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Assuming I ever get in good enough with the Strong Arms and Split, would a single Pteranodon be much versus whatever a Xenon raid or migration is? I've read that you can pretty much keep Xenon out of their OWN sectors in AP if you build like 2000 laser towers and don't go in-system when anything's spawning, or never look at the laser towers, lest your graphics card melt, but that seems like overkill if they aren't trying to spawn a base.
I can actually take out a J with a Cerberus that's properly equipped, which is currently my flagship in terms of anything that's armed... I would assume if I can get a Boreas and/or Pteranodon, I'd really be melting them fast.
Speaking of which, is there a way to get a Xenon I, their destroyer or battleship? I've been eyeballing the stats and wishing it was possible, because it has the most laser energy of any non-Terran ship, and it can mount 16 PBCs and 14 TBCs, but I've never seen an NPC ship mounting said weapons, so they're not hard to dodge in a faster ship if you hang out at max range.
What I've also been seeing on forums and stuff is that there's a reason successfully boarding a Q is an achievement, because you can lose dozens of 5-star marines doing it if RNGesus doesn't love you, and if a Q is that bad, I can only imagine a considerably larger I is nigh impossible. And on AP, I had considerable difficulty training 8 five-stars, much less if it were going to take dozens.
Further to Cycrow's advice, if you do it this way hold off on building the TOA until you have enough for the fee (50mil I think) of the next sector so you can grab the one you want straight away.
The NPC's will claim and build on adjacent HSAP's but the order is random and there are delays between claims, so keep a few saves prior to TOA deployment and reload if the NPC's immediately grab the one you want. That way you can unlock and use the HSAP whilst you build a TOA.
For ships vs. Xenon fleets OOS I can't help as none have turned up for me to deal with out of sector and if they do turn up I'll jump in-sector before they get far.
Can't comment on the lasertower spam, it might work, might not, sounds like a lot of effort. Even once you've built a TOA no other race is building in there or directly spawning there, the occasional harmless Duke's transport notwithstanding.
For ships to fight Xenon in-sector, I am currently using:
- 3 Brigantines with Plasma Beam Cannons (PBC), no front guns, and some have Phased Repeater Guns in the back and some don't (they seem to be a bit garbage, frequently not blowing up missiles despite it being their main task). These which work well as they strafe easy and have the right shape for evading PPC, PSP, and IBL fire. It has some issues if you get surrounded by 4-5 capitals with its weak shields and when all 4 banks fire its weapon power will run out pretty quick. It does make for a superb Xenon capital boarding craft though.
- A single Xenon I that I am testing out (PPC front, PBC sides, Fusion Beam Cannon (FBC) Top + Bottom). It wrecks things 1v1 but has issues if surrounded by 4-5 capitals due to being a huge flying slab. I only capped one, RE'd it, and it took 9hrs to make a new one, but I am thinking I will make a few more.
- 1 Tyr, which I think I used in AP, but now armed with FBC and not PSP. Even though it has 12x broadside the FBC's struggle to bring down shields quickly, the top+bottom turrets don't offer much other than anti-fighter, and whilst I don't have PSP's for the front yet their fire rate is so slow I found in the past that you are better off manually charging them and it worked even better if the enemy capital was flying a predictable path.
Tri-Beam cannons instead of FBC might do better vs. shields, but then they'd have issues on hull, so for the more flexible style I am aiming for using the new beams the Tyr is just not working out.
The above I fly personally without support, as only personal kills count for combat rank, however if you needed a blockade setup I'd say a few Brigantines or I's placed in a circle would shred most in-sector threats quickly.
For capping Xenon it's a numbers game, and you need four things:
1. Fighting skill 100 marines.
2. Mechanical skill I think 60+ on average, closer to 70 is better.
3. At least 2 90+ hacking marines.
4. The right setup (boarding ship, support ships, enough replacement marines).
Then it's much like boarding anything else except you must keep a few things in mind:
A. You must launch marines to fill at least the capacity of the target ship and if possible +1. Xenon ships have innate protection based on marine capacity and if, like me, you don't notice that M1's and M2's now carry 25 marines, you will be very confused when your 20 marines are wrecked before your second wave can get involved 'cause that didn't happen in AP.
B. Get rid of all the problematic equipment - hull plating, internal sentry lasers, and advanced firewall. If you really must board a specific ship that has cargo bay shielding, you can overcome hull plating and the firewall, but sentry lasers on a Xenon ship will cause quite a few more casualties.
C. You must have enough replacements. P's and PX's you can sometimes board with no losses, or maybe 1-2 losses, but anything else will kill a few marines per deck.
For total losses I noted that a Q killed 6-7, and the J, K, and I killed 9-13. They don't die all at once, rather a few will die on each deck and to keep that number down (your strength drops with losses, the Xenon's is static) you must send replacements at the right time. When you do you must send excess to factor in 2 or 3 decks of deaths before your replacements get into the fight. Generally you only get to send one big set of replacements, so getting the numbers right is important - too few and you take more losses, too many and they get ejected and probably killed in space.
Also, to avoid your hacking marines getting killed early, send them as part of the replacements.
D. The right boarding ships, that fire boarding pods, and one or more support ships carrying your replacements (unless you use a Sirokos, which can carry the lot at once).
I use an Akurei normally, but for M1 and M2 Xenon a Brigantine was used as you really do need the 5 extra marines in the first wave.
Training all those marines is not so hard if you focus only on the minimum requirements.
You can find plenty of Xenon I's around to board, so that's not an issue, though isolating them can take some work.
My big issue with it was always point C. You will lose 9-13 five-star marines, and they take weeks in-game to train to five stars... I guess the trick is to get started early and have as many training at one time as you can? Or do some marines just start out with super skills, and you can search around for the best and brightest? Also, I keep reading that the only way they train fighting is by boarding, so I guess you don't start with a Xenon I... you'd go with M6 or maybe TLs to start with and anyone unlucky to die doesn't belong on the crew, I suppose.
For training you can buy marines of high skills from time to time - equipment docks tend to have poor to average marines, NPC marine training barracks produce lots of crap but about 1 in 10 seem to come out exceptional.
If you don't like what is there, buy them then retire them (eject from ship, or put them on a capital that you're selling) to get the station to create more. You can train your own if you buy a Strong Arms marine training barracks but they cap out at 40 fight it seems.
Buy lots of marines - you will want 20 for day to day use as non-Xenon ships can all be boarded with 20 (but beware hostile marines - get a bioscanner).
You need 2 hacking specialists, the rest need the mechanical skills set out above (60-70) to ensure they can get on board M1's (but you can get away with much less using boarding pods and targeting smaller ships), you need to train fight yourself (you gain 8-10 points per boarded ship usually), and the other skills don't matter for now.
You also don't need 20, 100 fight marines all the time - you can board many ships with just 15, sometimes less, and often as long as you have 5 100 fight marines the rest can be a mix of whatever.
If you can't find skilled fight marines to start off with then make some by boarding TM's and M6's, even M7's - some might die if you use a mish-mash of low skilled marines, but then you didn't invest much in them.
Generally for non Xenon ships if marines die during boarding there was something in the setup that was off - maybe it is a Terran ship and has internal sentry lasers, or a dozen highly trained marines you didn't notice, or not all of your marines made it through the hull, or you hammered the ship too much and tried boarding when it had 10% health whilst sending 0 skill engineering marines, or the shields came back up and toasted your entire squad.
For Xenon ships the marines will die, that is unavoidable, and if you want to board many many Xenon ships that would be a major logistics problem. However you only need one of each type for Reverse Engineering and you can math out how many in total you expect to lose getting them, and setup training accordingly.
I've done a bit of research on ships from sites that catalog stats of them, and some in the actual game, and it seems that every M7M can now have 28 marines. It's not quite 30, but if they can also now all fire boarding pods, it seems like trying to find and get a Sirokos, which doesn't appear to exist in FL, may be unnecessary.
It also appears as if TPs, including the bigger ones that have more turrets, can have 40 marines, so if there's any of them that can somehow fire boarding pods, that would be a possible way to take over some ships, and it would also definitely be a way to store some marines if you have a transport pod or if you have a ship that can dock TPs.
I've never tried to board, so I know almost nothing about whether or not other ships near the target get fired at, so having only 200 shields as opposed to a capital ship's 2,000 to 12,000 may be a problem, but the extra 40 marines would definitely solve the loss problem if the TP never got shot at.
Sirokos exists and can be bought from OTAS shipyard in OTAS Guardian rank(+8), I'm not certain if there's a chance OTAS spawn Sirokos when the Aquilo in Legend's Home is destroyed. By the way, Sirokos carries 50 marines but can't launch Hammer Heavy Torpedo.
No TP can fire boarding pod. They can board ships by eject marines to spacewalk(very slow). The only three ships that can dock TP are Kyoto, Valhalla and Aran.
If you are new to boarding, read this guide first.
https://www.egosoft.com:8444/confluence/display/X3WIKI/Boarding+Hints
On Boarding I’d like to add:
Hire (buy) every Marine / Merc with 2* in fighting (ore more)Train (atleast) 10 of them to 2-3* in the other abbillities. I allways train them in everything. While Boarding your Marines team up to squads of up to 5. I know of no way to determine wich marine (when specialized) goes in wich squad. Sure, thats no problem when boarding with BoardingPods but thats for later.Start modest. Prey/Train on TM or M6. You may look for the Split Acinonyx. Use a M6 that can use IonD’s to rid the target of annoying equipment. Use the IonD’s long enough and the target may shutdown (complete standstill). Sometimes this needs a change of (player)ship and some followup-fire.The following Spacewalk might be easier when the target is in shutdown. Otherwise the squads may land differently and thus risk dying.The „one extra“-Marine I use rarely. Boarding tends to unfriendly environment. More often than not, I forgot to recollect the one-extra from space.You can board any ship (that has no InternalDefense and no Marines) with just ten Marines (even mixed with rookies) and no losses. That doesn’t apply for Xenon and M7M (28 marine capacity). TL, M2, M1 need higher level in Mechanics for breaching the hull though.You may save, while the hull is breached a point to fallback.Jump your prize to safety with your own jumpdrive: Transfer EC+JD to the other ship. Order it to jump. Return tot he waretransfer-menu. Prepare to transfer the JD back – but execute the transfer the moment after the ship jumps. I am undecided, if this is a glitch/eploit or hidden feature, because it is more lenient than in X3TC or AP.
With OOS-figting I've made disturbing expierences. In a station-defense-mission I nearly lost a fully kitted Tyr to an Akuma (had 2% hull left: Yes I neglected the EmergencyJump-setting). After the UnkownEnemySector was connected (by Borons) I thought al lonely Titan could contain the vermin. It did oK against 1-3 groups but got overwhelmed with more groups (no enemy M6, just M3+M5). This I had not expected and once again neglected the EmergencyJump...
If you have enough skilled marines you can board M7's with them via spacewalk.
Some M6's can fire boarding pods.
You can check compatibility between ships and missiles and weapons here:
https://x3fl.x3tc.net/
As for M7M's, they carry more marines and they do work (they did in TC and AP, they still do in FL) yet are big and slow.
Boarding pods are slow and Xenon ships have time sensitivity - the replacements have to land at the right time and the longer the travel distance the harder it is to nail the timing.
So it is easier if the M7M is close to the Xenon capital, and that means the capital might shoot it, and that is bad as those shots are likely to destroy the boarding pods.
Meanwhile you are flying whatever you are using the keep the shields down, which is probably also a capital, and you have to stay in range of your target and the M7M because unless the M7M is a Sirokos your capital is probably carrying the replacements. You can also have a TP follow the M7M to allow greater positioning flexibility.
Alternatively you can fire missiles from the M7M to do the damage or you can use fighters and fighter drones - different requirements, different complexity, generally more infrastructure requirements overall.
28 capacity only benefits you in that you can send 26 marines in the first wave instead of 25. This tips the odds slightly more in your favour so potentially one or two less losses in total, at the cost of increasing operational complexity and greater risk of error.
In X3FL you can replace the M7M + X setup with one capital (for non-Xenon) supported by a TP (for Xenon).
Since you only need the TP at the start and you control when the boarding operation begins it's simple enough to position three ships (you, the target capital, and the TP) so that the TP is out of range of the capital but in range of your ship.
If you put a Turbo Booster on the TP then even if it does get hit it will usually zoom off to safety automatically.
Personally I find it a lot more fun to zoom around in a M7 (Akurei, Carrack) boarding things without having to worry about where my M7M is and what trouble it has gotten itself into this time.
As Deathifier stated, there are Pirates and Yaki non-M7M capitals can fire boarding pods. They are good choices when you don't have M7M complexes. Personally I don't use them since their DPS is much lower than M7M and their shields are weak. I use Skirnir only, the 8Gj shield and above average recharge rate can tank damages from those NPC fighter/corvette escorts you don't want to kill, and Terran M7M missiles eliminates everything stand in your way. When boarding Xenon capitals, I always let the Sirokos following Skirnir and transfer marines after the first wave 26 marines launched.
To make sure my ships always stay safety when I'm doing something else, I always tell them to jump to my claimed sectors which gates heavily guarded by laser tower/orbital laser. This can solve the self defence problem of M7M and any idling ships.
In this case you are considered as privateer.
The new drones include an Argon Drone and a Terran Drone Sentinel, both of which are M4s, but they apparently can carry 5 marines and are unarmed except for a missile launcher. No data on what the missile launcher can fire, but I'd suspect it's boarding pods and anti-missiles like the mosquito, possibly torps. You also don't have to have a drone carrier to dock drones. Just a fighter bay. They seem to count as basic M4s, as I have personally used a Hyperion Vanguard to launch 2 of the Teladi Mining drones so I didn't have to sit in a sector destroying rocks, because I was finding that very boring. I'll report back if my Cerberus can't haul 10 of them.
If you can stick 10 things that can hold 5 marines each and launch a boarding pod in a Cerberus fighter bay, that seems like a strategic thing, although the drones themselves only have 20 MJ of shields from 4 built in 5mj. Thinking about it, it seems like it would have even worse fragility issues than the pirate ships that can launch boarding pods, with none of the benefits... although you could transfer marines from these, because they can be in your fighter bay.