Analysis of boarding parties.

[geoschmo]

I have done some analysis and come up with the following definitive results regarding boarding:

• Boarding ship will achieve success if attack strength is greater than defense strength of target ship. Ties go to the defender.
  
• Attack strength of boarding ship is total number of Space Marines of all Boarding party components on ship.
  
• Defense strength of target ship is total turrets from security stations + total strength of boarding party components (used for defense) + 16 for each crew quarter component.
• NOTE:There are two ways of looking at the boarding attack or defense strength of any component. The actual text file ability value, or the description of the component that is visible from within the game. For some reason Malfador has chosen to make these two numbers different. The ability value is multiplied by four for purposes of getting a number of marines or turrets. The crew component has an ability value of 4, which is equal in strength to 16 marines or turrets for the purposes of ship capture.
• Master Computers, Life Support, Bridge, Aux Control, and troops in cargo offer no assistance to Defense strength of target ship.
• Ship size does not factor into Boarding defense, other than the fact that larger ships require more crew quarters.
• Increasing the size or structure of crew quarters through a mod has no effect on boarding defense. However, they can be modded and given an additional boarding dfefense factor which will increase their strength.
• Racial characteristics do not appear to have any effect on calulation of boarding succes, for either attacker or defender.
  
  

I do not have any idea whether or not the various racial faciliites that offer bonuses to weapon damage in system have any effect. I would guess not, but I have not confirmed it.
Hope this helps.
Geoschmo

[ October 28, 2002, 16:47: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[dumbluck]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I have done some analysis and come up with the following definitive results regarding boarding:

• Increasing the size or structure of crew quarters through a mod has no effect on boarding defense. Their strength is 20 per component, regardless.
  

Geoschmo

Isn't that moddable in settings.txt?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by dumbluck:

quote:

---

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I have done some analysis and come up with the following definitive results regarding boarding:

• Increasing the size or structure of crew quarters through a mod has no effect on boarding defense. Their strength is 20 per component, regardless.

Geoschmo

Isn't that moddable in settings.txt?

---

Not that I could see. Wouldn't really be any use. It would affect all races equally. If you wanted to do that you could just change the boarding and security comps.

Geoschmo

[dumbluck]

I just checked again, and you're right, it's not there. But I could have sworn it was...

[Suicide Junkie]

Crew quarters give 4 boarding defense points. It has been that way since SE3 or earlier.
Ties go to the defender.

Boarding attack/defense points are multiplied by four to get the default decription of the number of turrets/troopers.

The defense strength of Crew quarters can be increased or decreased by adding a "boarding defense" ability to the component.

Proof:
A) One (1) cruiser with 1 modded boarding party providing 21 attack points.
B) One (1) cruiser with 4 Level 1 Boarding parties (5 points each, total = 20 attack points)
C) One (1) cruiser with 5 crew quarters.

Cruiser B attempts to board cruiser C. It fails.
Cruiser A attempts to board cruiser C. It succeeds.

Thus, cruiser C has less than or equal to 21 defense points. It also has equal to or greater than 20 defense points. (Since ties give unknown results)

Thus, Cruiser C has either 20 or 21 defense points.

Since 21 does not divide evenly into 5 (five crew quarters), Cruiser C must have 20 defense points.

Since 20 vs 20 failed to capture, ties must go to the defender.

(sorry Geo)

[ October 28, 2002, 03:33: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Fyron]

My analysis:

Boarding ships are fun. Just load a few BP Vs on board, and you're ready to go. Ships either get captured, or self-destructed. Either way, the enemy lost more than you did.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
(sorry Geo)

SJ, why in the world are you sorry? My reason for doing this work and posting this was to clear up the confusion. I think I came close, but if there are inacuracies in my calculations, then I want to get them corrected.

However, since I am trying to write this from the perspective of a user and not a modder, rather than force calculations on them I will simply say the crew quarters offers a defense factor of 16. Does that make sense to you?

Geoschmo

[ October 28, 2002, 13:47: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[dogscoff]

I altered the "boarding parties" entry (without knowing about this thread) and said that the crew quarters are destroyed in boarded ships.

Then someone (Geo?) changed it to this:

The captured ship is not damaged by boarding. (unless it has a self destruct device)

I'm sure I had it right. I observed it only Last night, several times. I don't have the game in front of me but can anyone prove it one way or the other?

[geoschmo]

I changed it. I have never seen that, and in all my tests the crew quarters are not damaged.

Perhpas you are playing with the P&N mod or some other mod in which crew quarters are given security station ability, and you have a weapon that damages these?

For that matter, maybe a weapon that targets security stations in the stock game will damage crew quarters. I don't know for sure. But the boarding parties themselves will not.

Geoschmo

[ October 28, 2002, 14:35: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, aside from losing all of its shields, boarding parties and security stations, and any collateral damage caused while forcefully dropping the shields, no.

In P&N v3.1, Psychic crew quarters will be damaged during a capture attempt since they have the boarding defense ability added on top of their normal built-in defense.

[ October 28, 2002, 15:23: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]