Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Mechanics => Topic started by: Steve Walmsley on October 31, 2021, 08:12:21 AM
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I made a comment in my last campaign update about shields preventing boarding, as I thought that was the case and I already coded it. After a couple of people mentioned they weren't aware of that, I checked the code and found no restrictions on shields :)
So now I'm starting this thread to debate whether I should code it. I'm open to any opinions on the subject.
If it is added, one consideration would be whether shields at a very low percentage of maximum would still prevent boarding.
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One idea might be that, when a boarding ship goes to unload its marines, the shields apply damage to the boarder - 1 point of shields = 1 point of damage. If the shields run out before the boarder gets destroyed, proceed with boarding; if not, no boarding. Then the marines can go about their business now that they're on the target's hull, with no further interaction with the target's shields.
Gives you a reason to armour your boarders.
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I'd like shields to prevent boarding until they are at very low strength, that way shield regeneration doesn't instantly neutralize boarding attempts.
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It might make sense to have shields act as a modifier to the default boarding %chance of success which already exists due to the speed difference between ships, or more precisely as an alternate mechanic which works in the same way. So if the enemy ship has shields at 100% strength then it will repulse all boarding attempts effectively, but at 10% strength a boarding attack can expect to take about 10% casualties (separate from casualties suffered due to speed difference). We can also have an exception once shield strength is 10% or lower similar to how boarding speed difference causes no casualties once the difference exceeds 10x.
My only issue with this idea is that it means weak low-tech shields are just as effective as big high-tech shields, although the lower regeneration rate of low-tech shields partially counters this. However I think any other method of calculation would require basically hardcoding against an arbitrary "100%" value which seems even less sensible.
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I see a few major concerns with shields impacting the ability to board that need to be addressed by any solution.
First, the facts that shields recharge at least a few points fairly quickly means that a simple shields up equals no boarding type rule would make it almost impossible to get the timing right and effectively preclude real boarding.
Second, if the rule is based on percentage of shields, even a small shield generator will prevent boarding from occurring, and a very small shield generator will actually be more effective at that, because the percentage will increase faster since the recharge rate is fixed and the capacity is small. In theory, the minimum size shield generator would be ideal for preventing boarding.
As a result I think the best solution is that a boarding attempt functions somewhat like ramming, where the boarding ship would take damage and the target ships shield would be consumed. The question then is is it one to one shield to damage, or some ratio. I think this solution works well because it makes it harder to board ships with larger shields, and easier to board ships with smaller shields, reduces but does not eliminate the question of timing the boarding, and still incentivizes using weapons to reduce the shield before attempting to board. One possible caveat is that damage should probably be distributed across the boarding fleet evenly, so you can't just include a single large and heavily armored ship in your boarding party to absorb the damage.
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First, the facts that shields recharge at least a few points fairly quickly means that a simple shields up equals no boarding type rule would make it almost impossible to get the timing right and effectively preclude real boarding.
Requiring a minimum of 10% or even 20% strength would mitigate this problem. I would expect this minimum to be with respect to the total shields of the class, not the surviving shield generators, so if you shoot out one or two before boarding it will be even less difficult - exactly the same as shooting out a few engines to improve the speed advantage of your boarding shuttle.
Second, if the rule is based on percentage of shields, even a small shield generator will prevent boarding from occurring, and a very small shield generator will actually be more effective at that, because the percentage will increase faster since the recharge rate is fixed and the capacity is small. In theory, the minimum size shield generator would be ideal for preventing boarding.
Is this really a problem? I'm not sure that using the minimum size (i.e., least efficient, because shields scale superlinearly with generator size) type of shield generator just to prevent boarding, which is usually not the major mode of ship-to-ship combat, would be a good plan even if it does work. And it doesn't work as well as you'd think, because shield recharge rate also scales with the size of the generator so while a weaker shield does recharge faster it is recharging significantly less actual shield points per increment than a large shield which makes it even worse for everything that is not repulsing boarders. Basically, if you want to use very poor shields for the sole purpose of repelling boarders at the expense of ship-to-ship combat ability, I don't see why this is a bad thing to allow a player to choose?
As a result I think the best solution is that a boarding attempt functions somewhat like ramming, where the boarding ship would take damage and the target ships shield would be consumed. The question then is is it one to one shield to damage, or some ratio. I think this solution works well because it makes it harder to board ships with larger shields, and easier to board ships with smaller shields, reduces but does not eliminate the question of timing the boarding, and still incentivizes using weapons to reduce the shield before attempting to board. One possible caveat is that damage should probably be distributed across the boarding fleet evenly, so you can't just include a single large and heavily armored ship in your boarding party to absorb the damage.
Mechanically I do not like this idea, because to me it sounds like adding micromanagement and not simply another factor to consider. Boarding shuttles are not often very durable ships, so having them take damage from a boarding attempt is likely to cause internal damage or destruction quite often. This becomes problematic because it leaves you with not enough troop transport capacity to recover your troops, especially if you want to do more boarding attempts, scuttle the captured ship, etc. but your transports have been destroyed from bashing onto shields. I think it is better for the risks to be assumed by the boarding marines rather than the transport, as even if the marines take heavy losses they can be recovered after the battle is finished with minimal fuss (it is just giving one more order and sending the transport home).
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In my opinion, shields should absolutely stop boarding. That is a "realistic" consideration, and it also adds meaningful choices when deciding how to approach boarding. How do I design my boarding ships, from which distance shall I launch the shuttles etc. After all, I have to ensure that the shields are down when the shuttles arrive.
As for how, shields should probably work until they go below a certain percentage, say 15-20%. It feels like a decent compromise to avoid excessive micromanagement.
An alternative idea could be that a ship remains "vulnerable" to boarding for a few 5-second turns after a shield has been brought to 0, to simulate a shield "reforming". But I find it more questionable than just having a ship being vulnerable below 20% shields or similar.
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I don't think that shields should prevent boarding at all. In general in C# shields are much more preferred than armor without this change (eg regeneration). In most sci fi anyways shields only block fast moving objects or high energy impacts not comparatively slow boarders.
In terms of balance I think it is more worthwhile to consider defenders getting countermeasures of some kind while boarders are planting breaching charges through armor.
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Is there an in-game lore explanation on how shields work?
I suppose there can be a setting at the start of the game (shields stop boarding: yes/no), to keep all folks satisfied.
If I remember right, shields are a military component, which means that stations and commercial ships will remain vulnerable to boarding either way.
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If boarders are able to bypass shields, wouldn't that also mean that missiles could also bypass shields by reducing their speed on final approach to the target? I mean why would they stop missiles but not boarders?
Just a random idea, but maybe there could be a technology for shields that influences how effective they are against self-moving objects like boarders and missiles. Something like, your shields need to be reduced below X% of their max health before they let boarders/missiles through and that % can be reduced with higher tiers of that technology.
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If boarders are able to bypass shields, wouldn't that also mean that missiles could also bypass shields by reducing their speed on final approach to the target? I mean why would they stop missiles but not boarders?
Because missiles don't actually directly strike the target, they blow up close to the target and deal blast damage.
If missile actually struck their targets directly, they would not need to bother with a nuclear warhead as the pure kinetic energy of the impact will do the job. A size-1 missile moving at just 13,000 km/s carries as much kinetic energy as the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated (Tsar Bomba, 50 MT). While the units in Aurora are fairly abstracted, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that size-1 missiles in Aurora do not generally deliver 50 MT of damage energy to their targets.
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Because missiles don't actually directly strike the target, they blow up close to the target and deal blast damage.
Why then missile's damage pattern is so local? It's inconsistent.
If missile actually struck their targets directly, they would not need to bother with a nuclear warhead as the pure kinetic energy of the impact will do the job. A size-1 missile moving at just 13,000 km/s carries as much kinetic energy as the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated (Tsar Bomba, 50 MT). While the units in Aurora are fairly abstracted, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that size-1 missiles in Aurora do not generally deliver 50 MT of damage energy to their targets.
I think about it as missile blast is in real space, while TN ship is in Aether, and only a small portion of special blast-pomped impact can penetrate trans-dimentional barrier.
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Because missiles don't actually directly strike the target, they blow up close to the target and deal blast damage.
Why then missile's damage pattern is so local? It's inconsistent.
Steve has said in another thread where the same topic came up that it is a compromise between mechanics and flavor.
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The answer is obvious: the boarders land on the shield and use explosives to penetrate it just like they do the hull.
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I like the idea that shields prevent boarding until they are reduced to some 10-15% of strength. It would also increase use of microwave weapons that could be used in support of the boarders to take down shields more quickly. And the Star Swarm already uses microwaves so they have access to tools that can help their boarders.
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I like the idea that shields prevent boarding until they are reduced to some 10-15% of strength. It would also increase use of microwave weapons that could be used in support of the boarders to take down shields more quickly. And the Star Swarm already uses microwaves so they have access to tools that can help their boarders.
My understanding is that microwaves aren't nowhere near as good as you think, they do double damage but 1x2 is just 2. Railguns would be a much better alternative to grinding down shield HP.
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The answer is obvious: the boarders land on the shield and use explosives to penetrate it just like they do the hull.
This is now canon
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The 'low percent' approach would have weaknesses in logic and mechanic however. Firstly if there isn't an absolute shield-point number needed to shield a ship from boarding, why does the necessary shield strength rise with increasing technology?
Seeing that, you could design an anti-boarding shield that is very small, uses only alpha shields, but thus has high regeneration-% per interval.
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Allowing shields to resist boarders means that boarders are no longer a viable option for dealing with heavily defended opponents who would be impossible to take out by other means.
Proposal: Have another design option for shields for whether you want to harden them against boarders or not. Shields which are not hardened against boarders function as they do currently, but shields which are hardened against boarders will cause damage to boarders during the boarding attempt based on their strength.
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Allowing shields to resist boarders means that boarders are no longer a viable option for dealing with heavily defended opponents who would be impossible to take out by other means.
Proposal: Have another design option for shields for whether you want to harden them against boarders or not. Shields which are not hardened against boarders function as they do currently, but shields which are hardened against boarders will cause damage to boarders during the boarding attempt based on their strength.
I think that this is an advantage. If the shield is replenished faster than your marines can damage it, then the craft is immune to boarding (unless you can bring in some additional support). Otherwise there’s no defense against boarding at all.
I think that there should be a ground force component that lets them deal extra damage to shields, to go along with vacuum combat and so on, for when you really want to crack a tough shield and don’t mind paying extra.
I also like the idea of using microwave weapons to support boarding; the microwaves would presumably be safer for the boarding marines than missiles, railguns, etc.
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I think that this is an advantage. If the shield is replenished faster than your marines can damage it, then the craft is immune to boarding (unless you can bring in some additional support). Otherwise there’s no defense against boarding at all.
It really depends on what size of shields you are dealing with... Large shields can tank equivalent BP worth of single shot railgun's DPS (yes, the current OP version) for extended period of time. I doubt the marine weapons will do anything meaningful to such shields.
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I think that this is an advantage. If the shield is replenished faster than your marines can damage it, then the craft is immune to boarding (unless you can bring in some additional support). Otherwise there’s no defense against boarding at all.
It really depends on what size of shields you are dealing with... Large shields can tank equivalent BP worth of single shot railgun's DPS (yes, the current OP version) for extended period of time. I doubt the marine weapons will do anything meaningful to such shields.
They can get through the hull ok, that that can stand up to multiple nukes. But yes, the best shields should be quite strong. And recall that this discussion started with the idea that any shield would automatically prevent boarding.
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I think that this is an advantage. If the shield is replenished faster than your marines can damage it, then the craft is immune to boarding (unless you can bring in some additional support). Otherwise there’s no defense against boarding at all.
It really depends on what size of shields you are dealing with... Large shields can tank equivalent BP worth of single shot railgun's DPS (yes, the current OP version) for extended period of time. I doubt the marine weapons will do anything meaningful to such shields.
They can get through the hull ok, that that can stand up to multiple nukes. But yes, the best shields should be quite strong. And recall that this discussion started with the idea that any shield would automatically prevent boarding.
Indeed, that is true, totally forgot about the nuclear equivalent breach charges carried by the marines :D
I'm not sure what's the lore about how shield works in Aurora, so I'm not sure whether they stop boarding makes sense. But from my minmaxing perspective, I feel shield prevents boarding is probably another unnecessary buff to large ships. Perhaps a special variant of the shield that blocks/damages boarders while have some disadvantage such as being weaker or charges slower or costs more like Somebody suggested above works better.
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Proposal: Have another design option for shields for whether you want to harden them against boarders or not. Shields which are not hardened against boarders function as they do currently, but shields which are hardened against boarders will cause damage to boarders during the boarding attempt based on their strength.
The problem is, without and drawback there would be no point in having an option between the two because everyone will always go with the shields that damage boarders.
The drawback would have to be significant enough to make the choice worthwhile.
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Considering shields protect you against missiles it probably would make sense they protect against boarding too logically ( seeing how both are small and fast approaching maneuvering objects ).
I suspect the implementation would be a bit tricky though. For example if shields damage boarding vessels what happens if shields come online during a boarding attempt when the shuttle(s) are attached to the ship while the attacking marines are busy fighting inside?`
If some conditions where boarding is still possible for "very low percentage of maximum" strength the implementation becomes even more messy ( not to mention how a player is supposed to understand how it works ).
So the cleanest and easiest approach is probably to either have boarding ignore shields ( leave as is ) or require shields to be fully knocked out before a boarding attempt can be made and have any shield strength gained after boarding started do nothing vs the ship(s) already attached.
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I think it is completely sufficient the way it is right now. At the moment you need to be faster than the target to be able to board at all and 3 times as fast to board effectively. Meaning, the boarded ship will have suffered quite some battle damage before you can effectively land forces.
How often did you capture an intact ship at similar tech level? I always expected them to be of equivalent speed of your main forces, which makes boarding with your fat ships nearly impossible. Boarding shuttles on the other hand can use higher engine power modifiers, allowing them to reach the required speed, but are pretty vulnerable.
As a consequence of all that, I was only able to capture orbital platforms intact. Those precursor gauss space stations are extremely valuable by the way.
Addition:
When you land forces on a ships hull, there are several combat rounds during which these man blow up layer after layer of armor. Should marines defending the ship be able to engage in combat on the hull? If powered armor includes a vacuum suit they should technically be able to stop attacker before they enter. At the moment, the only thing you can do is wait.
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We could assume a boarding capable troop bay has shield penetrating equipment included which is too large to fit on a missile, to avoid a discepancy between missile shield penetration and shuttle shield penetration
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I really don't like the idea of shields preventing boarding. As it is, boarding is a complex and hard to pull off maneuver and would only get harder if and when the AI gets better at ship design. Right now I feel like it nails the high risk, high reward nature of a boarding action but if shields could block it then it would increase the risk and complexity without adding any novel gameplay. Add to this that in every major sci-fi world I have ever seen, energy shields only prevent boarding via teleportation and explicitly not from boarding craft/forced docking. Now that I am thinking of it, it seems weird that Aurora does not have a teleportation option for troop modules given my understanding of how TNEs are supposed to work. Maybe if a teleportation option were introduced then shields could prevent that form of boarding without hindering to current method. Possible balancing factors could be that although the teleportation option would ignore the ship speed requirement, the module itself would be hugely tonnage inefficient, like a 1000 ton module but it can only hold 250 tons of units. It could also be made to be costly in terms of minerals, including Gallicite for flavor reasons and because it is hugely valuable in the meta.
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The suggestion I thought of while reading this thread is to add a percent penalty to units' boarding attempts equal to the square root of current shield strength, applied after all other calculations. That's a simple enough rule and it'd mean that shields would help somewhat in boarding combat but wouldn't completely prevent it unless your shields were 10,000 or more. A tiny shield or a shield that had just started to recharge would have negligible effects on boarding, but a large undamaged shield would become quite dangerous to boarders, and more so as tech increased. Killing a significant percentage of a boarding party with a shield before combat begins could have a disproportionate effect on the subsequent combat, too. And having a policy of boarding ships with full shields could cause serious attrition among your marines in an extended campaign even if they were otherwise able to board ships and defeat crews without taking casualties.
Another solution would be to make it so that when a ship attempts to board a shielded ship, both ships take a hit equal to (HS of boarding ship / HS of target ship, if that's less than 1) * the target ship's current shield strength with the same damage gradient as ramming. Small heavily armored assault shuttles might be able to punch through a strong, intact shield but they'd probably take shock damage, it'd be very dangerous. A ship that had lost its shields and only recovered a few points, though, would barely scratch the paint on a boarding ship with its shields. And if the boarding ship has stronger shields than the boarded ship they'd be able to just absorb the hit. I think something like that hull size comparison needs to be there though, so that a tiny ship can't sacrifice itself to completely negate a huge ship's shields.
Maybe even add both of those to make boarding well-shielded ships technically possible but especially difficult and dramatic. Imagine you're a space marine sent in to board a strongly shielded enemy battleship, the first assault shuttle to go in explodes against the target's shield with the loss of all hands, but then your assault shuttle rams through with heavy damage, losing one of its troop transport bays along with half your company, and then as it maneuvers alongside the target and you cross through space to the hull, a third of your company's remaining marines along with the CO stray too close to an active shield projector and are boiled alive in their power armor. Then when you finally breach the hull, you're badly outnumbered against the crew. As your position is being overrun you think 'this mission would have been a cakewalk if only the shields had been down.' Because boarding almost ignores heavy armor it's good for balance if shields are a good defense against boarding tactics, but instead of making them absolutely negate boarding attempts, it'd be more fun if they made them likely to end in disaster.
Either way, I think boarding being totally prevented by even a single point of shields would just make boarding all but impossible in practice due to shield recharge, and having a certain minimum percentage of shield strength remaining prevent boarding would incentivize adding tiny shields on ships and result in similar problems. If shields affect boarding they should do so according to their objective strength rather than comparing their current strength to their theoretical full strength.
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I think shields shouldn't stop boarding; armor doesn't, after all, and it's not like boarding is a widely used tactic that badly needs a nerf.
If this change was made I see it mostly just mattering in the case of disabled ships that still have a shield generator or two, and needing to micro bringing over a warship to blast down the shields slowly and carefully without destroying the ship, which just sounds tedious and unfun. I'm as usual opposed to any change that adds micro for no real gameplay benefit, and this sounds like one.
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The suggestion I thought of while reading this thread is to add a percent penalty to units' boarding attempts equal to the square root of current shield strength, applied after all other calculations. That's a simple enough rule and it'd mean that shields would help somewhat in boarding combat but wouldn't completely prevent it unless your shields were 10,000 or more. A tiny shield or a shield that had just started to recharge would have negligible effects on boarding, but a large undamaged shield would become quite dangerous to boarders, and more so as tech increased. Killing a significant percentage of a boarding party with a shield before combat begins could have a disproportionate effect on the subsequent combat, too. And having a policy of boarding ships with full shields could cause serious attrition among your marines in an extended campaign even if they were otherwise able to board ships and defeat crews without taking casualties.
i could get behind that.
A ship with little shields, 20 points or so, would only add about 4.5% casualties, while a ship with stronger shields, 200 for example, would have an additional 14.1% casualties.
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This is a good solution! It resolves the issue of micro, makes shields have an appropriate but not overwhelming impact on boarding, is tied to an absolute value rather than a percentage, and is easy to understand.
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Yea, that does sound like a good idea. It is weird if shields do nothing against boarding but it would be annoying and tedious micro to try to keep shields to zero before you can board.
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I'd prefer if shields didn't affect boarders at all. Shields are already powerful and all-around good defense as it is.
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If we allow shields to also prevent boarding and we consider the difference in the speed you must have with the target we may just get a too punishing gameplay balance.
Currently, small fast planes may fly undetected and manage to get "behind enemy lines" and board targets. Eventually, if they are detected there is a small fraction of time for the assaulted to react and I like it to be honest as it adds the needed high-risk high reward element.
Shields to impact boarding without changing the current shield nature would mean instead that to board a ship you still need to engage in some form of combat so I would probably just raid commercial ships as once I have engaged in combat I am not "holding fire" because of boarding. I may come back later to pick up some dead in the water ships but this is again something that is going to expose me to some weapons repaired in the meantime, missiles reloaded, and more because I need to get the shields down. Why bother then? Once I fired better be for good.
I see Boarding as a Piratry thing mostly.
I think that if we are going to allow shields to prevent boarding then I think it is fair to create a commercial shield and level the play a bit.
In the end, you could have small freighters with Commercial Shields and CWIS installed as small defensive measures against pirates. This could also balance civilian stations which we all know are pretty much dead if any red dot appears in the screen at the right time and the right place. (Yes new Raiders I am looking at you)
The commercial shield would work similarly to the CWIS with fixed dimensions, outputs and power all-in-one based on your racial techs.
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Shields effecting boarding: Perhaps with the ability to target sub systems (e.g. Shields, Engines, Fire Control) to render a ship (mostly) defenceless.
Else: Leave it as it is and spend time improving some other aspect of the game :)
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I've never boarded completely undamaged ships before and I doubt many people do. Well, that's military ships - commercial ships are a different matter and this doesn't affect them anyway. I doubt anyone plays with boarding being their primary method of ship combat since the moment you capture a ship, all the other enemies target it to destroy it, so you're frakked unless you can board all/most of enemy ships at the same time which is pretty much impossible. And to cut down the enemy speed requires you to take down their shields anyway, regardless of whether you're using HPM or not, so again the change isn't a massive change. And you probably do want to take a couple of engines out, at least, since even with boarding training for your marines, your assault shuttle needs to be 5x fast as the target unless you want to throw lives away in a pointless manner.
So really, the only scenario where this would change things in a big way is military stations which could be both shielded and immobile - and you'll probably have to get rid of PD first before you can board anyway, so once again you need to take down the shields before boarding.
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So I have already put my two cents in but I really wanted simplify my argument.
Point one, gameplay.
Boarding does not need to be made harder.
Point two, roll-play killing.
In every major sci-fi I have ever seen, energy shields are explicitly stated to not have any impact at all on boarding unless that boarding action is being conducted via teleportation.
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Proposal: Have another design option for shields for whether you want to harden them against boarders or not. Shields which are not hardened against boarders function as they do currently, but shields which are hardened against boarders will cause damage to boarders during the boarding attempt based on their strength.
The problem is, without and drawback there would be no point in having an option between the two because everyone will always go with the shields that damage boarders.
The drawback would have to be significant enough to make the choice worthwhile.
Agreed. Boarding-hardened shields would cost more - I thought I'd mentioned that in the post but apparently I neglected to bring it up. Open to suggestions on how much more they should cost (20% more? 50% more? Double?) since that'll mostly vary with peoples' views on how strong boarding is.
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In every major sci-fi I have ever seen, energy shields are explicitly stated to not have any impact at all on boarding unless that boarding action is being conducted via teleportation.
If we’re going going to talk about other science fiction, we should just point out that shields are completely illogical, that every fiction makes up their own rules, and that most of the time those rules are inconsistent. There’s no reason we have to copy Star Trek or whatever.
It might be interesting to explore all the fiction out there and catalog what types of shields they have. Shields prevented boarding in Farscape, for example. B5 had no shields at all. Harry Potter had all kinds of shields, but Dumbledore could always walk through everyone’s shields because he had already learned all those secrets. Etc, etc. However, tvtropes has probably already done this, so it probably won’t make a compelling forum thread.
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In every major sci-fi I have ever seen, energy shields are explicitly stated to not have any impact at all on boarding unless that boarding action is being conducted via teleportation.
If we’re going going to talk about other science fiction, we should just point out that shields are completely illogical, that every fiction makes up their own rules, and that most of the time those rules are inconsistent. There’s no reason we have to copy Star Trek or whatever.
It might be interesting to explore all the fiction out there and catalog what types of shields they have. Shields prevented boarding in Farscape, for example. B5 had no shields at all. Harry Potter had all kinds of shields, but Dumbledore could always walk through everyone’s shields because he had already learned all those secrets. Etc, etc. However, tvtropes has probably already done this, so it probably won’t make a compelling forum thread.
I believe Independence Day (The first) has a "force shield" or "shield" that does not allow the fighters to pass it, however, the fighters from the mothership are instead able to do it. I guess it works in a similar wave frequency that Star Trek uses to explain how some weapons are able to bypass shields (like the Borgs) or jam their frequencies like in Independence Day.
What I am trying to say is that while the fact that a craft could or could not bypass shields, the Sci-Fi narrative and Science (which is real science up to an extent) all convene that shields would pretty much work all on the same way.
With the above in mind, a proper energy shield (or even a deflector) would NOT allow anything through it unless the Sci-Fi narrative requires it.
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Well, lets compare a few sci-fi shields quickly.
Star trek has, what i would call, "omni-shields" which stop energy & kinetic based weapons. it also stops transporters, which is the main form of boarding in ST.
Star Wars has at least 2 different types of shields (according to wookiepedia). Ray shields for use against energy, and particle shields which stop kinetic weapons. However these shields do not seen to stop fighters or boarding craft from passing though them. In SWtoR there is a mission where the ship you are on is boarded by the Sith Empire while the shields are at least partially still up. In RotS Anakin and Obi-Wan fly their fighters into the CSA ships hanger in the middle of combat. in RotJ an A-Wing, after getting shot, flies through the energy shield of a Star Destroyer and destroys the bridge.
Edit: Blogaugis points out that the ISD had just lost it's bridge deflectors, so the A-Wing example is incorrect.
In Mass Effect they only posses Kinetic Shields, since the primary weapons of the citadel races are kinetic based.
Halo again goes with the "onmi-shield" approach in that it stops both kinetic and energy weapons. Boarding takes place through battle damage or pre-existing entry points.
Based on how Aurora's shields work, it should be an "omni-shield" which would prevent boarding. I personally think that makes shields too powerful, so the above suggestion of taking the square root of the shield strength and applying that an additional casualty rate is a fair compromise.
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...in RotJ an A-Wing, after getting shot, flies through the energy shield of a Star Destroyer and destroys the bridge.
Officer specifically stated that they "lost the bridge deflector shields" - after one shield dome (of 2) on the Super Star Destroyer was destroyed.
Youtube video link:
But other than that... yes.
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I did wonder briefly if you only wanted capturing civilian ships to be viable, but I deduce that combat boarding is supposed to be viable because the swarm uses it.
On that basis, I think the simplest solution is for a flat 0.1% penalty* to boarding chance for every point of shield strength, maybe capped at 100% penalty**.
A defensive station would need to maintain 1000 points of shields to be immune to boarding, but once the shields are down a few increments of recharging will make very little difference to the chance of success.
Ships can rely on speed to make boarding difficult and shields are an additive defence.
This system is easy for the player to calculate and the AI can easily determine viable targets. You don't need to worry about weird cases where low tech shields are better, or timing being the critical factor, or troops who can't degrade the target shields fast enough to break through, so they start living on the shields.
* I was originally thinking 1% per point of shield strength but I decided 100 points of shields would be too easy to achieve, especially as tech increases. I'm not discounting that other values might be better.
** I can't immediately think of any reason why that would be necessary but I figured someone else might.
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Honestly, I want boarding to be stronger, not weaker.
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Follow up I guess.
"Shields" in any sci-fi are fully and firmly on the fiction side, they are plot based shorthand for delaying consequences and have exactly the same basis in science as demonic summoning.
Next, a bit of a rundown.
Star Trek shields don't stop boarding craft, just teleportation. Just because they prefer to teleport doesn't mean boarding shuttles don't work.
Star Gate shields don't stop boarding craft and honestly I can't remember if they stop teleportation or not but since aurora boarding doesn't work that way... *shrug*
Star Wars shields, like all the other tech in that IP are super inconsistent at best and more often than is reasonable, outright contradictory. *cough* hyperspace *cough*
WH40k shields don't stop boarding craft, just teleportation.
Not only do shields not stop boarding in these works but they don't even hinder it. In some cases boarding is seen as a way of bypassing them when necessary.
And because someone will inevitably feel the need to ask.
How do I know that auroras boarding combat is not teleportation based?
1. The ships involved need to be co-located exactly. Teleportation would almost by definition require separation.
2. Relative speed is a factor. Teleportation without the ability to also control your reference frame is worthless.
2a. No, Star Trek teleportation doesn't care about relative speed ether. Ships moving at impulse have always been able to teleport between them. Warp speed would be analogous to transiting a jump point.
Now all of that is just RP stuff which is subjective. I guess I was hoping that making my disbelief harder to suspend would be a more compelling argument than it turned out to be.
How about this one. Game balance.
Is boarding combat so brokenly powerful that it overwhelms that meta? No.
Is a boarding only doctrine viable? With enough min maxing and cheese, maybe? Probably not though.
Are you at a significant disadvantage if you don't use boarding combat at all? No, not really.
Is boarding impossible to counter? More speed, more guns, more ships, smaller ships, bigger ships (yes, both are counters in their own way.) embarked marines, counter boarding ships, Mesons to disable engi..... etc.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Lastly, if none of that is enough of a reason, here is one just for Steve.
False bug reports.
Boarding craft being able to bypass shields is a big enough trope in sci-fi, not to mention that it is the way they work now, that if they are changed even just to hinder boarding actions, some will see it as a bug and report it. Examples might include:
-10kms faster but boarding still fails?/? PlZ hALp!
-I ran the numbers 3 times and I am losing more marines than I should be. I think something broke the combat formula.
-I immobilized an enemy ship so I sent in my boarding craft from a few systems over but when they got there the game bugged out and all my boarding troops just died before combat even started.
-Just came back to aurora after a break so I used some ship designs from my last play through that worked well while I get back into the swing of things but my boarding craft don't seem to work anymore. All I can think of is that the game thinks my ship is much slower than it is. Maybe the calculation got messed up somehow... maybe some data got overflowed...
Sorry this turned into such a ramble/rant. It really wasn't meant to be. I guess I just don't understand why you would want to change it in the first place.
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...in RotJ an A-Wing, after getting shot, flies through the energy shield of a Star Destroyer and destroys the bridge.
Officer specifically stated that they "lost the bridge deflector shields" - after one shield dome (of 2) on the Super Star Destroyer was destroyed.
Youtube video link:
But other than that... yes.
Thank you for the correction, it's been a few years since i watched the movie.
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Honestly, I want boarding to be stronger, not weaker.
I would buy the argument that the current speed differential required to guarantee boarding is too punishing, if it were smaller boarding craft could be designed with more of a focus on armour.
Personally I'd like 50T troop cargo bays so that smaller ships can have garrisons, although that makes fighter sized boarding craft much easier to make and I suspect Steve doesn't want that.
False bug reports.
I don't buy that this would be any more of an issue than any other change.
For everyone's convenience, maybe Steve could make the boarding calculation appear in the log so that people have a chance to see what happened.
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Honestly, I want boarding to be stronger, not weaker.
I would buy the argument that the current speed differential required to guarantee boarding is too punishing
Perhaps we could remove the Speed factor in favour of a shield one?
I mean in the end to catch a ship you still need to be faster...
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Honestly, I want boarding to be stronger, not weaker.
I would buy the argument that the current speed differential required to guarantee boarding is too punishing
Perhaps we could remove the Speed factor in favour of a shield one?
I mean in the end to catch a ship you still need to be faster...
True, I don't know about anyone else, but i only ever board ships that have been disabled, so their speed is always 0 (well technically 1 Km/s).
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--- We should really be able to use Tractor Beams to "latch" on for a boarding attempt. As in, your ship flies in, catches up, tractors it, and for the purposes of targeting your boarding ship the ship being boarded treats it as moving at 0 km/s... to model them being "in sync" Then you only need a ship fast enough to catch your prey and tough enough to withstand the fire as you close to board.
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--- We should really be able to use Tractor Beams to "latch" on for a boarding attempt. As in, your ship flies in, catches up, tractors it, and for the purposes of targeting your boarding ship the ship being boarded treats it as moving at 0 km/s... to model them being "in sync" Then you only need a ship fast enough to catch your prey and tough enough to withstand the fire as you close to board.
I think using the tractor beam is a great idea because it allows shields to play a role in boarding without messing with the boarding combat.
You can make it so that active shields prevent a ship from latching on a tractor beam whereas once latched on, the shield has a %chance based on current strength to disengage the tractor beam.
You could make it so that when two ships are latched on like this, that you can move back the marines without having to wait the entire troop loading time which would be significant for me because it takes a whole hour to retrieve my marines after successful boarding since my military boarding ships don't waste space for a cargo shuttle bay.
You could also make it so that when the boarding ship is latched on, retreating from combat becomes an option for the marines in question, or if there are marines on the defending ship, they could attempt a counter-boarding.
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False bug reports.
I don't buy that this would be any more of an issue than any other change.
If I had not seen this thread and thought that shields were somehow interfering with boarding combat I would 100% have reported it as a bug because why on earth would they.
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False bug reports.
I don't buy that this would be any more of an issue than any other change.
If I had not seen this thread and thought that shields were somehow interfering with boarding combat I would 100% have reported it as a bug because why on earth would they.
If you're going to
1) not look through the changes list before playing
2) not look through the changes post after finding something odd
3) take the time to write up a bug report
then frankly there is nothing stopping you from writing a bug report about every single feature, new or old, in the game.
Your first bug report would have been "all the planet orbits are weird".
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False bug reports.
I don't buy that this would be any more of an issue than any other change.
So if Steve for some reason were to make say a change where a certain tech level of lasers did 0 damage or something else that make no sense at all, then you don't think that change would get any more false bug reports than a feature or change that correlates 100% to what everyone expects and to how these stuff works in all other Sci Fi universes and games?
To me it's pretty basic logic that the more sense a feature make the less risk of false bug reports because everyone intuitivly expects that it's working as intended. This is a big part of the draw for me to Aurora 4x as a game to begin with. Since so much of the game just "make sense" it makes the experience feel alot more immersive and real, not to mention it's much easier to learn when most times you think "wouldn't it be great if I could..." you can find a button or features that does just what your looking for, roughly where you go looking for it.
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False bug reports.
I don't buy that this would be any more of an issue than any other change.
If I had not seen this thread and thought that shields were somehow interfering with boarding combat I would 100% have reported it as a bug because why on earth would they.
If you're going to
1) not look through the changes list before playing
2) not look through the changes post after finding something odd
3) take the time to write up a bug report
then frankly there is nothing stopping you from writing a bug report about every single feature, new or old, in the game.
Your first bug report would have been "all the planet orbits are weird".
It sure took you a lot of words to call me stupid. If you want to say it then say it but don't invent a scenario and say that it is what I would do.
If it is possible for Steve to miss the fact that he forgot to code this thing in the first place then I think it is more than reasonable that someone who reads the change log might accidentally miss it and think "No way is this intentional" and write it up.
Look, opinions were asked for and I gave mine. Since that seems to be unpopular I will refrain in the future.
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Warning. There are spoilers in this post regarding the Swarm.
Thanks for the lively debate on this subject. It has helped me think through the implications. What struck me most was the observation that most boarding takes place against either damaged warships or commercial vessels due to the need for a high speed differential. The latter can't mount shields and the former is likely to have only minimal shields. The exceptions would be either a situation where a warship received engine damage and was subsequently able to recharge its remaining shields before undergoing a boarding assault, which is probably a rare case, and an assault by the Swarm which doesn't really care about casualties on the boarding attempt.
While I liked the suggestion of shield strength acting as a negative modifier to the boarding chance, it adds complexity that will generally not apply to any significant degree given the above, except in the case of the AI Swarm and I don't want to add something that is more likely to penalise the AI than the player.
Therefore, for now at least, I am going to leave the situation as is stands, with shields not having an impact on boarding.
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One of the reasons why I wanted shields to prevent or reduce the chance of successful boarding is that we are not able to help our ships after enemy marines land. Would it be possible to add counterboarding?
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Isn't that already in? I thought someone had tested it.
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--- We should really be able to use Tractor Beams to "latch" on for a boarding attempt. As in, your ship flies in, catches up, tractors it, and for the purposes of targeting your boarding ship the ship being boarded treats it as moving at 0 km/s. . . to model them being "in sync" Then you only need a ship fast enough to catch your prey and tough enough to withstand the fire as you close to board.
Could also make it viable for large ships to capture and board small ships like the opening scene of a New Hope, with the star destroyer tractoring the Corellian Corvette into its hanger.
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One of the reasons why I wanted shields to prevent or reduce the chance of successful boarding is that we are not able to help our ships after enemy marines land. Would it be possible to add counterboarding?
It's worth noting that a couple of hundred tonnes of CSAP-armed superheavies will pretty much obliterate most boarding attempts if you're looking for a way to prevent your ships being boarded.
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One of the reasons why I wanted shields to prevent or reduce the chance of successful boarding is that we are not able to help our ships after enemy marines land. Would it be possible to add counterboarding?
It's worth noting that a couple of hundred tonnes of CSAP-armed superheavies will pretty much obliterate most boarding attempts if you're looking for a way to prevent your ships being boarded.
I'm fairly certain that vehicular elements do not contribute to boarding combat, only infantry elements.
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One of the reasons why I wanted shields to prevent or reduce the chance of successful boarding is that we are not able to help our ships after enemy marines land. Would it be possible to add counterboarding?
It's worth noting that a couple of hundred tonnes of CSAP-armed superheavies will pretty much obliterate most boarding attempts if you're looking for a way to prevent your ships being boarded.
I'm fairly certain that vehicular elements do not contribute to boarding combat, only infantry elements.
Vehicular elements cannot board a ship, but as far as I can tell from looking at the mechanics there is nothing saying they cannot shoot things if they already happen to be on the ship, though I concede that it is a tad bit silly to think of a UHV rumbling through the ship's corridors tearing apart the walls to chase down a space marine.
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I concede that it is a tad bit silly to think of a UHV rumbling through the ship's corridors tearing apart the walls to chase down a space marine.
I'm sure a dreadnaught has done this at some point in 40ks lore.
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I concede that it is a tad bit silly to think of a UHV rumbling through the ship's corridors tearing apart the walls to chase down a space marine.
I'm sure a dreadnaught has done this at some point in 40ks lore.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war redecorating. :P
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One of the reasons why I wanted shields to prevent or reduce the chance of successful boarding is that we are not able to help our ships after enemy marines land. Would it be possible to add counterboarding?
It's worth noting that a couple of hundred tonnes of CSAP-armed superheavies will pretty much obliterate most boarding attempts if you're looking for a way to prevent your ships being boarded.
I'm fairly certain that vehicular elements do not contribute to boarding combat, only infantry elements.
Vehicular elements cannot board a ship, but as far as I can tell from looking at the mechanics there is nothing saying they cannot shoot things if they already happen to be on the ship, though I concede that it is a tad bit silly to think of a UHV rumbling through the ship's corridors tearing apart the walls to chase down a space marine.
If it is a special designed UHV for this purpose, I always imagine it as part of the ship's automated internal defense systems, such as hidden auto-turrets, defender droids, or garbage chutes :)
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--- Nah, just tested this and neither Static nor Light Vehicle elements fired upon the boarders.
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--- Nah, just tested this and neither Static nor Light Vehicle elements fired upon the boarders.
Hmm, I also just tested, the UHV mowed down marines like a hot knife through butter...
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--- Nah, just tested this and neither Static nor Light Vehicle elements fired upon the boarders.
Hmm, I also just tested, the UHV mowed down marines like a hot knife through butter...
--- Really!? Can you take me through the steps you used, so I can try to reproduce it? Or even better, could you send me the .DB?
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--- Nah, just tested this and neither Static nor Light Vehicle elements fired upon the boarders.
Hmm, I also just tested, the UHV mowed down marines like a hot knife through butter...
--- Really!? Can you take me through the steps you used, so I can try to reproduce it? Or even better, could you send me the .DB?
Nothing more sophisticated than creating a 2nd player race, designing a ship with some troop bay to load a UHV, designing said UHV, loading it onto said ship, and sending a boarding pod to board that ship.
Unfortunately, the DB I used for testing just now was from an ongoing tournament, so I cannot disclose it. But I can try to recreate this scenario in a fresh DB so I can share when I get a chance.
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--- Nah, just tested this and neither Static nor Light Vehicle elements fired upon the boarders.
Hmm, I also just tested, the UHV mowed down marines like a hot knife through butter...
--- Really!? Can you take me through the steps you used, so I can try to reproduce it? Or even better, could you send me the .DB?
Nothing more sophisticated than creating a 2nd player race, designing a ship with some troop bay to load a UHV, designing said UHV, loading it onto said ship, and sending a boarding pod to board that ship.
Unfortunately, the DB I used for testing just now was from an ongoing tournament, so I cannot disclose it. But I can try to recreate this scenario in a fresh DB so I can share when I get a chance.
--- Weird. I did the same thing and the Static / Light Vehicles with CAP didn't so much as fire a shot...
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I can confirm that light vehicle, medium, heavy, super heavy, ultraheavy, and static will all defend in boarding combat.
DB attached.
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I can confirm that light vehicle, medium, heavy, super heavy, ultraheavy, and static will all defend in boarding combat.
DB attached.
Interesting - I wonder if/how that changes what the best anti-boarding team looks like. I've been using infantry and powered infantry, but that's only because I was under the impression that they were the only ones that could do so.
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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.
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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.
--- I sure hope not. I use Static Formations on my ships to simulate anti-boarding turrets. I also use Vehicles on my bigger space stations to simulate "Combat Trams."
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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.
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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.
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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. :)
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--- 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.
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--- 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. :)
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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.
So actually, if I think through this some more, I think probably the current system is the best - probably we do not even need this SM trigger (which I dislike as adding SM-only mechanics is rather against the spirit of the game IMO). If the player RPs that their ships are too narrow to be defended by main battle tanks, then they simply don't put main battle tanks on their ships as part of a defense complement, and vice versa if the player likes wide hallways. Instead of the mechanics enforcing RP, the mechanics allow the player to enforce RP however they like which I think is always better in Aurora.
Really my main issue with the way things work right now is that if you board a troop transport full of armored units, all the tanks in the transport bays will fire in defense of the entire ship even if logically they would be basically immobile, however this is really not an important case in terms of mechanics as the 250-500t boarding company assaulting a loaded troop transport is going to get what they deserve either way.
I do think that letting LVH participate in boarding assaults is a bit excessive though. ;)
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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. :P
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I will say that driving tanks through the corridors as part of a boarding op is absolutely a thing that happens in sci-fi:
https://proximalflame.com/2021/09/20/children-of-heaven-chapter-20/
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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.
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What struck me most was the observation that most boarding takes place against either damaged warships or commercial vessels due to the need for a high speed differential. The latter can't mount shields and the former is likely to have only minimal shields. The exceptions would be either a situation where a warship received engine damage and was subsequently able to recharge its remaining shields before undergoing a boarding assault, which is probably a rare case, and an assault by the (snip).
Another exception would be defensive stations, which another spoiler uses a fair amount.
I think you used boarding parties to against precursor stations in one of the 40K campaigns.
Having shields defend against boarding could be used to make them harder targets.
With respect to the arguments about what units can fight in boarding actions, I'd prefer it if we kept boarding combat limited to infantry. If LVH operate at all they should have a significant penalty. Other units should remain inactive during combat.
If the ship is captured, the vehicles should be scuttled/ejected/sabotaged by the defenders and get removed.
Size based arguments can be applied to infantry if the species are different (at least if the attacker is substantially larger than the defender, for example humans invading a goblin warren), so I'd prefer that the issue gets hand waved rather than used as a basis for determining what can and can't happen.
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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.
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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.
Collateral damage can occur during boarding combat, so heavy weapons should accelerate the rate of this.