User:Zemurin/Boarding Guide

β 0.8.1.9

For schmu.

Catch a Meriavex lately?

So, you want to know how to board. No, you don't. You want to know how to board a Meriavex or a Carkalon, and pull it off. 90% prep, 10% execution. So let's get started.

What's the issue with Meridia?

Meridia's forces are special. They have several modifiers that make boarding their ships very difficult.

• Level: Meridia defenders are always 10 levels above the player. This factors into their grunts HP and damage values, always far outstripping yours.
• Never surrender: Their grunts will never surrender.
• Scuttle reactor: They will always try to scuttle their reactor and blow up the ship if requirements for this are met.
• Armory Blow: They will try to blow up the armory, destroying the ship if conditions for this are met.
• Vent airlocks: They will try to vent the airlock, killing your attackers inside and many of the nearby marines, as well as a portion of their own forces.
• Kamikaze: When panicked, their forces will go kamikaze, charge your forces in suicide rushes, doing more damage before dying.
• Alertness: Their defenders are 50% faster to become alert, meaning stealth approaches are not viable.

All of this can be dealt with.

What is needed?

The shopping list is relatively simple:

A slow damager

A ship able to easily but slowly bring down a destroyer to 0%. Speed matters. Boarding checks start at 40% and happen every 15% after that. If you do 50% damage with a strong rail alpha strike, you'll skip the crucial milestone checks and more likely than not destroy the ship. You need a selection of weapons that don't do much critical damage, have low individual damage per shot, so the first low-damage hit after a milestone forces a boardable check without needlessly damaging the hull.

EMP weapons

Every weapon has an EMP value, but some weapons are far better than others. Namely, plasma cannons. Plasma repeaters are also usable (especially since there are no plasma cannons in S-size). EMP starts to visibly accumulate only after armor and shields are depleted, and you have a limited window of time to do most EMP buildup you can until each check is rolled.

For this reason best to avoid any sources of damage that don't carry EMP - such as drones, mercs or anything that might interfere in the process. Ideal conditions are an empty map, you, the target and your plasma weapons in between.

Huge crew

A simple Meridia deckhand is worth 3 of your marines and will kill them 1-vs-3 without much issues. You need numbers. Forget taking down a destroyer with anything other than a size-5 vessel.

Even more crew!

Brig

Having a full complement of marines may not be enough. Having people in the ship's brig will also help. Having people floating out in space in pods is also a good source to bodies to throw at them.

Good crew

Boarding skills

This means skills. Primarily Assault Doctrine, and if you can, in any way, get officers (of combat or engineering category) that have both Assault Doctrine and Crew Conditioning skills in the first two slots. These are the only slots these two skills can appear - if you don't see them when hiring people, they won't get them later - so visit every Personnel center until you find at least one such unicorn!

If you can't get the unicorns, focus on assault doctrine so you reach 8/3. You'll need it.

Other considerations

1. Ship can't be lvl 81+ - those never pass boarding checks.
2. You have a stash of locator beacons - you will need at least one.
3. You are not at war with Canisec - you will need a patrol run as Orsanon's Bounty Hunts won't generate destroyers as primary target so those are unreliable.

The Ship

Ship selection matters. One might think combat vessels are go-to choice for boarding combat, but nope, destroyers only have room for 80 crew while reclaimers and harvesters have room for 96 (without skills), and much more is needed for a successful Meridia destroyer capture. Also, but less importantly, combat hulls boost critical damage, you don't want this. In fact, disable all skills that boost critical chance or damage.

In addition, a ship with as many hardpoints as possible, to spread the combat power around and have each weapon do less damage individually. Also, no drones, no torpedoes, no distractions.

We boil down to a selection between an Axcetor or a Sledge. Both will work - Sledge because of 4 turrets, exclusively plasma cannons, and Axcetor because of 5 turrets where 2 can be filled with S plasma repeaters.

The Deed

Let's walk through every step of the way.

Getting a destroyer boardable

1. Start a Patrol, on Extreme. If you reach lvl 80 ships and don't see a destroyer, reset your rank and retry.
2. Once you spot a destroyer, save to slot 1.
3. Shoot at it until it is boardable. If it is destroyed, reload 1.

Chances of a destroyer becoming boardable on a killing shot, assuming plasma weapons that manage to fill the EMP bar about halfway through, are measly 5.9%. To make it boardable at 40% hull - much less. This might take 10 or more attempts.

Prep for boarding

You managed to make it boardable. Make sure there are no distractions like remaining hostile ships. This is where we start boarding prep. Drop a locator beacon. Approach the ship.

Once you are ready, save to slot 2.

Boarding Setup

For boarding, you want:

• Aggressive
• Hollow
• No grenades
• No automove
• Yes to autobuy
• All marines (entire crew)

Start the boarding, and do nothing. Check the compartments, count the hazards. If you have 20% structural integrity, and see 2 or more hazards in compartments, load 2. You can wing this with a single hazard if you start at 20% integrity, but optimally no hazards (which can happen on 30% attempts).

For starting events - there are events that make the attempt easier, but none are mandatory. Sure - a disabled reactor will prevent them from blowing up the ship, but the strategy does not hinge on this. In fact, one of the best events is a negative one - where entire enemy crew starts alerted.

The Grim and Gritty

Boarding a Carkalon

You start at the airlock. Airlock is a not a safe space, but it's best of the bad choices. Whatever they throw at you while you hold the airlock will eventually die, as long as you have boarders offscreen or in staging area so they can cycle wounded for fresh troops.

The room right next to the airlock is the CORRIDOR OF DEATH (COD). Whatever you throw into that corridor will die.

Understanding how these two rooms function is critical.

The supporting fire mechanic

This is where you need to learn about supporting fire. People in rooms adjacent to a room where combat is happening will help out by firing into the room, if they are alerted to the situation (red circle on a room).

In the airlock you have the advantage because you have 8 marines in there, along with 100+ marines offscreen, all of which are can cycle to replace your wounded. These offscreen marined do not provide cover fire, just fresh meat.

In the corridor of death, the enemy has the advantage, because they have 8 guys there, and quite likely another 20-30 more in 4 adjacent rooms, all of which are firing into your marines, and additionally, every one of their guys is 2-3x stronger than your marines. You cannot take the COD, and you should not attempt to.

Drawing hostiles into airlock

Instead, send 2 marines into the COD. They will die instantly (unless you retreat them when wounded) - but this will flag the defenders of that room for a counterattack onto the airlock. So sit tight, and wait until all but one of the COD-hostiles tries to take over the airlock and dies.

The last man in a room (any room) will never leave it, so ideally you lost or retreated the initial sacrificial lambs, and possibly some airlock defenders, but they lost their entire COD garrison, minus the one remaining. This is what we'll do from now on - getting their people into COD, and then to hit you in the airlock, while you suffer minimal losses of the sacrificial grunts.

Fighting in the airlock from now on will provide the enemy only with support fire from the single enemy they have in the COD, and not 30 guys in all adjacent rooms. This will make fights easier, but still nowhere fair.

Panic

When Meridia's forces panic, they will inevitably go kamikaze, rush your troops and die, while dealing damage to your people. Often, they will flee combat and go to another room.

Never chase them. In that room, they will still go kamikaze, and die, but deal no damage to you, and also - since you were not the one who killed them - there will be no structural integrity loss.

Note: Structural integrity loss is tied to your kills of the defenders - 1.5 points per kill if hollow ammunition, up to 2.5 points per kill for armor piercing ammo.

Always check nearby rooms for panicked soldiers that fled your combats, and do nothing until all of them self-immolate.

Back to the COD

There is a single COD defender, but the 4 rooms adjacent to it are filled. You need to draw them out. If the defender is not a gunner or marine (those are armored and do more damage), send 3 marines. If the defender is a gunner or marine, send 4. All these you send will die - unless you retreat fast and in time.

When they engage the single defender - enemies from nearby alerted rooms will come rushing to help and hopefully (!) overwhelm you by sending 4-5 people. This is the ideal scenario which often happens. Once your guys are gone (dead or retreated), all but one enemies will rush the airlock - and die here. This way we're trading more or less 1:1, which is the goal as they only have up to 80 defenders, while we started with 120+.

Eventually you will have drained:

1. The COD
2. The 3 adjacent rooms
3. The COD2

from all defenders but a single one.

This still leaves a lot of defenders in the armory, reactor and bridge.

Running out of meat?

You have prisoners. Go recruit them in your ship's Toolbar/Crew tab, then click the cogwheel and deploy everything you can scrounge up. Every gun matters. If there were people floating in space, they will be collected by now (if they are far away, fly to them, grab them), and then push everyone into service via the cogwheel button.

The COD2 push

Clearing out the COD2

Take a full squad, kill the last COD defender, and then move the squad (only the 8 guys, not 11 or however many is possible to move) to COD2. There, you will kill the single COD2 defender, and will be rushed by forces from Bridge, Reactor, Armory, and Storage once they alert to full.

Do nothing to help your guys out, get them out of the fight as soon as they have drawn enough enemies to COD2. The more people they bring out, the better.

Send nothing to the empty COD, either! You need the room so your marines can fall back to the airlock.

Once your guys are out, all but one of COD2 enemies will rush COD, and then all but one of COD enemies will rush the airlock - and die there.

Rinse and repeat, carefully, with ever smaller sacrificial squads, until nothing but one defender remains in all rooms except the COD and COD2.

Blowing up the reactor and you

If at any point you hold 55% rooms or more, the enemy will:

1. Blow the reactor, destroying the ship, unless reactor is disabled but the random starting event.
2. Blow up the armory, causing 35% structural damage, which you are really unlikely to be able to afford, thus destroying the ship.

However, we hold only airlock and 2 CODs, so we're nowhere close to 55%, and they have 7 guys left, one in each room. This is why we didn't touch any other room so far.

Note: If you're somehow reading this and not fighting Meridia but someone normal and reasonable - no they won't blow up anything, they aren't fanatics.

Now. Save 3. Rush both armory and reactor simultaneously with as much people you can. You will take them, and this is where danger is gone and you won.

Wrapup

Clear out the remaining holdouts and do the final room investigations.

If you structural integrity is low, leave the final hazard (if any) for last. There is a chance the EXTRACT button will appear before the last hazard blows the ship up, so spam-click the green extract button if you're in danger of losing the ship. Once you click the button, you're done, and a proud owner of a brand-new Meriavex or Carkalon.

GG.