...And now for something completely different...

Only one or two. The trick is to do it in the witching hour while facing north and singing the William Tell Overture*. Thus you will appease the random number generator gods.

* Some people tout Rise Of The Valkyries. Do not listen to this superstitious nonsense. As we all know, that's for boarding #deca.

I'm actually rather proud of the cap, since in addition to only having 8 marines, I did it in a sector with a Xenon station and an I bearing down on me. If I had screenies I would post them, but alas I was being too frantic to think of taking any.
- Seygantte

Terran/ATF tend to more frequently have things like hull polarisation or internal sentry lasers. Ive heard that the M1s or M2s from the ATF can be unboardable sometimes. Theres a thread regarding that somewhere on the forum. I myself havent tried on them, so I cant speak from experience.
- Seygantte

The best things to start training up weak marines on are TMs. They tend to be unescorted other than their docked fighters, only have 2 decks and dont pose much of a threat. The rep hit isnt very big, so if there are any races where youre at a high rank see if they have any floating around. If you really dont want to piss anyone off, you can try heading on down to the Yaki sectors and prey on their Chokaros, and then later move up to the TL Ryu.
- Seygantte

The point is, after Xenons, ATF and then Terrans are the next hardest to board.
- Seygantte

The point is, after Xenons, ATF and then Terrans are the next hardest to board.
- Seygantte

You aren't kidding.. I've been trying to snag my first xenon ship but its proving to be very difficult.
I have about 50 some odd marines in training and about 30 of them have 100 in all skills inculding fighting.
Well last night I was in Segaris and I found a Xenon Q just cruising along all by himself. I called in my sirokos with 20 marines with 100 in all skills. I scanned the ship and aside from a pretty impressive arsenal of weapons he had just a triplex scanner so I went ahead and dropped his shields and boarded. all 20 marines were gone by deck 2. I loaded from my save point just before boarding and then beat his hull down to 49% and boarded, all marines dead by deck 3.. again I loaded up and beat him down to 17% then boarded once again and my marines made it to deck 4 before they were all wiped out. at that point I called it a decent but failed attempt =(

am I missing anything or are they just that difficult to capture?
- mechm0343

I will tell you how I did it. I found one (actually two) in Xenon Core. I spammed hammers at all the other capitals (killed 2 K's, 2 J's and countless Q's) enough to clear the gate. Then I jumped in my Guppy and Hyperion with an additional 8 five-star marines. I burned away from the center of the sector, while shooting at the I to get its attention. Once I was out 30km form him, I matched speed, and killed off any fighters, P's, or Q's that spawned to help him. Once he was sufficiently far from the center of the sector (away from where any spawning Xenon could kill him once I took control), I reloaded with the missiles from the Guppy (It carries an additional 450 hammers and 600 flails) and worked down the shields of the I. I was around 25km from it the first time and 20km from it the second time.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the I can and will barrage Firestorm torpedoes at you. Make sure you shoot them down! They will kill you. He usually fires 3 at a time. Once he runs out, he will fire hornets at an ungodly rate. These aren't such a big deal, just point you rear end at them and let your flak take them out (assuming you are using a Cobra)

On to the boarding. It took me a little while to figure out the timing of it. The shields recharge very fast, so 1 flail a second or so is needed to keep them down. While the marines are in route, transfer the extra 8 marines from the Hyperion, and keep running 1 flail a second, and shooting a flail at each firestorm he fires. Once the marines land, launch the second set of marines; they should meet up with the first around deck 3-4. Save before the first set make it in. This is the save you will need to come back to if you don't have 16 or more marines once you make it through all 5 decks.

If you don't have at least 16 marines still alive when the 5th deck is clear, they will all die. I had 14 alive when the 5th deck was clear, and they all died instantly. You will need at least 16 alive after all 5 decks. Once they start hacking you can save, and come back if you want to get different drops, but at that point the ship is yours.

I killed the second I in the core, because it had hull damage. It respawned in Xenon sector 695. This is where I took the second I. Same method, burning away until it was sufficiently far and all the supporting fleet was dead.


pic of the two I's.

Pic of the I in action.
- martimus