🚀 go-pugleaf

Jeff Holinski wrote:

> As for capturing ships, don't even bother to try. Just try to  kill
> the ship and stop shooting if he bails.

Yep. You can switch to lower damage weapons to improve your chances if 
you specifically want to cap a particular ship.  ie. use IREs instead of 
PACs.  Still no guarantee, but the odds are vastly improved that you 
won't accidentally blow it away by being slow in backing off the attack 
when the pilot bails.

> So far I've only captured 3 ships. A pair of Falcons (m3) and an M5.
> Don't recall which one. All of the ships were severly damaged by the
> time the pilot bailed. (less than 50% hull and no modules left)
> Of course in X3, repairing 50% hull damage costs half the value of the
> ship so most often it's better to just sell them rather than fix them.

Yup, but don't forget that some of the ships /can't/ be bought anywhere. 
  The Pirate Falcon & Falcon Vanguard are good examples.  Slightly 
different load-outs, speed, shield, etc.  If you ever come across a 
Falcon Sentinel, for example, check out it's specs: 2x125MJ shields, a 
rear gun slot, reasonable cargo space (takes L's) although a bit on the 
slow side.

Excellent for local patrols or protecting slower TS's, but just not 
obtainable anywhere else.  You want one, you gotta cap it.  [shrug]

Mind you, if you have the Bala Gi expansion, then you can start building 
your own once you manage to cap one and reverse engineer it.  ;)

> Surprisingly, all of the captures have happened when I was flying an
> M5. I've got a Discoverer Hauler that I got for exploring. It does
> 363m/sec with a full upgrade. I use 4 identical ships as wingmen. I
> usually just tell them to protect me and forget about them till after
> the battle.  They're pretty good against 1 or 2 ships, but if I go
> after a group of 3 pirates I always lose at least one of them and have
> to reload.  :^(
> You also have to be carefull when docking. They have a habit of flying
> into the side of the station and they never survive a full speed
> impact with anything.

The Discoverer's good for exploration and as a Satellite deployer; 
reasonable cargo space and the legs to run when danger rears it's ugly 
head. Pretty sad for combat though, IMHO.

I prefer Harriers for my combat M5s as they can carry APACs and 4-10MJ 
shields, depending on the variant. So can the Jaguar, which is also the 
fastest type of light fighter... but it needs to be as it also has the 
weakest shields!

> Currently I"m playing around with trading and am working towards an
> M6. Once I get that I'll start looking at the story missions again.
> :^)

Minor hint: Don't fall for the trap of stripping or selling your 
favourite personal M3/4/5 to raise the last few bucks to kit out an M6. 
  The odds are very good that later on you'll need it again!