Ship Combat Boarding

= Boarding During Ship Combat =

Boarding Techniques
It is generally recommended that boarding focused Captains spend a few rounds weakening the enemy crew by bombarding the enemy ship before launching your assault teams. High Defense is important to avoid injuries to your combat crew. Consider boosting your ship's Pilot skill pool and using defensive Talents, such as Evasive Maneuvers (Pilot 1), Rallying Cry (QM 5) and Vigilant Scanners (ET 8). The best method is to wear down the enemy ship first, as when the enemy ship is heavily damaged it will have a hard time avoiding your approach and preventing boarding, as they suffer from lowered skill pools from losing crew. Usually, if the guns are down, you are free to board in succession until inevitable victory. The only crew remaining will be at lowered health, and most of the fighters will be dead/injured.

Multiple Rounds of Boarding
It can take multiple rounds of boarding action to win a fight. Boarding combat allows a ship to win either by destroying a vital component, such as the Engine, killing enough of the Crew that the enemy ship can no longer defend itself, or by killing the enemy Captain. You are not guaranteed to have your combat team breach a vital component or the Bridge, but increasing your range change modifiers and having a high Agility score for your ship can help.

Interweaving Combat Rounds
Hand to hand combat, on-board either ship, does not stop time. The ship combat phase is resumed after the boarding combat is completed for that round. This is an important rule, without it the enemy Captain can land an experienced combat crew and cripple some of your own components and crew, use this time to fire ship weapons or purge crippling effects, or use Talents that restore your crew's Morale and HP.

Boarding Rolls
The result of the boarding roll for the attacker's crew determines what component is targeted and if the enemy Captain is involved in the fight. There are Talents and Traits that can help improve this roll, and there are Talents for Boarding Victory that will let you accomplish more carefully targeted sabotage. The best result of a really good Ship Boarding roll would be to end up in the Ship's Engine compartment or in the Bridge. This is the most common cause (and is pretty popular among players focused on Boarding) of a victory after a single boarding attempt.

The stats used to determine the final boarding target (either the captain or being able to sabotage engines) is determined by Agility and Pilot skill with bonuses from Boarding as well as Range Change Bonuses.

If you are boarding from long range using a talent, then the prime statistics involved are Navigation and engine Speed.

Boarding is : ((Strong Dice = Piloting + Agility + Range Change Bonus + Boarding Bonus) + (Standard Dice = Tactics/3 + Command/3) * Engine Comparison.

The actual final target number can be very different depending on other random factors, so even a "perfect" roll will not always give you the captain if your boarding team lands in an different location. Expect to try several times.

= Talents for Boarding = Consider utilizing these talents to make your boarding life easier.

Noteworthy Talents

 * The level 11 Pirate talent 'Burner Skid' is quite good for bonus radiation damage to further cook the enemy crew. Pirates can be obtained from the warlord and other Contacts.
 * The level 5 Mechanic talent 'Thrown Wrench' can all but single-handedly win a battle, as it lowers the Reactor Points of the enemy ship, as well as doing component and crew damage.
 * The level 1 Gunner talent 'Boarding Assault' allows you to board from range 3 and 2.
 * The level 1 Bounty Hunter talent 'Blood Game' allows you to board from range 3 and 2, but also 5 or 4 if you are fighting a combatant in a mission.

Talents not listed here are by no means worse in any way shape or form, these are just ones in particular worth mentioning. If you are going a full boarder strategem, you very likely will consider getting all of the talents below in some form or fashion.