How do you keep enemy ship from escaping?

[Cygnus]

I apologize if this has been covered, I googled to no avail.

After a billion hours of play I got my first Crystal dude. I was using him for boarding parties with a mantis and enjoying his lockdown ability.

The Crystal and the Mantis were fighting the last dude in the pilot room when the ship escaped, taking my precious Crystal with it.

I thought a ship couldn't escape without a pilot. I was fighting the pilot so it wasn't at the controls. But it escaped anyway?

So I'm trying to figure out All the different ways to keep a ship from escaping. My theory is:

1. Nobody in the pilot room.
2. Fully damaged (red) pilot room.
3. Fully damaged (red) engine room.

Are there any possibilities that I missed? What if the pilot or engine room is partially damaged, that is, orange? Or does have to be red?

[andrewas]

If the helm is damaged to level 1 and unmanned, or damaged to red status, then they can't jump. Without sensors 3, you can't see if a helm is upgraded enough for autojumping without damaging it, and even then you can't tell if orange means level 1 or level 2. Best to pummel the thing till its red.

Or, if the engines are destroyed, they can't jump, but they only need one level to jump. These are the same rules you follow.

[dkvn]

autojumping

I'm 90% sure that autopilot only allows evasion, not charging ftl drive.

OP's theory is correct as I understand it. Damaging engines to orange will cause the enemy drive to charge slower, too.
If you have the ability to board and also the ability to damage the enemy ship with conventional weapons, you can teleport your boarders over to one room and then order them into another room (this will not work if the enemy ship has upgraded doors). If the enemy ship has few enough crew, this will draw the pilot out of the pilot room, at least temporarily. Running your boarding party between rooms can distract the enemy pilot enough to buy you time to cripple them with your other weapons. This is a somewhat narrowly applicable tactic, but it's helped me in the past.

[GoldenShadowGS]

Some events are scripted to jump. The rockman test of endurance for example. It will jump even without a pilot in the helm. I've seen it. We were at the sun and a solar flare hit their cockpit and the fire destroyed it. then it said jump imminent, and they jumped away without a working helm.

[andrewas]

autojumping

I'm 90% sure that autopilot only allows evasion, not charging ftl drive.

This is true. That'll teach me to skimread systemdescriptions. So helm upgrades are even less valuable than I thought they were, I didn't see any related blue events that run. Still, point remains, keep the helm or engines at red, keep a close eye on your targets health and don't let your gold mantises do any system damage while the target has only one hull point.

[TheNamelessOne]

1. Nobody in the pilot room.
2. Fully damaged (red) pilot room.
3. Fully damaged (red) engine room.

Are there any possibilities that I missed? What if the pilot or engine room is partially damaged, that is, orange? Or does have to be red?

I've had this happen to me before, as well, so I tested it a bit. Your theories are correct. In order to prevent a jump, the enemy Helm or Engines need to be completely disabled. In addition, the A.I. is a dirty cheater, so they can still jump if a pilot is in the helm room, even if you are attacking that pilot. The only way to prevent them from jumping using boarders is to damage the relevant systems, or remove the pilot from the helm completely.

The best way to do this is to attack the shields with your boarders; the A.I. seems to value the shield system above all others, and will send all available crew members to attack. Bingo, the pilot is out of the helm. This only works if the enemy ship has as many crew as can fit in the shield room, otherwise someone stays at the helm.

[GoldenShadowGS]

..the A.I. is a dirty cheater..

But the same is true for your ship too. You can jump away if your pilot is under attack.