I personally do not feel like the game is not good cause it lacks a boarding mechanic, but more like it is one of the things that I wish it had. I guess I just like the idea of having prize ships with a "story" behind them. One that does not evolve a slot machine luck... I never played a game where I felt so up and personal to my whole fleet.
I feel this argument nails it on the head for myself when I, too, made a post about boarding.
The Total War series is one of my favourite games to play, and had been intensely interested in modifcations of that series that added intense complexity. This was because when I played the game, it was less of a 'game' and more of a narrative-in-progress. I wasn't moving an army with some guys towards an enemy city; I was invading Gaul with the second-in-command (and dangerously ambitious but rather rash) Marcellus at the head of an untried army, to face off against the Arvenii in a foolish expedition to refill Marcellus' coffers after disasterously backing Alexander II's bid for Head Oligarch of Massilia. Likewise in StarSector, I too have an internal narrative. Heck, some of my successful campaigns are actually the basis behind some of the factions I want to mod into the game (For instance, a mining conglomerate that plumbs the farthest reaches of the sector for the rarest and most profitable of ores, all based on a playthrough where I did just that).
For boarding, it feels like there should be more of a 'story' behind the ship, and I think this can be somewhat fixed by having a little more intensively 'dialogue' when invading a ship, (For instance, your first attack with marines might completely fail, and you have to send in more marines, or perhaps the ship suddenly opens fire on your ships during the boarding, resulting in damage to your ships, etc.), and maybe having a choice of several ships that survived (with better ships being locked unless you have the appropriate skill). I do acknowledge however that the basics of the system are essentially hard-coded at this point, but with the upcoming 'breaking ship' update, it might be more satisfying to know that you couldn't capture ship X because it blew up right in front of you. On the flip-side, I think people will be upset if they DON'T capture a ship that DIDN'T blow up.
In summary:
-People hate how you have no control whatsoever over which ship you get to board, and boarding is a boring experience ina nd of itself.
-Giving people a selection of several ships would ease the first issue, (but not remove it), and perhaps adding more boarding 'events' may make boarding itself more satisfying.
-Restricting this selection based on skills (IE Skills that increase the number of boardable ships, and a different skill for what you can actually board) in addition to marine amount would help prevent power creep.