Disabling Ships

Ship combat victories end in one of two ways: The enemy's hull is cracked, or you've disabled the ship/crew such that they surrender. Disabling ships tends to result in better rewards as you can often steal cargo and fuel, conscript surviving non-officers, and choose to ransom the ship or just leave in peace. Many talents are only available if you disable an enemy ship rather than crack its hull.

Disabling is most reliably achieved by repeatedly boarding the enemy vessel until you have a chance to destroy critical components, kill and demoralize most of the crew, or kill the enemy captain. However, this can be risky for some ship builds and always takes much more time than simply firing at an enemy vessel. This is particularly true if your boarding rolls are passing but not by a large margin and the enemy ship has a large number of crew.

= Disabling without Boarding =

You can frequently disable ships by shooting out crucial components or killing off lots of crew with special damage types, crippling effects, and lucky critical hits. The following is an analysis of the different weapon types and their effectiveness in disabling a ship versus cracking its hull.

Torpedoes
Torpedoes deal small amounts of damage overall compared to many other weapons. The best torps deal almost half their damage as Void Damage which is moderately helpful in disabling ships. Additionally, torpedoes land crippling hits frequently. The best crippling hit for disabling ships with torpedoes is 'Electrical Fire' which harms crew and components directly each turn. Critical hits with torpedoes will actually work against you, as Void damage (which harms components quite a lot) is not multiplied in the event of critical hits but the standard damage (which harms the hull quite a lot) will be multiplied. If you have one or more 'Electrical Fires' on an enemy vessel that is nearly destroyed, it can be helpful to wait a turn or two without firing to see if the fires will burn out the vessel from inside without risking cracking the hull from additional torpedo launches.

The best torpedoes for disabling enemy ships are Small torpedoes. These deal a higher proportion of Void damage to Standard than the medium-sized torps. They also critical slightly less often, which is helpful. However, their crippling chance is lower.

Missiles
Missiles deal large amounts of standard damage with a small amount of Radiation damage. Missiles are not very good for disabling enemy ships due to their high standard damage. Medium missiles are slightly better for crippling than small missiles due to improved critical (which will multiply the Radiation damage) and a slightly better radiation to standard damage ratio.

Plasma Cannons
Plasma Cannons deal moderate standard damage and a relatively hefty amount of radiation damage. They are ideal for disabling ships without boarding or waiting on crippling effects. Their accuracy is rather low compared to many other weapons, especially at range 4. The best plasma cannons for disabling are the large slot plasma cannons which can occasionally deal more radiation damage than standard damage per hit!

Railguns
Railguns deal moderately high standard damage and moderate void damage with good accuracy. A lot of the advice regarding Torpedoes is relevant here. However, railguns have a bit more critical chance which isn't helpful and their crippling effects are more defensive in nature (reduce enemy accuracy) rather than passively burning out enemy ships. Railguns are overall not recommended for disabling ships without boarding.

Lances
Lances deal high standard damage with a very small amount of radiation damage. The standard damage to radiation damage is so extreme that lances are nigh-useless for safely disabling ships without boarding. If you must use a lance for disabling the HX-2 Lance is a tiny bit better than the rest as it has the best ratio of radiation to standard damage of the lances.

Autocannons and Gravity Drivers
Autocannons and Grav Cannons only deal standard damage. For controlled destruction of crew and components you would want less critical hit chance, but the odds aren't in your favor either way. That said, the crippling effects from these weapons are all helpful in killing crew, components, and morale. So a high crippling chance autocannon is actually pretty useful for disabling. The Dual-Linked Autocannon specifically, performs the best in this role.

Talents

 * Talents that lower your damage should be used. Pirate L8 talent Barrel roll, for instance, allows you to deal less standard damage, leaving your radiation/void damage unaffected and giving more turns for crippling effects. Also look for the Commander L15 talent, Warning Shot, which was added specifically for disabling.
 * Talents that decrease enemy armor should be avoided. They will accelerate hull damage.
 * Talents that increase your damage should be avoided. They increase standard damage unless otherwise stated which will accelerate hull collapse.
 * Talents that increase critical hit chance should be avoided unless you are using plasma cannons or have stacked +Radiation talent buffs ahead of time.
 * Talents that decrease enemy shields should be used. They will accelerate crew/component destruction.
 * Talents that provide bonus radiation damage should be used. While the Pirate has the best talent for this, it can accidentally kill your own ship and thus is ultra-risky with permadeath on.