Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Andrius227 on January 24, 2013, 05:52:56 AM

Title: How to capture ships?
Post by: Andrius227 on January 24, 2013, 05:52:56 AM
So i have been playing on my new character for a couple of days now, got a strong fleet (Odyssey, Apogee, Medusa, a couple of frigates, and 2 fighter wings, all of them bought from stations) and i can easly destroy every other fleet. But for some reason i can't capture any ships. I have been killing tri-tachyon fleets for  a long time, but i never get to board any of their ships (i want them!). So, any ideas what am i doing wrong ? Whats the best way to capture ships ?
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: LazyWizard on January 24, 2013, 06:20:00 AM
I believe capture chance is determined in part by how many crew the enemy side has remaining. Tri-Tachyon fleets spawn with 180% of the needed crew, so you might have to attack the same ship, give it heavy hull damage, and let it retreat multiple times to whittle away at that number.

Or if you don't want to spend your time grinding the same fleet several times for a higher capture chance, you could just edit starsector-core/data/world/factions/tritachyon.faction and change each fleet's "extraCrewPercent" to something much lower (any changes you make will show up when a new fleet is spawned, so existing fleets will still be difficult to capture). :)
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: Andrius227 on January 24, 2013, 06:24:36 AM
Nah i don't want to cheat.
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: LazyWizard on January 24, 2013, 06:45:15 AM
The game is still in alpha, and most of the campaign features are just placeholders for now. The capture mechanic is extremely frustrating in its current form and there's no other way to obtain certain ships, so I wouldn't feel too guilty about tweaking the values a bit. :)
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: TheHappyFace on January 24, 2013, 09:27:03 AM
just to be sure, do you have enough marines?
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: Andrius227 on January 25, 2013, 12:52:40 AM
just to be sure, do you have enough marines?

Yup, 200 marines should be enough. I blew up like 10 paragons already, and many other great ships that come with them. The problem i think is that my fleet is small, but really strong, and the enemy AI thinks he can beat me, so he never retreats, and he always loses... Example, i attack with Odyssey, an Apogee, 2 frigates and 2 fighter wings. Enemy have a Paragon, Odyssey, Aurora, some smaller destroyers, frigates and fighters. But then my heavily modified Odyssey completelly destroys them all, the Paragon, the Odyssey, the aurora, one by one. I don't even take any damage, because of my extreme 360 shields on all of my ships. The frigates and fighters usually retreat when their capital ships start blowing up. But capitals and cruisers never retreat. I even tried pushing the surviving capital ships/cruisers out of the map, but they just don't leave and keep firing at my indestructable shields... Then i have nothing else to do, but to open fire...
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: Thaago on January 25, 2013, 01:04:00 PM
I've been seeing references to number of marines a lot - does this actually effect capture chances (not actually succeeding, but whether the ship will even have the option)? I thought that it didn't at all.
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: cerberusti on January 25, 2013, 01:09:11 PM
I have seen the option to board with my starting ship before I picked up any marines, so I would guess it does not affect it (or at least is not all of it.)
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: Spurvy on February 02, 2013, 08:14:44 AM
just to be sure, do you have enough marines?

But how do you make the enemy ships surrender? I only manage to do that when I put my second commander in charge of the fleet or click "esc" so the rest of the battle is auto-simulated.
When I fight myself I have to destroy the ships, they never seem to surrender. They either run away, or I destroy them :S
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: sdmike1 on February 03, 2013, 08:51:35 AM
They surrender when they have no "combat ready" ships that is when they have no longer have the crew to crew any of their ships
Title: Re: How to capture ships?
Post by: harrumph on February 05, 2013, 03:31:06 AM
Although there's also a chance, under those circumstances, that they'll sabotage the ships rather than surrender them.