Your Very First Boarding (Page 1 of 3)

Written by Rive



It's a very stupid, very basic, very step-by-step guide, so if you prefer to figure things out by yourself then stop reading here. However it's about the what-to, and not about the how-to, so I will not tell you any press-this-click-that, right?

First of all, there are two different things. There are capping, capturing, bailing: when you shoot something small till the pilot gives up and jumps out of the ship. Then you can claim the empty ship for yourself.

Then there is the boarding: when you hire a bunch of marines who then rush in the selected bigship to kill the crew and get control over it.

This guide is about boarding. Especially it's about the 'spacewalk' kinda' boarding which is the cheapest and most quickly reachable way of boarding - however it is NOT the most easy way.

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Prerequisites

You will need:

• Equipment,
• Marines,
• A ship to board Smile,
• A silent, friendly place for some shooting,

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Here is the shopping list for the equipment:

You will need a Passenger Transport (TP) ship. I recommend an Express because it's common, fast and can mount 75MJ shielding. There are other TPs out there which are better for this but those are harder to get. The Express will do.

• Get a gun for your ship's tail and set it to 'Missile only',
• Max out its speed and rudder,
• Triplex scanner (not absolutely necessary but useful),
• Freight scanner,
• 3 x 25MJ shielding,
• Special command software,
• Fight software I & II,
• Bioscanner,
• Transporter device,
• Jumpdrive,
• 150 ecells,
• 15 Fighter drone MKII,
• 50 Dragonfly missile,
• Some mosquito missiles for missile defense,
• A dozen Salvage Insurance,

Well, this is almost a two million credit investment till now. The boarding is not a cheap thing. Most equipment can be bought at Argon Prime and Home of Light if you start as Argon.

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Next, the marines

They are available at:

• Military Outposts, except the Boron ones,
• Pirate Bases,
• Marine Training Barracks,
• Rehabilitation Centers,

So get in your TP and let's buy some meat.

If you dock in a station where marines are available then - if you have a Bioscanner - you will see some stars and statistics on the upper-right corner of the screen about 'Fighting', 'Mechanics', 'Engineering' and 'Hacking'. For now, you are searching for marines with at least two stars for fighting. Beyond that, the more is the better (and more expensive, of course). Such a marine will cost around 100-150 000 credits. You will need six of them. It's important that 'Fighting' experience will be improved only by successful boarding operations.

Some words about the stars. When you deploy the marines - throw them out on the airlock, honestly - they will seek for the target. Then if the target's shields are down, they will try to cut through themselves of the hull. (If the shields are stronger than 10% they are all toast ) Their chance to success with the hull-cutting depends on their mechanical skills. It's preferred to have two marines with at least three star mechanical skills.

When they are breached the hull they will start shooting. It will look and sound like a fighting, but trust me - such beginner marines will just shoot everything what moves, blinks, gives sounds or make them nervous.

Ship components include_onced. So the hull integrity of the target will drop rapidly. The 'Engineering' skill is about to recognize the real targets and to avoid the unnecessary damages. If the hull integrity falls below a threshold then the marines will cease contact and seek for safety - the operation fails. So I recommend two star engineering for every marine. More is better. During the fighting the accumulated fighting skills determines the surviving and success ratio. Your marines will be tested on every deck, so strong fighting skills recommended.

When your marines finished with wrecking the crew and the decks they will reach the central computer. And this is the point when the 'Hacking' skill kicks in. I recommend at least two marines with at least three stars hacking.

The skills (except the fighting) can be improved by teaching: courses are available on EQ docks.

So when you have your team, head for the nearest EQ dock and send them to the school. Dock in, open the trade menu and click on the names. You will need two of them with three star hacking: two of them with three star Mechanical: and every one of them with at least two star Engineering.

This will take some time and credits. At this point the bill will be somewhere around the 5000000 mark. When they finished they will be available on the dock for pickup. You will get a message about their progress.

According to NUKLEAR-SLUG and Dycor one 'Quick' course will improve ~0.3 star: a 'Normal' - one star, an 'Advanced' 1.5-2 star. There is some random factor involved. The overall price of the training will be lower if you rely on 'Advanced' courses. 'All' courses can be even cheaper at long term, but for the first boarding it will be cheaper to rely on specialists instead of generalists. The training time depends on the skills of the marine and the type of the course.

It's advisable to start gathering the equipment and the marines as early as possible, due the training will take some time while you can work on your fight rank. With higher fight rank it's more frequent to get M6 ships for missions.