Boarding parties question
 

I noticed something odd the other day with boarding parties and I'm wondering if the behaviour is a bug or not.

I built a boarding ship that had three boarding parties on it, along with shield depleting weapons. During an assault on an enemy world, I sent the boarding ship to capture three freighters, loaded with enemy population, that were cowering in a corner. The freighters had no security stations and no self-destruct devices.

I approached the first one, knocked out its shields, and boarded it. All went well, until I discovered that all three boarding party components on my ship had been destroyed. I was expecting only one of them to be destroyed.

I played around with some different configurations, and it always seems that when I capture a ship, all of my boarding party components are destroyed. That seems wrong to me, but I am wondering what others have experienced.

Re: Boarding parties question
 

Is it just me, or does it bother anyone else that you can board any ship, no matter how "intact", as long as the shields are down? How do you board a ship whose engines are intact? And since the AI doesn't seem to build ships with security stations, even the baddest dreadnought is easily removed once its shields go down.

Of course, the AI is not considered a big deal for the next patch, so.......

Jonathan

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How does he type with his hands over his ears?

Re: Boarding parties question
 

In my experience that's exactly how boarding works no matter how few or many boarders you have. The more and better boarders you have the greater the chance for succes. I have failed to board ships sometimes. If you want to board more than one ship, bring more ships with boarders.

FYI, I don't really like how boarding works, but I can live with it. To make it work like I want it to crews would have to be added along with a bunch of other stuff.

Re: Boarding parties question
 

It is a bit annoying that you cannot choose to use just one boarding party at a time. I'm not sure how you could arrange this, though. If you want boarding to be a "special" function controlled seperately from standard weapons you cannot put the BPs in the weapon list with the others. They would be used on the very first ship that had its shields down. But having only a simple button is disappointing. Maybe it could pop-up a dialog and ask how many boarding parties to use?

Re: Boarding parties question
 

I have not used boarding parties, so I don't know the details of how they work. However, reading this topic raises the question in my mind "what if you board a transport whose cargo holds are full of troops?". Logically, you should be in trouble.

That brings up another idea. What if boarding parties were not a component but a type of troop? You would build them & carry them in cargo holds.

Re: Boarding parties question
 

Actually, I really like the idea of using the existing troops for boarding, Bill. I'd still like a "boarding" component that allowed you to perform the boarding action in the first place. Maybe the rating indicates how many KT of troops can be transported to the enemy in a single boarding "attack" and then resolve it just like attacking a planet. Should probably give ships some "free" defenders, like planets have, based on their size (rather than pop).

Re: Boarding parties question
 

Not sure but maybe the boarding party simulates breaching pods?

with the security station being the area where onboard marines/security personnel work from also house their armory?

Re: Boarding parties question
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Zanthis:
Actually, I really like the idea of using the existing troops for boarding, Bill. I'd still like a "boarding" component that allowed you to perform the boarding action in the first place. Maybe the rating indicates how many KT of troops can be transported to the enemy in a single boarding "attack" and then resolve it just like attacking a planet. Should probably give ships some "free" defenders, like planets have, based on their size (rather than pop).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's a very interesting idea. What it amounts to is changing "Boarding Parties" to a launch bay for troops. The component itself would represent some sort of aparatus for attaching to another ship and breaching the hull, I guess. If you've got one, you can "fire" some troops at enemy ships. If you don't have one, you're just a troop transport. Would it be worthwhile to have 'warships' with a boarding units like this, or would everyone start using troop transports for boarding attacks? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif The cargo space might be better used for weapons in true warships.

Re: Boarding parties question
 

breaching pods used in B5 and some other places (I just can't remember where), so a change to thet or added component like that would be veerrryyyy nice.

Re: Boarding parties question
 

i dunno. troops would include tanks, ground support fighters, armored infantry, heavy weapons.. the kind of stuff the Bab-5 GROPOs had, or the stuff the colonial marines landed with in aliens. the kind of stuff from sci-fi novels like Armor or Starship Troopers.

boarding parties would have to be light enough to fit in cooridoors. they certainly would not have tanks or ground support fighters, they definitly could not use the kind of weapons you put on most troop units (bombs? ground cannons? come on.) and if they had power armor at all, it would probably be alot lighter (unless you have 40K terminator style boarding parties)

my 2 cents anyway.