"Board Enemy Ships" strategy bug?

Q · #1 February 14th, 2002, 10:02 PM

I just recently got interested in boarding so perhaps this has already been discussed:
When a ship has "Board Enemy Ships" as primary movement strategy it avoids enemy ships unless there are ships with no shields. Even if you give your boarding ships weapons like shield depleters they will not attack the enemy until other ships knocked out the shields. If you use any other primary movement strategy and "Board Enemy Ships" as secondary movement the ship will attack with their weapons but never board (at least that's what I've seen in the combat simulator).
Second the boarding ships try boarding even in the presence of an intact self destructing devive. So you could easily destroy all enemy boarding ships by presenting them escort ships without shields but with a self destructing device. However the boarding ships will not try boarding when the enemy ship has more security stations than the boarding ship can successfully overcome.

Has anyone made different observations or found a possibility to overcome these problems?
Would you agree that this is a bug?

Grayhorse · #2 February 14th, 2002, 11:05 PM

I dont see it as a bug, more of a tactic. thats why when in combat, I always check the enemy ship to determine whats on it.

What would be nice, is having a way to target specific components once your through the shields and armor. If we could do that, it would make it nice for capturing components you dont have.

Could make it so that if your ship had specific experience, it gave you a better chance at hitting specific component targets on the ship.

I think it would be kind of hard to do though.

Rollo · #3 February 14th, 2002, 11:42 PM

Yes, the boarding ships don't work well at all in strategic combat. In the Gold Version they behave much better (i.e. not running away anymore).

Rollo

Q · #4 February 15th, 2002, 11:33 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Rollo:
Yes, the boarding ships don't work well at all in strategic combat. In the Gold Version they behave much better (i.e. not running away anymore).

Rollo

Thank you very much for this information. One more reason to look forward to the gold edition!

[ 15 February 2002: Message edited by: Q ]

Q · #5 February 15th, 2002, 11:48 AM

I just made a test with the gold demo (my observations so far were SE IV Version 1.49) and you are right: boarding ships with shield depleters attack now ships, fire their shield depleters and then board the enemy.
However they still ignore the self destructing device. Therefore in strategic combat boarding is still a problematic strategy. But at least my modification with the "boarding cannons" should now work well in SE IV gold and make boarding more effective.

PsychoTechFreak · #6 February 16th, 2002, 02:04 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Q:
...However they still ignore the self destructing device. Therefore in strategic combat boarding is still a problematic strategy. ...

If you do not see the SDD as a cheap way to get rid of big enemy ships...

Has anybody tested the computer virus plus allegiance subverter combination with GOLD ? It would be nice if the AI would fire only one virus per ship, because it almost always destroys the MCs.