Boarding

I have found in previous games that I just had to drop their shields, then out of preference, disable engines. I fire off boarding parties and while I don't know the math, six boarding parties were enough to capture a colony ship, for example. Maybe you're missing something? Maybe they have security stations?

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and will always long to return." ~Leonardo DaVinci

Boarding combat is very random - sometimes you can completely outnumber them but still lose. This is why I prefer to equip my Boarding ships with Toxin Injectors. They always win if there's 0 enemy crew to fight~

Oh and Tractor Beams. Don't want a ship running away while you deplete its crew.

If you really want an edge, go to Settings.txt and change the value that dictates how much strength 1 crew member is worth in boarding combat.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Get rid of shields first. Then gas them. Naturally, my marines have Chem-suits for ultra bio-hazard environments.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

Have you looked at DamageTypes.txt to make sure "Kills Crew" actually penetrates armour? Know what the damage type can and can't do and if you dno't like it, change it.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

I don't know why anyone would think the boarding process is random. I saw that the crew of the colony ships went down exactly the same every time if I used the same number of boarding parties. Every time I do try capturing, it goes down identically to the previous times.

What is the formula for calculating the process?

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and will always long to return." ~Leonardo DaVinci

I get very different results if I send in the same number of marines at the same ship at different times. I hunt ships in fleets of Boarding frigates. Sometimes I sent in 5 times the strength of the defending crew and the marines got wiped. Then in the same battle I sent in far fewer marines and they had no problem taking the ship. Have spares around and don't send them all in at once.

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

That's odd. I only have one boarding ship per battle. If I'm going to board and capture, it's all I need. It might have bugged with 1.25, since I haven't played a game to boarding parties since 1.17. When I get there again, I'll try it out. I tend to play from the very bottom of the tech tree with a massive quadrant of 200+ systems. And yes, mem leak gets only worse.

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and will always long to return." ~Leonardo DaVinci

Been playing with boarding parties and get very variable results. It helps if you have a decent level of boarding party tech and/or lots of them. Using Tactical combat and micro aging the action helps a great deal.

Boarding action is hardest in the IRM where shields can regenerate enough that the boarding shuttle can’t land whilst it’s in flight. Boarding ships should be armed with shield striping weapons and after the next patch especially weapon and engine destroyers. Haven’t tried toxin injectors but had no doubt that they work even if you marines end up being a prize crew on an empty ship rather than having to defeat the crew in combat.

A repair ship is recommended in any fleet which relies on boarding.

In BM i had no problem boarding ships that had 200-300 crew (i never met bigger) using one boarding parties (but level 5+) even if i had low grav trait.

But i had problem with speed of boarding shuttle. This shuttle is bit slower than colony ship (with bit better than basic engines) even thoug i have quantum engines.

So when i wanted to capture colony ship (to get to another colony type), i sent few fighters to attack it and then i could capture it easily (except one ocasion when shuttle flew just around its target, but luckily second shutle boarded).