Best strategy to make S and M ships bail?

[Andros]

Do you shoot repeatedly once at low health or comm and ask for surrender which way works best?

[Kackstift]

use a weak scout and put the best possible weapons on it..
less hull = better chance that the enemy bail

[Veter]

comm asking for surrender even work? For me it is not work past 6.20 patch
for s ships you need small like recon ship, AND not weapon that send many bullets, because machineguns and lasers blow up fighter right in moment when enemy agreed to surrender, but i am totally wrong, because 7.0 do something strange with bailout enemy

[Andros]

Originally posted by Veter:

comm asking for surrender even work? For me it is not work past 6.20 patch
for s ships you need small like recon ship, AND not weapon that send many bullets, because machineguns and lasers blow up fighter right in moment when enemy agreed to surrender, but i am totally wrong, because 7.0 do something strange with bailout enemy

I’ll be honest I haven’t played in a very long time nor have I tried it on this patch. You may be right.

[Bardicheart]

I like using a Nemesis, 4 bolters and a ion blaster with pulse or bolters in the turrets. But anything you're comfortable with works, the ion blaster is the key bit of weaponry. As mentioned, the less hull the more likely a pilot/crew will bail, but some are stubborn. Reduce the targets hull down below 30% then switch off the bolters and turret weapons. I have the ion blaster in 2nd weapon config by itself, from then on I just ping them once every 5-10 sec (you don't need to shoot a lot, just enough to keep their shields down). The pilot will complain and beg for mercy, keep doing that until they all bail. If need be, let the crew repair the hull some, sometimes a very stubborn pilot will get down to 1% hull and still refuse to bail. It can take awhile but if its a ship you really want it can be worth it (DUC Prometheus is a nice prize). If its not valuable blow it up and look for a more cooperative and less suicidal stubborn target.

Asking for surrender does not work if you are shooting at them, for whatever reason, EgoSoft disabled it for targets you are actively hostile with. It DOES work if you are watching two other ships fighting and one gets in bad shape. You must NOT be actively hostile to the ship you com. It must be below 75% health and its shields must be below 25%, you must be within 30 km. If those conditions are met, there is a chance you can ask them to surrender to you and the whole crew will bail immediately. They can even be ships you are trying to help. Example: go fight some Xenon in Getsu Fune, wait for some Terrans to engage a bunch of Xenon, help them out if you want or just watch. When a katana gets in bad shape, ask the crew to surrender, if the ship is hurting, they just might and once the Xenon are finished off you got a free ship(s). I've gotten as 3-4 katana's out of a single engagement between the Terrans and a Xenon I, two Ks and a swarm of Ps and Ms, while I sat on the sidelines at a safe distance and just watched. Rinse repeat until you've got squadrons of katanas. Note, this does NOT work with capital ships (L or XL class), only S or M.

Hope that helps, happy gaming.

[chronobomb]

Boron scout with an ion rail does a great job at making everything bail. Just drop the hp below 75% then just plink away until they bail.

You can do the same with a Paranid scout and an argon ion cannon but takes longer due to the low hull damage.

[Wraith]

Quasar

4 gun

Low enough HP to where they think you are weaker

Gotten really good luck with it

[Talby]

My go-to was a Perseus Vanguard with travel mk3's just to catch the buggers then switch to a single gun to plink away at the hull to get them to bail

Once I got the dlc and completed the Torus Aeternal mission to unlock the Geometric Owl which is now my personal favorite ship - basically a Pegasus Vanguard with 4 weapon mounts, it quickly shreds small and medium ships shields and hull very quickly!

[flywlyx]

Both, comm roll and hit roll do not conflict with each other.

[fade7777]

most of what the other people are saying is correct... however one thing of note is that a 5 star pilot will never bail out(or very very rarely) and will self destruct their ship when a lower ranking pilot would have bailed... and 4 stars very rarely bail out as well even if you do everything perfect. always scan the ship you are trying to capture and check its loadout and pilot so you know what your dealing with. only try to capture under 4 stars as the higher ranking pilots are not even worth your time TBH.

they have a higher chance to bail when they are damaged hull and shields are depleted and you are plinking away at their hull. an ion blaster actually works great for this as it does very little hull damage which is ideal to get more attempts for them to bail.

using a fighter with very low max hull also increases the chance they will bail. (What Wraith said about the Quasar)

here is a nice thread going over some of the finer points unless something has changed in the last year (I havent checked all the patch notes)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/discussions/0/6664812048259647135/

thats pretty much it... ive captured hundreds of ships playing x4. Including over 100 Yasur's and a dozen Astrid and Hydra Regal's during the venture beta. speaking of that... bring back ventures please so i can capture more rare player ships!

and FYI if/when they bring ventures back i will be sending out my Yasur MK3's with 3-4 star pilots so you can try to capture them... they will be fully pimped with exceptional mods so be ready for the fight of your life hehe =) might be your only chance to get that rare ship.

[aY227]

According to this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3120616748

Hull just can't be higher than target and we won't receive any malus.
There is no additional bonus for smaller and smaller hull.

[Set-115689]

Get hull below 75-70% and every time their shields start to recharge hit them with a few shots. Don't use powerful weapons. Keep the hull at a reasonable level. S ships can be a pain. Can use missiles. Fire x missiles if the ship bails then it yours if not try another ship or another missile/weapon etc... Used to work ok for paranid fighters. Bailing probability isn't constant pace your shots. Use a ship the same size or smaller than the target.

[Andros]

Just spent the whole night testing specifically the comm and surrender option. Once you get the ship to under 50-70 percent the odds of them bailing because of the comm was way higher than the regular shoot every 30 second deal. PLUS both of those options stacked meaning if you waited 20-30 seconds commed then shot again you have a chance for two bails!


Plus I was able to just go around and just randomly comm low health things and they would bail most times.

The comm surrender is kinda broken in my opinion but broken is not always a bad thing.

[✟Scream Aim Fire✟]

im so pissed rn because of this whole mechanic. I wasted some hrs already to get a moreya since there was a squad flying by just after starting a new game. Problem is, that even if i get them to bail, about 5-10s after that the bailed ship gets swarmed by rescue pods that just steal it before i can get to it. Happened every time, no matter where in the sector i was. Sometimes its YAK again but sometimes its BOR or stuff after they insta stole it...man im so fed up already

[Andros]

Originally posted by ✟Scream Aim Fire✟:

im so pissed rn because of this whole mechanic. I wasted some hrs already to get a moreya since there was a squad flying by just after starting a new game. Problem is, that even if i get them to bail, about 5-10s after that the bailed ship gets swarmed by rescue pods that just steal it before i can get to it. Happened every time, no matter where in the sector i was. Sometimes its YAK again but sometimes its BOR or stuff after they insta stole it...man im so fed up already

I’ll be honest I’ve NEVER seen or had that happen I’ve never seen pods try to claim it again. Do you have a mod that could affect that?

[✟Scream Aim Fire✟]

no its vanilla and it happened every single time >.< did manage it on 11th try though. They did claim a ship again and i shot the pods after hitting the ship and continued to shoot the ship and they bailed again...after that i could claim it