Boarding parties question

[Commander G]

I would like to see number of Boarding Parties to use per attack be part of the ship or fleets strategy rather than a popup, since a popup would not work in Strategic mode.

Here is another thing to consider: racial size. One race might be unable to navigate the corridors of another race because they are too big phyiscally to move around. A race of giants (plus 20% in ground combat, cannot move inside of a ship built for -50% beings). The same prohibition should also apply to giving ships away. The +20% race should not be able to use the transport built by the -50% race (unless it was custom built for them). How about having ship designs specify the maximum racial size that they work for (let the small races use any ships, they just need buster chairs). This would give those midget races an advantage in repelling boarding parties, even though they are pathetic in ground combat on a planet's surface.

[Daynarr]

quote:

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Observations on many peoples comments:
1) Yes, boarding combat is resolved too quickly. It ought to take more than a single combat round at least sometimes. The ship should be "neutralized" and unusable by either side while the combat is going on. In fact, it should not count as belonging to anyone while it is contested. This might lead to interesing tactics like the original owner firing on his own boarded ships in order to insure that technology is not captured.

2) I'm glad that crew quarters have SOME effect. I was going to suggest that we add a weak boarding defense ability to them. Glad that MM thought of this.

3) It's _possible_ to build ships to be resistant to boarders but not easy. A ship that resists boarding as suggested will have to be a completely different sort of design than a ship originally designed for crew and converted. Perhaps this could be added as a "special ability" that can be purchased for extra cost somehow. This is a completely unexplored area of ship construction in SE. Hulls cannot be endowed with "abilities" of any sort outside of components. If we could have "abilities" that are not actual components as technologies we could have "stealth" races like MOO (cloaking as an inherent ability without having to create aseperate ship set and tech fields) and Organic/Nanotech races could have ships that regenerate without some particular component having to be present (and vulnerable to destruction). Also, "Propulsion Expert" races could have the option to purchase greater speed for extra cost, etc. Loads of possibilities!

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I second that. I would like to see racial strength having impact on ship boarding too.
Boarding ship should mean close quarters combat which is very often done in hand-to-hand manner, where strenght of race can play important role. It will also increase the value of that trait which is a good thing (it is seriously underrated now). A race with 120% strenght would have 20% more defense from crew quarters and security stations and 20% more strenght for Boarding parties. That would make strenght a must trait for race that loves to board ships.

[Nyx]

Hmm, I've never failed to capture a ship, and I've taken both large transports and battleships with a single level 2 boarding party. I do tend to climb right up to level 5 boarding parties very fast (since its such and affordable tech once you get past the military science level 2), but in all my time playing, with the exception of testing security stations against myself, I have never once failed to capture a ship without security stations no matter how few or how weak my boarding parties. I guess it's just that I upgraded my boarding party quality faster than I paid attention to or something.

As for the 1.5:1 ratio, yeah it's an approximation, but not a bad one. If you know the enemy has 1 level 1 security, either bring a level 2 boarding party, or 2 level 1's and you should be fine. If you only use 1 level 1, you'll lose. If he's got 3 SS 3s, then you want about 5 or 6 boarding party 3s to take him. Or, you can do it my preferred way and just board the ship right back from him...

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[DirectorTsaarx]

ealbright: Good research work! A suggestion on the CQ weirdness (which you state happens w/ Master Computers): maybe the _size_ of the Master Computer affects defense? Or level of the MC? Just a thought...