DANG MAN! When you put it like that it's AWESOME In my head i just got idea like, you click, pod go to enemy ship and after few second's ship is yours to command. That was thing that *** me of with S.P.A.Z. bloody zombies got all my ships all the time, not funny at all...
So, to have marines that can level up and after some level they got better gear and they can board other ships AND (this is big and) on enemy ship they can only disable it at best (entire ship) or disable systems like engines, weapons, shield etc.
BUT
Ship in Starfarer do not live long... With huge fleets i do not have long fights. I just discover Onslaught and his Build-In weapons, poor Conquest didn't last more then 20 sec... So, where is time frame when would you use boarding? I do not see it in this game, at least not in vanilla...
Indeed. During battle, the best that you get is the ship being disabled. When it comes to capturing, the point is for it to be more likely to get the ship/get the ship in better condition than usual. Spending that bit of extra time might be worth it now and then. Like I said though, boarding operations mean you want something pretty specific. Boarding to harass, or disable random systems. Small boarding detachment (18 or so marines, more depending on the ship), they do what they can to screw with the ship, then run to the pods when they've taken serious casualties or the ship blows. The other is Boarding to capture. That's the one that takes the time and the resources. The idea is when you throw down a capture order, the fleet sends out enough marines that they think could capture. Safely, let's say 1.5x-2x the marines they have, and they hold fire, other than kinetic weapons to disable shields when the pods are trying to get to the ship. It's an "end of the battle" order, one where you go "I've done this battle well, I want to risk getting something extra." Then it's all the boarding fun, and the defenses against it.
I think this is something to talk about, too. 3 major defenses. The very first line of defense against boarding, and this one is important, is point defense. Getting marines past that should be a nightmare. Overload them then launch like crazy sort of thing, or disable their pd briefly during combat (like we already see) and notice the opening. The second is shields, which is kind of a "pod fly into it, pod explode" sort of thing. Keep those shields down, for sure! The last line of defense, and one that you want to never get to, is on-board marines. At the point that you are using marines for defense, something very wrong has happened. They WILL be disabling random systems briefly (similar to the disables on taking damage), but if you have enough marines/crew, taking them out eventually won't be a big deal.
I think it could fit in the main game. People just need to realize that doing it in the middle of a raging battle is probably not a good idea, unless desperate, or it's just a harassment team. Boarding to capture is an extra. It is a great deal of work for a big extra reward, and would happen during the mopping up stage. That's just my opinion though, and I'm sure there are plenty that don't agree with me. ^^