Boarding is so broken

[gizmo6023]

I have been pounding on a SCA Behemoth for over an hour and my boarding party is still in phase 1. Engines and guns were out and hull was at 70% when the boarders were sent in.
Now the ship crew is 1/49 and the marines are 48/48 hull is down to 48 and I fear it will blow if the boarders ever figure out how to set the breaching charge. At the rate this is going I will capture the ship before the crayon eaters dig through the hull with their rusty spoons.

[T600_Mod]

Yeah Boarding is really hard to make work in vanilla.
I was having the same problem starting out. so I started using this save compatable MOd

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2056100433&searchtext=better

Basicly You can adjust settings. and You can force a enemy crew to bail ship with enough "pressure"

[trooperrob]

If a marine is still trying to get to the ship, and hasn't made it - teleport out of the area, if a marine is near, but caught up on scenery or something it should then make it.
At that point if you have 48 marines on you can probably leave it and it will be yours shortly.

[Dunkler Messias]

Sounds like a bug. Maybe one of the marine pods was stuck inside the ship's hull which is why Phase 1 took so long. Boarding phase works best if you are out of sector.

To avoid that your ships destroy the target, you may want to use the "maintain distance" option. Or change the weapon groups and disable weapon turrets.

[gizmo6023]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

If a marine is still trying to get to the ship, and hasn't made it - teleport out of the area, if a marine is near, but caught up on scenery or something it should then make it.
At that point if you have 48 marines on you can probably leave it and it will be yours shortly.

Thank you, I will go OOS and see if that fixes the problem.

[gizmo6023]

Originally posted by Dunkler Messias:

Sounds like a bug. Maybe one of the marine pods was stuck inside the ship's hull which is why Phase 1 took so long. Boarding phase works best if you are out of sector.

To avoid that your ships destroy the target, you may want to use the "maintain distance" option. Or change the weapon groups and disable weapon turrets.

I was wondering if OOS boarding was a better option but haven't attempted as my dinks are trigger happy. I have had to remove all orders and assignments and send them to the corner to keep them from killing the target. Finally gave up on a vanilla run and grabbed Stop destroying my boarding target as I have lost several ships to "helpfull NPCs"

[gizmo6023]

Originally posted by T600_Mod:

Yeah Boarding is really hard to make work in vanilla.
I was having the same problem starting out. so I started using this save compatable MOd

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2056100433&searchtext=better

Basicly You can adjust settings. and You can force a enemy crew to bail ship with enough "pressure"

I will have to look into adjusting the settings, I installed it with everything in default settings.
I like the harass option better than the surrender but it needs some automation, having to scroll through options while in a fight just doesn't cut it. Might force me to reinstall VoiceAttack and the HCS pack I bought for X4.

[Comander-07]

The way I board is I take out engines and guns, call in the troop transport really really close, start the boarding and then I can go read a book or two because phase 2 takes forever even with speed up time.
Meanwhile I keep shooting it until the hull is below 40%. Likely half their marines will have fled by then.

[PeaceMaker]

In all my years I have never boarded which is why i tend not to enter such discussions. However from all the threads I've seen over the years, it seems boarding has been made far more unintuitive than it should be.

I mean the basics of boarding anything shouldn't be that complex:

1. Big ship approaches big ship.
2. Take down any defences that might kill approaching marines.
3. Send a number of approaching marines. 3 X the attackers to defenders is traditionally needed in any boarding action depending what the defences are like, and how well armored/experienced the attackers are, but even with inferior defenders it's still hard for attackers.
4. Let the process play out.
5. Win or lose.

But like I said attacking a defender force behind prepared 'walls' (a military ship) should not be easy unless you have overwhelming firepower.


I will have to try ship boarding at some point to see how it really works in practise, so I really know what I'm talking about. Maybe Egosoft did a great job and people just whine cos they can't `insta-win`.

[gizmo6023]

I finally turned off the sound and fired up my laptop so I could research how to make boarding work better.

[T600_Mod]

Originally posted by gizmo6023:

Originally posted by T600_Mod:

Yeah Boarding is really hard to make work in vanilla.
I was having the same problem starting out. so I started using this save compatable MOd

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2056100433&searchtext=better

Basicly You can adjust settings. and You can force a enemy crew to bail ship with enough "pressure"

I will have to look into adjusting the settings, I installed it with everything in default settings.
I like the harass option better than the surrender but it needs some automation, having to scroll through options while in a fight just doesn't cut it. Might force me to reinstall VoiceAttack and the HCS pack I bought for X4.

I turn all the options On To off, And Increase chances to bail before mid, and before its too late.

I hope that mod helps you like it helped me, before i installed I had given up on boarding missions or priceless art missions

[gizmo6023]

I am just trying to collect ships for my fleet.
Bozo keeps me too broke to afford any shiny new ships larger than M class and a lot of those are out of my price range ATM.
Also being careful not to damage rep with factions I need to buy from later so I go after sworn enemies and pirates, keep getting rep hits for killing YAKI and I have never knowingly met them.

[FuryoftheStars]

For me, phase 1 taking forever has always been because of a couple pods being hung up on the ship geometry, like a couple of the earlier posters said.

Either teleport if you have it, or just fly far enough away to cause it to enter low attention mode, then you can come back if you want.

The devs should add something such that any pods that haven't reached their destination in X amount a time either teleport either back to the boarder or onto the boardee, depending on its distance from the target.

[T600_Mod]

If you need more ships for your self for pirating or just for a larger fleet I suggest this mod.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2074838459&searchtext=sector+explorer

Set a vessel with many marines on explore sector without changing sectors. in a warzone. they will find many ships and you can sell or add them to your fleet.

Best ship Ive found I could sell for 16 million. but that was only one of 20 i found this playthrough

[GetUrAssToMars]

Boarding needs alot of work. Phase 1 always has some kind of pathing or clipping issue that causes the whole thing to hang.

Phase 2 duration seems like its been cranked way the ♥♥♥♥ up with 7.0. Like ridiculous wait times. Don't even bother.

I'm literally sitting there in seta and things are not happening. Yes hull is below whatever (x) amount and shields are getting hammered. I've capped plenty before.


I really am beginning to love this game with all the fixes to carriers, capital ships, station attacks etc. But damn you just want to reach out and slap Egosoft sometimes.

[gizmo6023]

Thank you, I will give sector explorer a try and see how much stuff I missed.
I did collect most of the documented ships that are not Timelines related.
I can't get a passing score on grid one of timelines, I suck as a M+Kb pilot
even without the strange binds they put in X4. Too many years using HOTAS in
ED, the physics here just don't feel right and all the 2 key controls switches suck.