Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
sloppy portmanteau
Feb 4, 2019
Got my katana! And it's real fast.

Time to capture some pirate ships. Where do the SCA like to hang out?

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



added another destroyer to my fleet thanks to SCA. up to 6 ive boarded and captured now. 2 houds, 2 phoenixes, and 2 rattlensakes.

most of my nabs have either been in silent witness, two grand/fires of defeat and around grand exchange. just drop some sats around, set up a global alert for FAF/SCA large and up ships, and wait for the alert to pop.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

sloppy portmanteau posted:

Got my katana! And it's real fast.

Time to capture some pirate ships. Where do the SCA like to hang out?

They are based in the eastern edge of the universe but their ships just turn up all over the place.

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



and note, SCA ships disguise themself as other races, so if you see a destroyer/corvette like this:


with the plunderer/raider in the name

its an SCA one and you can go nab it.

queeb fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Mar 19, 2021

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos
Are there any good effort posts or videos on boarding. I understand the theory of find juicy SCA ships, board with marines. But I've never really put together what that looks like for a ship outfit, effective ways to target subsystems or juke/blindspot turrets and have just been kind of overall paralyzed by choice in approaching it. Seems like a more important skill to have now with the current mining rates.

Pen Expers
May 3, 2006

Pillbug

chglcu posted:

Never seen anything like that in this game, but it looks like it could potentially be corrupted assets or something. Might try verifying the game files. If the files check out, I'd try toggling the graphics options one by one to see if anything fixes it. Guess it could also be overheating or dying hardware, but you'd probably see symptoms of that in other games.

I had to redownload about 3gbs of files that failed to verify, but it seems to be working correctly now. Its been so long since I've had to use verify integrity that I didn't think to do it.

Squiggle
Sep 29, 2002

I don't think she likes the special sauce, Rick.


queeb posted:

and note, SCA ships disguise themself as other races, so if you see a destroyer/corvette like this:


with the plunderer/raider in the name

its an SCA one and you can go nab it.

What the gently caress

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



So what I did to start is grabbed 3 hermes vanguards, loaded them with 20 marines each. no guns or anything on the hermes, just fast engines. these 3 will be your starter troop carriers. Start with phoenixes since they have a HUUUGE blind spot at the back, like you can float around back there and not get shot at.

bring your 3 hermes into the area with the target, but far enough off they wont get shot at.



back here you're perfectly safe.

Shoot out 2/3 of the engines, i always leave one so its less repair later.

You can then hit HOME and END to tab through all the hardpoints on the target. just systematically go through and shoot out all the turrets.





they have small turrets on all the fins and then 2 L turrets on the bottom of the big front disc. just peek and pop them one at a time.

As for ships, i love the nemesis as a player ship. its tanky, has 5 front guns and 2 turrets.

you then shoot the hull down to ~50% or lower, youll see why in a sec.

grab your 3 hermes and right click the ship and click board.



you pick each ship in the list, set its behaviour while your marines board (i usually do keep at range so they dont get shot up), and drag the slider over to max # of marines.. the bottom has 3 phases, approach, infiltration, assault.

approach is how strong your target is re: turrets and whatnot. if you shot off all the turrets this will be very low anyways, so you can set it to that.

infiltration is how low you want the hull before they breach. I like medium, which is 50% hull, so you can change the dropdown to that, or lower if you want to save your marines. ive never had a ship destrouyed from this step even though it says there's a risk of it.

assault phase is just how strong you are vs them, with how many guys you're boarding with.

hit start operation and then you just sit and wait and hope you win!

you'll eventually end up with L ships that can carry like 100+ marines and you can drop the hermes. and once you get veteran marines they can take over a ship really easily.





queeb fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 19, 2021

TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

pretense is my co-pilot

note that faction police don't know they are disguised. if you want to attack a disguised SCA ship in a policed sector, you should scan it in Scan mode first. this will take their disguise off and allow you to attack them without raising the ire of the cops.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

The nemesis is cool, but the split corvette has six guns and is even faster :v:

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



then you be a baller and just do things in your rattlesnake

Saul Kain
Dec 5, 2018

Lately it occurs to me,

what a long, strange trip it's been.


OwlFancier posted:

The nemesis is cool, but the split corvette has six guns and is even faster :v:

But the dragon explodes if you look at it funny. Nemesis is superior imo. The katana looks good too judging by stats.

Also regarding boarding chat, I use a split cobra to cap destroyers. You can dock a teladi magpie to any of the frigates for additional marines.

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



where do you get the cobra? its not at the main wharf for me in heart of acrimony. is it ZYA only?

lagidnam
Nov 8, 2010

queeb posted:

and note, SCA ships disguise themself as other races, so if you see a destroyer/corvette like this:


with the plunderer/raider in the name

its an SCA one and you can go nab it.

You can have hundreds of hours in this game and still learn something new, I always wondered why these guys attacked my ships even though they are "Teladi"

Less Fat Luke
May 23, 2003

Exciting Lemon
You can also bait those motherfuckers by keeping some claytronics or something else high worth in your hold.

timn
Mar 16, 2010
The Katana is pretty sweet, very fast and shockingly tanky due to two shield generators and Terran mk. 3 shields being so powerful. I was expecting it to feel pretty under-gunned with only 4 hardpoints, but the Terran's proton barrage weapon slaps. Unfortunately it's not compatible with other race's corvettes, because putting 6 of those on a Dragon would be unbelievable.

Otherwise I have to put the Dragon Raider as my favorite corvette. It's faster than almost everything else in the game and has 6 medium guns, so you can just pick apart arbitrarily large fleets of S/M ships by doing repeated drive-bys. With the ZYA's special mk. 4 combat engines and the right ship mods you can hit 1500+ m/s top speed with the acceleration to match. Just treat it like an enormously over-gunned and ludicrously fast fighter.

queeb posted:

where do you get the cobra? its not at the main wharf for me in heart of acrimony. is it ZYA only?

Yep, ZYA only. A number of useful ships and equipment pieces are split (:v:) between the FRF and ZYA, so it's always good to rank up with both factions.

sloppy portmanteau posted:

Got my katana! And it's real fast.

Time to capture some pirate ships. Where do the SCA like to hang out?

I recommend putting satellites on top of each gate going in and out of every neutral sector, then create a custom alert in the global orders screen to ping you whenever L or XL SCA ships are detected. The alert won't trigger for SCA ships that are currently disguised as another faction, but they tend to fly their true colors while heading in/out of neutral space.

Less Fat Luke posted:

You can also bait those motherfuckers by keeping some claytronics or something else high worth in your hold.

Secretly the real purpose of my massive integrated hullparts factory is as a honeypot for SCA destroyers.

Saul Kain
Dec 5, 2018

Lately it occurs to me,

what a long, strange trip it's been.


I think ZYA are the only ones with the MK4 Combat Engine as well.

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m





this should be interesting, happened to be flying by in the void when i saw an asgard about to go up against an I and 3 Vs

edit: lol its side cannons took out a v before it even got a shot off.

queeb fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Mar 19, 2021

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast
I finally bought the blueprint for the Small/Medium ship fabrication bay. It cleared me out money-wise so I got it built and set up then took a nap with SETA on to recover.

I come back and the Xenon have lost Faulty Logic, Atiya's Misfortune, and Matrix 451. Whoops.

BitBasher
Jun 6, 2004

You've got to know the rules before you can break 'em. Otherwise, it's no fun.


chglcu posted:

Do you have the signal leak indicator accessibility setting enabled? Think that might be a new thing, but it’s made hunting down leaks much less of a pain than it used to be. At least I assume that’s what’s creating targets for them in the hud.

Oh thank god, I quit playing this months ago because I'm hearing impaired and that was basically not possible for me to do besides dumb luck, if it's what I was thinking of.

BMan
Oct 31, 2015

KNIIIIIIFE
EEEEEYYYYE
ATTAAAACK


I just realized there's a setting to not stop the ship when you open a menu

I am sure this knowledge will not lead to any crashes whatsoever

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



Travic posted:

I finally bought the blueprint for the Small/Medium ship fabrication bay. It cleared me out money-wise so I got it built and set up then took a nap with SETA on to recover.

I come back and the Xenon have lost Faulty Logic, Atiya's Misfortune, and Matrix 451. Whoops.

yeah xenon have lost a couple sectors in my game as well. May need to install a mod to beef them up.

or unite paranid/HOP and have them declare war on everyone to keep thigns going.

Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

queeb posted:

yeah xenon have lost a couple sectors in my game as well. May need to install a mod to beef them up.

or unite paranid/HOP and have them declare war on everyone to keep thigns going.

You can massively help the Xenon with both DLC's installed.


1. Do Terran Covert Ops plot and give data to Argon to make Ant/Arg declare war on Terrans
2. Do Yaki plot and end by directing Xenon to attack Terrans
3. Do United Paranid and make them declare war on everyone
4. Support Curbs and hurt ZYA


I am very impressed with what Egosoft pulled off with this game honestly.

Now we just need the Boron to reconnect and see the absolute hell the gate network has already descended into.

Thom12255 fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 20, 2021

queeb
Jun 10, 2004

m



drat, the plots can change a ton. i need to find the yaki and terran plots.

edit: this asgard is tearing up this I now

queeb fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Mar 20, 2021

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

I now own a Syn. Idk if its good yet. Any recommendations on loadout? I imagine I use the nose guns vs enemy destroyers

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

Since last posting, Ive almost made it to Asteroid Belt

I hope SETA saves me

cheesetriangles
Jan 5, 2011





Did they ever change how you claim abandoned ships? I'm trying to claim the free frigate and cannot for the life of me find a signal source after half an hour of looking.

chglcu
May 17, 2007

I'm so bored with the USA.
I always just right click them and claim them by boarding with one marine. Wasn’t aware of any other method.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

Marine boarding used to damage/ break stuff on abandoned ships. Now I send my survey ships out with a marine or two. Occasionally end up with new ships.

cheesetriangles posted:

Did they ever change how you claim abandoned ships? I'm trying to claim the free frigate and cannot for the life of me find a signal source after half an hour of looking.

It's right by the EVA hatch. For most frigates that's at the back of the ship.

TheDeadlyShoe
Feb 14, 2014

pretense is my co-pilot

cheesetriangles posted:

Did they ever change how you claim abandoned ships? I'm trying to claim the free frigate and cannot for the life of me find a signal source after half an hour of looking.

It's usually near the airlock, so look there if you know where it is.

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

Theres apparently a known bug with signals not appearing. Boarding via Marine thankfully works still

Travic
May 27, 2007

Getting nowhere fast
So most of the shipyards are full of wares and not much ship building is happening. Does that mean the economy is stalled?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

If they are actually full of everything they need but not building it means the faction is at ship capacity I think. They don't just build endlessly, they try to maintain fleets and then send the fleets to fight things. As they get destroyed they try to replace them, and there is also station building which uses similar resources. War is the primary economic sink because destroyed ships and stations are what consume most of the resources, so more war will usually help stimulate things.

Usually though they end up missing a few particular components in the shipyards and stuff like hull plates are usually in very high demand because literally everything needs them, stations, ships, all of it.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Mar 20, 2021

cheesetriangles
Jan 5, 2011





Well that is annoying. Had a station built in Grand Exchange and some gas miners told to mine methane to supply it. They would mine up a nearly full cargo hold except for like 4 space, then just keep looking for new places to mine forever and never deliver it.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I've had my miners act weird too, they seem obsessed with going to black hole sun to mine rather than grand exchange where the station is.

Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

cheesetriangles posted:

Well that is annoying. Had a station built in Grand Exchange and some gas miners told to mine methane to supply it. They would mine up a nearly full cargo hold except for like 4 space, then just keep looking for new places to mine forever and never deliver it.

You sure your buy order is set up correctly? They might not be able to transfer the ware to the station.

cheesetriangles
Jan 5, 2011





Thom12255 posted:

You sure your buy order is set up correctly? They might not be able to transfer the ware to the station.

Might have been setup wrong.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

The interface is twitchy and if you have a manual buy order set up then it will love to set it to buy a single unit when you're just clicking around. Which for some reason affects your miners too.

Thom12255
Feb 23, 2013
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY
So after a few hours of mining with ships that actually have mining lasers my economy is doing fine and I've made a few hundred million.

I'm going to revert my save to before I made Argon declare righteous holy war on Terrans as they don't stand a chance right now. I'll need to really support their economy to give them a chance and that'll take a few days.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Krogort
Oct 27, 2013
What do you guys make of the Terran industrial ships ? Their miner and haulers seem unimpressive but I wonder if their fancy Terran engine make them worthwhile.
It is also pretty odd that the Terran shipyard use hull parts while they have no station module producing them.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply