The Boarding Party snafu update

Shadowstar · #1 October 23rd, 2006, 10:57 PM

Would it be possible to have the boarding parties reduce the crew count without destroying crew quarters? It seems to me if anything gets destroyed in the process it should be the bridge (as that is logically where the fighting would be since it is the control center). It could also focus on the aux. bridge since it is concievable that the aux bridge could be used to override bridge control. Of course, real boarding parties would probably not be equipped with weapons that would destroy the ship rooms they are fighting in...

"Sir, we've successfully captured the ship!"

"Great, but where did you go?"

"We're floating in space, sir -- 'bout 50 yards away from that gaping hole that used to be the crew quarters..."

AngleWyrm · #2 October 23rd, 2006, 11:02 PM

In my testing, it wasn't the boarding parties that destroyed the crew quarters, it was firing on the ship from another vessel. The boarding parties didn't actually do anything, until after all the crew were killed. Then they took over the ship.

So yea, I'de also very much like to see boarding parties do some murd--um...I'de like them to reduce the crew count to zero without me shooting out the quarters with another ship.

Shadowstar · #3 October 24th, 2006, 01:20 AM

Ah... Well I haven't been able to get boarding parties to do much good in the sims I've been running. Mostly I haven't actually run any sims to specifically test them, I just kinda assumed they worked. One thing I did notice was that they never actually managed to capture a ship. I assumed it was because my fighters were destroying everything before they could get in range. Now that I looked at it more closely it seems that the boarding units aren't actually doing anything at all. So that would be because there is still crew on the ship.

So you have to somehow kill all the crew without destroying the ship to get boarding to work then... Not sure if that qualifies as a bug, or a poorly planned feature. Seems to me that crew should only count as a very poor defending marine unit, and that actual boarding defense should be handled by the components dedicated to that. In other words, one space marine should be able to kill/replace 5 crew or somesuch.

Hmm... A system like that would allow for an interesting racial component: crew quarters with boarding defense. Would be appropriate for a race like Klingons. The crew could act like defending marines proper. But its not so great under the current system.

Dizzy · #4 October 24th, 2006, 01:22 AM

If crew quarters are fubarring up the ship capture 'feature', take crew quarters out of the components list and double the tonnage for life support? I guess all vehicle size requirements would need to reflect crew quarters are no longer needed. Would that fix it? Or are crew implemented in some other way as to involve other game perameters?

Shadowstar · #5 October 24th, 2006, 01:25 AM

It seems the key is to remove the crew from the game entirely. It's a workaround but not a very nice one. Hope it gets fixed soon.

Dizzy · #6 October 24th, 2006, 01:46 AM

Ok, well, let me ask my question in a different way. Will taking out crew quarters make boarding parties work? And will vehicle sizes need to be adjusted/changed to reflect their absence? Would making life support weigh 2x as much make up for not having crew quarters?

What's the answer here?

Phoenix-D · #7 October 24th, 2006, 01:55 AM

Taking out CQ will work. They are the problem- ships with Master Computers can be taken over successfully.

Shadowstar · #8 October 24th, 2006, 02:20 AM

It's my understanding that it's the crew itself that is the problem. If you take out just the crew quarters you can't build ships because you (and the AI's) have no way to give them crew. You have to modify all vehicles that require crew so that they won't require them anymore, so that you can build them without crew quarters. Then boarding parties should work.

Just building ships with master computers won't stop the AI's from doing it. You effectively have to remove crew from the game entirely. It's actually cleaner than just using master computers since it preserves at least some element of the gameplay formulae created by the difference between live crews and master computer ships.

AngleWyrm · #9 October 24th, 2006, 02:33 AM

For the next test, I modded the Frigate hull to require 0 crew, and removed the crew quarters from my target ship. The ship appeared to behave normally, moving and shooting.

Question: Does the security team thingy work?

First run - Target had one security, Attacker had two Boarders. Successful, and the ship ended with 4/0 crew (started with 0/0).

Second run - Attacked with three boarders (11 soldiers each vs 11/security station) and won with a leftover 6 crew.

Third run - Target with two security stations, and couldn't defeat it. Even when attacking with ten boarding teams on one ship. Examining the ship after battle showed that one security station had 100% damage, but the other had 0% damage.

It's beginning to look to me like maybe there's a piece of code that should be in a loop, but is only being called once instead of once for every crew-ish thingy.