Boarding parties

[Phoenix-D]

This is getting extremely annoying.

I make boarding party ships, put them in a fleet..

..and they always RUN AWAY. The fleet proceedes to kill the enemy, denying me their tech.

I've tried all stratagies, both for the fleet and the ship. I've tried armed/non-armed ships. I've even tried calling the boarding ship an attack ship. Always the same. The boarding ship will only attack ships with no weapons, and even then it usually arrives too late. ARG!

Phoenix-D

[Puke]

you can create a custom strategy for your ships to 'fire until all weapons are destroyed.' under the 'firing' section of strategies.

that should do it.

[LazarusLong42]

Placing shield depleters/destroyers on your boarding ships also are a big help for getting the boarding ships to hang around.

Also, is your fleet strategy set to "capture enemy ships"?

LL
http://seiv.pbw.cc/

[Phoenix-D]

It was, and it wasn't. Didn't help either way. The friggin ship STILL runs away.

Phoenix-D

[capnq]

Did you check the Breaks Formation settings in Strategies? I always change the default settings for that. (Planets and satellites can't join fleets; why are they even on the Breaks Formation list?) I know I've successfully taken planets with my strategy settings, but I don't remember offhand what settings I use.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Magnum357]

I thought I heard earlier on this board that if you give Boarding ships at least one offensive weapon (aside from PD weapons) this would help give boarding ships more control and keep them from fleeing the the battle. I could be wrong though.

[PvK]

I think the deal is that boarding ships will only try to board ships without shields. If they have no other weapons, then they have no reason to close on enemy ships that have shields.

Giving them shield depleters generally gets them to try to remove the enemy shields... I think... experiment with boarders + depleters using Board Ships primary strat and max range (or optimal or point blank) secondary strat.

PvK

[Puke]

i seem to remember, at least back in 1.19, that even if you gave a boarding ship shield depleters, the boarding strategy would cause it to hold back until the shields were down. I think i had to put shield depleters on the rest of the fleet so they would not destroy the target.



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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[Baron Munchausen]

As I pointed out in another post a long time ago, you have to set "capture enemy ship" as the SECONDARY strategy. Give it a normal strategy like "optimal weapons range" for it's primary strategy. Then, when the target ship's shields are gone, it will switch strategies and board. Or at least it used to. I haven't used boarding in strategic combat for a long time now.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 14 July 2001).]

[capnq]

D'oh!

Despite the title of the thread and virtually every post in it including the phrase "boarding parties", my previous reply was talking about using troop transports to drop troops and capture a planet. I haven't had an opportunity to use boarding parties in a simultaneous game.

I've had troop transports run away from the planet they were supposed to take recently in one of my solo games, which is probably why I got the two problems confused.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"