What's the consensus on boarding ships?

[XB-7]

I boarded an undamaged pirate ship through the belly-door. I noticed I was able to take control of the ship, but unable to make any improvements - or sabatoge it. When I got my pistol out and tried to shoot out the core from the inside, the forcefield activated from within the ship.

I haven't played on any of the multi-player servers yet as I'm still in orientation. Are there any tools yet for seizing properties of other factions and retrofiting them or sabotaging ships from within? Now with additional crew NPC's in development, boarding vessels might be a cool challenge.

 

[Florrible]

If a ship has a faction block, you can\'t board it. And even if it doesn\'t, it can\'t be moving very fast as else you would fall out unless you find the gravity block

 

[MineCatFTW]

Boarding stuff right now isn\'t really viable, but once more personal combat stuff is added (more weapons and such), then we will probably see it happen more.

 

[ferret21]

I boarded a ship a couple times. It was a b wing that the ai was using as a pirate ship. I got inside and entered the core.

 

[Stakhanov]

Ships can be hermetically sealed in build mode , leaving no access to anyone not in faction. They don\'t require any empty room inside , so there may be nothing to board.

Even if empty volumes are required for NPCs , you can keep them small and isolated , with arbitrary layers of modules to remove when they have to be swapped out. Realistically , no access until the ship is completely wrecked.

 

[Snk]

I\'ve always thought that if there\'s more than one person on the enemy ship, if you just take out the faction module (Usually located near the core) You could board it. But i\'ve never tried it before

 

[hindos]

Boarding is an amazingly fun and intense level of combat that could definetly add an additional layer of strategic value. Of course it has the downside of potentially compromising far too powerful ships with relatively little resource or time input, but the introduction of NPC\'s and developed personal weapon systems could counteract this.



However, currently boarding is unpractical. For it to occur a few more systems would need to be inplace, such as but not necessarily limited to or including: hacking (faction blocks), boarding-oriented ships (stealth, \'attach\' self to other vessel?), and tools to sabotage (not griefing) e.g. engine failure, electromagnetic pules, etc.

Just thinking out loud here, feel free to contribute.

 

[Stakhanov]

There\'s the small issue of indoor missile turrets. Inside shields would prevent the ship from taking any damage , with medium to large radius missiles instantly clearing the entire ship of boarders.

 

[Lecic]

Shields need to only protect the outer shell of the ship, not the interior. This would make thicker hulls important too, because breaking through the outer shell would leave the internal systems exposed, and even with online shields, if you have a hole in your hull, you are done for.

 

[RoosterTheRed]

I personally think boarding sounds awesome. If someone were to somehow take out the engines/weapons of a ship, leaving it dead in space, and then board it with the intent to take it\'s cargo or steal it for themselves, it\'d be pretty freakin amazing. With the possible implementation of NPCs soon, it would also make more sense. Board a ship, meet resistance. Eh? Eh?



But as several blokes above me have mentioned, it\'s not very practical or rewarding at this point in the game. It sounds like a great idea, but more for an end-game addition than a current one.

 

[Florrible]

Yep, we need better weapons or at least stuff to be able to stand moving ships before it is somehow useful