Boarding Strength Rating is completely wrong

[Klutz2020]

I always have it where i have the overwhelming advantage. I send in 35-40 Marines. they have 20-25 crew, 1 or 2 marines. My Boarding Strength is over 500 their Resistance is about 125. and my Marines get absolutely trounced. They come out with like 15 people. This happens all the time. Okay once in a while i can accept that. But this is every other board. Ive had to send in 3 different full scale boards to take out a crew of 30/60 with me sending 60 each time. I take out all turrets and board at hull like 20%. Is this just me or is the boarding mechanic screwy. It really ticks me off, when it says very low risk when 90% likely they will all die. Atleast fix the strength calculator. Or make it say approx. Am I doing something wrong?

[Ruges]

Have not done much boarding myself. but have watched a bunch of video's. One of the things I noticed is you need to keep destroying the modules. and keep the shields down. if you allow the modules to get repaired and you allow the shields to come back up and you allow the armor to come back up your chances will go down as the defenders gain confidence. However if you keep on shooting the ship. the confidence will continue to go down. To help this out allot have a weapon that does allot of shield damage and very little hull damage. that way you can keep on shooting it which will continue to lower the defenders.

[trooperrob]

I have a nasty feeling that marines enter the enemy ship as soon as they can, this means that the first novice marine gets into the enemy ship, and gets trounced. The boarding strength is the strength of all marines if they were inside the hull. If half are still in boarding pods or on the outside, they don't count for the fight, so the boarding strength values are misleading - at this point.
This is probably especially likely if you use 3 ships, try using a transport ship with all in one go.

I agree with you though, this is annoying.

[Worzel]

i agree with you too, it's annoying. i watched my 92 marines lose to 60 marine / crew from same ship with a higher boarding value than they had defence.

its not a raw strength number, it's a combination of lots of numbers. i loaded it and saw that their strength was in about 5/10 very good marines, mine was spread over 90 relatively bad ones

5, 5* marines if not killed early (random?) will kill a lot of your lower star marines and inflate and maintain their boarding strength

i also don't know whether defenders get a boost, historically it takes a lot more people to attack confined areas than to defend them

[Aeekto]

Are you guys running mods? Or put the boarding settings on very risky?

Because everytime i board i lose maximum 1-3 marines.... and i never shoot down the hull, only destroy all modules and shoot the shield down.

[Worzel]

i run 'very risky' on the stages i can control - in the same way you don't shoot down the hull

i can get to last stage with losing nothing - i tend not to run very risky on last stage.

I was boarding a builder, got to last stage no losses (very risky, very risky, very low risk), 1900 to 400, won the battle but lost 1300 strength

turrets on the outside shouldn't have an effect on boarding strength inside?


your numbers of losing 1-3 are unhelpful without more info.

what is the att/def strength ratio? how many good ones are you sending?

i personally have no problem losing 60 new marines just purchased (1 mill) for a 15 mill ship.

i'd have massive problems losing a 5* marine

[Warchild]

There may be nothing wrong with the indicator as it never tells you the actual experience of the enemy crew. You could be facing elite marines while you're sending in recruits.

Are you not familiar with the story of the Spartans at Thermopylae?
Despite losing, the Greeks killed around 20,000 Persians. In contrast, the Greeks lost just 4,000 men, according to estimates made by Herodotus. A historical fact.

Also what someone else has mentioned, the boarding strength will tell you a lot. If they have only 20 men and the defensive strength matches your attack strength... chances are you're dealing with elite soldiers.
I will admit though, the strength of Att and Def are not always accurate. A lot of times, for me anyway, the strength of attack (Me) versus the strength of defense (Them) will have me being the stronger of the two and I will have more men but loose all my marines trying to take the ship from 10 defenders even though I brought 50 men to the fight and definitely overwhelm them.

The more damage you inflict on the target, the more you not only lower their morale, the combatants either die or they jump into escape pods.
You'll notice this when you capture Gunboats, Corvettes, and Bombers. The more damage they take, even though they repair themselves quickly, the defenders will jump into escape pods and escape until there are only a couple crew left and they abandon ship.

The same thing happens with larger capital ships. This is denoted by the sound of larger explosions when attacking the hull of the ship and sometimes when lowering the shield strength. The difference being they don't abandon ship like fighters and larger attack craft.

I've also noticed that keeping the shields down without actually destroying them helps in capturing the ship and later keeps the ship safe after the fact.
Nothing like capturing a ship to have the boarding crew fix the engines and make their way to a shipyard to have it destroyed 3 quarters of the way to their destination or before they can even leave the area...I've had local law enforcement start attacking the ship after I've captured it... So save always.

Seeing as there are more factors involved with the NPC characters, I'm thinking their individual morale comes into play and the higher the level of the NPC, the harder it is to lower their individual morale.
This leads me to believe that RNG has a part to play but works in concert with the cumulative experience and level of the defending and attacking marines.

However frustrating, I think it adds a small bit of realism to the battles.
Being a former soldier, I've seen where a handful of soldiers can hold an area and create a bottleneck in close quarters.
A boarding action denotes close quarters...very close quarters.

As far as we know, there might be automated defenses in place aboard the destroyers that aid in defense of the ship slowing or stopping the attackers from taking the ship altogether.

Even though there would never be a way to scan for how skilled the defenders are, the scan reveals the "possible" attack and defense scores.
If you have 50 soldiers and the defenders have 20 it IS 3-to-1 odds. You "should" overwhelm them with numbers, but in close-quarters combat this ratio becomes a bottleneck and even though its 3 to 1 it become 1 to 1.
The defenders know the layout and the attackers will not.
On the other side of this, if you have veterans and elite soldiers attacking, they will be more adaptable to the situation and may know the layout of the ship they are boarding making them more effective.
Recruits, however, will be completely new to the fighting and layout.

This is all said with the hope that the Att and Def scores are off from time to time with the player attacking with overwhelming troops.
So while I agree that the " Boarding Strength Rating is completely wrong ", I believe there is a logical reason for this happening.

Sorry this is so long... I had a few cups of coffee this morning

[Worzel]

i loved the analogy and discussion warchild, i'm glad you went for the spartans as an example, i was thinking hector / achilles at troy (well, the movie), but yours is clearly better

the difference a couple of elite fighters can make and their subsequent deaths could turn the tide of a battle quite massively, an early death of a 'hero' has a greater effect than the late death of one in the outcome of a battle.

X3 used to have 'internal lasers', the ship itself had a defense mechanism / value too that may be hidden in the attack: defence ratio - youd expect a destroyer to have a higher built in, defendable value than a miner

Your mention of morale is interesting. Are you suggesting that damaging their morale (without causing them to bail) wouldn't affect the boarding 'strength' raw value but would have an effect on the 'effectiveness' of that strength.

it could certainly make sense, good strong fighters are still good strong fighters regardless of whether they are 'up for it' or not

[Dakier]

I accidentally launched one marine the other day who took out 5+ people on his own. The team I sent after of 40 marines lost half of them dealing with just under 15. Boarding is ♥♥♥♥♥♥, the update boarding operation button doesn't even have a function.

[Klutz2020]

Warchild I always check enemy crew before hand maybe 1 veteran marine, if not i try to make as many bail, or i expect deaths, but when they have all recruit servicemen and like 5 recruit marines it shouldn't make that much of a difference. and i keep hull at 20 percent or so. and i just tried to take a Monitor with half crew. and 3 veteran marines i had like 7 veterans they also only had 10 marines total and the rest were crewman, maybe 15 able the rest recruit. They lost 15 people i lost 130 so now i go for round 2.

[Klutz2020]

and is it just me or will xenon fly halfway across the universe to attack the ship your boarding. I caught a buffalo before it went into Argon prime by the gate in Hatikvah's Choice. and a xenon K and like 3 Ps and some fighters flew straight out of their gate and B-Lined straight to it blew it up and made their way back to the xenon sector blowing up a few ships on their way back. They always B-Line straight at my ships. Always got to keep a fast ship so i can disable the Ks engines before he reaches and then fly the Captured ship away.

[Klutz2020]

I feel like it takes away from having any ranks to them. Nobody lives long enough to be a veteran and anyone that does is the first to die on the next boarding attempt. I have gotten one elite marine. Then he died on the first boarding attempt after he was promoted...

[trooperrob]

experienced marines have advantage. I think also you can get trounced if some marines enter the ship first, while others are still floating in space. The strengths are assuming all inside, and if they enter the hull one at a time, you get wiped.

[eMYNOCK]

i am in shock and awe...

not because of the Topic, the Hints or the discussion...

But because of the time that has passed between the previous two posts.

[lock]

I learned that its not a ez task boarding a ship with or without experianced in boarding operations.

Even tho this post was from a long time, it was a interesting read.

[Darca]

Originally posted by Warchild:

There may be nothing wrong with the indicator as it never tells you the actual experience of the enemy crew. You could be facing elite marines while you're sending in recruits.

Are you not familiar with the story of the Spartans at Thermopylae?
Despite losing, the Greeks killed around 20,000 Persians. In contrast, the Greeks lost just 4,000 men, according to estimates made by Herodotus. A historical fact.

Also what someone else has mentioned, the boarding strength will tell you a lot. If they have only 20 men and the defensive strength matches your attack strength... chances are you're dealing with elite soldiers.
I will admit though, the strength of Att and Def are not always accurate. A lot of times, for me anyway, the strength of attack (Me) versus the strength of defense (Them) will have me being the stronger of the two and I will have more men but loose all my marines trying to take the ship from 10 defenders even though I brought 50 men to the fight and definitely overwhelm them.

The more damage you inflict on the target, the more you not only lower their morale, the combatants either die or they jump into escape pods.
You'll notice this when you capture Gunboats, Corvettes, and Bombers. The more damage they take, even though they repair themselves quickly, the defenders will jump into escape pods and escape until there are only a couple crew left and they abandon ship.

The same thing happens with larger capital ships. This is denoted by the sound of larger explosions when attacking the hull of the ship and sometimes when lowering the shield strength. The difference being they don't abandon ship like fighters and larger attack craft.

I've also noticed that keeping the shields down without actually destroying them helps in capturing the ship and later keeps the ship safe after the fact.
Nothing like capturing a ship to have the boarding crew fix the engines and make their way to a shipyard to have it destroyed 3 quarters of the way to their destination or before they can even leave the area...I've had local law enforcement start attacking the ship after I've captured it... So save always.

Seeing as there are more factors involved with the NPC characters, I'm thinking their individual morale comes into play and the higher the level of the NPC, the harder it is to lower their individual morale.
This leads me to believe that RNG has a part to play but works in concert with the cumulative experience and level of the defending and attacking marines.

However frustrating, I think it adds a small bit of realism to the battles.
Being a former soldier, I've seen where a handful of soldiers can hold an area and create a bottleneck in close quarters.
A boarding action denotes close quarters...very close quarters.

As far as we know, there might be automated defenses in place aboard the destroyers that aid in defense of the ship slowing or stopping the attackers from taking the ship altogether.

Even though there would never be a way to scan for how skilled the defenders are, the scan reveals the "possible" attack and defense scores.
If you have 50 soldiers and the defenders have 20 it IS 3-to-1 odds. You "should" overwhelm them with numbers, but in close-quarters combat this ratio becomes a bottleneck and even though its 3 to 1 it become 1 to 1.
The defenders know the layout and the attackers will not.
On the other side of this, if you have veterans and elite soldiers attacking, they will be more adaptable to the situation and may know the layout of the ship they are boarding making them more effective.
Recruits, however, will be completely new to the fighting and layout.

This is all said with the hope that the Att and Def scores are off from time to time with the player attacking with overwhelming troops.
So while I agree that the " Boarding Strength Rating is completely wrong ", I believe there is a logical reason for this happening.

Sorry this is so long... I had a few cups of coffee this morning

Lies. The Spartand killed over 100,000 and lost only 300. Source The 300.