Boarding with minimal loss of Marines and Reputation

IMHO, and after more than 13,000 hours in the game playing it since V2.60, following Egosoft's recomendations on how to perform a boarding leaves the player in a tug of war between losing and regaining reputation with the factions.

It is true that after 7.50 the mechanics of boarding have changed and while boarding doesn't take forever as it used, it is more harmfull reputation wise.

Of course that does not apply to pirate (SCA) ships where there is no rep loss.

Now then... as our Boron Frenemy use to say, this how I board commercial ships with minimal if not zero loss in Marines or reputation.

Τo begin with forget about hundreds of Marines. A selected few will do the job except in capturing an Asgard or the Erlking. There are three ways about it:

• Grab yourself a Cobra (Split pilots are too easy to bail out). It can hold 25 Marines. The Marines being picked up individually between 2* Marine - 2* Morale (135,000 each) and 2 4/5* Marine - 3* Morale (1,200,000).

• Buy yourself a Falx completing the first part of the Terran plot that gives you +10 rep with TER. It can hold 23 Marines.

• Make an SCA Minotaur Raider bail out. It can hold 15 Marines, so it is not much good in boarding Destroyers but it will do the job for Freighters/Miners.

Here I intentionally left out the free Osprey that the player gets when in The Terran gamestart because it has the same capacity as the Minotaur but is extremely slow.

Two ways about it, sometimes both to be used together (Especially if the player wants to buy the Falx, which cossts about 7 million).

• The abandoned Odysseus Vanguard will sell for a good 8 million if it has no main guns. If it does have it's best to keep it to sell it to a war effort for about 16 million.

• The Hyperion "Made in China" the player receives after the first part of the Hyperion plot is finished. Sells for aprox 15 1/2 million.

Now that we have the means and the funding sorted out, let's see the mechanics of boarding civilian ships.

Once the player starts any boarding procedure or fires at a civilian ship it gives a distress call. If the player is in any "organised" region the security forces will be informed and the player loses rep with the faction that owns the sector.

There are 3 exceptions:

• If the ship is hostile to the faction that ownes the sector, i.e. a ZYA ship in an ARG Sector.

• If the ship is in an unclaimed (White) sector.

• If the ship is in Hatikva, Pioneer of Free Families sectors.

The player will also loose at least 1 rep for every destroyed engine and 1 rep point for every two destroyed turrets.

There is a small window of opportunity that the player can board a ship in any sector regardless of sector's ownership.

That is right after the ship has docked and is engaged in Trading operations or waiting for the drones to finish the trade. It will send no distress signal.

At this point it is useful for the player to know their boarding ship. All three ships I recommended above have their airlock on their top, so the Marines will exit form their top going upward.

The player will put the boarding ship under and to the side of the target vessel, about 300 m off each direction. When the trading procedure starts quickly kill the turrets facing the player's side. Usually one or two will do the trick. There is a 1 point loss of rep with every two destroyed turrets, so first try to destroy just one.

Once the first turret is destroyed PAUSE the game and give boarding instructions to the Marines "Very Strong", "Very Strong".

Unpose the game and shoot some shots against the target vessel. This will make it's turrets target the player instead of the Marines. It is paramount for the boarding vesel's turrets and defence drones (if any) to be disarmed. We don't want any extra rep loss and ships shooting at us do we?

Stay under fire until the Marines land on the vessel. It goes without saying that if the vessel has missile turrets they are the ones the player has to destroy from the beginning.

There is one exception in staying under and to the side and that is if the target vessel is a Helios E. This one has it's L turret below. It will have max two turrets on top, one by the nose and one right next to it's landing pad. They are the ones to destroy, so the position in this case is above the target.