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[CrashToDesktop]

@Thaago
How about uncertainty in logical and reasonable places?  Just because I said RNG is good in moderate amounts doesn't mean I want to make turning left only have an 80% chance of working, lol (although that might make for an interesting base for another game, heh).

[Megas]

The main thing I dislike about boarding is unreliable chance of success.  I simply reload until I succeed, although unfavorable odds mean I might grind for more than an hour in a worst-case scenario.  Better to just make boarding reliable (if you have enough troops) but more expensive than buying the ship at a market.

[CrashToDesktop]

The main thing I dislike about boarding is unreliable chance of success.  I simply reload until I succeed, although unfavorable odds mean I might grind for more than an hour in a worst-case scenario.  Better to just make boarding reliable (if you have enough troops) but more expensive than buying the ship at a market.

You know, I don't think it's ever going to be built to be a reliable system.  The most reliable system out there is purchasing a ship on the market - so inherently, I think boarding has to be less reliable.

[Thaago]

The main thing I dislike about boarding is unreliable chance of success.  I simply reload until I succeed, although unfavorable odds mean I might grind for more than an hour in a worst-case scenario.  Better to just make boarding reliable (if you have enough troops) but more expensive than buying the ship at a market.

You know, I don't think it's ever going to be built to be a reliable system.  The most reliable system out there is purchasing a ship on the market - so inherently, I think boarding has to be less reliable.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree . Still, I enjoy reading all the perspectives! (Also, I agree with Megas.... weird!  )

[nomadic_leader]

The main thing I dislike about boarding is unreliable chance of success.  I simply reload until I succeed, although unfavorable odds mean I might grind for more than an hour in a worst-case scenario.  Better to just make boarding reliable (if you have enough troops) but more expensive than buying the ship at a market.

There should just be a really simple capture odds equation -- not much extra crew: unreliable. Tonnes of extra crew: reliable. (And tonnes of extra crew and ships to carry them is expensive)

Would some kind of "boarding in battle" mechanic be fun? Yes, it very probably would be. (It is in Distant Worlds for example.) But how do you accomplish this?
If you're boarding an enemy ship and fail does it explode? Does it carry on attacking you? Does it run away?
What if you succeed? Does the ship just sit there? Does it somehow get converted to your side right there and start fighting it's former comrades? And if so, how do you go about achieving that?

It a lot of work, and for something that doesn't really add anything to the game that isn't already achieved by a simple text dialog which flat out bypasses all those problems.
Dubious? I don't think it is at all. More like a realistic assesment of what is worth spending effort on.

Details easily figured out. In answer to your specific questions: Sometimes; no; no; it immediately switches to your side and you have to make it run to safety; no; yes but its at almost no CR so you can't really fight with it; crew is transferred, some changes to crew mechanic are needed.

Yes this could also be done by having one, very simple dialog after battle where you can decide to capture as many ships as you want with 1-2 clicks each (no options about shuttles which are a waste of time in a game of this scale)

The reason for having it in combat is that it creates actual different objectives in combat. It's another thing you can order your AI ships to do. As I said, combat is uninteresting and repetitive since you're always doing the same thing.

[Serenitis]

Details easily figured out. In answer to your specific questions: Sometimes; no; no; it immediately switches to your side and you have to make it run to safety; no; yes but its at almost no CR so you can't really fight with it; crew is transferred, some changes to crew mechanic are needed.

Yes this could also be done by having one, very simple dialog after battle where you can decide to capture as many ships as you want with 1-2 clicks each (no options about shuttles which are a waste of time in a game of this scale)

The reason for having it in combat is that it creates actual different objectives in combat. It's another thing you can order your AI ships to do. As I said, combat is uninteresting and repetitive since you're always doing the same thing.

That's great! I can see that working woonderfully.
Now imagine how much work is going to be involved in creating and debugging this behaviour.
Why would you do all that work when you already have something that works perfectly fine in place already?

If shuttles are a waste of time then how do you even start a game? 
Sure they're a pain when you have dozens of them, but there's a thing you see that makes all that clutter go away. That thing is called: Frieghters.
If you're getting annoyed by shuttle clutter it's your own fault for dragging them around everywhere when you just don't need to. You don't need any more than 2 or 3 in a fleet for boarding anyway.

The thing about having boarding in combat is that it is very easy to turn that into some kind of "twitch" mechanic where you are forcing the player to do <thing> in a certain way at a certain time, and that is something I feel needs to be avoided at all costs.
If it's going to be a simple as get close to enemy, launch shuttles, watch progress bar until victory (or not) then that's cool.
If it's going to be a mini game of some kind, or require super reflexes and timing then it would be an utterly horrible experience.

[nomadic_leader]

If it's going to be a simple as get close to enemy, launch shuttles, watch progress bar until victory (or not) then that's cool.
If it's going to be a mini game of some kind, or require super reflexes and timing then it would be an utterly horrible experience.

Agreed.  My problem with the current boarding mechanic is that it is already a minigame-- an uninteresting, text based one.

if its in combat: give your AI ship a board order, it goes up to it and a progress bar starts, then resolves 1 way or other.

if it's after battle: 1 dialog screen for all ships, 3 clicks max to resolve each ship you want to capture.

It's our duty to make suggestions in terms of quality only. That is something we can offer an opinion about.   Let the developers decide what is feasible. That is something we cannot offer an informed opinion about.

[MindsEye]

Im a fan of boarding. I became one with EV. I liked its version quite a bit.With that said I think boarding should be player controlled.I like both ideas of a deep text based or combat boarding system.

I would like to suggest what is to me a more realistic approach(or my view of) to balancing out boarding.Instead of making everything ultra random or super expensive to capture ships I suggest to look at things like reputation.What if all ships are registered legally(except pirates) to citizen captains to faction.Any time you capture a ship from a faction and bring it in for repairs you take a rep hit for the entire region towards pirate status.After all at space dock the officials would be asking why said captains ship is in your possession or why you suddenly show up in space dock with an unregistered extra ship.

Basically I am suggesting a way to become accountable for capturing ships within the universe as apposed to arbitrary penalties.

[SafariJohn]

You know, it just occured to me that the three issues this thread seeks to address could be almost completely avoided with surrender mechanics, including in-battle surrendering.

Seems much more elegant, from some cursory consideration.