Boarding vs Destroying?

[Elhazzared]

While you are not forced to really use teleporters or just find a way to kill the crew of the enemy vessel just to take extra stuff it's fair to say that the vast majority of players do it when they have a chance, the reason for this is because boarding is just that good... Having to chose between a burst laser 2 and a teleporter... I'd probably get the laser if I felt my weapon were starting to get awefully inadequate, but if my weapons were at least good enough for the situations I was running into then I'd get the teleporter without a moment's thought. It means fights will be easier, quicker and more profitable... You say that the teleporter makes fights longer but that isn't the case most of the times. If you are trying to board with humans then yeah. But you'll find out that a party of 2 mantis can kill any crew faster than your weapon will take out a ship and that is just 2 mantis, now imagine 4! As it develops into mid game with a crew of 4 mantis teleoprting you will take out ships before they can even fire a single shot, it's just that powerful and early on, 2 mantis still kill ships way faster than any starting ship with guns will, this is because the enemy shipswill be poorly maned, usually 2 crew, sometimes 3, never a healing bay and almost never defense drones.

Now I will agree that after you've beat all the content and have all the ships you can say, yeah, let's have fun with something different, but you'll find that players most of the times have fun playing what is most efficient and for a reason both the crystal cruiser B and the mantis cruiser B are really high on the top played ships.

[Dontmindme]

What you are saying about Mantis destroying ships too quickly is valid, but we come back to slowing down the Mantis. Let's just say, for example, that turning them down to 1.5x damage would translate to maybe the enemy ship getting an extra shot off for let's say 2 damage. Even at 2 damage a pop, that adds up, a little bit of bad luck not finding a store for repairs and you are going through sectors near death's door. This makes it more of a judgement call. It also does little to change existing mechanics and techniques. I'm not sure I like the idea of changes more dramatic than this. This is a popular and successful game, developed with a lot of testing, to make big changes to boarding is a risk.

It's much safer to tweak the damage output of Mantis or tweak the rewards for boarding down a bit, than to overhaul the entire system.

[Elhazzared]

Here's the thing. Boaring as it is, even with 4 mantis is balanced. ships are actually balanced to account for how many guys it can send to board with different allowances for weapon systems. The problem lies strictly with the blantantly better rewards for crew kills making players ignore other ways to kill enemies and as such, play the game mostly towards the same way to the detriment of everything else. This detriments the game and quite frankly even more so with new expansion. So many things being added and the metagame will hardly change if the rewards are not reworked.

[Bronzor]

I know that in one of the mods for FTL (I think it was Captains Edition) that I tried out, there were options to take time to search debris that yielded more scrap but took time that let the Rebels gain more ground. If there is a sequel to FTL (or maybe some more mods or whatever) it would be interesting if capturing a ship granted more fuel, ammo, opportunities for crew, but it required time to gather more scrap (as opposed to just scooping up the scrap from the ships wreckage).

Or alternatly, you could kill the crew, take over the ship, and sort of leave one crew to pilot it until you reach a shop to sell it off. Basically, after capturing the ship you lose one crew (or have them marked with an 'off-ship' status) and once you reach the next shop you get to sell your captured ship and get your crew back. That would get you some hefty rewards but leave you with one fewer crew member.


Another issue on the boarding vs destroying is that I've often had bad luck when it comes to finding decent weapons as opposed to buying (or just starting with) a teleporter. You can find shops and there is usually a decent chance you can buy a teleporter there if you have the scrap. There is no such guarantee you can find a decent weapon that you would want or you could fit on your weapons system without investing in upgrading it.

Also, there have been times when I've been bombarding the enemy with weapons and they have tried to surrender to me. Problem is, I don't think any of their offers have been as good as I would have gotten by destroying them. So the most profitable ways of handling enemies have been Boarding > Destroying > Accepting Surrender. If enemies would offer better things when trying to surrender, I think it could balance out the two.

Fire at enemies with weapons, if they surrender you get a decent reward that's as good or better than if you board them. If they don't you have to sift through the wreckage for scrap.

Board the enemy and kill the crew, you get a reliable source of scrap and supplies.

So, the most profitable ways becomes Accepting Surrender > Boarding > Destroying. A professional space pirate would probably be boarding his enemies more often then not, but one could also stock up on weapons and fire at the enemy. If the other ship surrenders, they pretty much strip their ship down for you and you get a good reward (possibly including a weapon, sub system, or crew member) but if they don't then you have to sift the wreckage. Destroying ships then becomes the riskier but potentially more rewarding path if you can accept a surrender.


I also think it would be nice to get some damaged weapons, subsystems, or drones as rewards if possible. As in, you get an item but you need to spend some scrap to fix it up to usable condition. That way the game can hand out things like a 'broken burst laser II' or 'broken anti-personnel drone' without it being over powered, you basically won the opportunity to spend scrap to get that specific item. Then you can either sell it at a shop for scrap (where they presumable fix it up for resale) or fix it up yourself to use. This gives you a more steady supply of potential weapons or rewards while still needing scrap to use them. Maybe get more of these things from destroying ships.

[zeek]

I don't think the added rewards are the problem with boarding. I think the consistent nature of the strategy, along with the low entry costs, and low risk are what make boarding such a good strategy. I think making boarding more risky is the solution.

What if they said that asphyxiation gave an added bonus. Do you think people would really kill every ship by asphyxiating their crew? It would take a lot of work and would be pretty risky. You'd have to keep disabling the O2 as it gets repaired and would probably not be able to disable much else without risking destroying the opposing ship. The only time to really go for it is the slug ship with the unreachable O2 system.

I think some of the new announced systems for the advanced edition could make boarding more risky. Adding in smarter A.I., more likely door upgrades, and maybe something like a chance a ship will be rigged with a self destruct fail safe if their crew dies. Then you'd have like 2 seconds to beam back or lose your boarding crew and obviously the ship would explode. So, no bonus reward.

[jhmgrose]

Here's a solution. Buy an ion gun and a bio beam. Zap their medical bay, and shoot the enemies with a bio-beam. It won't blow up the ship, but some people like firing the guns.

[Twinge]

Even against Slavers, it is in your best interest to Board them for a chance to get a free crewmember.

Actually, you have an 80% chance of them surrendering and offering a crewman from damage and a 67% chance to get a crewman from boarding. There are other potential benefits (ability to pick the type of crewman for example), but in terms of raw crew boarding is actually worse.

reducing Mantis damage to say 1.5x human

This is actually already the case - the game lies. Mantis currently deal 1.5x damage, and thus are even with Rockman in a fight.

Having to chose between a burst laser 2 and a teleporter... I'd probably get the laser if I felt my weapon were starting to get awefully inadequate, but [otherwise] I'd get the teleporter without a moment's thought.

Actually, I'd recommend Burst II in this spot easily - a Burst II will be fantastic for the rest of the game, and I'll very likely be able to buy a Teleporter at one of the next 2 shops I visit anyway.

[Elhazzared]

Again I don't think the problem with boarding is risk vs reward. let's put it like this. It doesn't matters how effective or easy it is for boarding to kill. Killing an enemy with a laser or a missile grants the same rewards, whatever ways you suse to kill enemies they should yield the same rewards, it is acceptable that different ways of killing the enemy have varying degrees of success, depending on the situation, the varying reward for forms of killing is not acceptable as again, it forces players or at least it will funel most players into a playstyle because it's just plain beter.

As for the Burst laser 2 vs the teleporter. It depends on the situation but almost always I'll take the eleporter, especially early on. You may prefer a burst laser 2 which is good throughout the whole game, but so is the teleporter. Meanwhile the burst laser 2 will be killing ships and giving you some rewards, the teleporter will similarly be killing ships but it will be earning me much better rewards. This means I can aford constant repairs, weapons wherever I go, fuel if I need, ammo or drone parts, systems. Really everything. My playthroughs without teleporters usually I get to the end on the bare minimum needed, with the teleporters I get to he end with everything I need and a load of extra scrap for a very nice retirement after my exploits.

[Dontmindme]

I'd take the BL2 in a heartbeat. It's just too easy to later get a teleporter. One purchased BL2 and your weapons are most likely boss-ready (I'm not thinking of any exceptions, but there might be one). You can't pass that up. The utter dominance that an early BL2 brings and the lack of damage you take as you wipe out the next sector or two.

[Elhazzared]

BL2 has one drawback... well 2 if you count the required power to make it work but one major drawback anyway. Very long charge time to fire. Sure once you fire it once it's probably not going to be an issue anymore but here's the thing for me. I buy a teleporter early on, I can board early on and that means I can take a ton of scrap early on. A ton of scrap that a BL2 will not make me even if i take a bit less damage per fight. I will both aford the repairs easly and still make much more scrap than if I didn't had the BL2... As for having boss ready weapons, quite frankly any runs I get to the boos I always beat it cause I will always be left with the necessary stuff. On the other hand, if I don't get the teleporter on the first ocasion it might take me a few sectors until I get it and by that time I might have lost a ton of scrap which is much worse... Even teh supposed combat dominance of a BL2... It's good don't get me wrong, but getting level 3 shields early on, possibly also a drone control and anti missile drone just cause you earned so much scrap that it's affordable is even better. Still, at the end of the day I guess it comes down to preference on that specific choice, however it still true that the teleporter problem derives only from the extra income.