Boarding mechanics?

[Maktaka]

Scenario: I have a Steel Scimitar, fully loaded with crew, armor, and torpedoes. It's upgraded with Dreadnought Architecture, Impact Shielding Generator (to prevent arbitrary death by ram), Water-Fuel Tank, Advanced Sail System, and Torpedo Control Pods. I have 14 strength, 14 warrior, and I'm level 9. I'm attacking a merchant ship with half my crew, armor, etc.

During the initial boarding attack, my crew drops from 130 to ~55. My engines drop from 23 to 3. My torpedo supply drops from 16 to a mere handful. The enemy ship takes no damage, crew or otherwise. I am now in a position to duel the captain (which I easily win), but it almost cost me my ship to get here. What the crap just happened here? The status message at the bottom just says I did 10 damage, but since the merchant is still completely intact that's obviously not true. There's no information at all explaining why I just shoved most of my crew and torpedoes up my engines then rammed the enemy with the butt of my ship.

This is consistent through all of my boarding actions. Either I expend a ton of torpedoes on the enemy to the point I might as well just fire a couple more and finish the job from afar, or I nearly lose my ship trying to get the boarding latches in place. What is going on that's nearly costing me my life every time I board a ship? According to the information in-game, I should be nigh-unstoppable at boarding enemy ships, but apparently there's something that it's not telling me.

[Cory Trese]

Are you listing the upgrades correctly? It seems like the ship has no Boarding System?

[Maktaka]

No, I opted for the impact shielding after reading on the forums about the huge amounts of damage you can suffer from ramming (upwards of 70 in late-game). The descriptions for the boarding systems said they provide bonuses to boarding, not that they're required, and seeing as I'm already putting the majority of my XP into strength and warrior I opted for (I hope) defense from insta-death over more attack power.

[Maktaka]

Annnnd immediately after posting that and jumping back to the waiting military ship, which I softened up to less than half crew strength with torps (which was under 20 to my 115), it blew out all 23 points of my engines in one hit when I boarded it, captured, and executed me. Still no idea why.

[slayernz]

I've never really had much success with boarding myself- even with high warrior skill. I find it less of a random-luck thing just to shoot out the opposition's engines.

[Cory Trese]

I will increase the priority on the improvement to replace the "10 damage" placeholder with a more detailed description of the events that occurred.

I play characters that use Boarding as the #1 to capture ships.

However, many playerrs (like SlayerNZ) agree that combat in ST can be approached from many different angles.

Boarding is one of the most complex types of combat and has many variables.

Torpedo has almost as many Equations, but the stakes are lower, so defeat tends to come in smaller units.

Boarding is a highly dynamic roll that includes input from the previous 3 turns. The sequences you use are very important, as are the upgrades and cargo you have.

Morale increases and decreases rapidly during combat. If you loose a round or two, gain distance, reassure your crew and try again.

Boarding into a fresh ship is crazy. Doing damage is almost certainly a key component of a boarding Captain.

I would strongly recommend the Military Officer.

I would strongly recommend a cargo hold of Weapons (try Crew - Engines = Weapons and adjust for ship size.)

Leviathan Armor is the way that the Templar Board ships. Consider it on your next vessel.

Your Crew aren't trained from birth for ship to ship space combat ... but in an ancient suit of vacuum-ready power armor they do very well.

[Maktaka]

So a boarding upgrade IS required for effective boarding, not just a heavy stat focus in Strength and Warrior?

Also, in my more recent (failed) boarding attempt, I HAD softened up the ship first. I'd fired off a number of torpedoes and their crew had been blasted down less than 20 from their initial 40 while I had yet to be hit. I outnumbered the enemy over 5:1 and my Strength and Warrior were at 20 for a level 13 player. My ship was in perfect repair too. I closed to range, hit board, and blam goes the engines for an instant loss.

What kind of bonus does Weapons provide to boarding? Their description says they only boost Blockade, an operation I never perform (and I skip missions that require it to boot). Is it just to enhance the Military Officer?

And I'm still not sure how boarding can cause loss of torpedoes, since those are only for long-range combat according to everything I can read in the game or the help file.



Maybe it's just because the actual operations are opaque to the player, but it sounds like Boarding operations are far, far more demanding to outfit for than ranged combat. The only concession I made to being useful with torpedoes was grabbing the Torpedo Control Pods, but they were frankly unnecessary. Keeping Stealth at level+1 I was never hit by enemy torps or guns, leaving me free to bombard them until their engines broke then replace expended ammo from the disabled ship. It didn't matter that I couldn't hit them particularly well (accuracy tended to be below 33%) since they couldn't hit me, even though Stealth wasn't particularly high compared to Strength and Warrior.

It seems like if I want to be good at boarding operations at all, I'll need:

1) A specific ship upgrade (or at least one of a particular quartet of upgrades)
2) A specific officer (whom I had been trying to track down the whole game, but never caught sight nor rumor of)
3) A cargo hold of often-rare weapons, preventing gathering loot from captured ships. For a ship like the Steel Scimitar, 130 crew and 40 cargo, that means a full hold STILL won't meet the crew - engines requirement. This also sacrifices the biggest advantage of boarding combat: you always have a ship to loot from.
4) A full stock of torpedoes and/or guns to whittle down the enemy
5) High strength and warrior

While torpedo combat just requires:

1) Torpedoes
2) Stealth sufficient to avoid enemy torpedoes.
3) Optional: Invest in Tactics to boost accuracy. Not strictly necessary as misses cost no ammo and you'll take no damage anyway.

[Fenikso]

Oct 9, 2011 17:27:00 GMT -5 @Maktaka said:

During the initial boarding attack, my crew drops from 130 to ~55. My engines drop from 23 to 3. My torpedo supply drops from 16 to a mere handful. The enemy ship takes no damage, crew or otherwise.
...
This is consistent through all of my boarding actions. Either I expend a ton of torpedoes on the enemy to the point I might as well just fire a couple more and finish the job from afar, or I nearly lose my ship trying to get the boarding latches in place. What is going on that's nearly costing me my life every time I board a ship?

You are not alone. Previously discussed at the end of this thread.

Right now I find boarding enemy ship VERY dangerous for the attacker. And I see similar results even for NPC trying to board me.

Oct 10, 2011 0:12:02 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I will increase the priority on the improvement to replace the "10 damage" placeholder with a more detailed description of the events that occurred.

That would be great. Would it also be possible to add some combat morale indicator to the combat screen?

I have one question though: So how is it possible that if I board enemy ship it is my ship which looses engines and torpedoes? Is the action mutual? E.g.: when you fail, do they board your ship back?

[Cory Trese]

Oct 10, 2011 2:14:59 GMT -5 Fenikso said:

Oct 9, 2011 17:27:00 GMT -5 @Maktaka said:

Oct 10, 2011 0:12:02 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I will increase the priority on the improvement to replace the "10 damage" placeholder with a more detailed description of the events that occurred.

That would be great. Would it also be possible to add some combat morale indicator to the combat screen?

I have one question though: So how is it possible that if I board enemy ship it is my ship which looses engines and torpedoes? Is the action mutual? E.g.: when you fail, do they board your ship back?

Your posts crack me up sometimes. I'm only going to respond to the part above -- the fact is that the other ship ALWAYS gets a turn.

Depending on if it is a first turn Board or a sustained Board, the other Captain will take appropriate (depending on AI level) action to counter your moves.

[Cory Trese]

Oct 10, 2011 1:37:46 GMT -5 @Maktaka said:

Maybe it's just because the actual operations are opaque to the player, but it sounds like Boarding operations are far, far more demanding to outfit for than ranged combat.

This I agree with -- Boarding Operations are more difficult than long range combat.

Boarding, is by design, an advanced type of combat. It offers a number of signifigant mathematical advantages over all other types of combat.

Last night after my thread response I played a BH from Level 1 to Level 44 using exclusively "Decks" and "Board." There were a few close calls, but that's pretty typical playing on Impossible.

Boarding a) has a lower chance of destroying the target b) gives the Captain an advantage against better ships (by taking the fight to the NPC) and c) gives the Captain a fighting chance against the Alien/Narvidia/Hulk.

People keep saying that Boarding doesn't work for them and it keeps working great for me using the Market Version, game after game.

Therefore, I must be using some strategies / button techniques that you are not using, or you are much better at long range combat than I am. Either one is possible.

I think once we make the combat results from Boarding more transparent we will be able to get to the bottom of what is happening to your ships in Boarding Combat.

As I work to untangle the notification code that is required for re-writing the Boarding text outlets I will keep in mind that we are doing it to help identify bad strategy and expose issues with the engine.

Thanks for playing!

[Cory Trese]

It has been like 3 months of un-doing bad design choices to get here but I think we are close to "Boarding v4.0" which should reduce the confusion, increase the fun and make boarding a more common tactic!

[Cory Trese]

I just died again! Darn those Cadar dogs!

[Cory Trese]

Try it now =)

[Fenikso]

Oct 14, 2011 0:55:58 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Try it now =)

Much better now. Still testing it. I have encountered something weird though, maybe a bug?

I have started combat with lvl 55 Cadar warship. We closed on each other firing on each other without success. In turn 17, the enemy decided to board me. I fired at their decks. I am "Royal Dark", the enemy is "Titan Carrier". Result:

Turn #17 Royal Dark's attack party boarded Titan Carrier and inflicted 84 damage... and Royal Dark opened fire on Titan Carrier but missed ... the Captains duel to epic standoff!

The first report seems to have the ships swapped. The screen says "Boarded!" and I am the one who lost all his guns.

[Cory Trese]

Oct 14, 2011 4:45:37 GMT -5 Fenikso said:

Oct 14, 2011 0:55:58 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Try it now =)

Much better now. Still testing it. I have encountered something weird though, maybe a bug?

I have started combat with lvl 55 Cadar warship. We closed on each other firing on each other without success. In turn 17, the enemy decided to board me. I fired at their decks. I am "Royal Dark", the enemy is "Titan Carrier". Result:

Turn #17 Royal Dark's attack party boarded Titan Carrier and inflicted 84 damage... and Royal Dark opened fire on Titan Carrier but missed ... the Captains duel to epic standoff!

The first report seems to have the ships swapped. The screen says "Boarded!" and I am the one who lost all his guns.

This is a phase I change, so there will be additional changes.

From the sound of it your game is working correctly, there are still a few damage rolls that are not included in the display, in particular the back-damage from the boarding rolls. Next update should include that as well.