Should I have any preference about which faction's station blueprints I should acquire?

[Andrea92]

Which yard was it?

cloudbase south east

not sure if the timer is set to start after you check the shipyard after your agent did the job, if it's a bug or what. I kinda prefer it like this. I really hope to find some alternative to the sirokos now. I would have to farm too much rep to get access to it normally.

[Jimmy C]

cloudbase south east

not sure if the timer is set to start after you check the shipyard after your agent did the job, if it's a bug or what. I kinda prefer it like this. I really hope to find some alternative to the sirokos now. I would have to farm too much rep to get access to it normally.

Did you recall the agent performing the task? The agent will be making those ships available until you recall them. It's supposed to cost Influence every hour when they're on task, but I'm not sure what actually happens if they're still on task when you run out of influence with that faction.
If you've bought enough of the ships that you want, you should recall the agent and end the task. I recommend buying one extra unit of each ship to Reverse Engineer at the HQ so you can skip buying them in the future.
As for an alternative to the Sirokos, If you've found enough engine tunings to push an M7M over 200 m/s, you can do without the Sirokos. Still, it is worth the effort to get. Once again, grab an extra for RE so that you don't need buy more. 2 Sirokos and one other M7M overtuned to 200m/s will be enough to capture all boardable ships in missions up to Extreme rank, when the game will be throwing 3 M2/1s at you in missions.
The problem isn't blowing them up. It's keeping damage to a minimum until you can capture all of them.

[Andrea92]

cloudbase south east

not sure if the timer is set to start after you check the shipyard after your agent did the job, if it's a bug or what. I kinda prefer it like this. I really hope to find some alternative to the sirokos now. I would have to farm too much rep to get access to it normally.

Did you recall the agent performing the task? The agent will be making those ships available until you recall them. It's supposed to cost Influence every hour when they're on task, but I'm not sure what actually happens if they're still on task when you run out of influence with that faction.
If you've bought enough of the ships that you want, you should recall the agent and end the task. I recommend buying one extra unit of each ship to Reverse Engineer at the HQ so you can skip buying them in the future.
As for an alternative to the Sirokos, If you've found enough engine tunings to push an M7M over 200 m/s, you can do without the Sirokos. Still, it is worth the effort to get. Once again, grab an extra for RE so that you don't need buy more. 2 Sirokos and one other M7M overtuned to 200m/s will be enough to capture all boardable ships in missions up to Extreme rank, when the game will be throwing 3 M2/1s at you in missions.
The problem isn't blowing them up. It's keeping damage to a minimum until you can capture all of them.

I'm not noticing any influence consumption and the agent is not at my disposal anymore from eons. I just recall him repeating the process many many times, like it was failing or something, and when he managed to do every phase he went home like the others and goodbye. So it seems I have to farm rep with OTAS afterall. In the meantime, what could I use to board an argon TL?

it's a bummer that you can't steal ships blueprints. Same for stealing equipment and pirates, I can't target any base, nor their HQ in Lasting Vengeance
another weird thing is that I can't see the skill of the marines I'm buying. and I didn't find any discovery that renewed itself in any sector I revisited (currently at 8 ingame days of time)

[BrigandPhantos77]

it's a bummer that you can't steal ships blueprints. Same for stealing equipment and pirates, I can't target any base, nor their HQ in Lasting Vengeance
another weird thing is that I can't see the skill of the marines I'm buying. and I didn't find any discovery that renewed itself in any sector I revisited (currently at 8 ingame days of time)

If you can't select them for stealing equipment, check your aggression timers. It "can" push the cost above 1000 points which is the limit to how much you can spend to acquire. I've stolen just about everything from Lasting Vengeance, and currently I am trying to acquire the Plasma Burst Generator forge from the pirates. As for the ships, boarding them is soo much fun. Get yourself some good marines and give it a shot.

Oh and pirates are not Lasting Vengeance. That is Duke's.

[Jimmy C]

I'm not noticing any influence consumption and the agent is not at my disposal anymore from eons. I just recall him repeating the process many many times, like it was failing or something, and when he managed to do every phase he went home like the others and goodbye.

I don't mean, "do you remember this agent performing this task?" I meant, "Did you tell the agent they can stop performing that task?"
Put another way, is there still an agent on the "negotiating for ships" task? Negotiating for ships, negotiating for discount and increased rep gain are different from the other agent tasks. You have to specifically tell the agent to stop performing that task and go home.
Show us a screenshot of your diplomacy window.

[Andrea92]

it's a bummer that you can't steal ships blueprints. Same for stealing equipment and pirates, I can't target any base, nor their HQ in Lasting Vengeance
another weird thing is that I can't see the skill of the marines I'm buying. and I didn't find any discovery that renewed itself in any sector I revisited (currently at 8 ingame days of time)

If you can't select them for stealing equipment, check your aggression timers. It "can" push the cost above 1000 points which is the limit to how much you can spend to acquire. I've stolen just about everything from Lasting Vengeance, and currently I am trying to acquire the Plasma Burst Generator forge from the pirates. As for the ships, boarding them is soo much fun. Get yourself some good marines and give it a shot.

Oh and pirates are not Lasting Vengeance. That is Duke's.

I can dock at pirate stations, but my standing is VERY negative.

Yesterday night I went all in with farming missions for argon and at the same time throwing all my diplos at OTAS, so I already got the sirokos. I'm now going around buying marines, but since I can't see their stats (in the box on the top right I see only the name and pressing i shows them as a ware) I have to dock, buy them all, check the one I like, reload and rebuy only those. I don't like that. Is that the purpose of a bioscanner?

[Andrea92]

I'm not noticing any influence consumption and the agent is not at my disposal anymore from eons. I just recall him repeating the process many many times, like it was failing or something, and when he managed to do every phase he went home like the others and goodbye.

I don't mean, "do you remember this agent performing this task?" I meant, "Did you tell the agent they can stop performing that task?"
Put another way, is there still an agent on the "negotiating for ships" task? Negotiating for ships, negotiating for discount and increased rep gain are different from the other agent tasks. You have to specifically tell the agent to stop performing that task and go home.
Show us a screenshot of your diplomacy window.

[Jimmy C]

I can dock at pirate stations, but my standing is VERY negative.

Do you mean the Pirate Base stations because that one seems specifically made to allow you to dock even if the Pirates hate you. Any other Pirate station (ID starts with "I") won't let you dock.

Yesterday night I went all in with farming missions for argon and at the same time throwing all my diplos at OTAS, so I already got the sirokos. I'm now going around buying marines, but since I can't see their stats (in the box on the top right I see only the name and pressing i shows them as a ware) I have to dock, buy them all, check the one I like, reload and rebuy only those. I don't like that. Is that the purpose of a bioscanner?

Yes, the bioscanner lets you see their stats, if it's installed on your ship, you can see the stats of Marines if another of your ships are docked to that station, even if it doesn't have the bioscanner onboard. Bioscanners also shows the stats of marines onboard ships if combined with the Freight Scanner. It's recommended that you get bioscanners for your primary ship and M7Ms with marines, at the least.

Ok, you really don't have any agents on negotiating for special ships. I guess you genuinely caused the game to retain the availability of the special ships at the CBSE yard. Since I used special ships on that yard twice myself and it didn't bug out, but I have some other yards that did bug out, this suggests the bug isn't as simple as the cleanup failing for specific yards. You need to do something specific to cause the game to fail to clean up the special ships at the yard.

[DanKara]

... I really hope to find some alternative to the sirokos now. I would have to farm too much rep to get access to it normally.

Actually, I had an OTAS Scirocco flying in one of my games, though I am not entirely sure what triggered him to spawn. Seeing that OTAS usually fields 1 M7M, I think killing/boarding the existing Aquillo might lead to this. It is random though (so rinse and repeat…). Judging by my YAKI’s it could also be that all M7-M7D-M7M are in the same "pool" to spawn from.
OK, you already bought one...

it's a bummer that you can't steal ships blueprints.

True, but for ships you already have ample opportunities (reengineer from buying, bailing, boarding or buying blueprints offered in think-missions or from the Explorer Guild).

… another weird thing is that I can't see the skill of the marines I'm buying. and I didn't find any discovery that renewed itself in any sector I revisited (currently at 8 ingame days of time)

You need the ‘Bioscanner’ (from Jonferco HQ and ?) equipped on your ship or the buying ship to see the stats of offered marines.
I don't think, that LFL-objects re-spawn in the same sector / location (if thats what you assumed). But you will find them through the regular use of the (***modified***) Search-Scripts like ‘All-Seeing-Eye’ and maybe EJ-find-script and maybe SCORP-map…

... In the meantime, what could I use to board an argon TL?

That depends on the ships and numbers & stats of marines you have at hand:
Any TP, any M6, any M7M or some more with 10 or 21 Marines. With 10 marines (2* in everything) you will have an easy time against TM’s or M6’s (use those to train ‘fight’). After 6 those you can go for bigger game. 10 marines that are 4* in fight will do for M2 or M1 (but not for M7M - here I would recommend 10 or 12 marines at 5* in fight – or my own M7M with more marines)
I still prefer the MARU (with 10 marines) or a remote controlled M7M (with 20 marines) – and Boarding Pods of course

Need some Boarding Tips?

Show

Rentable TL or civilian Casino / Hospital ship?
- Advantage of the later is, that they are not armed, so no risk to lose marines on approach
- Disadvantage of the later is (I think) a somewhat higher Rep-Loss
- Advantage of the former: Rent him and order him to a position well outside of normal patrol-routes (or into an unknown/unclaimed sector) – choose your playground…

Spacewalk or BoardingPods?
- Spacewalk sucks in any way. Be it the way the ‘squads’ are formed or the way those squads (try to) reach their target – but could be used early on from any TP or M6. Best started in front (in the flight path) of your target.
- BoardingPods cost a bit – but you can build them in your HQ (buy the blueprint from ExplorerGuild)
- BoardingPods can be used from the Acinonynx, MARU, every M7M and some more (Carrack, Brigantine – not worth it imho)

Marines
- via Spacewalk: I suspect a group of 20-21 marines with (atleast) 2* in fight will do (against a naked TL-ship without any boarding resistance equipment). But you will need a somewhat higher mechanics skill (in TC I only started such with some 4* and most 3* in ‘mechanics’; not sure in FL; requirements seem lower)
- via BoardingPods: I was successful with boardings from the MARU (10 marines with 2 o 3* in mechanic and such against a naked target. The fight-skill needed for a casualty-free OP depends on the ship used. With the MARU was successful with [10x4*-fight] or [5x5*+5x2*-fight]. Haven’t done a Boarding-OP with 20 or 21 marines from TP/M7M/M2 but I think 20x2*-fight will do ok – (sums up to the same number in fight-skill).

Initiating the Boarding Operation
Bring down and keep down the shields of your target (under 4% should do) by your own weapon fire or additional ships / fight-drones under the ‘supress shields’-command.
- On a BPod-capable ship you can select the BPod as missile and fire each BPod as single missile (imho the most inferior method because of missile-cooldown and separate flight-path)
- On each ship you can start the marines within the ship console from \5. Piracy\ Board (and your ship will start a weird dance…)
- On each ship you can start all marines at once from the ship console via those ‘additional commands’, that’s the ‘release all marines’-command (caution you may use more marines than needed).
- For the ‘release all marines’ you can bind a Hotkey. Works very well with the MARU (my preferred method) and M7M, but did not work with Carrack (don’t know Brig)

The folks around here seem to prefer to fly the M7M themselves.
Contrarily to that I like to board from the MARU. Only for Xenon-Capships would I order a M7M remotely to start its BPods for the initial attack.

@andrea92
I am not sure, if there is still a problem with ‘diplomacy ships’ as the post/repost are not entirely clear (to me?).

[Andrea92]

Thx both for taking the time to respond to everything.

@DanKara:according to JimmyC, there's a problem, but I actually don't complain about that. I bought all the unlocked ships that I was interested in, and will RE them, but if they stay unlocked, I don't see any issue with it.

atm I'm looking into the boarding thing. I have the sirokos with 21 marines, with fighting between 2 and 3 * in a military outpost, and I'm testing the difference between the three types of training for the same skill. I plan on getting everybody to 3 stars in everything (but many will have fighting at 2). Then I don't understand if a single boarding pod will carry all 21 of them or if I need many pods. Then I'll have to buy some flail and weapons, hire a TL and do the deed. My rep with argon is sky high, so the loss won't hurt too much. Maybe.

Which weapons would you advise for sirokos? some fast killers and some just for keeping down the shields

[DanKara]

...

The unlocked (yellow) diplomacy ships will vanish from the list of offered ships in a shipyard. Not sure if it is the '1 hour' like Cycrow said (though he must know it best . The only exception to that is the Boron Baracuda-variant in Great Reef alpha that is always buyable (It’s Bug not a Feature) and the Boron Guppy (restricted to diplomacy from Boron, but freely available from ATREUS)

One BPord will transport 5 marines (if started from the Playership) or 4 marines (when started from a remote controlled ship.

I have (next to) no experience with a M7M I flew myself. For regular M7M you would use Hammers and Flails in barrages calculated by the strength of the targets shield. This I failed times after times in TC so I never tried in AP or FL. In TC the Scirocco could not use any weapon or missile (other than BPods. This has changed in FL Still I would not recommend to fly it yourself. (Maybe I am too set in my ways…). But I am sure, others here will assist…

Instead I can’t stress out how convenient and easy boarding with a working Hotkey ‘Release all marines’ and the BPod-capable MARU is. You are limited to the use of 12 marines (cost 3 BPods) or the 10 I use (2 BPods, cost-efficiency…. ) Start small, do some ‘training’ on TM/M6!

If you insist on boarding a rented Argon TL with the Scirrocco as your first boarding op I would still recommend the 2-ship-approach (but bring some Wasps or FightDrones with your Playership) and do as follows:
- Take a look at / freight scan ‘your future’ TL. It would be best if he has neither HullPolarising, InternalSentryLasers nor AdvancedFirewall – later you can fry them off (Ion Disruptor from your M7, M6 or M3), keeping them would increase the stat-requirements for your marines
- Rent the TL, order him to ‘fly to position’ – far away (preferable in a ‘Not-Argon-Core-sector’)
- Wait until he gets there (I think you can follow him in your property list, filtered by sector)
- Jump into that sector with your playership and jump in your M7M
- Order your M7M into the vicinity of the TL – but keep some distance (at least 20 km)
- Fly with your playership to the TL, cancel your contract with him (nessesary with remote boarding) and reduce his shield (normal weapon fire). The Argon TL has a very big very blind spot on his lower side (see the ‘dent’ there? Any M6 can hide there.
- As soon as you start to fire, the TL will likely start its docked escorts. Do away with those (to be safe) or ignore them (and tank their occasional fire on you)
- With the shields of the TL down to 10% - do a Save (to Fallback to, optional with some practice)
- Optional: time to fry some unwanted equipment off
- Optional: start Fight Drones. Issue to each the ‘attack shields’-command (or simpy ‘attack my target with the default HotKey [5]? ) – tedious imho
- Order your M7M to board the TL. He will start to fly toward it but not yet start the BPords
- Reduce the TL-shields further down to 0% and keep them there (at around 3% you will hear your M7M that BPods are underway. Depending on environment you can jump your M7M out
- That section is risky. If you do nothing the TL will likely kill your BPods in space. So fly around the TL, start some Wasp-missiles. Your ship, your fight-drones and your Wasp are simply decoys to keep the turrets of the TL occupied. Still keep the shields down!
- The BPods should all land at the same time on the target – do another Save (start from here if losses are unbearable to you)
- Keep the TL-shields down until your marines start to fight
- After that watch the show (ähm … Property-List\Marines), collect your Drones and wait
Easy Peasy (though a bit of text, sorry)

You will massively loose reputation with the Argon, if the Boarding is done in a Core-sector. You can easily fall from +10 to -3. // If done in instead in a None-Argon-sector you will likely go down from +10 to like +6. It is normal for me, to find myself at -3 or -4 with most of the races (I was friend with). However, because of the DynRep I always have some (mutual) Enemies to pick ships from.

Regarding Training: I think it is said (stated and proven) that the training via ‘single fast’ is indeed the fastest and cheapest way to train a marine up to 100 in Hack/Mech/Eng. But the constant ‘ding-a-ling incoming message’ would drive me mad. Instead I always choose the 3-course-advanced (no matter the costs, even so combined with my MORT’s it is annoying at times)

Edit: This video has me thinking about my ways...

[Andrea92]

yeah, that was my same idea. I don't like being bothered by covering fire etc... so sticking very close and minimizing travel time for pods seemed the natural thing to do.
not sure I can avoid fire from the TL, and I have chosen one with polarized hull, but at least that TL doesn't have incendiary bomb launchers or any other big fat weapon.

so I have to take an ion disruptor and some other weapons for shield management.

and I totally dislike that boarding pods have different capacities depending on if you are controlling the ship. Nonsense imho. Also it means that for 21 marines I need a pod for a single marine. what a waste of money. Is it much different with 20 instead of 21?

[BrigandPhantos77]

Thx both for taking the time to respond to everything.

@DanKara:according to JimmyC, there's a problem, but I actually don't complain about that. I bought all the unlocked ships that I was interested in, and will RE them, but if they stay unlocked, I don't see any issue with it.

atm I'm looking into the boarding thing. I have the sirokos with 21 marines, with fighting between 2 and 3 * in a military outpost, and I'm testing the difference between the three types of training for the same skill. I plan on getting everybody to 3 stars in everything (but many will have fighting at 2). Then I don't understand if a single boarding pod will carry all 21 of them or if I need many pods. Then I'll have to buy some flail and weapons, hire a TL and do the deed. My rep with argon is sky high, so the loss won't hurt too much. Maybe.

Which weapons would you advise for sirokos? some fast killers and some just for keeping down the shields

I'm fairly certain this is a random bug, as it did occur to me as well. Only for me, it happened with the Teladi. It happened when I was running 2 agents against them. 1 was unlocking the special ships, the other was seeking a price discount. The discount never applied, but the ships stayed unlocked permanently. I had to relaunch the price discount a second time to get it. I'm definitely not going to complain though or push the Devs to fix it.

I'm lazily not reading past your post yet to see if it was already answered, but boarding pods carry 5 marines each. So expect to use 4 pods with each boarding attempt. If your going after an M6, you'll need 2, and I recommend fighter drones to keep the shields down. You can also recall fighter drones once there finished. I use a Kraken for my operations.

Some tips for boarding with an M7M.

So an easy place to start for training purposes is definitely Hatikvah's Faith.

Hammer Heavy Torpedos: Don't fire more than 1 barrage of these, Seta will help them hit without being taken out by anti missile defense. I usually fire them at about a 19km range.
Boarding Pods: I fire these at about 14km distance to target. Once fired, switch immediately to flail barrage missiles. Enemy ships do see pods as missiles, so keep that in mind. Save before firing them. Or you may lose the marines.
Mosquito Missiles: The M7M can fire these in bulk barrages. So wasp missiles become obsolete. Once your marines have boarded and begin combat, turn and move away from your target.
Jumpdrive Installation Kit: Invaluable tool to get your new ship out of harms way. Do it quickly. Keep spare energy cells. Having a close jump to location is also very helpful.
Multiple boardings: If you set yourself up right, you can transfer your marines back before you jump out your new ship. And go for another target. It helps with the training process.

[Jimmy C]

and I totally dislike that boarding pods have different capacities depending on if you are controlling the ship. Nonsense imho. Also it means that for 21 marines I need a pod for a single marine. what a waste of money. Is it much different with 20 instead of 21?

Boarding pods carry 5 marines each, whether you're controlling the ship or not. As for Max+1 marines, there are two situations where the extra marine could make a difference. First is when you are starting out and have only relatively weak marines. The bonus from the extra marine could be all the difference between flawless capture and casualties. The second is boarding Xenon ships. Even with maxed marines, you need that extra one the minimize casualties. Between those extremes, the full standard capacity is sufficient.

I'm fairly certain this is a random bug, as it did occur to me as well. Only for me, it happened with the Teladi. It happened when I was running 2 agents against them. 1 was unlocking the special ships, the other was seeking a price discount. The discount never applied, but the ships stayed unlocked permanently. I had to relaunch the price discount a second time to get it.

I'm going to have to pay attention the next time I use discount to make sure it applies properly. Out of the many times I used it, I only ever checked once. I don't think running 2 agents on the same yard causes the bug. I have 2 yards where the special ship are permanently available. One I did run a discount on and I did not on the other.

So expect to use 4 pods with each boarding attempt. If your going after an M6, you'll need 2,

Also note that M1 and M2s now can take 25 marines, 5 pods. This is important because, if you tried to board a Xenon M1 or M2 with just 21 marines, you'll just lose all of them for nothing.

Some tips for boarding with an M7M.

Hammer Heavy Torpedos: Don't fire more than 1 barrage of these,

Assuming every missile hits, one barrage can kill anything with less than 6GJ of shielding.

Jumpdrive Installation Kit: Invaluable tool to get your new ship out of harms way. Do it quickly. Keep spare energy cells. Having a close jump to location is also very helpful.

I can see how that'd be useful in a legit manner. In contrast, I've been using an oversight that give you a brief window to transfer items from a ship that jumped away to reclaim a jumpdrive used to send the ship to a yard for disposal.

Multiple boardings: If you set yourself up right, you can transfer your marines back before you jump out your new ship. And go for another target. It helps with the training process.

The way I do it, I rarely get the opportunity to reclaim one set of marines before I have to capture the next ship. It's only happened a very few times. In FL, the Maru means I have one extra team of marines to transfer to the M7M to board the next target. In AP, I'd have to use 2 M7Ms.
The way I board ships is what I call, "hit'em and lead'em" Basically, attack the targets until they start chasing me. Then, lead them away from local forces that might kill them. Once they're far enough, start knocking down shields and boarding.
Also, my preferred range for this tactic is 13 to 9km. Don't want to be too far, that lets shield regeneration degrade missile effectiveness significantly.

[Andrea92]

Spoiler

Show

Thx both for taking the time to respond to everything.

@DanKara:according to JimmyC, there's a problem, but I actually don't complain about that. I bought all the unlocked ships that I was interested in, and will RE them, but if they stay unlocked, I don't see any issue with it.

atm I'm looking into the boarding thing. I have the sirokos with 21 marines, with fighting between 2 and 3 * in a military outpost, and I'm testing the difference between the three types of training for the same skill. I plan on getting everybody to 3 stars in everything (but many will have fighting at 2). Then I don't understand if a single boarding pod will carry all 21 of them or if I need many pods. Then I'll have to buy some flail and weapons, hire a TL and do the deed. My rep with argon is sky high, so the loss won't hurt too much. Maybe.

Which weapons would you advise for sirokos? some fast killers and some just for keeping down the shields

I'm fairly certain this is a random bug, as it did occur to me as well. Only for me, it happened with the Teladi. It happened when I was running 2 agents against them. 1 was unlocking the special ships, the other was seeking a price discount. The discount never applied, but the ships stayed unlocked permanently. I had to relaunch the price discount a second time to get it. I'm definitely not going to complain though or push the Devs to fix it.

I'm lazily not reading past your post yet to see if it was already answered, but boarding pods carry 5 marines each. So expect to use 4 pods with each boarding attempt. If your going after an M6, you'll need 2, and I recommend fighter drones to keep the shields down. You can also recall fighter drones once there finished. I use a Kraken for my operations.

Some tips for boarding with an M7M.

So an easy place to start for training purposes is definitely Hatikvah's Faith.

Hammer Heavy Torpedos: Don't fire more than 1 barrage of these, Seta will help them hit without being taken out by anti missile defense. I usually fire them at about a 19km range.
Boarding Pods: I fire these at about 14km distance to target. Once fired, switch immediately to flail barrage missiles. Enemy ships do see pods as missiles, so keep that in mind. Save before firing them. Or you may lose the marines.
Mosquito Missiles: The M7M can fire these in bulk barrages. So wasp missiles become obsolete. Once your marines have boarded and begin combat, turn and move away from your target.
Jumpdrive Installation Kit: Invaluable tool to get your new ship out of harms way. Do it quickly. Keep spare energy cells. Having a close jump to location is also very helpful.
Multiple boardings: If you set yourself up right, you can transfer your marines back before you jump out your new ship. And go for another target. It helps with the training process.

tbh I never asked for a discount, bc it's not clear to me how that command works. So in my case it wasn't the trigger cause. Also I have to check the missiles I can carry, but I recall that sirokos can't use many. mosquitos, flail and maybe one more iirc.

[Jimmy C]

tbh I never asked for a discount, bc it's not clear to me how that command works.

Once the agent begins the task, you will get a discount that increases at the rate of 1% every 10 minutes, up to a maximum of 10% at 100 minutes. You can compare the price at that location with the price for the same things at other locations to verify that the discount is working properly. Then, try to buy everything you want in under 20 minutes so you can avoid spending more influence for another hour.

Also I have to check the missiles I can carry, but I recall that sirokos can't use many. mosquitos, flail and maybe one more iirc.

The Sirokos can fires mosquitos, Flails and pods, but not Hammers. It fires only 8 missiles in a volley, unlike other M7Ms that can fire 16. It's quite adequate for anything with 3 GJ or less shielding. Beyond that, you need more than 10 volleys of Flails from a Sirokos. At that point, you're better off with an M7M that can fire Hammers.

[Andrea92]

I just discovered that I can't produce boarding pods on my own and am slightly sad

[Jimmy C]

I just discovered that I can't produce boarding pods on my own and am slightly sad

You can. But you have to buy the plans from the Explorer's Guild. Costs 25,000 DP and of course, you have to keep trying with the Guild until they offer it to you. If you plan on capturing ships on a regular basis, like me, it pays to be able to produce all the resources needed to build pods yourself as well.
Until then, you can use replication to buy an unlimited supply of pods at the Ceo's Sprite shipyard. Note that building pods only costs 1/30 the credits of buying them.

[DanKara]

Boarding pods carry 5 marines each, whether you're controlling the ship or not.

Did that change? [Runs off to do some dedicated testing]
So, I just boarded a TL in X3FL, in X3AP and X3TC. Eachtime with a remote controlled M7M and 20 marines.
In FL and AP: 20 marines use 4 BPods -- but in TC: 20 marines use 5 BPods!
(I hate these minor differences in the games )

Also note that M1 and M2s now can take 25 marines, 5 pods.

Idiot me! I think, I fell into that trap in my (former) main game with K/J/I.
(I hate these minor differences in the games even more )

[Sovereign01]

I'm not sure whether that makes the Xenon I easier or harder to board? As an aside, I was able to board a Boron Megalodon with just 13 marines with combat between 50 and 100. Took 5 attempts for them to do it casualty-free but it can be done