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[Gothars]

The problem about the low-chance-of-success randomized boarding we have now is that it is very frustrating. The problem about both high-chance-of-success randomized boarding and choose-your-target boarding is that it invalidates normal ways to get more and fancy ships (commission) and makes progression too fast.

Enter skill restricted capturing, modeled after the upcoming Planetary Survey mechanic. Say you have a capturing skill which limits which tier* of ship you can successfully board, capture and make space worthy. Maybe everyone could take over a Mudskipper or Buffalo Mk.II, but EG seizing a Falcon would require capturing skill level 5 and a Hyperion level 10. If your skill is high enough for a ship, you can successfully capture the ship any time you encounter and disable it, even multiple ships after one fight. This eliminates most potential for frustration and save scumming and the need of re-engaging a fleet.

"But how would that not completely flood the player with free ships/money and ruin the economic progression?", I hear you ask. Well, by making boarding and reactivating a ship very costly. Marines are already part of the cost of boarding, but at the moment an exploded ship turns into a ship capable of interstellar flight for free, which is frankly a bit silly. If getting a captured ship hyperspace worthy (to 0 CR) would cost many supplies and heavy machinery up front, it would minimize the initiative to capture ships just for money or lateral fleet expansion. I'd say it should be quite a bit more expensive then buying them, equal at best, if the current cost of supplies/heavy machinery are favorable.


In this scenario the only point of the capturing skill restriction would be to prevent players from getting fancy/favorite ships too easily, while the boarding/reactivation costs would prevent them from increasing their fleet size too fast.  
A lore explanation of the skill could be the difficulty to rebuild the increasingly sophisticated systems in higher tier ships, and hack into their more secure computer systems.




*What would be the best way to determine ship tier? It should be equivalent to a ship's desirability, but also transparent, so you easily know which skill level gives you access to which ships. Maybe just monthly maintenance cost? Or maintenance cost with respect to ship size?

[Megas]

Unless we can build any ship we want, this smells like a skill tax, possibly in an aptitude or skill I might ignore otherwise.

The only thing that might be unbalanced with boarding is not boarding itself, but finding and stockpiling the guaranteed thirty cheap marines at black markets with zero stability (at decivilized or pirate worlds without a free port).  They cost 233 credits instead of the 1000 or so credits elsewhere.  Could easily sell them at a profit, but it is better to use them to board ships.

It is aggravating that the player cannot choose which ship he wants if multiple ships could be rolled for boarding.  If one among eligible ships could be chosen, and save-scumming was really impossible (or easy), it would ease frustration of getting ships that are too rare for the player (yet everyone else has plenty for their fleets).

Player can still save-scum bounty fleets for ships to board.  He cannot save next to the fleet, but about a week or more game time before fighting fleet, extending time of each attempt.  Still much faster than trying to grind elite unique items or runes in Diablo II with a magic-find sorceress for weeks, but I do not think such grinding should be encouraged here.

[Deshara]

lack of rng makes this a required skull, which really just puts a bunch of levels of grinding to get this skull up to party before a player considers themselves playing the real game.

[Gothars]

Unless we can build any ship we want, this smells like a skill tax

lack of rng makes this a required skull, which really just puts a bunch of levels of grinding to get this skull up to party before a player considers themselves playing the real game.

How so? You are not getting anything from this skill that you could not get otherwise, by taking a commission from the right faction. And besides getting rare ships this skill would be pretty useless, an "optimal" character should never learn it.
Remember that skill points are about to get a lot more rare and valuable, thanks to the new survey and salvage skills and all that is to follow. And that "building the perfect fleet" is gonna be less and less the focus of the game, as industry and exploration develop.

[borgrel]

i'm waiting for the next update before doing any more hypothesizing

there are just tooooo many changes already implemented and promised to give any guesses any likelihood of accuracy.

[Alex]

Hmm. If I can maybe shift the discussion a little bit, or just talk about a different aspect of this.

So, boarding. As it stands, the mechanic is a "rare drop" - a potentially nice reward that you don't have any control over. It's very much not suited for being used to acquire a specific ship. However, players use it as one, and since it's not suited for that, it's frustrating. Why use it for this? Probably because while the mechanic is not good for it, it's still one of the "better" options available if one wants a specific ship.

But this raises another question: why do players want specific ships in the first place? My guess is that currently, so much of the game is just building up your perfect fleet. The fleet is the end, not the means. I'd expect that to flip at some point, though - imagine that the fleet is a tool to achieve actual campaign goals, not a show-piece to polish up. I think that will significantly change how people look at ships, hopefully more in terms of "suited for given job" than "is this specific hull".


That said, "pay ridiculous price to repair broken hull", I don't see an obvious problem with on the face of it. And it might tie into salvaging, and perhaps give tugs more of a role in some way. Boarding specifically, though, that's not really the right term for it anymore, is it? Hmm.

Whether this needs to tie into a skill, that's a good question. Probably depends on whether the skill would be "must get"; right now it feels like it would be (so, no) but once a fleet is more means than end, perhaps yes. Or it could get rolled into the (very probable) Salvage skill, with say a simple cost reduction, from "ridiculous" down to "extremely expensive".

Yeah, nothing concrete to say here yet - mulling this stuff over while working on REDACTED.

(I've got to say, removing boarding as it is right now is looking fairly appealing. Regardless of what it's intended to be, it's definitely something un-fun in terms of how it seems to be mainly being used.)

[Megas]

Probably because while the mechanic is not good for it, it's still one of the "better" options available if one wants a specific ship.

Not just "better", it is currently the only way to get a rare ship if player does not have commission and high relations with the faction that produces the ship.  Even if the player commissions with the faction that makes the ship, he may still never find the ship for sale because it is so rare, and he may be tempted to attack his sponsor's detachments (while transponder is off) just to board that rare ship he wants.

I also use boarding to get useful common ships because of cheap marines and Special Ops, but I probably could easily afford the ships otherwise when I can do this.  For example, standard Eagle rolls up for boarding.  I do not really need it, but it's there, I have marines to burn and I got just a great deal on supplies, boarding it will probably be cheaper than buying the hull.

And, yes, I board (or buy) ships to get the perfect fleet, because having the perfect fleet is fun.  Much like people willing to trade lots more for and/or dupe Windforce (in Diablo II v1.09) with 8% mana leech instead of 6 or 7% mana leech.  People love perfection, some to a fault and will munch or do whatever it takes to get it.  I do not use junk ships like Hammerhead and Aurora in my fleet if there are better.  I even avoid useful but second-tier ships like Sunder by endgame.

(Personally, I like to cherry pick all of the best ships from each faction.  Hyperion and Scarab from Tri-Tachyon here, XIV ships from Hegemony there.)

Paying ridiculous price to repair broken hull does not seem problematic, especially if it would be the only way to get a hull the player wants so desperately.

[Thaago]

Probably because while the mechanic is not good for it, it's still one of the "better" options available if one wants a specific ship.

Not just "better", it is currently the only way to get a rare ship if player does not have commission and high relations with the faction that produces the ship.  Even if the player commissions with the faction that makes the ship, he may still never find the ship for sale because it is so rare, and he may be tempted to attack his sponsor's detachments (while transponder is off) just to board that rare ship he wants....

Exactly this. There are ships you just don't see for sale, yet pop up in every other AI fleet. The natural interpretation of that is 'hey, there's boarding, I bet thats how we are supposed to play with those ships'. Which doesn't go well, as discussed extensively.

I wouldn't mind if boarding went away, but I would like a way to get the ships I want. If the way is difficult, then its a goal for the player to strive for, which I consider good. But at the moment the only method is boarding (shudder) or buying out entire markets and rolling the restocking dice. I feel like just taking a Tri-Tach executive into the cargo hold of an Atlas, showing them the five-million credits worth of drugs and organs, and saying 'now seriously, can I just get a damn Hyperion?'

[Weltall]

When I play Starsector, I feel realism oozing from almost every aspect of it. There are some things that give the feeling of an arcade game, but if anything seems that over time more and more realism is added, making me feel more and more part of it's world. Anything that adds more realism, even if it can be seen by some as "clutter" is good for me, because it feels like walking inside a room in a game and everything you see can be moved. It is pointless, since most of the things in the room will not be useful in any way, but they do not feel nailed down, held by unknown forces.

Like I love the fact that the player can board and use every single solitary ship, useful or not, that is the reason I would like boarding to be more "difficult" and realistic. Right now boarding must be one of the most arcade feeling parts of the game, especially since the next update will make salvaging a less autoresolving action, by choice (if I got it right at least).

As for salvaging a hull, I feel people are just trying to find any way possible to give ideas of how to replace the automated boarding, with something more realistic. If you think about it, even the current boarding, is not really boarding. I might be wrong or maybe mods have brainwashed me, but when boarding happens in my mind my ships fly around to salvage and then they see one of the wrecks that can still move and it is about to escape. This is when they decide to board it, since it can still function. So if anything, at least in my mind, boarding happens as part of salvaging.

When I think of spaceboarding I think on scifi cartoons usually, when either pods with boards are shot towards the ship and they run inside to capture or disable it or when they ram to each other and grapple on the other ship and then inject corridors ... uhhh can't find the right word. I am not sure how the second is realistic though, but still in my imagination it is really awesome.

But anyway, like I said, right now boarding to me is a part of salvaging. If one of the ship still functions, you board it to claim it and fix it. For the prices I donno. In my book, indeed capturing and fixing a ship should be something really really really expensive. I mean you take a hunk of metal and try to restore it to what it used to be. Sounds more expensive that building it from nothing.

But I am sure some will disagree since they might want to use capturing ships as means to make money. They need to remember though, that in games you can make money from capturing ships, you capture them before blowing them to pieces, so you do not have to fix them. If actual capturing a ship, in it's prime condition, ever becomes possible, then I feel it should be something very very hard and definitely consuming... although I am not sure what kind of consuming. I mean it can be time consuming, resources consuming or patienc *the ship explodes while trying to capture it, damaging your own ship*

...well darn.. this brings back memories.

[Megas]

Another thing.  Boarding is also useful for obtaining even common ships that your sponsored faction does not produce, or if the player goes free agent and does not accept any commission.  For example, I commission with Tri-Tachyon to get extra money for killing Hegemony that infests most systems and to get access to the best high-tech ships and more heavy blasters in the market.  However, I like to grab some Enforcers and Dominators that are ubiquitous in every faction's market except Tri-Tachyon's.  (Of course, I can go to Independents for some of the ships.)

If future Starsector does a Nexerelin and lets me build my lone star faction and kill everyone for sector supremacy, then boarding may be my only way of obtaining ships my faction cannot produce.

[Gothars]

So, boarding. As it stands, the mechanic is a "rare drop" - a potentially nice reward that you don't have any control over. It's very much not suited for being used to acquire a specific ship. However, players use it as one, and since it's not suited for that, it's frustrating. Why use it for this? Probably because while the mechanic is not good for it, it's still one of the "better" options available if one wants a specific ship.

I wonder in how far this is only a problem for us hardcore fans, and if maybe for the average non-forum player it works just as intended, as a nice occasional bonus. *shrug*

I think that will significantly change how people look at ships, hopefully more in terms of "suited for given job" than "is this specific hull".

Wile I agree in principle, and have argued the same in the past, I'd not expect it to totally cure the fleet optimization craze. If you look at almost any RPG, there's a high (or at least vocal) proportion of players who are focused on optimizing their character (sadly just in-game ) regardless of how that relates to the rest of the game. Even in story-heavy games like TES or Fallout many people would rather deal a few more DPS than unlock new dialog options, despite their combat strength being long since "suited for any given job". I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying that character (and that is what your fleet is) optimization will play an important role long after it is no longer the exclusive long term goal of Sector. It's just what players want. So exploits in relation to it will stay relevant just the same, and need to be addressed.

(I've got to say, removing boarding as it is right now is looking fairly appealing. Regardless of what it's intended to be, it's definitely something un-fun in terms of how it seems to be mainly being used.)

Wouldn't be a huge loss, atm I never use it anyway. I still think turning it into the thing for which player "abuse" it anyway, i.e getting specific ships, would be the best use.  (Besides pirate roleplaying

[Alex]

I feel like just taking a Tri-Tach executive into the cargo hold of an Atlas, showing them the five-million credits worth of drugs and organs, and saying 'now seriously, can I just get a damn Hyperion?'

(Found this entirely too amusing.)

Wile I agree in principle, and have argued the same in the past, I'd not expect it to totally cure the fleet optimization craze. If you look at almost any RPG, there's a high (or at least vocal) proportion of players who are focused on optimizing their character (sadly just in-game ) regardless of how that relates to the rest of the game. Even in story-heavy games like TES or Fallout many people would rather deal a few more DPS than unlock new dialog options, despite their combat strength being long since "suited for any given job". I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying that character (and that is what your fleet is) optimization will play an important role long after it is no longer the exclusive long term goal of Sector. It's just what players want. So exploits in relation to it will stay relevant just the same, and need to be addressed.

Yeah, that sounds right. (Also, shots fired! This thread is really delivering.)

[Ghoti]

Can I ask at this point if boarding is economically viable? People are saying it's like a bonus or something.

Last time I tried to capture a destroyer, it cost me 16K in marines and 8K in supplies to repair it. Factoring in that and the cost of selling it back, even on the black market, not to mention the lost resources I would've gained if I just blew it up. It was a huge net loss. Is there something you can do to minimize the costs?

It used to be a bonus, You could do a low risk boarding operation and so it made sense to keep marines with you, it changed (in 0.72 I think?) into a transaction, marines -> ship.

edit: changed in 0.7

[Alex]

Can I ask at this point if boarding is economically viable? People are saying it's like a bonus or something.

"Bonus" in terms of occasionally giving you access to a ship you wouldn't otherwise have, not in terms of getting a cheap ship.

[Sy]

Can I ask at this point if boarding is economically viable?

it can vary greatly, based on the ship (how many marines do you need to board it? how many supplies do you need to repair it? how much does the ship cost on the market?) and how much you paid for your marines and, to a lesser extent, supplies. just for marines alone, buying them from the military market of a core world can cost five times as much as buying them from the black market of a poor fringe world.

on average, boarding a ship just to sell it is probably not worth it, but boarding it compared to buying it yourself probably is.

the main reason to board ships is generally to get ones you wouldn't otherwise have access to, not to make money.