I've found ditching marines is the easiest and most logical way to deal with supply shortages... They're expensive to purchase and maintain, the boarding events happen infrequently, the cost of ships has essentially gone DOWN because supplies have such a great sell value. There's no real reason to cart them around truth be told.
TBH, this is one of the areas where I think things need to be improved.
Ship prices for the high end (cruiser+) should be considerably higher and ramped differently, imo, so that capturing one is finally more attractive than buying one.
Right now, it's the inverse. I had enough money to buy any of the capships in less than an hour of play, but saw no reason to actually buy one, and only one Capture event that entire time. I think Capture needs to happen more often, be higher-risk if you don't have Marines, and ship prices need to be changed so that the incentives are different.
I actually registered to say something about this... (long time lurker, first time poster)
It seems to me that boarding has become almost worthless now... For one their buying price is that of a freaking ELITE crew member!
AND they burn 12 credits per day PER PERSON! I made the mistake of carrying around around 200 marines as that is what I did in .54 and with a high tech cap and a cruiser with 400 mostly Elite crew, I was burning 24 supplies a day and 20 of those were from the marines!
And even WHEN I get boarding actions they ALL self destruct! I have hit about 6 or so boarding events and I have yet to get a ship from one because they all went boom... it seems like there is WAYYY too much luck involved with boarding now. I don't know the "chance to selfdestruct" but with the new changes it feels like it has been nerfed into the void... Of course this is just my .02 USD
