How can I avoid / combat / eliminate boarding parties?
UPDATE 3/5/19: Apparently my troubles were common enough that a recent patch provided some much needed clarity and relief (somewhat) from boarding parties.
I am new to Genesis Alpha One but I've already completed a few "longer" games (10+ crew, preparing for Genesis, never completed). Unfortunately, every run ends the same way, with a boarding party of either Framen or Mechanics ruining everything.
Apologies if I'm missing something simple here, the game is also pretty new so I am having trouble finding even basic info about mid-to-end-game mechanics.
Questions:
- Can you avoid being boarded?
- When boarded, is there a way to "end" the encounter?
- Is there a way to more efficiently track/fight a boarding party (as a captain) than just running around? I don't see any way to detect intruders via map or modules.
- E.g. hearing the computer say "Lifeform detected" every 5 seconds doesn't help, it just gives me anxiety, and "Corridor Damaged" doesn't narrow it down when I have 75+ corridors.
Context:
Just to be clear, I'm talking about the actual boarding parties, not when a few enemies appear via the Tractor Beam process.
Enemies just start appearing on my ship after a jump, and I've fought my way through 100+ a few times, jumping away from the system where I encountered them while I'm fighting. After a long time (15/20 minutes?) they seem to trickle out and stop boarding me, but the crew loss and ship damage are usually massive. I often lose all my crew, or just keep cloning and making turrets until I am out of resources (and then give up). If I survive long enough for the enemies to stop appearing all together, they inevitably come back after a few jumps.
Am I missing necessary modules? Using the wrong strategy? Or do I just need to not be so bad at this game?
Solution 1:
You can track enemy ship locations using the map on the bridge's terminal. I've found that if you keep at least one map square away from the enemy vessels, they don't seem to board. Jusy be careful since their ships also move on the map, so getting within a square or two of an enemy ship risks letting them jump onto your square quickly and easily. It's a good idea to check the map regularly if you are in unsafe territory since an enemy ship that was not in your scanner range when you jumped your ship into a square can suddenly appear while you are gathering resources or otherwise occupied. You will be able to see roughly what regions have enemy ships once you unlock more of the map. The ememy ship icon remains in the last square it was on before your ship moves out of scanner range, so you can still keep a rough idea of where enemy ships are likely to be even when you move to a different part of the map. I'm not totally sure, but it also seems like any extended period in which you are idle in the game increases the chance of a random enemy attack. On several occasions, I've left the game for some reason without pausing it only to return and find my ship was boarded and destroyed, even if there wasn't an enemy in range when I stepped away.
I'm not sure if it actually helps, but the only times I've survived an attack so far (at about 24-25 crew members into the game) was when I alternated hunting down pirates throughout my ship with returning to the bridge to jump away from the attacking pirate ship. It appeared like the pirates could not teleport new atracker to my ship once i moved the ship put of range. The pirate ship will chase yours, but it seems to move less frequently than yours can, so you can easily escape even without the hyperdrive module. In terms of preventing the attack, use your map to avoid nearby enemy ships. In terms of ending the attack, set up ship defenses, try jumping away a few squares during the attack, fight, and hope you get lucky! You can visually see attacker locations on your ship by switching to building mode. They show up as red dots just like your own crewmembers show up as geeen dots.
Unfortunately, pirates seem to be able to appear anywhere on your ship during an attack, so you really do have to manually search the whole ship. This also limits the utility of energy fields and turrets unless you place them all over your ship (which I'd recommend!).
Later in the game, you can find ship modules that help with attacks, like the quarantine module. These can be built around your ship and actively damage enemies who have boarded during an attack or stowed away during resource gathering. I wish there was a way to board and attack enemy ships though since there are regions on the map thay are virtually inaccessible because of one or more enemy ships that hang out in that region....would love to blow them out of the sky at some point, so I can explore and harvest more difficult regions in relative peace!