Best way to fight pirates (question/discussion)

[Julian Peter Haas]

I managed to sneak onto a pirate ship and make them surrender, but it was close and i want to improve my tactics.


Situation: I shot them from 3 turrents, i run quickly out of ammo and they fled from me. I know that allied ships can help me fight.

1a. How many turrents do i need before i should fight them in space?
1b. Can i prevent them rom fleeing?
1c. Will their ship still be damaed when i encounter them again?
1d. what do i have to destroy so they can't leave the system, is the turrent enough?


Situation: I walked in with my guys, kept standing in the entrance with 4 and shot them one by one untill each of them surrendered, standing in a pulk myself, using 4 assault rifles.

2a. Is seeking cover useful, and how? since the enemy would be behind a cover too i guess?
2b. How do i equip a side/second wepon? is it even possible and if yes, how do i make use of it?
2c. Are SMGs better or in what circumstances are they better? I know shotguns are only good and the best evrlsus aliens.
2. Is it possible and a good idea to attack with multiple teams later on?

[sf]

1a. You probably need multiple encounters to take them down if you only have one ship. They should still be damaged when you encounter them next (not sure if they do repairs on their on, which is likely if the rules on their ships is the same). It may be easier if you build a 2nd ship, so theoretically double your firepower. Then you should be able to defeat or at least drive away any lone pirate ship atm.

1b. currently no, i think. Only way to stop them from fleeing is to destroy all the hull

1c. yes.

1d. Just hull. You don't really have to damage the system modules atm, though destroying those may make next encounter easier when they escape.


2a. Don't know about use of cover to stop bullets, but there is some use in restricting the enemies that can see and fire on you. Just take note that "cover" can be destroyed. My experience though is that superior firepower concentrating on enemies that are revealed one by one is best. Avoid fighting in a big open space where everybody can see everybody else.

2b. don';t think it is possible now. you only equip one weapon.

2c. from my experience, compared to shotguns, SMGs fire less bullets, but they spread less over distance. I split my equipment between shotguns and SMGs to be able to deal with more situations. Note that this can change if there are changes to skills/improvement later.

2. The rule about guns is: if it doesn't work, just use more :)

I think it is always a good idea to make with more teams, since there is no way to leverage better skills or better equipment atm.
I currently have 2 teams of 4 dedicated soldiers, excluding "bridge officers" and "common workers", but I am recruiting more, selecting only those with "high" weapon skill.

My 2nd ship is a dedicated troop/shuttle carrier with room for 8 teams (each team has beds/hypersleep for 4 crew + 1 shuttle), though I wonder if resource economy will collapse before that. That's excluding my first "industry" ship. Yes. if I don't kill my whole fleet before that, I am looking at a dream of launching 8 shuttles with 32 attackers in total at once. Prob not feasible, but would be interesting to just see how far I can go.

Energy rod for interstellar flight is a killer for large crew..

[Eagle_of_Fire]

1a) As many as you can use to down the enemy hull faster than they are downing yours. I would not recommend doing any kind of attack without two turrets and one shield.
1b) Not that I know off. This game is still a work in progress and I remember reading something about this in their roadmap. Currently there is no real ship to ship combat. You down the hull of the enemy ship to 0 or there isn't any change.
1c) Very much yes.
1d) See 1b.

2a) No clue. If it prevent enemies from hitting you directly then I'd say yes. I have no clue if crouching help in any kind of way but when I know my crew is holding some kind of static choke point I usually crouch them. I assume it make them a slightly smaller target as well as assist their aim slightly.
2b) Not possible at the moment as far as I know. See 1b.
2c) Generally people would answer that the SMG is currently king in this version of the game. Personally I don't like the SMG too much. I usually go 50/50 between SMGs and shotguns when I board humans but it has a lot to do with the low hit chance of my crew, for some reason. I give the SMG to those with at least 60% chance to hit. I give the shotguns to those who simply spray and pray.
2d) Yes and yes. If there is only one airlock you can send a second shutter to invade thru a hole in the wall or something similar while the first shuttle dock normally.

[Julian Peter Haas]

Thanks for your answers and your effort. :)

[caalsigo]

I have destroyed a pirate ship, however i simply do not have the crew or weapons for a boarding action. Will the pirate crew run out of air aboard the wreck? Can i wait (and for how long) for them to die and then pick the ship apart or are they immortal and it is better to just leave?

[Eagle_of_Fire]

It really depend if they still have an oxygen generator in an undamaged room. Usually they do not (especially with the smaller ships) so you can always wait for them to die to lack of oxygen.

If you time it right you could "rescue" them right when they fall to the ground and won't even have to fight them and still get prisoners. :P

[sf]

Actually, if you pick unconscious enemies without them surrendering first, they will attack you when they wake up (e.g. when they exit into your airlock).

Only those with handcuff icon, i.e. those that are still awake when you force them to surrender, will become your prisoners. If they fall unconscious AFTER they surrender, it's safe.

[SynGen]

Originally posted by sf:

Actually, if you pick unconscious enemies without them surrendering first, they will attack you when they wake up (e.g. when they exit into your airlock).

Only those with handcuff icon, i.e. those that are still awake when you force them to surrender, will become your prisoners. If they fall unconscious AFTER they surrender, it's safe.

This is true about picking up unconscious enemies, took me a few tries to figure that out. I found the best way for me is to destroy their ship, wait about 6-9 hours, then board since most are either dead or about to pass out and its easier to take them down.

[CKChan]

Normally if i saw a pirate, i will enforce red alert on navigation and always jump ready. If i overpowered them & they ran away, I will chase them to next sector and finish them there, even if i was building my 2nd capital ship, as i can reclaim it later.

[Jubblator]

The thing i do when i see them jumping is is load up my transport with 4 ppl + shotguns and dock with the pirate ship immediately as it jumps in.
Take out the crew, derelict the ship, execute prisoners = profit.
Im not super far into the game but has worked every time.

[tebow baggins]

3 stabs 2 turrets get ready for boarding anti boarding if they survive your attack, have prison ready to go, put bridge on red alert, keep your bridge operators quarters nearby, have scanner ready- i tried to capture androids and i didnt scan this last part when my board party of 4 revealed a shadow there were like 7 they gunned us hard, we had to retreat and they captured one of us then we tried to rescue him but lost our ship operator and a soldier with perception 9, we made the mistake of using AR instead of SMG on her.. so now there are 2 because did not scan fully the wreck. our goal this start is live capture allowing us to camp and fight crews..

from what i seen there is cover but i dont fully understand it myself yet but its kinda there

i set up airlock kill box and expriment with different objects for cover

[tebow baggins]

Originally posted by Jubblator:

The thing i do when i see them jumping is is load up my transport with 4 ppl + shotguns and dock with the pirate ship immediately as it jumps in.
Take out the crew, derelict the ship, execute prisoners = profit.
Im not super far into the game but has worked every time.

upgrade 2 of your crew with smg the higher accu 2 members and watch the magic

[tebow baggins]

Originally posted by sf:

Actually, if you pick unconscious enemies without them surrendering first, they will attack you when they wake up (e.g. when they exit into your airlock).

Only those with handcuff icon, i.e. those that are still awake when you force them to surrender, will become your prisoners. If they fall unconscious AFTER they surrender, it's safe.

hahah i was carry one uncuffed prsioner but his android buddy shot that crew member dead before he got to the shuttle, the capture did not go so well as i lost 4 out of 6 crew members but we finally killed all the androids at least, we just wanted a Data for our crew and it cost us bad..

[grT -]

As i didn't find any information elsewhere i'll just post my experience about boarding, especially "cover", here.
I found out that standing behind shuttle hangars let you fire, while stopping almost every shot thrown at you.(i've not taken a single hit several times against 4 turrets pirate ships, dunno how many crew in those)
So far i encountered two pirate ships layouts, and both had a shuttle hangar right in front of each airlock.
with this position you can just line your men, and every pirate in the ship will eventually come at you, and you just have to spray until they're all out.
With this position shotguns are best since there is no distance limit to where the pellets can travel, and more shotguns means eventually every ennemy will get hit.
I personnaly use 2 SGs / 2 SMGs for "RP" reasons, but i think 4 shotguns are best.
So far 4 men can easily subdue 8-12 pirates as long as melees don't knock anyone out, which should not happen if you use SGs.
Note that standing/moving just one tile away from the hangar will get you hit, hope this helps.
EDIT:
If anyone knows if we can manage pirate ships aggro i'll be glad to have infos, as they seem to always focus your most vulnerable ship, no matter distances, and i't be sweet to have a way to force them to target your tankier ships :)

[Wantoomany]

Originally posted by grT -:

I found out that standing behind shuttle hangars let you fire, while stopping almost every shot thrown at you.(i've not taken a single hit several times against 4 turrets pirate ships, dunno how many crew in those)
So far i encountered two pirate ships layouts, and both had a shuttle hangar right in front of each airlock.

That is fine while the ship is undamaged. But the shuttle hangers typically get destroyed when the ship itself gets destroyed. Storage dumps, only the other hand, do not get destroyed and are indestructible, so they are permanent cover. You can have your crew kneel behind them for even better results.

[grT -]

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

Originally posted by grT -:

I found out that standing behind shuttle hangars let you fire, while stopping almost every shot thrown at you.(i've not taken a single hit several times against 4 turrets pirate ships, dunno how many crew in those)
So far i encountered two pirate ships layouts, and both had a shuttle hangar right in front of each airlock.

That is fine while the ship is undamaged. But the shuttle hangers typically get destroyed when the ship itself gets destroyed. Storage dumps, only the other hand, do not get destroyed and are indestructible, so they are permanent cover. You can have your crew kneel behind them for even better results.

That's nice advice, thanks :)