So if heavy vehicle and other stuff with high dmg could fight in defence of ship then what with collateral damage ? Highly explosive and penetration things on ships are the best way to break stuff, and that's the fastest way to deal internal damage.

I bet this is a bug, which will be fixed though.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. This is the only thing Steve mentioned about limits to infantry in the changes list:

"Only formations that consist entirely of infantry can take part in a boarding attempt"

( http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111751#msg111751 ). A bit open to interpretation but for what it's worth the way I would interpret it is that "take part in a boarding attempt" refers to the attacking side only.

Quote from: xenoscepter on November 05, 2021, 01:27:33 PM

With wide enough hallways any idiot could drive a tank into battle,

This has been really the main sticking point for me - I don't think a spaceship is typically going to be built with such wide hallways, as space is at such a premium. However, at the same time if one wants to RP ships with wide corridors that shouldn't be prevented.
~snip~

 --- To be honest, having at least one or two such corridors would likely be prudent for loading and off-loading supplies, food, fuel etc. Likewise having such a corridor could greatly expedite the loading of those self same tanks. However, yeah... I agree that's it kind of goofy. Then again, if turning the corner to find yourself staring down the barrel(s) of a very angry Main Battle Tank doesn't strike fear into the hearts of your enemies... one of you is definitely very screwed.

Quote from: xenoscepter on November 05, 2021, 11:49:52 AM

--- The issue I take being that Boarding Capability makes units better than regular ones, and by extension means that while you can use regular INF for boarding and regular INF for defending, you HAVE to have the "better" stuff for anything else. However, without some way to restrict what can participate in the defense it runs into the problem of tanks driving on ships... which is admittedly weird. So a "Cannot" or "Do Not" participate button, perhaps requiring SM to toggle, would solve this without interfering with those who might want to RP that their ships have been built with room for tanks to drive around in them. Which is admittedly still weird, but highly amusing.

I think it makes plenty of sense, since it is Infantry OR Boarding Combat Capability. Any man with a gun can run down a corridor and start shooting at things (Infantry), but a large weapon system must be specialized for this - and of course any infantry unit specially trained for boarding combat whether on offense or defense should perform better in that situation. Aurora cannot cater to every RP, so maybe "we built big corridors so our tanks can drive through them" is not on the table, but I think for the majority of cases it makes sense.

 --- I like being polite, but I'm gonna be a little rude here and say that's horsesmeg. Any idiot can deploy a Machine Gun and some sandbags, ala Light Armor Static w/ CAP, but someone with special training and equipment could do it better. With wide enough hallways any idiot could drive a tank into battle, but a specially designed one wouldn't need them and be more effective to boot. The problem is that Boarding capability does make it possible it makes it better. It's one thing to load up a ship with a bunch of machine gun toting yahoos and another thing entirely to load it up with specialized, purpose built turrets.

 --- A SpaceMaster-Only toggle for Ground Forces that let's the player decide on a case by case basis whether or not their units are able to defend in a boarding action allows for this and more. Likewise an option for ships to have a toggle for allowing or disallowing Non-INF to participate in combat allows this and more, PLUS it allows the new Misc. Components to be used to fill that tangible design gap by accounting for the extra volume / mass needed for such things. Additionally, such toggles being SM-Only let's those involved in tournament play, or even just casual MP... if that's even a thing... to prohibit or control it's usage at will. Finally such toggles, which ought to be off by default and which ought to retain themselves after being switched on when SM is off, remove the need for a Special Rule to account for the extra functionality.

 --- Instead of, "INF can do boarding AND defend boarding with or without Boarding Capability, but other units can defend BUT only WITH Boarding Capability." we get, 'Only INF can actually conduct a boarding, but anything can defend against it. However, if you don't much care for that, you can hit the SpaceMaster button and either disable it for ships, disable it per unit, or just disable it outright and make Non-INF units unable to participate in the defense." The latter only requires the player to interact with it if they don't like the rules as is nd leaves room for Boarding to be added to such for increased effectiveness or else omitted for cost concerns.

 --- And to conclude, yet another approach would be to simply take the tonnage of the non-eligible units and treat it as an equal tonnage of "Crew" with PWL. However, these would need to be itemized so as to accurately represent the casualties of the individual units that they are meant to represent. The artillery guys getting slaughtered shouldn't wipe out the tank crews and vice versa. At any rate, mild apologies for the little bit of rudeness... but, I thought it was horsesmeg and I think it best to be honest about it.

Quote from: TheTalkingMeowth on November 05, 2021, 09:48:08 AM

A reasonable midpoint (to avoid issues of driving tanks around on a ship) could be to make boarding combat require you be infantry OR have boarding combat specialization. That way if the vehicle is involved, it is a specialized version for use on ships and so there are no suspension of disbelief issues.

Boarding assaults would still require both boarding combat specialization AND being infantry.

I like this idea because it is flavorful AND makes sense for gameplay.

One quibble though, currently boarding assaults ONLY require being Infantry. You can stuff a company of stock PWLs into a boarding pod and attack another ship just fine. Boarding Combat Capability simply makes the units much more capable in the initial boarding and following combat both.

 --- I'd go one further and say that while Infantry should retain the ability to conduct boarding actions without the Boarding Capability, or rather I should say the Boarding Specialization since it's moreso that in terms of functionality; Light Vehicles should be allowed to conduct Boarding Actions too. However, Light Vehicles absolutely SHOULD have the Boarding Capability as a requirement to do so. I somewhat dislike the suggest to require Non-Infantry units to have Boarding Capability to participate in combat, but rather I am in support of a "Cannot Defend in Boarding" button, checkbox or similar.

 --- The issue I take being that Boarding Capability makes units better than regular ones, and by extension means that while you can use regular INF for boarding and regular INF for defending, you HAVE to have the "better" stuff for anything else. However, without some way to restrict what can participate in the defense it runs into the problem of tanks driving on ships... which is admittedly weird. So a "Cannot" or "Do Not" participate button, perhaps requiring SM to toggle, would solve this without interfering with those who might want to RP that their ships have been built with room for tanks to drive around in them. Which is admittedly still weird, but highly amusing.

A reasonable midpoint (to avoid issues of driving tanks around on a ship) could be to make boarding combat require you be infantry OR have boarding combat specialization. That way if the vehicle is involved, it is a specialized version for use on ships and so there are no suspension of disbelief issues.

Boarding assaults would still require both boarding combat specialization AND being infantry.

That would be heavily armored vehicles with heavy automatic weapons. Those could be CAP, HCAP or lighter autocannons, depending on the HP and armor of the invaders. I bet this is a bug, which will be fixed though.