[Q]

Until now I hardly ever used boarding because I did not find it worth the effort: it is so easily prevented by self destructing devices and you can only destroy these by blindly destroying half the ship you want to board.
But if you give the self destructing device a small security station ability you can construct a "boarding cannon" with the damage type "security stations only". Then you have the possibility to selectively knock out the self destructing device and any security stations. However you still have a counter measure: Boarding parties can also defend a ship and will not be affected by the above mentioned "boarding cannon".
I tested this and in tactical combat it works perfectely. In strategic combat the boarding ships sometimes do not attack as they should for reasons I do not understand yet.