just wandering, if you need to destroy a capital ship in the early game could you just drop a cheap factory at the same position where the capital ship is? If it works it would be a good option if you try to apologize and the captain refuses to accept it.

[UniTrader]

if another Object is too close the Station will jump around to avoid collissions. Also i think other Ships are placed outside its Bounding Box when building to avoid exactly this (beccause there is a trick to circumvent the first one). Feel free to try it though, it has been a few years since i last stared any X3 so my memory may not be accurate..

[Bill Huntington]

I think you can. Usually you have other options by the time you have your Elephant. And if you kill it you can't board it. And then the new station might be in a bad place for you. Even self-destructing the station will leave 'station debris' for a game day or so. That's a navigation hazard. Choices.

The new station's position might jump all around before you hit the deploy key. Save first; If you miss the first time, try again.

The station deploys to a different location if it's on another station. I don't think it does it for a ship.

Edit: I remember doing it. I also had my own ship selected as the target once and destroyed myself when I deployed the station.

[RAVEN.myst]

Ships DO obstruct placement of stations, which can be a royal PitA in heavily trafficked sectors (particularly in some Terran sectors.) I've had to wait for a gap in traffic on many on occasion. In my experience, I've never been able to place a station where it will collide if it's bouncing around, but that may be because when this happens, I accept that it's a unsuitable location and try to place it differently (sometimes all it takes is to shift it a few metres, or to change the station's orientation, sometimes by as little as a few degrees, other times radically - this last particularly applies to SPPs, especially the larger variants.)

[Timsup2nothin]

Commonly referred to as "station bombing."

If it can't be done it has to be something that was 'fixed' in a patch along the way, because I have done it in response to a Kha'ak invasion in TC. Long ago though, so many patch opportunities since. It seems like that would be hard to patch out, since "station bombing" the marker buoy is standard procedure for station building missions.

[wwwolf]

I just learned a trick in TC where you can place stations in the same spot and then connect them before their shields go down so you can minimize the drop in frame rate while building huge complexes. That still works in TC. You could hire a TL to do it for you if your options are limited as in an early game. I didn't know it already had a name...Leave it to the btightest and best pilots to think of it. I am a veteran from XBTF so I know what this community is capable of

[RainerPrem]

I just learned a trick in TC where you can place stations in the same spot and then connect them before their shields go down so you can minimize the drop in frame rate while building huge complexes. That still works in TC. You could hire a TL to do it for you if your options are limited as in an early game. I didn't know it already had a name...Leave it to the btightest and best pilots to think of it. I am a veteran from XBTF so I know what this community is capable of

Hi,

Once upon a time you could put whole complexes into asteroids making them invisible. I've not done it for a long time, since my graphics adapter is quick enough to deal with 100-factory-complexes. I just avoid looking at them.

cu
Rainer

[Timsup2nothin]

Hi,

Once upon a time you could put whole complexes into asteroids making them invisible. I've not done it for a long time, since my graphics adapter is quick enough to deal with 100-factory-complexes. I just avoid looking at them.

cu
Rainer

I've done something like that. Not completely inside, and not for speed; but I went on a kick of building all my complexes like developments on the surface of the asteroids. So I ended up with these asteroids bristling with towers and such. I thought they looked really cool.

Key point there was the tubeless complex mod. Without that I've never thought that anything looked cool.

[Jimmy C]

I've actually seen a ship destroyed by station placement once. Not sure of the specifics, but the station placement animation showed there was a ship overlapping it slightly, and the ship promptly exploded during the animation.

[Bill Huntington]

I'm surprised somebody didn't do the test before me. I just dropped the cheapest station I could buy on a Paranid Oddyseus and blew it all over the sector. Yes, you can drop a station on a capital in AP. I changed ship to the Elephant and did it directly, not remotely.

That said, I saved before I did it. Now I'm going to go back and board that big boy and sell it for $90 mil. I was going to ask the Forum how to beat the RDF ships that would come and mess around with my prize. But I already have that answer now.

[Bill Huntington]

I got out of one sector with an damaged Oddy, mostly from the Hammer barrage; it still sold for $53 Mil. At the next sector of Duke's Domain, a whole RRF jumped in. I dropped stations on 2 RRF Oddys and 1 RRF Zeus. Three tries, three hits. There were no misses as long as I had the targets selected, observed that it was selected, and hit 'Return'. But there was another Zeus, some Deimos, Nemisis, and Hades.

Question: How many RRF forces will jump into a conflict? How long before they get replaced, assuming I can get the first group?

Thanks.

[jlehtone]

Question: How many RRF forces will jump into a conflict? How long before they get replaced, assuming I can get the first group?

I don't know. I think I saw somewhere an equation, but not sure.

I do get two Tokyo, two Osaka, one Yokohama and one Claymore as first wing quite reliably. There might be some reappearances, particularly if some manage escape (to neighbourhood SY).


If I jump to war, to Asteroid Belt, but simply evade the aliens, then the RRF does not come. However, calling in a helper ship will trigger RRF.

Later in such raid (as in after mowing through the RRF and military grade Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto) I had to jump in sector back to Gate (Skirnirs and their barrages when you are already out of Mosquitos...) with helper too, a lone RRF Yokohama bothered to show up.


Entry to Neptune with Cobra, without helpers, was enough to get full response.


What is the max number of Station Construction Kits that you can load into a TL? 5?

[RAVEN.myst]

What is the max number of Station Construction Kits that you can load into a TL? 5?

Depends on what TL you use. CCKs are pretty small (as stations go, anyway), so if you use a Mammoth, you can pack in quite a lot of them.

[Alt-TABs back into game to check some numbers...]

OK...
Complex Construction Kit - 4,250 cargo units
Mammoth/MMBS maximum cargo - 60,000 (minus shields, weapons if any, jump fuel, etc.)

Using the above, you're looking at 12+ easily. Granted, those TLs are the most capacious (besides AtmoLifters, of course), so others will be able to pack fewer.

[Timsup2nothin]

You can't station bomb with construction kits though. I used cattle ranches, because they were cheap, but I wasn't in a situation where the load out size really mattered. I think the smallest loads would be the individual fab stations, which unfortunately would tend to be expensive. Though mosquito fabs are pretty cheap, so they might be a good choice.

[RAVEN.myst]

You can't station bomb with construction kits though.

Yes, too true - they can't be deployed on their own, after all, hehehe. I didn't think THAT one through, now did I...? (That'll teach me to reply to the literal text of others' posts without engaging the space between my ears!)

[jlehtone]

Gotcha!

Lets see:
http://seizewell.de/x3ap/fabriken.php?w ... scdesc=ASC
Mine M are 8'000 units. Like CCK, not suitable for the job.
Distillery is 8'000 units too, but expensive.

Dream Farm M: 9'000 units @275k cr
Teladi Mosquito: 10'000 units @526k cr
Cattle Ranch M: 11'500 units @275k cr
BoGas M: 11'000 units @225k cr

In other words, Cattle Ranches are quite nice but in a swamp a Mammoth can trample six gnats with ease.

[Timsup2nothin]

Dream farm for the knockout blow!

[Bill Huntington]

I've enjoyed some great AP combat the last few days. With 'station bombing' I was able to invade the tough Paranid home sectors and board all the Oddy and Zeus capitals in the AP universe. An Oddy sells for $70 mil. The boarding was like in TC but the Rapid Reaction Force changed all that. The good old days are here again!

I just used three ships: a Hype (with attached Kestral), a Mammoth, and a Cobra. A jump beacon made it much easier too. I'd get to distant spot in a sector, expel the JB, jump in the Mamm first, station bomb, jump in the Cobra, pick up the JB, wait a bit for Rapid Reaction forces, station bomb, board the Oddy or Zeus. After the first sector, the RRF come in groups of two or three, not the big group you get the first time.

A Split choice for a station bomb: Scruffin M, 10k, $320 k.

A note. In a few days, a good question became a partial answer then a full blown new tactic for viewers of the Forum. Somebody might have known before. Now we all do.

Good hunting!

[RainerPrem]

I've enjoyed some great AP combat the last few days. With 'station bombing' I was able to invade the tough Paranid home sectors and board all the Oddy and Zeus capitals in the AP universe. An Oddy sells for $70 mil. The boarding was like in TC but the Rapid Reaction Force changed all that. The good old days are here again!

I just used three ships: a Hype (with attached Kestral), a Mammoth, and a Cobra. A jump beacon made it much easier too. I'd get to distant spot in a sector, expel the JB, jump in the Mamm first, station bomb, jump in the Cobra, pick up the JB, wait a bit for Rapid Reaction forces, station bomb, board the Oddy or Zeus. After the first sector, the RRF come in groups of two or three, not the big group you get the first time.

A Split choice for a station bomb: Scruffin M, 10k, $320 k.

A note. In a few days, a good question became a partial answer then a full blown new tactic for viewers of the Forum. Somebody might have known before. Now we all do.

Good hunting!

Hi,

why do you "station bomb" before the boarding? What exactly do you destroy?

cu
Rainer

[Bill Huntington]

The defenses for the key Paranid sectors are pretty intense. Before I bring in the Cobra, I'll take out any M7s like Deimos and Agamenon. Sometimes there are RRF already in the sector. I'll take them out right away. All of those would come after the Cobra ASAP. I'll use the Hype to take out the Nemesis and Hades, plus any smaller ships that come after the Cobra. If I waited there would be too many big attackers to close to get them all. All of this makes for an interesting session of combat.

Sometimes the big ships in-sector are attacking the 'station bombs' that you dropped before, so they become a distraction even after you use them.

A note: my bank account is $700 Mil, mostly from selling Oddy and Zeus from boarding. Yes, $700 Mil.