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Much like X3, pilots can bail when at low health leaving the ship neutral for the player to claim as an asset. Unlike X3 the pilot after bailing is still considered an enemy and can be treated as such without any negative repercussions despite being completely defenseless and vulnerable to a single shot of any weapon. It is even required to destroy the escape capsule for assassination missions to complete after the original target bails. Taking control over neutral small craft, such as from bailing, can be done by issuing a claim order while a Pilot is aboard the Albion Skunk. The pilot must physically travel from the Albion Skunk to the ship in a pod vulnerable pod before ownership is transferred. Non trade small craft can mostly be considered as worthless assets to the player due to a combination of bad AI, no self-repair (un-modded) and low toughness so it is usually best to immediately sell them for extra credits.
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It is a good idea to start by acquiring some more trade assets. SS Rahanas L trade ships are the easiest to board due to their low toughness and few weapon systems and are often found as part of random pirate raids against stations. After acquiring . Possessing only a few HIT/MA Turrets the Albion Skunk can stay still for extended periods before shields become critical. After acquiring a capital ship crew and finding a suitable target start by dispatching the escorting fighters, seen as part of the targets squad on the zone map. Once the target is alone then begin stripping all surface elements off it, beginning with the Jump Tunnel Device. If the target is near a station it is recommended to encourage it to flee for >30km away for uninterrupted boarding before destroying the Matter/Antimatter Drive elements. Some targets may be prone to suicide stations, in which case they will not be boardable and another target is required. Once stripped of all surface elements then reduce its hull until the boarding resistance is ~10 below your boarding strength before starting the boarding operation. After boarding completes assign the capital ship crew to it and recall the Marine Officer. With each boarding made the average quality of the marines will improve increasing boarding strength, allowing for more powerful ships or ships at higher hull percentage to be boarded safely. Boarding SS owned Rahanas and Titurel ships is the easiest and quickest way to expand your fleet
The HIT/MA Turret is the most common weapon system found on capital ships and stations. With short range, low damage and reasonable projectile speed they are mostly intended for combat against small craft. Usually placed in banks consisting of several such turrets in close proximity with several such banks evenly distributed throughout ships and stations. L trade ships usually posses only a few such banks while XL fight ships will be plastered with them. Despite the intended purpose of anti-small craft, the turret type posses no threat to the player as the majority of fire can be effortlessly strafed and any hits that do land will be quickly regenerated.
After a few perfect boarding operations to build up strength it is time to move on to boarding larger targets. The Titurel XL Trade makes a good early trade ship as it offers a large quantity of Universal storage for hauling wares and is considerably tougher and more powerful than the previously boarded Rahanas. These ships are often found as part of heavier SS raids and can also be mission marks. The Titurel can be boarded in a way similar to before except more time and care is required as the ship posses a lot more surface elements to destroy. The higher boarding resistance also requires a lower hull percentage before the target is safe to board, possibly as little as under 10% if boarding crew is very inexperienced. Among the surface components are 2 Plasma/MA Turrets which give the ship some long range assault capabilities. Strafing is critical for survival against the Titurel as the full weapon system capabilities of the ship are enough to quickly destroy the Albion Skunk if enough hits are landed. The full repair time after capture is quite long due to the 5 Matter/Anti-Matter Drive elements.
Bug: In 4.0 the Titurel posses inconsistent Matter/Anti-Matter Drive elements. All engines are meant be 70 m/s capable with the ability to XL boost. Due to an oversight only 1 engine is 70 m/s capable with all others being much slower and only a L boost ability is possessed. This results in the Titurel being possibly the slowest and least agile XL ship. Although still useful early game due to the Universal cargo capabilities, it gets obsoleted completely by the Lyranea and Lyramekron.
The Plasma/MA Turret is the most common heavy weapon system found of capital ships and stations. With long range, high damage and slow projectile speed they are mostly intended for combat against other capital ships. Often found individually mixed in with HIT/MA banks with some powerful XL ships possessing them in individual banks of 2. Only found in large quantities on powerful XL ships and stations. Slower projectile speed makes it even easier for the Albion Skunk to avoid than the HIT/MA Turret however if a hit does land it will deal considerable shield damage that will take a while to recover.
In addition to using the trade fleet to complete supply missions for credits, high value combat orientated missions can also be performed. Missions such as station defense can net in several million credits as bonus as long as all spawned ships enter station range and are killed by the <player>. Kill missions against small craft are trivial to complete and can earn a million credits. Kill missions against capital ships can earn several million each, on top of any assets gained by boarding. Patrol missions can also earn several million through bonus however the bonus per kill is much lower than with station defense missions. Although the majority of combat missions will be against generic "enemy" ships with only positive reputation implications, some may be against other factions which will have negative reputation implications with the target faction.
Mission spawned capital ships will usually spawn in the targeted named zone either high up or low down on the Z axis and are accompanied by at least 1 other capital ship, several small craft and all involved capital ships carry a lot of drone units. They are usually given aggressive orders such as "Patrol" so they will slowly move towards any hostile target in the zone. Since every zone in Albion has at least 1 station there is a good chance the capital ships will attempt to suicide the station. Due to the massive fire power of stations the mark and escorts will not last long once in range of the station. Not only will this make boarding impossible, but unless the <player> deals significant damage to the mark the mission will fail and no payment will be received. As such it is recommended to disable the Matter/Anti-Matter Drive and Jump Drive of the mark and escort as quickly as possible before they enter station range allowing the player to kill/board them without interference. Escort capital ships will usually spawn a considerable distance away from the mark allowing for them to be left separated by quickly destroying Matter/Anti-Matter Drives. In zones patrolled by faction capital ships it is unlikely that the mark and escort will be left alone making boarding as good as impossible so instead all attention should be focused on destroying the mark. In addition to the common Titurel, fight ships like the Light and Heavy Sol and Balor can spawn.
The Balor is a ship that looks fantastic on paper but is completely useless due to bad AI. Intended as a glass cannon it has pathetic toughness and very few turrets but comes with 3 integrated Nova Drone launchers, each capable of dealing high splash damage at a massive 50 km range. Nova Drone missiles have sufficient homing capabilities to practically guarantee hitting any non-boosting capital ship even if fired in the wrong direction. It is also the fastest capital ship in the game, allowing it to run away from anything that tries to get close. Combined with its extremely low shipyard price tag it has all the potential to be the ultimate "troll" ship, barraging a target with several waves of Nova Drones and then running away if it tries to get close just to continue barraging from somewhere else. However the AI captain pilots the ship like all other fight capital ships and attempts to close range broad side its target, an action that almost always results in the Balor being destroyed. Although mods do exist which attempt to improve Balor AI, in an unmodified game the best use for captured Balor ships is to sell them for an extra credits.
As confidence grows with fighting and boarding capital ships it may be tempting to take more valuable kill missions against more exotic ships to add them as assets. At this stage it is inevitable that at least 1 Taranis will be encountered, a powerful XL fight ship the campaign will introduce later on. Although it is possible to board Taranis ships, doing so is considerably harder as a completely different approach is required to avoid near instant destruction of the Albion Skunk. Details of the procedure are mentioned further on in the section for Prison Break (Medium).
Example of the assets which can be amassed at this stage. Shown are 1 * Rahanas (Bulk & Liquid), 2 * Rahanas (Container & Energy), 2 * Sequana, 4 * Taranis and 8 * Titurel.
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