Capturing Ships

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1 Capturing Ships

[edit] Capturing Ships

[edit] Ship Capture via Combat

capturing ships via Combat is usually performed by killing off the entire crew of a ship during a VCR viewing. if successful the ship will change ownership during the VCR. the trick is to not destory it prior to being able to use it

set "do not fire at disabled" to on in your Ship Command - Attack screen
docked and escorting wings should be set to "do not fire at disabled" or "Anti fighter" only, turn off "attack enemies" (attack enemies actually means attack ships - see below for details) in your Wing Command screen

[edit] There are two ways to eliminate the crew of an enemy ship

the first way is to use selected weapons. weapons have a kill rating, some weapons have higher kill ratings than others. while some have little or no kill rating whatsoever. the higher the kill rating the better your chances. but only if your other weapons dont destroy the ship before the crew is dead. a high Blast power weapon will destroy the ship before you get a chance to kill off the crew.
another way to capture via combat is to destroy life support systems. if the crew of the enemy ship dies as a result of life support failure during the fight, the ship will change hands and become yours.

below is 2 charts showing the weapons and thier statistics for weapon damages. Pay special attention to the Crew Kill and Life Support damage columns. as well as the blast power damage.

[edit] Common reasons why ship capture fails

Wings not set to Do Not Fire at Disabled in the Wing Command screen. even if set correctly, Wings will often do enough blast damage to enemy hulls before a ships weapons can get within range to start killing the crew. reccomend not using Wings at all if attempting to Capture ships during battle. or set them as Anti Air only to take out incoming Wings.
Exotic Tech +damage to armor. this is not a good thing for capturing ships. if the Armor goes before you can kill enough crew the ship is likely to go Boom before enough of the crew is dead. Large Weapons can kill crew if the Shields are Down and the Armor is still up. the use of Small Weapons however require hits on the hull before killing of crew can begin. allow your Large Weapons to dig in as much Crew kill as they can get because once the armor is gone, hull wont last long. however if you carry few large weapons and many small ones. then the Exotic Tech +armor damage could be to your advantage.

[edit] Notes regarding wings

Wings typically foul up Capture of enemy vessels by one means or another.
Keep your Wings docked unless your expecting to encounter enemy Wings,
if you expect to encounter enemy Wings during your Capture attempt. turn off Attack Enemies switch. and turn on Anti Air switch and allow them to enter the fight. they will not attack enemy ships with Attack Enemies switch turned off unless the ships attack them first.
if the ship your attempting to Capture has way too much weapondry for you to survive the fight, then allow your Wings to be used as cannon fodder but be sure the Do Not Fire at Disabled switch is turned on just in case they survive the fight. this will give your smaller ships more hang time in the fight, and more hang time means more enemy crew die.
Attack Enemies Switch = Attack Enemy Ships
Anti Air Switch = Air Superiority, Attack all Wings.
Attack Soft = Attack Pods, Wings, and ships with less < 100 shields and or < 100 Armor
Attack Dangerous = attack anything with large amounts of shielding and or large amounts of Armor
Do Not Fire at Disabled switch = if active, Fire on targets until they are incapeable of shooting back.

[edit] Large Weapon Damage

* The following table contains information on the inflicting damage if a Large Weapon has successfully landed a hit on its target.
* The Shield Drain and Armor Drain values can be improved by Exotic Tech for all Large Weapons.

Tech	Name	Shield		Armor		Blast Power	Kill Power	Damage to Systems
Tech	Name	Drain	Arc	Drain	Arc	Blast Power	Kill Power	Weapons	Engines	Hyperdrive	Control	Life Support
14	Gatling Phasor	25	0	10	0	25	15	20	20	1	1	5
13	Large Turbo Laser Array	80	0	45	20	100	45	70	50	35	12	10
12	Turbo Laser Array	41	0	20	20	50	20	25	20	15	3	4
11	Ionic Gun Array	2	0	0	3000	10	1	0	0	0	25	0
10	Pulsed Phasor Cannon	100	0	60	0	100	30	40	60	1	1	10
9	Particle Cannon	60	0	13	0	30	10	5	16	5	16	30
8	Plasma Bolt Cannon	120	260	70	70	250	450	60	1	1	4	45
7	Photon Torpedo Tube	90	0	20	20	170	150	35	30	1	2	10
6	Energy Mines	20	0	5	30	40	6	40	1	1	6	1
5	Ion Cannon	4	0	0	3000	16	1	0	0	0	10	0
4	Blaster Cannon	180	140	80	0	220	530	150	100	1	4	20
4	Anti-Matter Gun	2	20	70	25	90	340	20	1	1	2	15
3	Mass Driver	30	0	20	0	10	220	10	5	1	1	1
3	Disrupter Cannon	15	0	5	25	10	80	10	30	1	1	60
2	Force Beam	3	150	6	150	10	2	10	5	1	6	1
2	Fusion Cannon	5	75	22	60	15	2	7	6	1	1	1
2	Sand Caster	70	0	1	0	1	1	1	0	0	1	0
1	Merculite Rockets	70	10	2	0	50	212	5	10	1	8	4
1	500mm Gun	60	20	10	0	35	40	10	1	0	1	1
1	Heavy Laser	30	0	18	20	40	20	40	20	7	1	6

if youll note some weapons with high kill power also have a high blast power. a high blast power is not good if you intend to capture. the higher the blast power the more physical damage you do to the ship. you dont want it to blow up before you finish killing off the crew so balance is key when choosing weapons with high crew kill value.

the Mass Driver looks appealing but dont be fooled by the nice balance of numbers. the Mass Driver really sucks if your not Aczanny. it has very low accuracy, short range and and high chance of being shot down by enemy point defense.

Enhanced Mass Driver: Mass drivers on Aczanny ships receive a 42% accuracy bonus and a 10 point armor drain bonus. Aczanny ships owned by any race will receive this bonus. The bonus gives you a minimum hit change of 44,94% for Mass Driver.
Low Kill Rating: Aczanny weapons have only half the normal kill factor

Merculite Rockets seem appealing as well, low tech, low power consumption. nice early game capture weapon.The downside is that they are easily shot down by point defense systems, and they are not very effective against ships with lots of armor.

The Disrupter Cannon is a good low-tech energy based weapon. its kill ratng is 8x its blast power, no other weapon scales that high. It has a high rate of firing as well as good range and accuracy. Due to its low Point Defense Odds it can be used against ships wielding many PD. It has a good kill power and does the most damage against Life Support Systems of all Large Weapons when hitting the target hull.

[edit] Small Weapon Damage

* The following table contains information on the inflicting damage if a Small Weapon has successfully landed a hit on its target.
* The Shield Drain and Armor Drain values can be improved by Exotic Tech for all Small Weapons except the Laser and Pulsed Laser.

Tech	Name	Shield Drain/Arc	Armor Drain/Arc	Blast Power	Kill Power	Damage to Systems
Tech	Name	Shield Drain/Arc	Armor Drain/Arc	Blast Power	Kill Power	Weapons	Engines	Hyperdrive	Control	Life
10	Plasma Gun	10 / 0	2 / 100	9	5	5	5	5	8	1
9	Tachyon Gun	1 / 10	0 / 120	5	1	2	2	1	4	1
8	Xenon Beam	2 / 50	4 / 20	4	5	8	2	1	5	1
7	Meson Gun	2 / 0	2 / 95	2	2	1	1	1	5	1
6	Positron	1 / 0	3 / 0	1	1	1	5	4	1	1
5	Phasor	2 / 0	1 / 0	2	1	3	4	1	1	1
4	Streak Missiles	5 / 0	1 / 0	5	2	2	2	1	1	1
3	Disrupter	1 / 0	1 / 0	1	3	3	1	1	1	4
2	Pulsed Laser	2 / 0	2 / 0	1	1	2	1	1	1	1
1	Laser	1 / 1	1 / 0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1

if youll note some weapons with high kill power also have a high blast power. a high blast power is not good if you intend to capture. the higher the blast power the more physical damage you do to the ship. you dont want it to blow up before you finish killing off the crew so balance is key when choosing weapons with high crew kill value.

the Xenon Beam is probably the only weapon other than the Disrupter that has a higher kill rating than blast rating. 5 kill 4 blast, thats too small a margin for use as a capture tool. plus its life support systems damage is only 1. and its tech level is 8 too expensive for our purposes.

the best small weapon for capturing via combat is Clearly the Disrupter. with a low blast power of (1) and a kill factor of (3), its life support damage is nice as well (4) scoring 3 pts higher than any other small weapon. plus it high defense agaisnt enemy point defense. it has a short range so youll have to get in close. plus it has special weapon abilitys. see below

Diruptor Special Rules
 * The weapon has an extra kill bonus against races other than Solar Federation, Crystals, Robots, and Stormers.
 * This weapon has a chance to hit the target ships's soft spot and cause that ship to explode.
 * If an enemy ship is hit by a Disruptor, there is a chance that 10 crew, 30 troops and 100 colonists are killed.
 * The chance depends on the amount of Armor present on the enemy ship and variying from 0% (full Armor) to a max of 25% (no Armor).
 * The Stormer Kingdom, The Solar Federation, The Crystal Assembly and The Robotic Imperium are immune to this effect.

[edit] Ship Capture via Boarding Actions

Boarding a ship to kill off crew troops and colonists, sounds like pirate activity you might think but VGAP4 allows for all races to board and take captive your enemys vessels. whomever they may be. heres how boarding works.

[edit] Boarding Action Check List

here a simple check list you can use to see if a boarding action is feasible.

1 Your ship and the target ship are at the same or within 3 lys of the same co-ordinates prior to host movement phase 50 (or within the first 25% of your full movement, not your max movement, but your current movement this turn).and greater than 3 lys prior to host movement phase 51 (or within the last 75% of your full movement, not your max movement, but your current movement this turn). A ship with a Cloak ON and a Sensor Profile of 0, can board more easily, you can go to your taget by using Escort, Intercept or Auto Intercept, make sure your attack settings are all off. Next turn you can board and move away.

2 One of the following is true.

A the enemy ship has no shields to begin with goto step 3
B the enemy ship has no crew goto step 3
C the enemy ship has or will have 1% System Damage prior to your boarding 50% for The Solar Federation goto step 3
D the enemy ship has or will have 1% Shield Generator Damage prior to your boarding 50% for The Solar Federation goto step 3
E the enemy ship has or will have 1% Hull Damage prior to your boarding 50% for The Solar Federation goto step 3
F im using a Boarding Laser but not against the The Solar Federation goto step 3
G im playing as The Stormer Kingdom and not boarding The Solar Federation goto step 3
H im playing as The Solar Federation and not boarding another Solar Federation race goto step 3

3 You have 90% or less System Damage? any more than that your transporters wont work

4 There are no Transport Inhibitors within the area the boardig action will be taking place? this will prevent transporters from working.

5 You have enough crew troops and highgaurd to board the enemy ship and still operate your own ship. boarding actons require a minumum of 1 crew. you cant control a ship without a crewmember on it. keep in mind that once the crew is dead all remainder combat units troops/highgaurd/colonists are spaced/jettisoned.

6 You have set the ship as capture target on the Ship Command - Overview screen.

7 If using the {{Boarding Laser]] you have 49% or less System Damage? any more than that your Boarding Laser will not work if not using the Boarding Laser skip this step

8 You Have a full (current or old) contact scan with the ship. This is largely a limitation of the client in that you can't set an object you don't have a full Scan of as a valid transfer target. just having the ship ID wont work.

9 If boarding from a cloaked vessel past movement phase 50 ensure there is no Tachyon Emitter in the area.

note

If the above is true you can attempt a boarding acton capture. success however is dependant upon many things.

[edit] Common Mistakes

if the following common mistakes did not occur than you have formally captured your self a ship via boarding action.

was your target a ship that use the Security Device if so you may have been succesful but the ship exploded. or you may have utterly failed and the ships crew not only thwarted your boarding action, but counter-boarded and took your ship as a prize.
did you assume that the Enemy Ship Scan provided in the Data Pad of lifeforms onboard was correct? this is deliberately randomized. there is no way to know how many lifeforms are onboard the enemy ship its basically guess work unless your the Evil Empire which thus will have 100% accurate data of lifefrms onboard. the Data Pad does not reveal the type of lifeforms whether they be high gaurd crew or colonist. however anytime you see a "0" lifeforms onboard this will be accurate no matter what race you are.
Did your ship enter combat with the capture target? if so your ship was at the same point as the capture target after movement phase 50 when ship to ship combat begins. many thing could of happened... he couldve intercepted you. you may have intercepted him. your cloak failed, Tachyon Emitter nearby?
Is there a boarding attempt message in your game log? if yes, Did you have enough crew and guests available to take the ship? check your games message log it will now indicate if you had enough to achieve victory or you failed to provide enough to take the ship. if there is no boarding attempt message in your game log then the enemys ship boarding conditions were not met. recheck steps 1 thru 9 and see what you missed.

[edit] Facts Regarding Boarding Actions

Any race can Beam Transfer crew to an enemy ship with 0 crew; this will capture it (without the need of a Boarding Laser).
Ship Beam Transfer to enemy ship (or enemy base), including boarding increases your Sensor Profile by +25.
A ship with 0 crew on it can still be given commands by its owner. Any player capturing a ship will have its Ship Devices on, like Self Destruct or mine laying. unless your race is not allowed to use that device. - See Captured Ship Device Matrix for more details.
Guests will take part in any defensive boarding action.
You need to Beam Transfer at least 1 crew for the boarding to happen.
All personnel you Beam Transfer will take part in the attack, the defender as long he has 1 or more crew will fight back with his crew and Guests.
0 Crew ship don't figth back, the remaining guests if any will be spaced.
personnel in pods docked with the ship, will not take part in any boarding action.
Unlike in Ground Combat crew fight better than troops during boarding.
Unlike in Ground Combat colonists will give a good fight, just a bit worse than troops during boarding.
Normally you need a Boarding Laser to board an enemy ship, it will work on all races but the The Solar Federation.
The highest skilled ships get to use their Beam Transfer before lower Skilled ships during attempted boarding actions.
Boarding Lasers cut holes in the enemy ship doing between 1% and 300% Hull Damage to the target depending on the size of the target ship. It kills up to 10% of the enemy crew, 40% of the enemy colonists, and 10% of the enemy troops
When a Boarding Laser is used against a Crystal, no Hull Damage will be done to the hull and no personnel will be killed by the Boarding Laser. However it will still enable the attacker to board the ship.
Privateers with an advanced Boarding Laser and follow different rules when it come to the number of crew to send over. - See the The Privateer Bands - Guide for more details

[edit] Research

ships and races with a high evasive bonus can board during combat? and flee from battle successfuly? untested!

Ship do not board in vcr, only assault pod do that.

[edit] Ship Capture Via Assault Pods

Attempting to capture ships via Assault Pods is a rather difficult and vastly expensive measure in the cost of pod purchases and crew required, and it is easily countered. The problem lies in the fact that your enemy can destroy pods very rapidly. even a single ship will destroy some 150 odd pods before your first pod can board. Take into account, that the enemy may have several ships at that location and thus even more Assault Pods will be destroyed before boarding can occur. Typically you have to overwhelm the ship(s) with large numbers of decoy pods in order to have the actual Assault Pods do thier bussiness. and even then the wrong pods could be taken out first, not to mention the target could easily move from its location after the pods have launched.

[edit] Attempting to Board with Assault Pods

Turn + 0: The target must be at least a couple turns away in pod travel distance, because you cant set the "board enemy ship" switch until the turn after its launched.
Turn + 0: Ensure you have a current or old Enemy Ship Scan. just having the ship id wont work.
Turn + 0: depending on pod bays, determine the amount of crew and troops required to take the ship and divide that by the number pods you think will be successful in boarding. (2 to 4?) this will be the pod complement,
Turn + 0: load the Assault Pod with the complement determined above. set Boost and dock to the ship your targeting.
Turn + 0: launch a minimum of 200 of these pods per ship you will encounter at the target area. if you can afford more, than launch more. if you run short of crew and troops try the decoy attempt listed below.
On Turn +1 set all Assault Pods to "board enemy ship".
On turn +2 you should recieve an incredibly long and slow VCR showing the ships destroying most all of your pods. if the pods were successful in the takeover of an enemy ship and there was more than one enemy ship present, the enemy will attempt to destroy the captured ship. if it was a solo ship the VCR will end once the ship is captured or all your pods are gone.

[edit] Attempting to Board with Assault Pods and Decoys

Turn + 0: The target must be at least a couple turns away in pod travel distance, because you cant set the "board enemy ship" switch until the turn after its launched.
Turn + 0: Ensure you have a current or old Enemy Ship Scan. just having the ship id wont work.
Turn + 0: depending on pod bays, determine the amount of crew and troops required to take the ship and divide that by the number pods you think will be successful in boarding. (2 to 4?) this will be the pod complement,
Turn + 0: build your decoys, (decoys are assault pods with only 1 Crew) use Assault Pods with 1 single crew member aboard. launch a minimum of 200 of these Decoy pods per ship you will encounter at the target area. set Boost and dock to the ship your targeting.
Turn + 0: load the actual Assault Pods with the complement determined above. build any number of these that you can afford. but dont build 200 per ship, more like 15-30 per ship and launch them only setting one or two actual Assault Pods wont work as the enemy can set kill target to the one that has all the crew. Set Boost and dock to the ship your targeting.
On Turn +1 set all Assault Pods (not the Decoys) with the Complement amount of crew to "board enemy ship". dont bother setting the decoys as its your intention for them to distract the enemy from your real assault pods, and thier destruction is anticipated.
On turn +2 you should recieve an incredibly long and slow VCR showing the ships destroying most all of your pods. if the pods were successful in the takeover of an enemy ship and there was more than one enemy ship present, the enemy will attempt to destroy the Captured ship. if it was a solo ship the VCR will end once the ship is Captured or all your pods are gone.

[edit] Countering an Assault Pod Attack

If you see a large swarm of Assault Pods heading towards you the tactic is simple, "Move Away". Pods cant change course.
IF you want to destroy them, have another ship "not" at that location arrive at the last moment to destroy them. ensure all ships that were there have moved away before they arrive but wait until the last miniute so he cant change his boarding target(S).

[edit] See Also

[1] Boarding.xls (included in Diplomat): The best tool to Sim ship boarding.
[2] Online calculation of ship boarding at GRGZone
Boarding

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