Boarding the Flagship - crew lost

[Tajin]

[possible Spoiler]









After the first fight with the Flagship, just before defeating it, it teleports away.
Problem is, if you try to capture instead of destroying it, you'll have your boarding crew on the ship when that happens.
However, even when you immediately chase after the fleeing ship, your boarding crew is still lost.

This kinda sucks as theres really nothing you can do about it, and it's not even your fault. Theres no way, that what was left of the enemy crew could've defeated all the marauding rockmen that I teleported on their flagship.

[Spazticus]

Why would you try to capture it? If you were previously unaware of the the phases of the fight, one might try that, I suppose. At least that mistake won't be made in the future. Boarding tactics do work for these fights, but the tactics are supposed to be hit and run, so you have your crew back safe by the end of the fight.

[Tajin]

It was the first try, so yeh I didnt know. I'm just pointing out that this a rather unfair game mechanic in this specific battle. The Flagship basically cheats by doing that impossible FTL-jump, and you get punished for that "cheat" by loosing your valuable crew.

I know I can avoid it in the future, but its just not a good design.

Now I have to make sure to leave 1 enemy crew-member alive (which doesnt make sense), retreat and then try and kill him by gunfire. Meh.

[UltraMantis]

You can kill all the crew, just get your guys out before you blow him up. But keeping the crew alive has it's advantages as well. If you can be bothered, try to reduce the crew without killing them all.

[Derakon]

The way the flagship cheats is absolutely wrong; a player who has not fought the flagship before is going to get surprised, and unfairly so. Not only will the flagship warp out when you kill all its crew, but it will do this even if the pilot and engine sectors are red, which is impossible for any other ship. There is no way that e.g. this ship should be capable of anything.

My suggestion here would be to add some scripting to the flagship's retreat to explain what's going on and, in the case of all crewmembers being dead, to give the player a chance to retrieve their crew. Pop up a dialog saying that it's engaged an emergency backup FTL engine, have some text about the AI coming on-line. The entire rest of the game gives warning when a ship is about to flee; the flagship should be no different (except, of course, in that there's nothing you can do to prevent it from escaping).

[ftl_raptor]

Oh it jumps out when you're about to defeat it? That's stupid.

[Spazticus]

Not stupid, exactly...just different from any other battle in the game. Like many boss battles in other games, it consists of multiple phases (three, to be exact.) If you could destroy or simply capture the boss ship in the first phase, that would defeat the purpose of having three phases. (Sure, some games may let you do that...but not this one.) Of course, that would probably also detract from the feeling of actually having won, despite the odds.

[Agouti]

There is an easy and fair solution to this - simply have it go to A.I. control when the last crew member dies instead of warping away, so you still have to deal full hull damage but at least you aren't surprised.

Yes, there are strategies which do not work well for the final boss, but that is just how it is.

[Tajin]

Got to agree completely with Derakon. Something as simple as an FTL-warning would already do the trick. The fight would've been the same, but I would've been able to extract my boarding crew before the next stage commences.

[Cpt Earb]

There is no point in killing the crew.

After you have killed the crew the ship is nearly unbeatable. An aggressive AI is repairing all systems constantly.