Boarding tips.

[Japzzi]

Anyone got tips for going with boarding ships? I thought about a ram or harpoon gun to stop the ships from moving about (I had bad experience with my men jumping and the ship just running off making them fall to the death)

But anyone got any other tips or ideas?

[Ernst Cornell]

downwards vertical ramming is usually the best way to ensure a better boarding. that or using grenadiers, but i assume you want to board with simple marines.

another tip is placing hatches or open decks near everywhere the marines are. it helps them to jump out faster if you issue the order after the contact and not before (which depending on the enemy it might be a better or worse idea)

also "melee" ships always benefit greatly from short command cooldowns, so extra bridges are a worthy investment, specially if it's a big boarding ship.

[Huitzilopochtli]

Thanks for the advice. Do you use the harpoon thing to help with boarding? I've never tried it. And have you used the flamethrower or tablesaw yet? I have to try those too. I remember an enemy ship that had both a flame and saw on a strange gangster style ship that massacred my ships.

[Japzzi]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

Thanks for the advice. Do you use the harpoon thing to help with boarding? I've never tried it. And have you used the flamethrower or tablesaw yet? I have to try those too. I remember an enemy ship that had both a flame and saw on a strange gangster style ship that massacred my ships.

I know the ship you are talking about, I didn't have so many issues with it though.

I have used the harpoon gun and I quite liked it. The flamethrower is also really good. The Tablesaw was quite a letdown though but I could have been using it wrongly though.

Also instead of making a new thread I might aswell ask here: What to do with Mad Scientists? I have used many ship combos (even going so far as to try and ground one of my ships on top of it to take out that death ray). Said death ray keeps knocking giant holes in my ship.

[Ernst Cornell]

Originally posted by Japzzi:

Originally posted by RodentDung:

Thanks for the advice. Do you use the harpoon thing to help with boarding? I've never tried it. And have you used the flamethrower or tablesaw yet? I have to try those too. I remember an enemy ship that had both a flame and saw on a strange gangster style ship that massacred my ships.

I know the ship you are talking about, I didn't have so many issues with it though.

I have used the harpoon gun and I quite liked it. The flamethrower is also really good. The Tablesaw was quite a letdown though but I could have been using it wrongly though.

Also instead of making a new thread I might aswell ask here: What to do with Mad Scientists? I have used many ship combos (even going so far as to try and ground one of my ships on top of it to take out that death ray). Said death ray keeps knocking giant holes in my ship.

if mad towers haven't been changed, the best chance is wait until the robots go out in a raid and send a ram ship to disable/destroy the death ray in one swoop.

the death ray itself is very dangerous indeed, but using a ship (or two) with several propellers and lift chambers (redundancy of modules) should help to avoid 1-hit KO from that ray.

[Ernst Cornell]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

Thanks for the advice. Do you use the harpoon thing to help with boarding? I've never tried it. And have you used the flamethrower or tablesaw yet? I have to try those too. I remember an enemy ship that had both a flame and saw on a strange gangster style ship that massacred my ships.

i personally don't like the harpoon that much, because i'm of the idea that melee air combat is best done in a swift clash between the ramming or boarder ship followed by a hasty retreat with minimal casualties. however harpooning should have it's uses, but i never tried it to much

[Ernst Cornell]

Originally posted by RodentDung:

I have used the harpoon gun and I quite liked it. The flamethrower is also really good. The Tablesaw was quite a letdown though but I could have been using it wrongly though.

also imo, the saw is best against buildings and used in conjunction with a ram or something sturdy to act as a "jaw/bumper"

[HungryHunter]

when you bording with the normal mariens you need the follwing.
A fast and SMALL ship with said marines.
Fast to catch up with your pray and small to have low command time.
With low command time you can place yourself quickly over your taget and order them to jump off your ship. If you fail to do so they jump into there death.
Note: your marines are fine walking to defences and can be reorderd to attack the next taget. One transporttank can snatch a capital under your foes nose.

The T3 Mariens have A) jetpacks and can fly to there taget or B) hook them.
With a Harpoon you can force your enemy to stay close so they have not much truble reaching there taget. This guys are your go to boys to snatch you some easy ships.

T5 have this mechaspiders to offer.
Unlike the humans they cant defent or command your (frash borded) ship but they seen to be good at killing. Use them in combo with others.

Big info: Do not combine your bombers with your trooptransportes. The bombs kill your foes aswell as your guys. Use bombing only AFTER your team failed.

To the mad scientis thing. Build two or three your cannon ship and let them deal with the bots. Use a 500$ bomber or a fast ramming ship to get rid of the beamweapon.
Ram this thing or drop said bombers wrack on this beam and you have won the battle
Vertical ramming is a cheap and easy way to get rid of enything you dont like.
Spiders? Drop a ship on it!
Pirats? Drop a ship on them!
Turtels? Dragons and squits? Ok they fly and do other kind of damage. But for enything else drop a ship on them!

[nooop12]

I havn't had much luck with the boarding AI.

I made a boarding ship with a probe sticking out the front consisting of a line of decks ending in a ram. The idea was to ram with it and the ram would stick to the other ship and the boarders would walk on the deck to the other ship. A harpoon was also there for extra help.

It worked perfectly. The ram hit and stuck to the enemy superstructure. The line of decks behind the ram provided a convienent path to the enemy deck with a jump down of one or two tiles.

Then the first boarder walked out onto the first tile of deck on the probe and leapt to his death into the one tile gap between our two ships. Had he continued walking along the probe only one more tile, he could have jumped down one tile onto the deck, but he preferred to jump right at the base of the probe through the gap between the two ships. Then the next one did. Three barracks worth of marines jumped off the first tile of the probe and down through the gap between our two ships rather than continue along the probe further.

You could reasarch the kind that has four per barracks, they have personal grappling hooks and won't fall off.

[HungryHunter]

Mr Nooops12
you realy need to fly OVER your target not park by the side.
Dont build a L shaped ship with a ram on it but a T shaped ship with the ram on the botten part of the T.
With this you look down to your enemy and give them no room to shift left or right.
This prevents this "deathjumping" and the "back and forwards" movement of your bording party.
Also keep in mind: Your "Hooks" and your normal marines can jump from ship to ship and also can be reordert.
Raming a ship with a special small ramming ship or using the harpoons and then flying over your ally ship to use him as a brige is a complex but save way of bording.

Protip: Every building can be captuered too (including the mad scientis lap tower or the cult) and you dont need to hover over there asses. Just land on the ground and order the broding. Your guys now walk to there vioctory. Looks stupit but also cool if you send 50+ guys at 5 towers.
Do also not forget airsupport just in case everything goes wrong.