Guide to Boarding

DISCLAIMER: BOARDING IS EARLY IN DEVELOPMENT. BUGS WILL APPEAR.

Though fairly experimental and early in development, boarding is a new feature that involves, well, PLUNDER!!! boarding.

Yarr!

Boarding is triggered by an admin when they target a ship that you just blew up and engage the procedure. This will make an announcement about the ship maintaining its integrity while its reactor overloads, allowing just enough time to get in, clear its staff out, procure important items, and undock before it blows up. Exciting!

How to Board

Mentioned above, the ship will be able to dock with the ship once it is available, and appears on the Ship Info tab on the Nav Console. Simply clicking it will bring you close to the ship, extend the docking bridge and clamps, and lock you to the ship. Their shields will remain up, so you can only enter from the dock. You have little time to work, and there are some angry people on the ship who want to take out their anger on the people who nearly killed them, therefore it is a good idea to coordinate with Security and make sure they're ready to board and sweep the ship. Of course boarding isn't limited to Security, but it's a good idea to let them handle it since they're the ones with the guns.

Boarding Tactics

A very dangerous risk to battle is not knowing what the battlefield looks like, and who knows what Syndicate ships have in them! Traps? Drugged up crew? BOLOGNA SANDWICHES?! The fact of the matter is you and your team have to keep your eyes open and scanning everything and anything, mention blind corners and areas that could be used to stage an ambush. Listening is also key to awareness; maybe you heard a defender slip around the corner, now you know they're there! Of course, you could just go full lethal and kill everything that moves and get it over with, but perhaps using non-lethal methods could ENCOURAGE ROLEPLAY JUST DO IT yield a new crew member? Or living ammo for the MAC, up to you.

How to Defend

Boarding is designed to take ghosts and put them into the bodies of the defenders to give the whole scenario life and challenge. This role is designed to fail, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for roleplay. In order to join as a boarder you will have to have the Be Syndicate antagonist player option enabled, and you will soon be placed on the ship to defend. Good luck!

Defensive Tactics

You're going to blow up, no matter what, but it's better to take a few names and keep their grubby capitalist hands from touching your equipment! Suppression - firing on a position where the enemy is believed to be - will keep boarders from advancing on you, buying you time to do other things, or move elsewhere to stage a better defensive. Maybe you don't have much to defend with, so use guerrilla tactics: hide in closets, dark corners, anywhere that they might not investigate too well, then attack from there. Leave interesting items around for them to wander towards, right into a trap. Maybe you can even sneak onto the other ship, somehow?