Star Trek Online - Boarding Parties

Star Trek Online (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/index.php)

- Federation Gameplay (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=165)

- - Boarding Parties (http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=140511)

Boarding Parties

In canon, during a space battle (nemisis for example), when a ships shields are down or at least one section of the ships shields, its possible for another ship to beam a boarding party to the opposing ship.

So why in STO (its a great game in my opinion just some inconsistencies) do we send extremely vulnerable shuttles, instead of transporting them.
That and i think that active boarding parties should get a 50/50 chance of disabling a subsystem and or crew, just a thought..

What do you peeps think?:rolleyes:

Bear in mind both ships shields would need to be down for this to occur.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrisJ (Post 2397416)

Bear in mind both ships shields would need to be down for this to occur.

Well, typically, the ship sending the teams would drop their facing shield for a split second to initiate transport...

Easy answer is... ease of use game mechanics. Hit & Run action takes precise timing and planning. Besides, to be perfectly honest, in STO with the very limited internal systems mechanics, there's barely even a use for boarding parties. At least as I see it.

By the by, the shuttles wouldn't actually be able to make it through to the ship at all until there was a shield down, anyway. You know, if actual physics applied in MMO World... (this is canon from as early as ST V: TFF, a shuttle cannot approach a ship while its shields are up).

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCSlyman (Post 2397470)

But didn't they send a shuttle through a shield in 'The Best of Both Worlds'?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaiserhawk (Post 2397971)

But didn't they send a shuttle through a shield in 'The Best of Both Worlds'?

In canon, the Borg don't use standard shields on their ships, per se. The regenerative ability of their ships is considered adequate, plus they can tune their hull to repel weapons damage of that same type, much like the individual drones can ("Q Who?"). The Federation eventually, and obviously, found ways to delay or negate that modulation, but the fact remains... they don't use defensive shields.

They did, however, use a low-intensity subspace (or possibly magnetic.. been a while since I watched that episode) field to prevent unwanted transporter activity to their ship in TBoBW Pt 2. This field was bypassed via shuttle, as it could not stop regular matter, only low-intensity signal energy. Communications, transporters, that sort of thing. That's why the shuttle had to clear the field a second time once they had Locutus in hand.

So, yeah. Apples and oranges.

I can still send boarding parties if my entire crew is dead. Talk about canon, lol

Yeah, there's that little feature, too, rofl

I had an idea for boarding parties.. Now burried somewhere. Here it is for your enjoyment:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asakara

From my experience Boarding party is a limited power that is difficult to get results from.

Boarding Party launches 3 shuttles at the target. These shuttles are weak and can be shot down easily. These shuttles are also slow necessitating "over-run" tactics to have any chance of getting them to work. If the shuttles make contact with an enemy they take 20 to 30 seconds to disable one subsystem and then beam back to your ship, unfortunately in a lot of cases, an enemy ship is almost destroyed or is destroyed before your soldiers can return.

I propose the following in place of the current system:

New Ability 1) Boarding Party: Assault Shuttles (I, II, and III)

Description: You send a shuttle with 10 marines in full environmental suits over to the enemy ship to do as much damage as possible by killing crew, damaging systems, and decompressing hull sections. Once their mission is complete they will assume a defensive position and await beam back.

Function: Each level of Boarding Party: Assault Shuttles launches 1 assault shuttle using up 10 crew (Level II launches 2 shuttles and uses 20 crew, Level III launches 3 shuttles and uses 30 crew). The shuttles will get next to a target ship (inside the shields) and will transport aboard to start their mission. Each teams mission lasts 60 seconds. Every 3 seconds an assault team will damage 1% of the targets hull directly (for a total of 20% over the full 60 seconds). After 30 seconds each team will have a 50% chance of disabling one random subsystem for 2-8 seconds. They get a second 50% chance at the end of their mission (60 seconds). After 60 seconds their mission will be complete. If the target ships hull reaches 10% or less of its max the team(s) will abort their mission.

Once the mission is complete or aborted each team will rally in a defensive position for beam back. When the player's ship is within 5k of the target the Assault teams will drop the shield (if there is one) facing the players ship for 3 seconds. In addition, the player's own shield facing the target will also drop for 3 seconds as the (surviving) marines transport back aboard.

If the player ship does not come within 5k the teams will slowly lose members till all the members are killed (60 seconds after mission completion). If the target ship is destroyed before the teams beam back they will be lost.

Assault Shuttle speed needs to be increased by 20-50% to better reach the target.

Assault teams will generally lose a man (per team) every 15 seconds.

Counter: Tactical Teams can counter Assault teams on board:

Tac Team Type *Kill Assault Team I* *Kill Assault Team II* *Kill Assault Team III*
Tactical Team I - 100% Chance 50% Chance 25% Chance
Tactical Team II - 100% Chance 100% Chance 50% Chance
Tactical Team III - 100% Chance 100% Chance 100% Chance

Boarding Party: Assault Shuttles has a base 4 minute cool down.

New Ability 2) Boarding Party: Hit & Run Team (I, II, and III)

Description: You transport a 5 man team made up of 4 security and a demolition expert to the enemy ship to disable a subsystem. The team will set the charges and run to a defensible area for beam back.

Function: Each level of Boarding Party: Hit & Run Team transports 5 crew (Level II transports 10 crew, Level III transports 15 crew) over to the target ship. A team will place a demo charge on a random subsystem and run to a defensible area for beam back. The demo charge will detonate and disable a system 10 seconds from beam over. The system will be disabled from 2-12 seconds. Hit & Run Team II will disable 2 subsystems, and III will disable 3 subsystems (each debuff duration is randomly rolled).

Note:You can not transport through shields. To send over a Hit & Run Team the target's shield facing the player's ship must be down. In addition, when sending over a Hit & Run Team the player's shield facing the target will go down for 3 seconds.

Once the mission is complete each team will rally in a defensive position for beam back. When the player's ship is within 5k of the target the Hit & Run Teams will drop the shield (if there is one) facing the players ship for 3 seconds. In addition, the player's own shield facing the target will also drop for 3 seconds as the (surviving) marines transport back aboard.

If the player ship does not come within 5k the teams will slowly lose members till all the members are killed (20 seconds after mission completion). If the target ship is destroyed before the teams beam back they will be lost.

Hit & Run Teams will generally lose a man (per team) every 8-10 seconds.

Counter: Tactical Teams can counter Hit & Run teams on board:

Tac Team Type *Kill H&R Team I* *Kill H&R Team II* *Kill H&R Team III*
Tactical Team I - 100% Chance 50% Chance 25% Chance
Tactical Team II - 100% Chance 100% Chance 50% Chance
Tactical Team III - 100% Chance 100% Chance 100% Chance

Boarding Party: Hit & Run Team has a base 2 minute cool down.

A nice glowy beam going from player ship to target will be needed to show when transporting is happening.

Thank you for your time. :)

Just my $2.50. :)

Boarding Parties

Not to put too much thought into this but -

How do the boarding parties get from their shuttlecraft onto the enemy ship??? Is that explained? Do they yell "trick or treat" and the enemy ship's shuttle bay opens, then closes, then pressurizes so they can jump out and surprise the enemy crew?

If you could beam a boarding party aboard an enemy ship you could beam anything aboard - like say a 20 megaton thermonuclear warhead or a few containers of nerve agent - right? Conversely, you could beam anything off the enemy ship and rematerialize it anywhere within range, for example you could beam off the enemy bridge crew and rematerialize them in open space.

All damaged ships still have gravity and ample atmoshpere throughout. Atmoshpere of the same type, at the same atmospheric pressure. All the player species home planets have roughly the same gravity. A species like the Gorns didn't grow up on a planet with twice earth gravity or something like that, which their ships might also have just to keep the owning species comfortable.

Boarding parties, being a common tactic in wartime, wouldn't result in certain defensive measures being designed into warships, particularly in sensitive areas like engineering, bridge, auxillary bridge, etc?

A ship like a BoP with a small crew would send a boarding party (half the BoP crew) onto a full-sized cruiser with what expectations?

Quote:

Originally Posted by STObee

Technically, if you could get a shuttlecraft inside the shields of a ship, they could use the transporter inside the shuttle to beam aboard the enemy vessel. Alternatively, they could use the Type 4 phaser array the normal shuttlecraft are armed with to destroy the shuttlebay doors of the enemy ship and force their way into the shuttlebay. However, some ships just do not have shuttlebays, so that wouldn't always be an option.

That is, if a shuttlecraft could actually make it inside the shields of ship. Which they can't. Except in this game.

This has always been a question plaguing use of boarding parties via shuttlecraft. That's why Starfleet Battles/Starfleet Command boarding actions were always done via transporter raids. Boarding action in the midst of combat via shuttlecraft just isn't feasible. Erratic manuevers would prevent even skilled pilots from boarding, even if there wasn't the problem of getting the craft inside the shields.

Quote:

If you could beam a boarding party aboard an enemy ship you could beam anything aboard - like say a 20 megaton thermonuclear warhead or a few containers of nerve agent - right? Conversely, you could beam anything off the enemy ship and rematerialize it anywhere within range, for example you could beam off the enemy bridge crew and rematerialize them in open space.

Too true.

Quote:

All damaged ships still have gravity and ample atmoshpere throughout. Atmoshpere of the same type, at the same atmospheric pressure. All the player species home planets have roughly the same gravity. A species like the Gorns didn't grow up on a planet with twice earth gravity or something like that, which their ships might also have just to keep the owning species comfortable.

Eh... I'd love to see your explaination of boarding actions if the Tholians were in the game.

Quote:

Boarding parties, being a common tactic in wartime, wouldn't result in certain defensive measures being designed into warships, particularly in sensitive areas like engineering, bridge, auxillary bridge, etc?

Another mechanic that lacks inside the game. It's assumed automatically that the boardee's ship will attempt to repel boarders. Back in Starfleet Battles days, players had to assign BPs to specific high-value targets, in case an enemy ship attempted a H&R against those areas. Incredibly shrewed players would, instead, send BPs to hit low-value targets, say Auxiliary Power Plants or Science Labs, and not waste a BP against a guarded target, while still damaging the ship in some capacity. However, with generalized game mechanics, and random effects, takes that aspect out of it.

Quote:

A ship like a BoP with a small crew would send a boarding party (half the BoP crew) onto a full-sized cruiser with what expectations?

There really wouldn't be much expectation. Then again, BoPs usually have a crew complement of 12 officers and men. And in regards to this game's mechanics, they have no shuttlebay at all, so they really shouldn't even be able to send a boarding party.