Type II and Type III Boarding

[contributor]

I'm curious about the two types of boarding. The help file talks about them as sustained boarding (Type III) and board>gun>retreat>board (Type II). I want to understand them better.

I'm assuming that Type III simply means boarding and then hitting board/duel until one captain or the other dies or one ship loses all engines. Am I missing anything there? What controls whether it goes to duel or is just crew fighting crew. When it goes to duel, does that mean less damage is done to the ships/crew because everybody circles up around the captains chanting "Fight, fight, fight, fight!"?

For Type III is it really board>gun>retreat? Every time I've hit "Gun" after boarding I get that message about shooting at my own crew and so I don't do it. I have had good success with board>retreat>retreat to med. rang>advance to short range>board again. I seem to do a lot more damage on that initial board, but I don't use my guns in there anywhere, because I don't want to give them the chance to board me first. Is my method a modified type III or type IV?

[starfixer]

Type II upgrades helps board transitions - pressing board at short range and therfor going from short range to zero range

Type III upgrades helps sustained boarding - pressing board once at zero range after you've already transitioned

The Gun retreat method is just a suggested method to use with Type II upgrades. It doesn't neccesarily help gun when boarding, but such a technique would be most taking advantage of the bonuses of Type II upgrades. You can also simply retreat and board if you'd like. But once you've already transitioned into zero range, type II won't help for boarding.

[fallen]

starfixer - thanks for a great, thorough answer!

[johndramey]

I guess this is as good a place to ask as any, is boarding only a viable strategy? Whenever I make combat oriented captains I tend to focus on pilot/tactics and gun everything I run into. It always seemed to me that aiming at the engines is just a much safer way of doing things, as boarding uses up huge swaths of crew.

[contributor]

I think that the "gun-bunny" is a very viable option and is probably the most used strategy for developing your fighting skills. That was my default strategy for a long-time, but I found that those captains eventually all got boarded by somebody and died, so I started experimenting with other strategies including making a long-range torp machine. Those captains seemed to get to a stage where nobody could gain range on them, but I also couldn't hit them with torps and so combat would go into the hundreds (thousands even) of turns. I could always run, but I often I couldn't win. So now I'm focusing on building boarding captains. It seems like this might be the best strategy for making captains that win vs. aliens which is what I'm focusing on now. slayernz claims that he can level captains up to extremely high levels without focusing on boarding, but I've never seen his whole strategy.

As for crew loss and ship damage it's just part of being a boarder. It costs more in repairs, but it's ultimately more likely to win, every time. At least that's the theory.

[fallen]

contributor - do you mind if I ask which officers you were using in the first two strategies?

[contributor]

I would normally keep a pilot and a mechanic and then normally an MO or Spy. It seems like there are actually a bunch of officers that help with boarding, especially if you factor in alien boarding, but not many that really help the other types of combat. I don't know of any that help with the long-range combat.

[ntsheep]

One day while exploring I discovered a strange species of alien toad that when scared it expanded to the size of a football then blew out a huge cloud of smoke. I sneak up on the enemy and my first boarding action once I have gained entry to the vessel is to toss a crate of these toads in. Works like a charm. Do watch out for the sub-species that exhales a fog that has similar effects to the ancient Earth plant hemp. My crew ate every thing in site when I made that mistake.

[starfixer]

In the beginning of the game, boarding is a good primary attack. It has a number of advantages over gun, including that it has a higher success rate than gun, and that it's primary skill, warrior, can be invested in more than other skills (as strength doesn't contribute to lv). However, as time passes, board becomes more dangerous, particularly vs gun. For board vs gun, there's currently (and I'm hoping this gets changed) a damage roll that skills don't help defensively. So, by the time your at lv100 or so, enemies can deal upto 60 damage every time you press board if the enemy guns, and there is no skill whatsoever to stop it (not warrior, strength, tactics, stealth, intimidate). So by the time you get to a high level, you really only want board as a secondary tactic, wih gun as your primary. However, board is still better vs aliens than gun. And board is still good if you gun the decks first for capture contracts.

This also means that the slow, big crew ships become more or less obsolete in higher levels as gun becomes more important. Also, many of the factors that help gun (specificly pilot, agility and engines) also help for ram. So as a gun-based captain (high pilot, agility, engines) it might be best to ram the enemy as opposed to gunning them. And having an escape shuttle is wise too.