Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires |
I have seen for a few releases now that AI colony ships are using the Ram Ship strategy when they are encountered. Normally this wouldn't be much of a threat but the game I am playing now, the AIs are cranking out a lot of colony ships so I thought it would be a good idea to capture them instead of just blowing them up.
For some reason, I thought a tractor beam would hold something but it just helps the colony ship hit your ship sooner.
Then I tried engine killing attacks, which work but then I've got crippled colony ships and, of course, they are now motionless targets for the next colony ship to warp in. Okay, I bring in a repair ship or two and develope a strategy that starts my engine killing ships with broading parties faraway from the warp point so that I can create a line of captured colony ships working towards the warp point. Low and behold, I forget about my newly cquired colony ships being repaired have come streaking in to ram the newly crippled ships. Jeez, don't they ever give up?
I fix that problem at the end of each turn by moving the captured ships to the edge of the combat arena so I can move them out of the hex on the next end of turn combat.
Then I run into a new and wholely unexpected glitch. My combat ship that captures the colony ship tries to ram the colony ship right after it is captured so I have to stop that ship and move it away from the colony ship.
I have no idea how anything useful can be done in strategic combat if the ships act so crazy in tactical mode.
Another thing, Why do ships use ALL ( I had 
of their boarding parties on a silly colony ship? I can find no way to alter this setting. 2 BPs should be more than enough to capture it.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
You could try using REPULSAR rays instead of tractor beams. Logic? Use a short range version so that the colonizer comes into boarding range first, then it gets pushed away instead of hitting you.
Needless to say this does not work for most ships. Just things that like to ram.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
Problem is that the boarding shuttle has to catch the enemy ship. I think i've tried it and flinging the target to the other side of the map does not help the shuttle catch up.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
If you're using tactical combat, send your boarding ship straight at the colony ship. When the gap is only a couple of shiplengths, order your ship to fire off its boarding pod and turn it hard to the left or right. Your boarding ship should be lightly armed as to only do a bit of damage to the colony ship's armor so that you'll capture the ship nicely intact.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
I have found that the tendency of colony ships to ram makes them much easier to capture than if they ran away (like freighters do), as you don't have to chase them down. Just point your boarding ship directly away from the line of approach of the colony ship and lie there dead still. When the colony ship gets within two squares of your boarding ship let go your boarding parties and then head out directly away from the colony ship to avoid the ram. It's a done deal after that. Of course this is all in tactical combat.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
In the Balance Mod, you can equip a drone with an engine destroying weapon. Send it after the colony ship and disable it (I've never seen a colony ship yet successfully ram a drone, even though they try). Then send in the boarding ship, and then a repair ship to get the engines back on line. For bonus points, build a ship that has a repair bay as well as boarding parties for one stop shopping.
If you've been lucky enough to get the ancient ruins technology 'Energy Leech', one of these weapons on a drone will drain all the supplies from a colony ship. It can then be captured undamaged, needing only supplies to use.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
Not a bad idea. One of the Crystal tech weapons does something similar.
as for Boarding + repair, that's a good idea in general as boarding parties "break" when you use them.
Re: Capturing suicidal colony ships of Balance Mod AI empires
I fidn this topic of interest as I am facing some AI colony ships I want to capture, but as you say they try to ram. I assumed as long as I had a boarding ship that was faster it would keep away as the boarding shuttle got to work.
Boarding parties work on a certain number of crew each, so as ships get bigger you need more parties to take them. Also there may be security crew to stop them, so it just uses as much as you gave them to get the job done.
It is annoying I'll admit that ships with weapons will fire on your enemy even when you've got boarding parties on baord them.