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[dragoongfa]

Oh boy, this is going to be a big one so bear with me.

As it stands now the boarding mechanic is severely limited and downright unprofitable no matter how you look at it. Marines are expensive to buy and maintain, the player doesn't know which ship (if any) will be boardable when the battle is over while the self destruct 'surprise' turns boarding into a risky endeavor. I believe that everyone agrees that the current system needs to change but how can that happen in a way that is fun, risky and balanced at the same time?

Here is what I have come up with for the time being.

The key to a successful boarding op the way I imagine it revolves around preparation and that preparation happens before the battle even happens.

The first step is to buy the ships and equipment necessary to board a ship. I propose for the introduction of specialized boarding variants of various ships, these variants will be lighter armed but would be able to bring far more Marines to bear during the after battle boarding op.

For example let's take take the basic Lasher frigate and turn it into a boarding variant by stripping it of some weapons but being able to bring 30 marines in a boarding OP. Of course in order for this to happen the Marine limit for the other frigates should be limited to let's say 10 at most. For the next step let's do the same for a destroyer but in its case a specialized destroyer would be able to bring 60 marines in the boarding OP but limiting the amount of marines normal destroyers can bring to bear down to 20. For a final boarding variant I would suggest a variation of the Tarsus that would be able to bring a whopping 100 marines in a single OP.

I believe that from the above you get the basic idea about the specialized boarding variants.

Why specialized boarding variants? One may ask.

The answer is simple and it comes down to both balance reasons and immersion. Boarding has the potential of raking in huge profits, by bringing in specialized boarding ships the player is faced with a dilemma, will he bring a couple of these boarding ships or will the player prefer to keep his fleets purely combat oriented by use the logistic points those ships would eat up at combat ships. Then there is the immersion factor, boarding is imagined to be a lengthy and complicated undertaking that demands specialized equipment and training. These boarding ships would both provide the equipment necessary to successfully board a ship and be able to deliver an overwhelming amount of marines at the target vessel.

The next step to the revamping of the boarding mechanics is to enhance the EMP weaponry by introducing a 'knock out' effect to the target ship. In short this knock out effect would be the same with the 'disabled' when a ship's hull reaches zero. This knockout effect would keep the ship and it's cargo relatively intact while keeping a lot of the ship's crew alive (dependent on the amount of the remaining hull points). In order for a ship to be knocked out the EMP damages that it receives must be far greater than the total HP that it has. I would put that damage to around 50% higher than it's total HP with the amount going to 100% with EMP resistant subsystems.

In order to balance this 'knock out' effect the enhancement of the 'destroyed' effect during combat must also happen. As it stands now a ship is first 'disabled' and turned into a drifting hulk and is destroyed only when it is repeatedly fired up in it's disabled state. I believe that this must change if boarding is to be balanced but how can this happen? The key aspect in this would be what kind of punishment the ship took as it was brought down. If it was hit only with lasers and small and medium ballistic weapons then the ship should remain in one piece even as a drifting hulk. However if the ship was repeatedly hit with big weapons, torpedoes and missiles then it should break apart on the shims by that kind of punishment. The introduction of a 'reactor meltdown' event/malfunction should also be considered. Such an event could have a chance to happen when the hull reaches zero or when the CR is at a ridiculous low level. When it happens the ship simply blows up leaving nothing but dust.

This brings the boarding revamp to the next phase, the actual boarding.

Simply put the player should have the option to board all of the knocked out and derelict ships that are left on the field. The player would assign a ship on his fleet to each of the target ships and then assign a number of marines aimed at each target. Knocked out ships shouldn't have the chance of a self destruct explosion and derelicts could have that happen to them. Of course the player could order EMP armed ships to knock out the derelict's systems but that could cause a reactor meltdown 50% of the times.

Knocked out ships would have the majority of their crew and cargo intact. That would offer a stiff boarding battle unless the player brings an overwhelming number of Marines causing the crew to surrender and become prisoners that could be liberated, ransomed or even spaced but of course each action would have it's own risks and rewards.

When a knocked out ship or a derelict is captured the player would be offered a few choices:

1st: Attempt to repair the ship and get it underway. If a ship is knocked out the chances of successfully repairing it should be around 75%. If the ship was a derelict then the chances should be lowered at around 30%. If a player has a repair platform in his fleet the chances should increase to 100% and around 60% respectively. The attempted repairs should also take some time, half a day for knocked out ships and a day for derelicts. The player's fleet should remain stationary during that time.

2nd: Strip the ship of anything valuable. Cargo, weapons, machinery and even metal. Everything that is of value would be stripped and placed in the cargo hold. Knocked out ships would have a lot more goods left intact than derelicts. Stripping should taken a few hours (1/4 of a day).

3rd: Tow the ship if a tug is available. With towing and bringing the ship to a safe harbor the player would be able to either choose to fully repair even a derelict to full health or scrap it for even more stuff since a spaceport would be able to break everything down. If the port belongs to the player then the repair/scrapping should be free of charge, if it belongs to a faction then an amount of money should be paid.

[Hari Seldon]

I don't think we should have boarding variant ships.  If you need to hard dock board with only 20 marines or so, then a Mercury shuttle (crew = 30) can handle it, they are expendable.  For anything more than that, the Valkyrie can do it (crew = 300).  The only problem right now is the Valkyrie is so rare that it is too precious to risk losing during a hard dock unless you really want that capital ship.

The risk of losing a Mercury is not a big deal so I almost always do hard dock instead of boarding pods.

Also I don't feel that 10 or 20 Marines are too expensive once you level up and get the larger bounties because then taking over a destroyer or cruiser is profitable.  It's not amazingly profitable but it is profitable so you might as well do it for all of your bounties to get a bit of extra credits.

The most important change right now is to add the option of the enemy surrendering sometimes instead of self-destructing, running away, or fighting your boarders to the last man every time.

[Megas]

My problem with boarding is the option with the best chance of success, hard dock, is low and unreliable enough that launching assault teams for an even worse chance of success never seems worth trying.  When I board, I always hard dock.

If you need a ship designated for boarding, all that is needed is a Mercury or a Hound.  Maybe two for big ships.

[Gothars]

What is imo really lacking is the option to at least influence, if not outright choose, which ship is boardable.  The biggest "difficulty", or rather annoyance, with boarding is that you're so rarely offered the option to even attempt a boarding maneuver on a ship you'd like.

[Vind]

Boarding is terrible and you cant capture fighters. You must at least get SOMETHING if you capture ship and its too badly damaged and unusable afterwards. Some supplies or mounted weapons, hidden contraband, map of the star treasure chest - something. Right now it is loss and damage to boarding vessel or loss with no damage. In both cases you lose large part of boarding crew. In rare cases you board succesfully but for money spent you can possibly buy a battleship already. Possibility of capturing a fighter wing aboard carrier even if carrier ship is unusable afterwards will be nice too.

[Gothars]

Some supplies or mounted weapons, hidden contraband, map of the star treasure chest - something.

Oh yeah, that would be interesting, too - if the focus were switched (or expanded) from obtaining new ships to getting your hands on what is on the ship. Than choosig the ship would be less critical, cause you'd not know where nice surprises await anyway.

[goduranus]

The most important change right now is to add the option of the enemy surrendering sometimes instead of self-destructing, running away, or fighting your boarders to the last man every time.

Alex added randomized boarding to make ship progression more difficult for gameplay purpose. Though lore wise, it's a hard sell to think civilians cargo ships would not surrender when confronted with overwhelming force.

[bills6693]

Actually I quite like the original post here.

I would say instead of a 'boarding variant', you have a 'boarding hullmod' which takes a LOT of OP to install, say 20 on a frigate and scale up from there. That way you can fit it to any ship in your fleet, allowing you to keep it thematic and fitting with the design of your fleet. It also means you can get boarding ships without having to rely on finding the specific variants in stations, which is unreliable at best. You could want to play the life of a pirate but not get any boarding ships for 30 levels because you just can't find them.

I would say this hullmod should be locked in player skills, perhaps adding a 'boarding' skill under 'leadership'. This skill would also govern other aspects of boarding, adding chances/percentages etc - maybe increasing chance for repair, reducing casualties, increasing goods recovered from stripped ships etc. It would also help flesh out the leadership skill.

EMP damage knocking out a ship's systems to allow boarding intact sounds pretty good. It would really be mixing up the boarding elements and add a risk-reward element. It would have to be balanced a bit though because more EMP weapons would be needed, but using them to not only disable systems but disable the ship as a whole could be overpowered - the current EMP limiting factor is that it can disable weapons/systems but you need a new weapon to disable the ship. Now with using the EMP to stop the enemy firing and also disable it, potentially it would be too powerful. Especially when after the battle or while you mop up the remains you can simply disable the ship in your own time if you don't intend to board.

However, balance aside, I think the idea has a lot of credit and could make piracy viable - making it unlikely you could repair the ship (unless you disable with EMP) but possible to strip it of all salvage. Definitely worth consideration in some form.

[Luna]

  I like the whole "knock out" thing because then you could be given missions similar to bounties.

  A faction or individual can hire you to locate a ship inside a fleet carrying a cargo/technology/treasure/prisoner/bounty (that is marked). You then attack the fleet, knock out the ship carrying the cargo you've been hired to seize, and you have a choice then of returning the cargo (for profit) or keeping the cargo to defy the faction or person that hired you and potentially earn a bigger profit.

[TrashMan]

*SNIP*

Maybe instead of a boarding variant ,a a boarding pod "weapon"?
Small, medium, large, each capable of launching a pod with different amount of marines.

As PD can take out pods, like missiles, you'd launch boarding pods while the enemy ship is recovering from flux overcharge or EMP effects, or when it's PD is buy with missiles and fighters.

The battle result isn't instant, rather the fight on board takes a while, with pop-up messages telling you progress ("Your marines have pushed to the engineering section of ISS Grant", "Marines report stiff resistance near weapon bay of ISS Grant", etc..). The boarded ship is compromised by the fighting, systems or turrets can randomly shut off and get back up.

The boarders and crew would slowly kill eachother (there would be rolls done behind the scenes). At some point, depending on the force disparity and the remaining enemy forces (ship, not crew) the enemy might surrender or try to blow up the ship. Your marines have a chance to stop this. (so X chance for them to even try, Y for your marines to stop them). However, at that point the enemy will try to sabotage the ship, so the damage it gets ramps up and chances of successful recovery go down

The fight could leave the ship itself unusable, but parts of it can be salvaged. Weapons can be stripped, the derelict itself hauled by a tug and sold to a scrapyard or restored (at great cost)

[TrashMan]

Almost forgot - you're gonna need a way to tell your ships to NOT attack a specific chip.

The AI could automatically search for another target when it's current target is being boarded - you wouldn't want to shot at the ship while your marines are on it.

A disable order - strip shields, EMP the target. Only EMP weapons will still fire at it?

[Midnight Kitsune]

*SNIP*

Maybe instead of a boarding variant ,a a boarding pod "weapon"?
Small, medium, large, each capable of launching a pod with different amount of marines.

As PD can take out pods, like missiles, you'd launch boarding pods while the enemy ship is recovering from flux overcharge or EMP effects, or when it's PD is buy with missiles and fighters.

The battle result isn't instant, rather the fight on board takes a while, with pop-up messages telling you progress ("Your marines have pushed to the engineering section of ISS Grant", "Marines report stiff resistance near weapon bay of ISS Grant", etc..). The boarded ship is compromised by the fighting, systems or turrets can randomly shut off and get back up.

The boarders and crew would slowly kill eachother (there would be rolls done behind the scenes). At some point, depending on the force disparity and the remaining enemy forces (ship, not crew) the enemy might surrender or try to blow up the ship. Your marines have a chance to stop this. (so X chance for them to even try, Y for your marines to stop them). However, at that point the enemy will try to sabotage the ship, so the damage it gets ramps up and chances of successful recovery go down

The fight could leave the ship itself unusable, but parts of it can be salvaged. Weapons can be stripped, the derelict itself hauled by a tug and sold to a scrapyard or restored (at great cost)

Sounds alot like SPAZ or Sword of the Stars 2 but Alex has said several times that in combat boarding will not happen

[Lemar]

I would try to build boarding directly into the combat phase. So it could solve some design problems as the player gets the choice which ship to board and done right you can also have a good risk / reward choice for the player. By risk / reward I've the following in mind:

- your ship that is going to board needs to enter alongside the ship you want to board and your ship has to cut off shields, engine and weapons
and you cant board the last enemy ship as it always activates self destruction, every ship before doesn't do that which could be explained with that it still hopes to win the battle as long as another ship is fighting

-->
Making boarding part of the combat game and part of mid combat phase mean risk as you take one of your ships out of combat for boarding and making your ship without shield and active weapons a good target

The other balancing factor could be the earlier you start boarding in combat the better the condition of your prey will be at the end of boarding and the higher the risk will be as your marines are on you best ship which will do the boarding.

If one want to make it more stressful then one could also put time counters on every disengaged enemy ship, lets say 90s and boarding takes 45s what means you have 45s to think about boarding that special ship you want before boarding takes to long.

Right now boarding is a luck game which isn't player skill based and out of control of the player.

[Serenitis]

I would try to build boarding directly into the combat phase. So it could solve some design problems as the player gets the choice which ship to board and done right you can also have a good risk / reward choice for the player.

A simpler way would be to use the current post-battle story....
Instead of a random selection of a ship to board (if any), the boarding phase of the post-battle could use the same display as the deployment selection to allow the player to choose a ship to board from those which are still intact enough.
Keeping the one boarding action per battle is fine, along with any randomly generated surprises/events.

[Evan_]

Alex has said several times that in combat boarding will not happen

Dang, that was one of the most fun of the ideas I was reading around this forum. The chance based boarding might get balanced to make piracy profitable without making it the primary way of obtaining ships, but not turning it into a tactical objective seems like a missed opportunity.