How to kill crew efficiently??

[RHA Defiled]

So i've only managed to kill the crew of an enemy ship once or twice. I usually just go for the destroy. What are some decent tricks to killing crew??

[shadowcrust]

Enemy on your ship:
1) fight in the medbay
2) upgrade doors
3) vent parts of the ship, but only if you can't otherwise overpower the boarders
4) get strong crew members like Mantis, Rock or Crystal

You teleported on the enemy ship:
1) shoot enemy's medbay before teleporting
2) if not breached or burning, teleport into the shot medbay, unless the medbay is a 4-person room
3) use Mantis, Rock or Crystal for boarding if available
4) for safer boarding, use a level 2 teleporter
5) as a backup, use a healing burst
6) with a strong boarding party, one visit to the enemy ship will do, with a weak one repeat your visits to kill all enemy crew and make sure the enemy medbay stays off

Beware ships powering up their FTL engine! You can easily lose your boarding party. And turn off autoshooting (also the artillery beam of Osprey and Nisos) when boarding.

[Iranon]

Without teleporting:

Make them give up - with no air in the Medbay and Oxygen systems they curl up and die. If they have System Repair drones, you need to take out Drone Control first.
To interrupt repairs, target the shield system - that has their highest priority.

A Hull Laser Mk2 is usually sufficient to ensure crew kills if you know what you're doing, it's worth trying with Heavy Lasers too - for crew kills, we want a high ratio of breach/fire hazards to hull damage. Anti-Bio and Fire Beams and Breach Bombs are of course easier.

*

Easiest of all is combining everything: Take out the medbay, start a fire there, teleport in Rockmen.

[CFIT]

Be sure to use "load leveling" too: try to fight 2 v 1 as much as possible. Damage to the shields will encourage one of the combatants to leave and deal with that. In a 2 v 1 fight, one guy will take all the damage. You can change positions by pausing the game, ordering both your boarders out of the room, and then ordering them back in the room, but first ordering the boarder in the #2 position back in. Then unpause, and they swap positions.

[Twinge]

Be sure to use "load leveling" too: try to fight 2 v 1 as much as possible. Damage to the shields will encourage one of the combatants to leave and deal with that. In a 2 v 1 fight, one guy will take all the damage. You can change positions by pausing the game, ordering both your boarders out of the room, and then ordering them back in the room, but first ordering the boarder in the #2 position back in. Then unpause, and they swap positions.

To add to this, the AI has a priority system of which systems it mans and which systems it defends. If the enemy ship has 2 crew, board their shields to fight 2v1. If it has 3, board weapons; if 4, board engines. (They isn't strictly true and there are other factors - for example the AI will generally help out if you're beating up a poor Engi 2v1 - but works well in most cases.)

[Va1iD]

The best, and most efficient way to kill all crew members on the other ship without using teleporters is to use Anti-bio beams! Sadly, these would be useless unless if you can see into their ship with 'Improved Sensors', a cheap upgrade that can even unlock a ship if you're lucky enough to stumble upon the event.
So basically, use a slug ship.

[Iranon]

AI likes to keep helm and shields manned, and even if they were less predictable - seeing doors open and close is enough.

I'll happily use Anti-Bio Beams but prefer Fire Beams if I have the choice. About as reliable for killing crew, and they impair a ships ability to hurt you before everything is over.

[SmoothPapaJ]

A few tips:

-Fight in their piloting room, even if they have a medbay. They'll fight your boarders until they're low on health, then they'll run to the medbay - after they flee and before their reinforcements can arrive, their ship will have dramatically reduced dodge chance. Use this opportunity to bomb their medbay and finish off the folks you were fighting on the bridge.

-Not quite what you asked, but useful knowledge to get the most out of your teleporter: at lvl 1, you can safely board an automated ship with Rock or Crystal boarders, damage a system, and bring them back before they suffocate. You can do this with any crew (maybe not Zoltan) at lvl 2 teleporter or higher.

-FIRE BOMB + ROCK BOARDERS. This is the combo that the Shivan seems to be built around, and it is a killer. Even when you're against other Rockmen, they can't put out the fires while your boarders are in that room, so it's still a near-permanently disabled system.

-Even if you're not going to get the whole Crystal ship quest, even getting that one Crystal crewmember from the stasis pod gives you THE most dangerous boarding tool available. You don't have to worry about disabling the medbay anymore - just fight in a two-man room, and when the enemy's at half health, lockdown to keep them from running.

[5thHorseman]

-Fight in their piloting room, even if they have a medbay. They'll fight your boarders until they're low on health, then they'll run to the medbay - after they flee and before their reinforcements can arrive, their ship will have dramatically reduced dodge chance. Use this opportunity to bomb their medbay and finish off the folks you were fighting on the bridge.

I have a similar favorite tactic. Fight people in the shields, and on a 4 man ship or less the pilot will abandon his post when the people have died or run to the medbay. As soon as the pilot's out the door is when I shoot the medbay or other targets.

-FIRE BOMB + ROCK BOARDERS. This is the combo that the Shivan seems to be built around, and it is a killer. Even when you're against other Rockmen, they can't put out the fires while your boarders are in that room, so it's still a near-permanently disabled system.

Also, AI rockmen will flee a room on fire if they're damaged enough. Usually this means you end up chasing them around their ship trying to kill them which can be annoying

-Even if you're not going to get the whole Crystal ship quest, even getting that one Crystal crewmember from the stasis pod gives you THE most dangerous boarding tool available. You don't have to worry about disabling the medbay anymore - just fight in a two-man room, and when the enemy's at half health, lockdown to keep them from running.

In this vein, LOOK AT THE SECTOR MAP when you leave sector 1. If there's a lot of green, note that and remember to opt for the stasis pod. If there's a lot of red and purple, opt for the weapon. Always opt for the weapon in sector 7 and usually in sectors 5 or 6 you should as well.

[shadowcrust]

-Even if you're not going to get the whole Crystal ship quest, even getting that one Crystal crewmember from the stasis pod gives you THE most dangerous boarding tool available. You don't have to worry about disabling the medbay anymore - just fight in a two-man room, and when the enemy's at half health, lockdown to keep them from running.

Just a little nitpicking, but the enemy runs to the medbay at lower than 25% health, not at half health, so there's a little extra locking time to be gained when closely watching the health bar.