Boarding dilemma

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

So I am preparing to conduct boarding against ships that go a bit over 11000 km/s (I'm well-aware of the general rule of thumb about weakening the ships first so it goes slower etc, however in my case I'd rather not have to do that hence this is not what I want to talk about in this post).

I'm considering two options:
1. "proper" shuttle which goes twice as fast as the enemy - could possibly sequeeze a few thousands kilometers per sec more if I really tried to do a very efficient design etc etc, but not much else, meaning only 40% of my troops would make it to the targeted ship. Said shuttle would have 18 layers of armor, but the ships in question can fire 20 lasers of 21 dmg every 20 seconds, range about 400 000 km. That means that if I paired it with ECM they could get only one volley at medium to max range meaning low damage before my shuttles close in and pour troops

2. "fighter" shuttle capable of delivering 100% of my troops into enemy ships, transported via decently armored carriers just barely faster to get close enough to the enemy and launch boarding fighters. The plan in that version means there's only one 5s increment aka the shortest it can last before my freshly launched fighters successfully complete delivery, so they only need to survive one increment in the sky, nothing more, rest is irrelevant.

What worries me about this, especially version two, however, is that the enemy also has tons of gauss cannons, so I fear that even one shortest increment will be perfectly enough for them to destory my fighters before they can unload troops and I'm not sure about 18 layers of armor being enough for this either.

So, what's your take on this. What's your experience with boarding combat? Which version would you suggest me to use? Or maybe I should combine both? I really struggle to decide myself.

[Froggiest1982]

So I am preparing to conduct boarding against ships that go a bit over 11000 km/s (I'm well-aware of the general rule of thumb about weakening the ships first so it goes slower etc, however in my case I'd rather not have to do that hence this is not what I want to talk about in this post).

I'm considering two options:
1. "proper" shuttle which goes twice as fast as the enemy - could possibly sequeeze a few thousands kilometers per sec more if I really tried to do a very efficient design etc etc, but not much else, meaning only 40% of my troops would make it to the targeted ship. Said shuttle would have 18 layers of armor, but the ships in question can fire 20 lasers of 21 dmg every 20 seconds, range about 400 000 km. That means that if I paired it with ECM they could get only one volley at medium to max range meaning low damage before my shuttles close in and pour troops

2. "fighter" shuttle capable of delivering 100% of my troops into enemy ships, transported via decently armored carriers just barely faster to get close enough to the enemy and launch boarding fighters. The plan in that version means there's only one 5s increment aka the shortest it can last before my freshly launched fighters successfully complete delivery, so they only need to survive one increment in the sky, nothing more, rest is irrelevant.

What worries me about this, especially version two, however, is that the enemy also has tons of gauss cannons, so I fear that even one shortest increment will be perfectly enough for them to destory my fighters before they can unload troops and I'm not sure about 18 layers of armor being enough for this either.

So, what's your take on this. What's your experience with boarding combat? Which version would you suggest me to use? Or maybe I should combine both? I really struggle to decide myself.

Do you know how many BFC they have? Can you find out?

I used to go straight with one shuttle as well but recently I send 4 from 2 different angles (2x2). The idea is to water down enemy fire. For some tougher ships I have also sent a small volley of missiles at some point just to keep also the PD busy. Every increment counts in boarding maneuvers. Shouldn't be hard to time that too with a bit of patience.

Regarding your question I always go with Fighters, they generally harder to hit anyway.

I don't know how much experience you have in boarding but I also always plan the boarding adding an external waypoint. I want the shuttle to come in fast, drop, and fly away. It can happen to forget "releasing" the shuttle from the boarded hull.

[Nori]

So I am preparing to conduct boarding against ships that go a bit over 11000 km/s (I'm well-aware of the general rule of thumb about weakening the ships first so it goes slower etc, however in my case I'd rather not have to do that hence this is not what I want to talk about in this post).

I'm considering two options:
1. "proper" shuttle which goes twice as fast as the enemy - could possibly sequeeze a few thousands kilometers per sec more if I really tried to do a very efficient design etc etc, but not much else, meaning only 40% of my troops would make it to the targeted ship. Said shuttle would have 18 layers of armor, but the ships in question can fire 20 lasers of 21 dmg every 20 seconds, range about 400 000 km. That means that if I paired it with ECM they could get only one volley at medium to max range meaning low damage before my shuttles close in and pour troops

2. "fighter" shuttle capable of delivering 100% of my troops into enemy ships, transported via decently armored carriers just barely faster to get close enough to the enemy and launch boarding fighters. The plan in that version means there's only one 5s increment aka the shortest it can last before my freshly launched fighters successfully complete delivery, so they only need to survive one increment in the sky, nothing more, rest is irrelevant.

What worries me about this, especially version two, however, is that the enemy also has tons of gauss cannons, so I fear that even one shortest increment will be perfectly enough for them to destory my fighters before they can unload troops and I'm not sure about 18 layers of armor being enough for this either.

So, what's your take on this. What's your experience with boarding combat? Which version would you suggest me to use? Or maybe I should combine both? I really struggle to decide myself.

Load the carrier with cheap no damage missiles that hit the same time as the shuttles. Launch them at the enemy ship at the same time and you should be able to spread their fire a lot better.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Answering some of your question, no, it's my first time thinking about boarding and no, I have no idea either how many fire controls they have or how to find out this.

And actually boarding in my case won't be a standalone action, boarding fleet will be a subfleet of my main fleet and everything will happen in paralell to main combat, so I hope enemy won't focus on my boarders. That way I could theoretically focus my fire on gauss-wielding ships to quickly rack some kills, clearing the path for boarders which would then drop my soldiers onto those scary laser ones to "destroy" them without me having to stay within their range anymore.

What I do know is that their gauss has a PD hit ratio of a bit over 50% and my fighters go at precisely 52113 km/s. Hmm, that's actually a bit less than 5x11000, so technically a one or two soldiers will get lost with each attempt, hopefully it won't be the commander.

Anyways, thanks. Might I ask you for your experiences with boarding? Something important to remember about in the heat of battle?

[Black]

I am usually using fighters to board ships and I did board some that still had active gauss cannons. I never lost fighters during the deployment as I always also give them order to withdraw (same as froggiest1982). It was against spoiler race, but not the same you want to board.

In my experience NPRs like to target captured ships, so you may be able to capture the ship, but if there are active hostiles in range, you may loose both ship and marines. You can always try to board several targets at once and if you are boarding ships that were not damaged, you most likely will be able to capture them before the first to be captured ship dies to rest of the hostiles.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Well, I don't care about losing them afterwards (one squad is two months training), so "destroying" enemy ships by capturing them is good enough for me, and if it means for a while they'll be occupied with them instead of damaging my fleet it's even better.

[captainwolfer]

Use boarding fighters, and make sure the fighters have an order to run away as soon as they deploy their boarding squads. I'm not sure if the gauss cannons will be able to target your fighters on the first 5 second increment (Depends on if the enemies have fire delay, and if boarding is done before firing), but if your fighters are out of gauss range by the second 5s increment, then the guass cannons shouldn't be able to fire in the second increment.

[Droll]

Also note that when you capture a ship their entire design spec will be available to view alongside the rest of your designs independent on whether the ship survives or not.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Use boarding fighters, and make sure the fighters have an order to run away as soon as they deploy their boarding squads. I'm not sure if the gauss cannons will be able to target your fighters on the first 5 second increment (Depends on if the enemies have fire delay, and if boarding is done before firing), but if your fighters are out of gauss range by the second 5s increment, then the guass cannons shouldn't be able to fire in the second increment.

How could this happen that gauss won't fire during first increment? If they have rate of fire of 5s then I assumed they can fire each increment no matter what, there won't be any delay and thus my fighters will be endangered. If they fired after boarding then that'd be something, though - still suicide mission for my fighters, but at least the job's done.

[brondi00]

They can't use final defensive auto fire against a fighter or FAC.  So they'd have to Target them "manually" and if they have some sort of fire delay then they may not be able to actually fire in 5s.  Maybe 15-20s.

Which for gauss and a fast fighter could mean you are outside their range at the start.  Unloading the marines, then back out of their range before they can do anything about it with their gauss.

[xenoscepter]

 - Does CIWS fire on fighter craft?

[Rince Wind]

No.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

They can't use final defensive auto fire against a fighter or FAC.  So they'd have to Target them "manually" and if they have some sort of fire delay then they may not be able to actually fire in 5s.  Maybe 15-20s.

Which for gauss and a fast fighter could mean you are outside their range at the start.  Unloading the marines, then back out of their range before they can do anything about it with their gauss.

What kind of fire delay they might have outside of jump shock?

Also, as for the second part: my fighters, going over 50000 km/s, can reach them in one increment if I launch them close enough (although just realised it can't be 250000 km because I need to take into account them moving as well, so it'll be closer to 200000 if I want to catch them within one increment, but also could be more if they head my way rather than retreat).

My "fighter deploy range" is higher than gauss range. So did you want to say that the amount of time spent within their range is actually lower than 5s, hence even if aurora doesn't allow shorter increments, it still takes this into account, making gauss require full 5 seconds which they won't get because my shuttles will spend less time in their range?

[Droll]

They can't use final defensive auto fire against a fighter or FAC.  So they'd have to Target them "manually" and if they have some sort of fire delay then they may not be able to actually fire in 5s.  Maybe 15-20s.

Which for gauss and a fast fighter could mean you are outside their range at the start.  Unloading the marines, then back out of their range before they can do anything about it with their gauss.

What kind of fire delay they might have outside of jump shock?

Also, as for the second part: my fighters, going over 50000 km/s, can reach them in one increment if I launch them close enough (although just realised it can't be 250000 km because I need to take into account them moving as well, so it'll be closer to 200000 if I want to catch them within one increment, but also could be more if they head my way rather than retreat).

My "fighter deploy range" is higher than gauss range. So did you want to say that the amount of time spent within their range is actually lower than 5s, hence even if aurora doesn't allow shorter increments, it still takes this into account, making gauss require full 5 seconds which they won't get because my shuttles will spend less time in their range?

If the enemy is not 100% trained then they might experience fire delays. Assuming they are fully trained however I think that you will always eat one round of gauss when you close, I think fleets can only complete 1 movement order per 5 second increment.

So what happens is that you spend 1 increment completing the "boarding action" order and then another 5 seconds finishing whatever movement order you gave them to retreat. If by the end of the second 5 second increment your fighters exit gauss range, then I think you avoid the second round of fire.

[Panpiper]

How many space marines need to board an enemy vessel to take control of it? Does it matter how well they are equipped? My standard 'Space Marine" wears heavy powered armor and is equipped with what the game calls a "crew served weapon". I see them as Warhammer 40K troops carrying Gatling weapons.