Suggestion: Ability to purge virus from Capital Ship

[Rob Allen]

One of my preferred ways to capture a capital ship is to hack it first by hiding somewhere and then sneaking a drone past its fighter escort. This disables its jump drive and most, if not all, turrets. I started doing it this way to get around the issue of a capital ship becoming stuck in space until the jump drive was repaired (I had trouble with cap ships not having any construction drones and thus being unable to fix their jump drives). Unfortunately it seems hacking the ship leaves it in an immobilized state for approximately 2-3 hours, even after it's been captured.

This means that you end up having to babysit the ship for hours, which is annoying. I would suggest that there be some way to remove the hacked status from a capital ship after capture. That would be more realistic anyway. Either have it automatically removed upon capture, or to make it more interesting, have the player land on the ship and use a terminal. You could even put some mechanics on it, or a minigame, or whatever, just as long as there is a way to do it.

It's rather irritating to have to babysit a capship for hours while it is either disabled from the hack or repairing its drives. I know capital ships are supposed to be powerful and if it's too easy to capture them that could throw off the balance, but as it is, it's just annoying.

[Ezarkal]

Repairs goes much faster when you are out of zone. Just get a 5-star engineer, add it to your capship along with a captain, and go do something else. Within 10 minutes your ship should be at the very least able to limp away to safety. If you're really worried, or if the zone it's in is very dangerous, you can always assign another capship to defend it while repairs gets done.

[RAVEN.myst]

One of my preferred ways to capture a capital ship is to hack it first by hiding somewhere and then sneaking a drone past its fighter escort. This disables its jump drive and most, if not all, turrets. I started doing it this way to get around the issue of a capital ship becoming stuck in space until the jump drive was repaired (I had trouble with cap ships not having any construction drones and thus being unable to fix their jump drives).

Constructor drones aren't required for repairs, only an engineer - drones will speed up repairs, but aren't mandatory, and a decent engineer (I only use 5-star ones) will prioritise fixing a ship's engines and jumpdrive, meaning that the ship will be up and running again (even if only to limp to shipyard, though that is strictly optional - leave it for a while, say half an hour to an hour, and it will be 100% repaired) in a fraction of the time it takes it to recover from a hack. TIP: to speed up the ship's repairs, once you have deposited a crew onto it, leave the area - once you are not in the vicinity, the surface elements will be fixed a lot faster, meaning that the shields and other defenses will be operational within minutes - so a sitting duck still but at least not a defenseless duck, and then it's just a matter of getting the ship mobile again.

I would suggest that there be some way to remove the hacked status from a capital ship after capture. That would be more realistic anyway. Either have it automatically removed upon capture, or to make it more interesting, have the player land on the ship and use a terminal. You could even put some mechanics on it, or a minigame, or whatever, just as long as there is a way to do it.

True, it *would* make sense - after all, presumably once you have control, since it is your own hacking "app", it should be possible to issue the cancellation code or such. Of course, an alternative way to think of hacking is that it causes some sort of actual sabotage - perhaps it causes the power subsystems to work in an unsafe way they're not meant to, thus shorting out something, or causing some sort of OS problem that can't be fixed quickly but requires a full reinitialisation of some [insert Start Trek technobabble here] - the digital equivalent of pouring sugar-water in the petrol tank. Still, hours DOES seem rather excessive...


EDIT: Ninjaed by Ezarkal

[Nanook]

To avoid having my newly captured ship attacked, as soon as I send over an Engineer and Captain ( and Defense Officer, if I have one), I'll immediately fly to an empty zone and drop a Nav Beacon. I'll then tell the captain to fly to that zone, which it will do as soon as at least one engine is repaired. It's generally safe enough to leave it unattended in that new empty zone. I never tell it to fly to a distant shipyard until the jumpdrive and engines are full repaired just in case it runs into trouble along the way. I'll then monitor it until repairs are sufficient, and then I'll send it to its final destination.

[RAVEN.myst]

To avoid having my newly captured ship attacked, as soon as I send over an Engineer and Captain ( and Defense Officer, if I have one), I'll immediately fly to an empty zone and drop a Nav Beacon. I'll then tell the captain to fly to that zone, which it will do as soon as at least one engine is repaired. It's generally safe enough to leave it unattended in that new empty zone. I never tell it to fly to a distant shipyard until the jumpdrive and engines are full repaired just in case it runs into trouble along the way. I'll then monitor it until repairs are sufficient, and then I'll send it to its final destination.

Mmm, nice use of nav beacons. I used to carry around a dozen of them, but found I wasn't using them.

[Ezarkal]

To avoid having my newly captured ship attacked, as soon as I send over an Engineer and Captain ( and Defense Officer, if I have one), I'll immediately fly to an empty zone and drop a Nav Beacon. I'll then tell the captain to fly to that zone, which it will do as soon as at least one engine is repaired. It's generally safe enough to leave it unattended in that new empty zone. I never tell it to fly to a distant shipyard until the jumpdrive and engines are full repaired just in case it runs into trouble along the way. I'll then monitor it until repairs are sufficient, and then I'll send it to its final destination.

Mmm, nice use of nav beacons. I used to carry around a dozen of them, but found I wasn't using them.

I never saw much use for nav beacons. I just order them to fly to a random spot in empty space, far enough from any zone or highways. It saves you the hassle of going to that spot in the first place. XD

[RainerPrem]

One of my preferred ways to capture a capital ship is to hack it first by hiding somewhere and then sneaking a drone past its fighter escort. This disables its jump drive and most, if not all, turrets. I started doing it this way to get around the issue of a capital ship becoming stuck in space until the jump drive was repaired (I had trouble with cap ships not having any construction drones and thus being unable to fix their jump drives).

Constructor drones aren't required for repairs, only an engineer - drones will speed up repairs, but aren't mandatory, and a decent engineer (I only use 5-star ones) will prioritise fixing a ship's engines and jumpdrive, meaning that the ship will be up and running again (even if only to limp to shipyard, though that is strictly optional - leave it for a while, say half an hour to an hour, and it will be 100% repaired) in a fraction of the time it takes it to recover from a hack. TIP: to speed up the ship's repairs, once you have deposited a crew onto it, leave the area - once you are not in the vicinity, the surface elements will be fixed a lot faster, meaning that the shields and other defenses will be operational within minutes - so a sitting duck still but at least not a defenseless duck, and then it's just a matter of getting the ship mobile again.

Hi,

that means: Leave the sector at least. I tend to jump out of the system and NOT look at the progress. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that looking too often slows the progress down.

cu
Rainer

[RAVEN.myst]

One of my preferred ways to capture a capital ship is to hack it first by hiding somewhere and then sneaking a drone past its fighter escort. This disables its jump drive and most, if not all, turrets. I started doing it this way to get around the issue of a capital ship becoming stuck in space until the jump drive was repaired (I had trouble with cap ships not having any construction drones and thus being unable to fix their jump drives).

Constructor drones aren't required for repairs, only an engineer - drones will speed up repairs, but aren't mandatory, and a decent engineer (I only use 5-star ones) will prioritise fixing a ship's engines and jumpdrive, meaning that the ship will be up and running again (even if only to limp to shipyard, though that is strictly optional - leave it for a while, say half an hour to an hour, and it will be 100% repaired) in a fraction of the time it takes it to recover from a hack. TIP: to speed up the ship's repairs, once you have deposited a crew onto it, leave the area - once you are not in the vicinity, the surface elements will be fixed a lot faster, meaning that the shields and other defenses will be operational within minutes - so a sitting duck still but at least not a defenseless duck, and then it's just a matter of getting the ship mobile again.

that means: Leave the sector at least. I tend to jump out of the system and NOT look at the progress. I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that looking too often slows the progress down.

It's not necessary to leave the sector entirely, though leaving the zone for a neighbouring zone (still in or near visual range, apparently) is generally not enough - so, somewhere well out of visual range is sufficient (half a sector should be plenty.)

[zazie]

... but I have the feeling that looking too often slows the progress down.

I often see that an Engineer (even 5*) changes the target of its repair when reloading or when checking the process of repairing. This can be annoying as the repair of cargo space needs much more time than repairing the JD-device or the engines.

[Nanook]

.... It saves you the hassle of going to that spot in the first place. XD

The reason I do that is to make sure it's a truly 'empty zone'. A random spot may or may not be in the same or a different named zone. The only places ships are safe from attack are empty zones. And if I'm likely to board more than one ship in a sector, I'll set up a safe empty zone ahead of time just for this purpose.

[Rob Allen]

Thanks for the tips! I never thought of using nav drones. For anything, really. I'll have to give that a shot. If only leaving the zone sped up the virus purge. It seems hacking totally disables the ship, I can't even get it to move until the status is removed (looks like it takes 3 hours every time).

I think I will just have to stop hacking the ship now. Even if I leave the system entirely, the ship still does not move until the hack timer is up, even if every system is repaired (I always try to use a 4 star engineer or better). One method I have just started doing is having a capship nearby loaded with constructor drones. If I capture a ship with no construction drones I can have it come in and transfer some over to speed up repairs. It still doesn't fix the hack downtime but if I just stop hacking, maybe that will solve my problem.

I guess my sabotage drone is going to be getting more use now.

[zazie]

I always try to use a 4 star engineer or better

When I have boarded a ship I always transfer "my" Engineer and "my" Defense Officer to the new ship. They are 5*-maxed out in everything possible. While the engineer repairs, I have enough time to search for a suitable captain, another 5*-engineer and a good Defense Officer before returning to that ship and exchanging the crews. Obviously I will step back from aggressive actions during this 'interlude'.