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unmerged(402260)

Sergeant
1 Badges
Oct 29, 2011
65
0
  • Sword of the Stars II
So there any chance I will be able to keep the ships I capture in battle? I captured some pirates.. and thought i would have some extra ships, but they were just destroyed for no reason. :( why would i bother capturing...?
 
Capturing ships is good even if you don't "keep them" - for two reasons.

1. The ship becomes an immobile weapons platform firing at your enemies during combat. This increases your damage and reduces incoming damage.
2. The ship scuttles after combat, scoring a guaranteed kill. Even better, if you have a salvage ship present in the system, you get extra chance for salvage tech.
 
So in other words another useless feature. Why to spend a place in my fleet for a capping cruiser, when I can put a battle cruiser there? And the same goes for repair ships. In my first games I put repair ships to all my fleets only to discover that they are totaly useless as they never granted me any salvage tech. Well I will add it to the list of useless features next to refitting and the idiotic feasibility feature...
 
Everyone is entitled an opinion. I think you might be jumping to conclusions a bit too quickly, however:

1. A boarding ship is weak on combat yes. But a successful board doubles its firepower (1 ship -> 2 ships). Better yet, the opponent is instantly neutralized, instead of taking a minute of your weapon fire or whatever. Plus he starts pulling DPS from his own fleet, diluting what you have to take.

2. An unsuccessful boarding attempt weakens the enemy ship due to crew loss, reducing its effectiveness.

3. Just knowing that boarding pods are a risk can force the enemy to max out PD and Marine modules, diminishing the firepower on EVERY fleet. If you don't know why boarding is so risky, consider what happens when a 10 ship fleet tries to invade a planet guarded by a two ship fleet. If the two ship fleet is destroyed but manages to board command, guess what? Invasion goes home, better luck next time!

Regarding repair and salvage, yes random number generators are random. Very low even, but they add up. In my current game I have received 4 salvage opportunities from roughly 10 combats with R&S, which is probably unusually high. In the previous game I got 3 salvage opportunities from 15+ combats with R&S. These are salvage results from the first 50 turns. None of it much matters until you go high enough in the trees to find technologies that are closed to you, and by that time you'll have scores of combats generating random numbers. If you are playing as SuulKa, then the entire calculation changes.

Another word about repair ships - the ability to repair a fleet in hostile, neutral, or undeveloped territory is quite nice. One ship doesn't offer much, but when the frontier world is being attacked every 3 turns, needs a garrison but cannot repair it, you'll find that your repair ship is the MVP. Like all support ships, they can't substitute for armor in a fight, but that's why they're called support.

Bottom line is that you're free to play as you like. Don't complain that the game is bad if it offers too many options. If you don't like boarding or repair, then fine - never use them. I certainly will!
 
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okay.. so the repair ships only have to be in the same system and active, to gain salvage research chance? they dont have to be in the same fleet? so basicly i can run seperate fleet of repair ships.. and time them when I want em in an area or somthing like that?

(also is it possible to gain salvage research from Von Num?)
 
You can run repair ships separately. I run one around with the fleet, but you can keep them in defense or group them however you like, as long as they're present.

I don't know about the VN question.
 
back to capturing... tarkas captured one of my battle rider dreadnaughts... i made a dumb error but.. anyways, I recaptured it with a ship i had sitting on back up.. took it back over.. and when my turn came up.. we scuttled it? lol cause i guess the computer saw it at that point as an enemy ship captured.. not liberated.. its one thing to have a enemy ship or pirate ship and say.. hey this isnt in our data base.. scrap it.. but that was .. an expensive dreadnaught.. they scrapped after retaking it back.. i duno just seems... retarded?
 
Salvage

I have salvaged many techs by capturing ships and or winning battles and having a salvage ship(s) in the system. One way I have been more successful at doing that is that often the AI will attack one planet more often than others, so I put more salvage ships there than a normal system. Almost all systems have one salvage ship available when I play. The other thing is I believe that the enemy has to be using technologies that you do not have. So if you are fighting a guy using mass drivers at turn 200, good luck in finding a weapon to salvage. I am not totally sure, but I believe having other races in your research bases also helps, so if you want to salvage Liir stuff you need Liir researchers. I have been operating on that theory.


Usually when the AI starts attacking a system over and over I put 4 salvage ships there right away, most of them just in the defense pile. They are still effective there I believe.
 
The other thing is I believe that the enemy has to be using technologies that you do not have. So if you are fighting a guy using mass drivers at turn 200, good luck in finding a weapon to salvage.

Also, you can get the same salvage project multiple times if you continue to face the same weapon. I've gotten like 6 salvage projects just for disruptor torpedo because I just wasn't in that tree. If I cared enough I would get the tech so that salvage might move to other areas, but I honestly don't think he has many advanced weapons for me. I know, that's supposed to be a good thing ...

I often deck out my repair ships with missiles and PD, which makes even their weak frames quite effective, especially as system defense where you just need to offer any target other than the planet.
 
Yea I make mine long range fighters too. Just load em up with Missiles and Torpedoes. They are as nearly as effective as many other missile boats, and you can keep them out of range that way.
 
Not sure if there's a list. Pretty sure the dead/captured ship has to have an active example of the tech for you to have salvage chance.

So if you keep killing his armors, you'll keep getting the same salvage opportunities until he deploys new guns. Since AI doesn't tech well currently, salvage is a great idea that doesn't play out well in SP atm.