Boarding - need advice

[dwayne]

What's the secret?

Bigger engines? More crew? Full crew? Happy crew? Your crew > their crew?

Board after their ship takes damage? Does the type of damage matter?

I've been trying all sorts of combos with different captains and ships and I'm
Still confused. With Big crews I seem to take heavy crew losses while their
1/3rd size crew takes no losses and I have to depend on my captain beating theirs.

Which ship upgrade is best for boarding?

Could really use some advice. Thanks

[slayernz]

With dueling (ship boarding), I've found that having high Warrior skill is really important. Almost as important is the number of weapons you have in your hold. During boarding actions, your crew gets to use the weapons in your hold. Even better, you still get to sell them to others as "new" stock. Just clean off the blood first.

Stealth will help you when you are boarding an enemy ship as well, while Intimidate is useful for when you are being boarded.

The above things are often more important than the size of your ship or number of crew you have. You can often take on a much larger ship through boarding action if you have weapons and a good warrior level.

In terms of ship upgrades,
Plasma door cutters will help your first round of boarding action, but then stop making any difference.

If you have higher Warrior skills, the Leviathan System is definitely the upgrade to get as its benefits are enhanced by your skill level.

In saying all of this ... if you have a ship with good engines and guns, and you have reasonable pilot/stealth, you are better off getting to close range, then shooting out the enemy engines or deck. You can still plunder all of the goodness, but not risk limbs and facial features in melee.

I typically only try and board if the ship is one that I really really want to steal. Early in the game my warrior skills aren't up to par, and later in the game, I usually have the ship I want anyway.

Hope this helps


Intimidation skill is important

[Cory Trese]

Increase: Warrior, Intimidation, Tactics

Notes on Crew: Ships with a high ratio of Crew to Engines will NOT do well in Boarding combat because so many Crew are busy running the Engines -- not fighting.

If you find a ship that you like, upgrade Boarding Weapons and Crew numbers. Get some pods that are full of soldiers -- those guys don't need to run the Engines they just use Weapons and kick butt for the Captain.

Leviathan is a great upgrade for SUSTAINED boarding. Shuttles is best of close, board, retreat, fire, close, board ... cycling instead of jamming Board.

I am a Board button Masher. I find this yields the highest number of victories, but I'm not all jazzed up about the RAW numbers of a Ship.

Look at the Ratios -- that is where the secrets are.

[riverman120]

OK secrets for real!
1. if your pilot skill is lower than your hull stat you will lose a lot.
2. Get yourself a military officer and maybe a veteran they come from the mercenary and dark creature of the void rumors respectively.
3. yes it does all comes down to warrior skill relative to your level so at level 1 against a level 1 captain 6-8 is good. at level 20 you want at least 20 warrior or more.
4. weapons and crew are good but i have won with very little crew and my captain standing alone in with high warrior skill kill bill style amidst a pile of bodies.
5. i prefer the attack shuttles simply because they have more range than other options they are hard to find but worth it.
hope that helps number 1 is important!!! high hull ships are awesome but if your pilot skill is lacking you are asking for lots of loses due to engines getting wiped out!

[dwayne]

Thanks for all the tips!

1) I had no weapons in my hold (seems like common sense now, but didn't realize these were for boarding. I thought they were weapons ripped off a ship and just for selling)

2) My hull rating is 23 and my piloting is not that high. I will fix that. I will also increase the attributes for my captain for fighting.

3) The bigger engines were hurting me, not helping. I saw engines getting knocked down in boarding operations and thought bigger was better.

4) I don't think I was using the shuttles right. I will try the close, board, retreat, fire (repeat) sequence.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Apr 20, 2011 0:30:19 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Notes on Crew: Ships with a high ratio of Crew to Engines will NOT do well in Boarding combat because so many Crew are busy running the Engines -- not fighting.

If you find a ship that you like, upgrade Boarding Weapons and Crew numbers. Get some pods that are full of soldiers -- those guys don't need to run the Engines they just use Weapons and kick butt for the Captain.

Look at the Ratios -- that is where the secrets are.

Ok, so I finally tried creating a bounty hunter and using the boarding combat tactic, with almost no success. I read what is on here, and tried a few more goes at it, but apparently my understanding is bad.

1. If the ratio of Crew to Engines should be low, then you are saying what? When I think of a ratio described as such, then I picture it as Crew/Engines, so any ship that has more crew than it does engines, will suck at boarding, because of the way the fraction works. Is this the correct interpretation?

2. Why is it that my bounty hunter in a completely un-damaged terror class, a leviathan system, with a full crew, warrior skill of 16, with 20-30 weapons in his hold, could continue a duel with a level 4 pirate in a pirate skiff, win the round of combat without being wounded, and yet take significant damage to his hull, engines, sails, guns, and have his crew reduced to 5 without being rammed that round?

I have had several combats go this way, including getting my ass kicked by a smuggler 5 levels lower than me when I tried to board him.

What am I doing wrong?

[slayernz]

Hey TP,
Cory meant that the higher the number of engines you have for a given number of crew, the fewer crew are available to do your killing stuff.

so if you had a ship with 60 crew and 20 engines, you'd have more people available than if you had a crew of 60 and 40 engines.

you sure you didn't get rammed by the pirate skiff? I'm not sure if there is a toast or dialog that indicates you have been rammed. I'm like Old Alchy in that I don't often go to the boarding stage - I much prefer focusing on taking out the engines of an enemy ship, since I can still loot at the end of the fight

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Slay, I hear ya. That makes sense, but I have noticed in my meta-gaming ways, that a lot of the game mechanics focus on ratios and thresholds, so I was hoping for some clarification. As far as the ramming, I dunno. It may have happened, but I really don't think it did.

I myself have had marvelous success with closing and taking out the engines with guns. But, I have done so much of that technique, that I wanted to try something different for awhile. Sadly, I am having no real success with my current implementation of this strategy. My next attempt when I have the time, is going to be with a military officer.

[oldalchemist]

I still want sticky ramming like a Reaver.

Barbed Battle Prow and death spiral! (Because two ships rammed together in orbit are going to degrade fast. You either surrender, or I drag us into the atmosphere and we both die to friction! I didn't spend those points in Intimidate for nothing!)

[slayernz]

You may have 60 points on intimidation, but your wisdom score is still only 3

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Ok, so I am noticing a few things that make the use of boarding as a regular combat strategy harder than just closing and using guns, or hanging back and using torps.

1. As you close, you will be shot. You need to have a high pilot and stealth skill to at least get close enough to board. Or, you need a big, heavy ship with high hull and armor that can take the hits while you close. This high hull rating will also require you to have a high pilot skill.

2. You need a high crew rating compared to your engine number, so that you have enough crew not working the engines to help you board. But if you want a good maneuverability to avoid getting hit, you need more engines than your hull number, preferably double. Thus again, big ships with huge hull and armor, screw engines.

3. To get far enoughin the game to be high enough level to have enough pilot skill to fly one of those big ships, you are going to have to be able to just run from combat for awhile, otherwise you will get shot to hell.

4. Even when you reliably win boarding battles, you will lose a lot of crew that you have to go spend time to recruit replacements for. Compared to a comparible level captain who focuses on the Guns and Engines strategy, your ship will also get damaged a lot more frequently by desperation rams and lucky shots as you close.

5. On higher difficulties with boarding, even if you win the battle, early in the game when your faction levels and military ranks are low, the expense of healing your wounds will eat most or all of the profits you will get from completing your missions and/or stealing cargo from ships.

Basically, to survive as a boarder, you have to put a ton of points into more skills than if you want to be a simple Guns & Engines Captain, or just a non-combat class.

[oldalchemist]

Wisdom? If I was a wise man, I'd run from all combat!

[Tenebrous Pirate]

The Allies tried that strategy at the start of WWII. Next thing they knew, London was getting bombed.

[oldalchemist]

Yeah, but I'm selling weapons to both sides, so the important thing is to keep moving and cache the profits in the right place.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Fair enough. That is a great short term plan for some balloon profits.

Heh, so I have officially given up of attempting a boarding strategy. I had a bounty hunter up to level 16 on Impossible difficulty.

I had him in a Terror Class, fully upgraded with everything that gave bonuses to boarding that I could get on it.

Charisma 9
Wisdom 12
Quickness 23
Strength 13

Explorer 1
Pilot 23
Negotiate 1
Tactics 11
Stealth 23
Warrior 13
Intimidate 5

I encountered a level 13 Javat merchant in something crappy like a military shuttle, it only had 15 crew. I closed, got its engines down to 2 and sails to 0. I decided it would be safe to try boarding it.

My 13 warrior skill, boarding shuttle upgrade, ramming prow upgrade, 3-10 weapons in the hold, and 70 crew (with only 32 engines to take care of) together lost. My engines were damaged down to 5, half my crew was killed, and my hull was dropped completely to zero in one round. I was 1 rounded by a merchant 3 levels lower than me. It was joyous. I am convinced now to shelve this strategy.

Pilot: