Strange ship capture thing !

[Testosteronos]

ok now, this is somewhat strange....

i build a small ship with a few boarding parties and a few weapons(strategy: ship capture;primary mov. set to: board enemy ships, secondray mov. set to: short weapons range). then i build a test ship with shields and weapons.

i guessed that my small capture ships would try to disrupt the shields and then enter the other ship. wrong! they fled into the corner, not firing even one shot and all of them were destroyed.
by chance i tested my capture ship against another design(the same sort like the other, with the exception that it was additionally equipped with a self destruct device) and the result was astonishing: the cap. ships didn't flee, but depleted the other ships shields, entered it and exploded(the one that entered naturally).

as it seems, boarding is only fun if it results in suicide...that's very odd(a bug?)...
would someone else please test this?(i'm using stock 1.49)

[Suicide Junkie]

That quirk has apparently been fixed for Gold...

What you can do in the meantime, is create really fast capture escorts, with boarding parties, and a second warship design loaded with shield depleters/disruptors and a meson bLaster.
The warships should have optimal range as a strat, the escorts "capture ships".

Once the shields go down, the capture ships will zoom in and take the ships, hopefully arriving before the warships can do too much damage.
If you set the warships to switch to the least damaged target after doing about 10% damage to their current one, you should be able to do very well.

Note that this fleet would suck in most situations, and is only good for ambushes

[TerranC]

Well... You can do it by hand and screw the strategy

You are smarter than the computer since you can think of other ways to duke it out than... well... DUKE it out.

[Taera]

Had the same problem and was just about to post a similar post
tactical? no..
Given that this option isnt aviable in PBEM, i never use it.. well, actually i always go to there but i put it to auto and just watch the battle. I like it that way. Also, tactical gives the human too much advantage against the AI. Just think better and make your strategies optimal.

[zen.]

If you think of it within context of the game, too, the emperor doesn't just take control of individual ships...strategy is set and the captains are to follow orders as closely as possible.

zen

[Testosteronos]

Taera and Zenbudo - you're right!
I can't even remember the Last time I played with tactical combat...nevertheless it would be nice if strategic combat would have more options and stuff. well, i guess i have to wait for SE5!

[Dragonlord]

I am having the same problems with capture ships in a PBW game, using stock 1.49.
No matter how I edit strategies, in the combat simulator (also on tactical but set to auto) the ships always fail to board their enemies even though they have shield depleters and boarding parties. This applies to enemy ships both with and without shields...
Does this means ship capture is useless in Version 1.49??!!! Damn, it was going to be such an important part of my strategy!

Another question on boarding: in 1.41 (or Gold?) has anyone managed to make boarding ships that, when part of an attack fleet, zoom around the warships that are shooting at each other, and goes to the enemy corners to capture the non-combat ships there?

Dragonlord

[Phoenix-D]

"Does this means ship capture is useless in Version 1.49??!!!"

Try sticking a token normal weapon on. That *might* help alleviate the bug.

Phoenix-D

[Dragonlord]

Hi Phoenix,

Thanks for the idea, but I tried it and it did not work

[Taera]

Seems a bug to me.
This feature had worked back in SE3. Capture ships with shield depleters did actually capture their enemies' ships.
Guess MM could fix this.

Now for another thing.
You said create a fleet with capture ships and normal warships/shield depleting ones.
Will it work for fleets actually? Fleets have their own strategies after all...