Problems with ramming

[QuarianRex]

I have found that strategic boarding parties work very erratically in this game.

I was recently testing out my Borg mod (they rely heavily on boarding parties) and encountered some odd problems.

I had a small sphere (550kt) that was equiped with a tractor beam, shield depleter, boarding cannon (only damaged security stations and all SDD's are given boarding defense), a boarding party, and support equipment (engines, armor, shields, etc.). Now the sphere would work beautifully in strategic combat, chasing down ships and assimilating them etc.

The problem occured when I got medium cubes (900kt). I carried over the design (same basic components, just more of them) and the thing wouldn't budge. The cube would just sit in the middle of the screen and twitch around. I tried messing with the attack priorities and such but it was no good. They just wouldn't chase anything down.

However, if an enemy ship came within range of a tractor beam it would get pulled in and boarded. THEN the cube would start to jerkily chase down other ships.

I just can't explain it. All other characteristics were basically the same (just scaled up), including the strategies. The little guy would perform as expected while the big one wouldn't. Can anyone explain this?

I also noticed something else. Boarding will only occur BEFORE weapons are fired. If the weapons have to be fired the ship will not board that turn. This means that a single shield regenerator will completely protect a ship from a single boarding craft. To capture that ship you need to tag-team it with two craft, one to knock down the regenerated shields and one to board.

I hope that some of this helps and/or someone can provide some sort of explanation.

[Pablo]

Anybody has any experience in ramming/capturing ships in simultaneous combat? And how to use ramming at all (using organic armor III, when enemy has shields on)?
I tried to put some beams inside but it didn't help because the ships came to the optimal firing range and stayed there and died there

[ October 08, 2002, 12:37: Message edited by: Pablo ]

[geoschmo]

DO your enemy ships have self destruct devices? Because that always seems to give boarding ships the fits. I have got them to fire and drop the enemies shileds before, but when the enemy has SDD's the boarding ships wont attempt to board in my experience.

Geoschmo

[Pablo]

Actually they did have SDDs. BUT - right now I tried the same with the ships that had shields but no SDD and the result the same - runaway :/

[mottlee]

I have not tried what you are tring, however when I had a boarding ship with lot-O-armor I was still dead or so badly damaged might as well have been. as to run away it makes no sence to me

[Pablo]

geo, you were right. It works if my ship has shield depleaters and it does not - without any weapon assuming there is no SDD.
-BUT-
If enemy has no shields and my ships have no shield depleaters - it also works. My ships capture as many ships as they can and then ram others if there are any left

I've noticed an interesting thing: let's say I capture enemy ship that has some beam weapons but there are still enemy ships left and attack my rammers. The captured enemy ship runs away and waits until the ship that captured it is destroyed and only then gets involved into the battle. Maybe this is not a strict rule and happens not always but it really has some influence upon combat end IMHO.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Pablo:
geo, you were right. It works if my ship has shield depleaters and it does not - without any weapon assuming there is no SDD.
-BUT-
If enemy has no shields and my ships have no shield depleaters - it also works. My ships capture as many ships as they can and then ram others if there are any left

I've noticed an interesting thing: let's say I capture enemy ship that has some beam weapons but there are still enemy ships left and attack my rammers. The captured enemy ship runs away and waits until the ship that captured it is destroyed and only then gets involved into the battle. Maybe this is not a strict rule and happens not always but it really has some influence upon combat end IMHO.

There is a time lapse before captured ships regain control of weapons (does not apply to AS converted ships). I think it can be edited in settings.txt. Not sure though.