Disable/destroy?

[cdarklock]

Is there some way to inform my ships that I'd like to, you know, DISABLE a vessel instead of destroying it? Because they're constantly blowing the crap out of ships I'm trying to disable and board - I'll take its shields down, but then my fleet keeps firing and the hull just melts away until the ship blows up. They don't seem to have any notion of restraint.

[Rorie]

Your ships automatically stop shooting when a ship gets disabled. The only way they're killing ships is because the shots left over are still hitting it.

[Wakuzanym]

Yeah, restraint is a hard thing to find. If you go through Fleets.txt, you can add 'disables' (without the quotes) to the various fleets' personality entries - at least then the NPCs will tend not to just randomly shoot disabled pirates. At one point, for giggles, I made merchants 'heroic' and the Syndicate 'plunders'. It's hilarious watching a Star Barge trying to take on a Leviathan while 15 Syndicate Quicksilvers descend like vultures on disabled ships.

[cdarklock]

Maybe I just need to tone down the weapon load a tad. The problem does seem to have worsened since I outfitted my fleet of 32 Bactrians with flamethrowers and plasma turrets.

Hm. SHOTS. Lasers are continuous. When the ship's disabled, the fleet will turn them off and the damage should stop immediately... no leftover shots. Might be worth a try.

[For_Science!]

You just figured out the answer yourself! For the best chance of leaving ships disabled but salvageable, have your whole fleet use nothing but lasers and other continuous-fire weapons.

You will still lose some targets -- especially in crowded battles where, even when your ships switch to a new target, they might go on hitting the old one with stray shots -- but you will capture a lot more intact this way.

[cdarklock]

Originally posted by For_Science!:

You just figured out the answer yourself!

Certainly seems that way. I'm getting to board a lot more ships this way, but sweet mother of crap in a hat are death benefits expensive. Seriously, a million-credit fine for nerve gas is starting to look like not so big a deal.

[For_Science!]

Death benefits scale with the cost of the ship you were trying to capture:

Death benefit cost = [ (crew killed) / (2 + crew killed) ] * (cost of target ship)

So the good news is that your death benefits will never exceed the cost of the prize ship; if you successfully capture and sell the ship, you will always come out (at least a little) ahead.

The bad news is that if you fail to capture the ship, or you capture it but it gets destroyed before you can land, then you're on the hook for some potentially very expensive death benefits, with nothing to show for them.

[76561198130836740]

Originally posted by For_Science!:

Death benefits scale with the cost of the ship you were trying to capture:

Death benefit cost = [ (crew killed) / (2 + crew killed) ] * (cost of target ship)

So the good news is that your death benefits will never exceed the cost of the prize ship; if you successfully capture and sell the ship, you will always come out (at least a little) ahead.

The bad news is that if you fail to capture the ship, or you capture it but it gets destroyed before you can land, then you're on the hook for some potentially very expensive death benefits, with nothing to show for them.

I hear if you loot a bunch of stuff on the ship before taking it, you'll reduce the penalty. However, as you're probably sporting 10 cargo space if you're trying to capture ships and getting people killed, that might not be an option. Make sure to buy as many frag grenades and laser rifles as you have crew, including those needed to fly the crew. Having too many of either isn't going to hurt.