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[Natalcya Katla]

Slaves are much more easily taken from sparsely defended planetary settlements, or simply bought on the open (or the black) market and then smuggled out of Empire space if desired. I just can't see boarding for the sake of random captives being a viable tactic to toss live people away on. If you're sacrificing a lot of live people in order to capture a smaller number of people, you are operating at a loss. As for trade secrets, I would think that in most cases, they would be destroyed by the crew before a boarding party could get to them.

As an aside (and on the topic of martial arts viability), while cutting the power of the ship you're boarding would certainly limit the ship's defenses, it would also cut artificial gravity utterly, meaning that any combat techniques relying on balance and footwork would be of severely limited use.

I do understand the "for the sake of cool stories" position, but I can't get myself to agree with it. Not in this case, anyway. I can't wrap my immersion around it.

[Elmund Egivand]

I like you to read this page:
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines

By the logic displayed in this page, we can say that since the Gallente invest ALOT in automation technology due to low number of military personnel in respect of civilian pool, they will have the tech to coordinate drone activities in their hallways to fight off boarders or to board.

Compared to the very, very old fashioned Amarr or Caldari. Amarr and Caldari systems use alot of human resources, and by diverting resources to human labour pool instead of automation, it means you are far more likely to find humans stalking their hallways. The Minmatar are not exactly very good at automation either, so they rely more on human resources.

And yes, contrary to popular belief, ship resources are not unlimited, so you can't just install drone defenses and then go home and get some snacks. What you can put in your ship is still very much limited by powergrid and CPU, as well as places to put the necessary devices for said systems. That means, yes, some ships may allow for efficient control of gravity and what not, but not ALL ships. Amarr ships probably doesn't have that in place at all and probably just throw slaves and Paladins at boarders until they go away. Minmatar is more likely to engineer deliberate workplace 'accidents' to screw with boarders. Caldari? Evacuate personnel to designated defensive position (chokes and armoury) and open fire.

The article you linked says there's quite a lot of automation onboard Amarr ships, actually. In any case, none of this really challenges my argument much. If you don't have boarding drones or even shipboard drones, fine. The sensible thing to do in that case is not to send human boarding parties. The sensible thing to do in that case is to not engage in boarding actions at all, because you don't have the tools required for the job. And if human soldiers are your primary defence against getting boarded yourself, the sensible thing to do is not to teach them how to disable other people, but how to disable boarding drones - because if they ever do get boarded, that is exactly what they will face. A few possible exceptions might occur in, say, Caldari vs. Caldari faceoffs, but I'd still put my money on the defenders coming out on top in most of those situations, too. Even with little automation, it seems incredibly easy for defenders to turn their ship into an absolute death trap for any hostile human boarding party that dares to set foot onboard.

There's a few problems with that though, the first of which comes to mind that while the outside of the ship is heavily armored and shielded, the inside is a different story.  Boarders don't need to rush to the center immediately to do significant amounts of damage.  Second thing that comes to mind is that I'm assuming that, if you're piercing the hull in order to board anything, you've done so in some sort of suit that is resistant to the harsh vicissitudes of space.  You can turn your ship into an automated death trap that you can activate at will, but odds are that before you've evacuated the ship, boarders would simply cut the power.

That wouldn't always be a problem, as if you're the one defending the ship, you've got goons for that kind of thing.

That's not always the case if you're the one trying to take the ship and what you'll do when you're on it.  EVE the game may be very limited in the scope of things you can do, but EVE the setting is rife with cool stuff you could RP.  Say you want a cool backstory for your ship, and you decided to stow on board, sneak and fight your way to the front, and take off in it rather than say, "Yeah, I bought it for 50m ISK I got from doing the same job for the same agents over and over again."  A character could have originally been one of those boarders, and made his bones doing one of the most dangerous jobs in space warfare.  Maybe while affecting repairs, a character had to kill a set of boarders starting with a piece of sharp shrapnel with electrical tape wound around one end.  Blood Raiders and Sansha have a need not only to board ships with living hosts, but to then incapacitate them.  There are lots of reasons for the interested storyteller that boarding scenarios and hand-to-hand combat might be important.

Mostly, if it comes up in the context of one of our capsuleers, it's a characterization element.  Some people see the capsule as a haven, as a way to cheat death.  So they're very paranoid about security and find time outside the capsule to make them feel vulnerable.  Those people would likely not practice or need hand-to-hand combat.  But to do that says something about the character.

Likewise, if your capsuleer has no problem braining a boarder with a spanner and had a long, storied career in doing things the personal way, your character probably knows and routinely utilizes those skills.  That says something about a character, as well.

In all honesty, this stuff is a characterization element.  We're not going to find unarmed combat to be useful in the actual gameplay of EVE, so I think it's important more to know this stuff from the standpoint of a character's background.  I'd imagine the people with some kind of training to be high, though, as so many had military or police training or learned some style of combat or two by heritage.

My character is accustomed to braining other dudes with spanners and circuit boards.

Slaves are much more easily taken from sparsely defended planetary settlements, or simply bought on the open (or the black) market and then smuggled out of Empire space if desired. I just can't see boarding for the sake of random captives being a viable tactic to toss live people away on. If you're sacrificing a lot of live people in order to capture a smaller number of people, you are operating at a loss. As for trade secrets, I would think that in most cases, they would be destroyed by the crew before a boarding party could get to them.

As an aside (and on the topic of martial arts viability), while cutting the power of the ship you're boarding would certainly limit the ship's defenses, it would also cut artificial gravity utterly, meaning that any combat techniques relying on balance and footwork would be of severely limited use.

I do understand the "for the sake of cool stories" position, but I can't get myself to agree with it. Not in this case, anyway. I can't wrap my immersion around it.

Here's the problem though. If you take slaves from sparsely defended planetary settlement, someone will notice. Possibly someones. Powerful someones. Capturing crew members of freighters or frigates out in deep space is more likely to go unnoticed. And slave markets got their slaves from somewhere. What, you think slaves grow on trees?

And I did say 'heavily armed and armored' didn't I?

And sometimes, that ship is just simply way too tough to crack and it's just alot easier to send boarders to wreck havoc and divert the capsuleer's attention for maybe a couple minutes to buy time.

Also, destroying trade secret is admission that the captain has lost. You fail to account for the fact that there's also pride on the line.

And who can say that the boarders didn't wear magnetic boots to deal with zero gravity? And who is to say the marines fighting off the boarders aren't wearing mag-boots either? And the lack of gravity doesn't stop the Brutor from smashing True Amarr face against sharp edges on the wall. And what about the part where the boarders meet marines while on the way to cut power? That situation, CQC has alot of value. Power doesn't cut itself, you know.

[Louella Dougans]

http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=2999

Amarr Marine Counter-Boarding Team

Amarr Marine Counter-Boarding Teams are regarded as among the most elite units of their type across all four races. This expertise was developed not long after other states rediscovered warp technology. It occurred to senior Amarr military leaders that wars of the future would include ship-to-ship actions in space, to include the possibility of an enemy ship boarding another, as they had in millennia past when their ancestors sailed warships on the high seas. To that end, boarding and counterboarding training became a mandatory part of every Amarr marine's advanced infantry training. The development of this capability led to the development of highly-specialized equipment for use in "boarding ops," to include manportable high-speed welding gear, outer hatchway breaching explosives, and personal weapons for close quarters combat.

[Natalcya Katla]

Here's the problem though. If you take slaves from sparsely defended planetary settlement, someone will notice. Possibly someones. Powerful someones. Capturing crew members of freighters or frigates out in deep space is more likely to go unnoticed.

I'd be a lot more wary about angering the owner(s) of any random space freighter than the administrators of some pissant dirtling settlement on the fringes of civilization. To attempt to draw a real-life parallel: What draws the heaviest notice from the most powerful people - the capture of a random merchant ship by pirates off, say, the coast of Somalia, or the sacking of a random Somalian village? I think that's a reasonably fair comparison to make, unfortunate though the answer to the thought experiment may be.

And slave markets got their slaves from somewhere. What, you think slaves grow on trees?

They don't? Boarding crews apparently do. To answer, though, the vast majority of slaves in EVE probably come from other slaves. Slaves have been known to procreate, after all. The rest were probably taken in the aforementioned planetary settlements, or kidnapped in ways involving a whole lot less swashbucklery. It wouldn't surprise me if dishonest captains make a killing out of human trafficking, taking money from would-be refugees and selling them into slavery instead of taking them wherever they actually wanted to go. The amount of people taken as slaves in bona fide spaceship boarding actions should be miniscule.

And I did say 'heavily armed and armored' didn't I?

Of course. Which is all fun and games until somebody starts messing with the gravity settings.

And sometimes, that ship is just simply way too tough to crack and it's just alot easier to send boarders to wreck havoc and divert the capsuleer's attention for maybe a couple minutes to buy time.

That sounds more like a "desperate last resort" than "a lot easier", to me.

Also, destroying trade secret is admission that the captain has lost. You fail to account for the fact that there's also pride on the line.

If the success of a highly dangerous assault hinges entirely on the opposing commander being a complete idiot, the person ordering the assault tends to be either highly desperate, or a complete idiot him- or herself. And failing to destroy sensitive information about to fall into enemy hands is indeed idiocy.

And who can say that the boarders didn't wear magnetic boots to deal with zero gravity? And who is to say the marines fighting off the boarders aren't wearing mag-boots either?

I certainly can't say that the boarders and counter-boarders don't wear magnetic boots. They can wear all the magnets they like. I will, however, put forward the hypothesis that any attempt at close-quarter combat while wearing mag boots in zero-g is likely to look more like people dancing in slalom boots underwater than it's going to resemble any kind of martial arts technique known to humankind.

And the lack of gravity doesn't stop the Brutor from smashing True Amarr face against sharp edges on the wall.

We will have to disagree there, I think. Well, to be charitable, if by "doesn't stop" you mean "doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of", I will concede the point. But it does make it a whole lot harder.

And what about the part where the boarders meet marines while on the way to cut power? That situation, CQC has alot of value. Power doesn't cut itself, you know.

Quite, but in that scenario, all the fun defenses are still in play. Including fucking with gravity. The defenders can even choose to turn it off themselves, if it seems like a good idea to do so.

[Natalcya Katla]

Amarr Marine Counter-Boarding Team

I'm aware of these items. The fact of their existence in-game doesn't make the concept any less silly. Personally I take those boarding crews about as seriously as I take the tank of liquid honor I've got kicking about in one of my hangars somewhere.

[Elmund Egivand]

And again you seem to assume that you can actually mess with localised gravity settings. For all we know there is only ON/OFF and you could end up screwing with your own crew that way too. And considering how many years of space flight and space warfare the spacefarers of New Eden had experienced, you would think their boarders are also trained for these situations.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

And who can say that the boarders didn't wear magnetic boots to deal with zero gravity? And who is to say the marines fighting off the boarders aren't wearing mag-boots either?

I certainly can't say that the boarders and counter-boarders don't wear magnetic boots. They can wear all the magnets they like. I will, however, put forward the hypothesis that any attempt at close-quarter combat while wearing mag boots in zero-g is likely to look more like people dancing in slalom boots underwater than it's going to resemble any kind of martial arts technique known to humankind.

And the lack of gravity doesn't stop the Brutor from smashing True Amarr face against sharp edges on the wall.

We will have to disagree there, I think. Well, to be charitable, if by "doesn't stop" you mean "doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of", I will concede the point. But it does make it a whole lot harder.

I'm not entirely sure why we seem to be judging the topic of zero-g combat from the perspective of modern technology and someone not trained in it.  Frankly, if the gravity is cut I'd be inclined to put the odds in favour of the boarders.

[Elmund Egivand]

And who can say that the boarders didn't wear magnetic boots to deal with zero gravity? And who is to say the marines fighting off the boarders aren't wearing mag-boots either?

I certainly can't say that the boarders and counter-boarders don't wear magnetic boots. They can wear all the magnets they like. I will, however, put forward the hypothesis that any attempt at close-quarter combat while wearing mag boots in zero-g is likely to look more like people dancing in slalom boots underwater than it's going to resemble any kind of martial arts technique known to humankind.

And the lack of gravity doesn't stop the Brutor from smashing True Amarr face against sharp edges on the wall.

We will have to disagree there, I think. Well, to be charitable, if by "doesn't stop" you mean "doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of", I will concede the point. But it does make it a whole lot harder.

I'm not entirely sure why we seem to be judging the topic of zero-g combat from the perspective of modern technology and someone not trained in it.  Frankly, if the gravity is cut I'd be inclined to put the odds in favour of the boarders.

Especially considering the boarders are probably trained and equipped for zero g and brought knives, magnetic boots and personal thrusters and air supply for zero-g and vacuum combat.

[Lyn Farel]

I don't see the difference between a trained team with proper anti-G / anti-radiation / antiwhatever suit and drones. Either way, if you mess enough with gravity or traps or whatever that can melt or smash the former, then the latter will not fare any better...

Edit : On the matter at hand to clarify i'm definitely not against capsuleers getting into crazy stuff where they put their lives in danger. If they want to go baseline in dangerous situations, it's perfectly fine, after all capsuleers are infamous for being completely nuts... The main immersion breaking thing is more tied to 2 things :

- A lot of players seem to have really fancy and fantasist ideas on combat and how it never go really wrong as long as they are "trained"... Or that it's just trivial... Even with all the training and gear, things can go wrong really quick in real life, even when it's just a drug dealer...

- And even if people are conscious about that or if it's actually me with all the crazy and fantasist idea about the randomness of that kind of things, if they are conscious about the actualy scary consequences of that, then those consequences never happen. Because nobody wants to have to deal with it. We just see countless capsuleers walking all around in dangerous situations daily, and magically never killed or else... As if players don't want to face the consequences of their actions. You know, like if you ignored all the dice rolls for critical fails any decent tabletop RPG..

[Leon026]

Perhaps... but the whole point of boarding in the first place, is that you do it when the opposing side is taken by surprise and/or faced with an overwhelming violence of action. Perhaps not so much in the 1800s, but certainly nowadays with how some VBSS (Visit, Board, Search and Seizure) teams operate, surprise and violence of action is the number one key to success, or a captain that (is forced to) accepts a visit.

Personally though, I would prefer human (?) boarding teams as opposed to drones. At least from what we see in the 21st century, drones dont use tactics, and cannot judge and analyze a situation. Maybe in New Eden they can.


Things going wrong due to the most simplest and stupidest things to the best trained is really evident. You'd only have to look at the French raid in Somalia to rescue a hostage, and the simultaneous Navy SEALs raid to see that while they are super trained, and are as professional as they come, the smallest of random events can fuck up the entire operation. Training, equipment and situational awareness limits the amount of random events you may encounter, but they still occur, all the time, despite all the training, equipment and support (because lets face it, these teams are not running a 10-man show, they've got a whole slew of support that got the teams there in the first place.)


Boarding certainly has its uses, but it certainly would not take the shape of "boarding" in Homeworld II where some random Marine frigate approaches and takes over your ship. Just like how paratroopers in real life, do not work the way games depict them of arriving from the skies in the middle of a raging battle. It is more likely that it would occur when the odds are so fully stacked in your favor.

[Natalcya Katla]

I'll exit this discussion before venturing too deep into YDIW terrritory.

[Vic Van Meter]

I'd say boarding can be incredibly useful in EVE for a very EVE-ish reason: it's one more thing you have to be prepared for.  If you aren't prepared for a boarding party, or if you've only got a very basic minimum requirement, it's like every other weapon you can have that your enemy doesn't have a defense against.  Imagine if a boarding party dropped inside the ship and set off an EMP charge.  Does that mean all systems would need to be internally hardened?  Would all bulkheads need to be reinforced to resist localized explosions from the inside?  From the outside, a main battle tank is nearly invincible, but if you pop a grenade inside, you'll kill everyone inside it and do tremendous damage.

The effect is sometimes humorously referred to as the "chunky-salsa effect" in that if an explosion meets a wall but does not collapse that wall, the remaining force of the explosion reverberates back towards the source.  It's why bunker buster bombs are so effective, as once they're inside anything designed to repel a force one way suddenly also repels it backwards.

So if boarders exist, it's probably because a boarding craft can bypass either the shield or armor.  In the case of a battleship or something similarly large, especially an armor-tanking ship, a successful boarding party does not need to do much to sabotage a ship from the inside if they aren't immediately repelled.  That might also indicate why the Amarr seem to be so good at it if it's a way to speed up a battle with something heavily armored.

It also would stand to reason that blowing up a ship and picking up its jetsam and salvage, you're not getting much.  If you board and hijack a ship, you get all the cargo as well as the ship.  In some cases where the crew complement is small, the internal security might not be robust, and the cargo is valuable, the added value of boarding it might be too good to pass up.  Coupled with the myriad number of reasons you might not be able to just blow up a problem, I'd actually be surprised if there wasn't a good set of people with the techniques to handle boarding actions.

On the subject of drones, I'd say that it wouldn't be as hard to teach a drone how to fly in space and attack the blip as how to navigate the interior of a ship and engage in CQB combat.  It might just be that humans are still better at that because they can improvise on the fly.  Still, the Gallente seem to be miles ahead of the competition in the drone department ICly, so maybe their boarders and repelling teams are all drones and the rest tend to use real people.

Maybe it's less of a thing in EVE because capsuleer vogue is to treat your ship like a kleenex and they don't bother trying to board each other?  It'd be fun if they put in a mechanic whereby a ship could actually launch a boarding party at another, so you'd have to have invested in manpower or technology to repel boarders or you'd be on a time limit.

[Arista Shahni]

Derailed.

But w/e.  We've been fantasizing about ship boarders since 2009 or earlier.  Specially pirates.  cause would rather have a ship and it's full cargo alive than dead, or the yummy, yummy tears of someone self destructing to keep us from having it (where they'd think we were crying instead, but it would simply me a 'reversion to old rules' for pi-rats).

Nothing to do with capsuleers knowing kung fu unelss a baseliner themselves can kungfu kick through a capsule and break it open without activating the neural snapshot mechanism.

[Silas Vitalia]

Starting a shard topic for this asap, because it's a great subject

[Saede Riordan]

A capsuleer can control the massive amounts of information pouring into their brain when linked to a ship. Using a remote drone/cyborg shell remotely via an FTL router seems rather mundane by comparison.

Just need to make sure it's anatomically correct I suppose.

This.

Dunno how I've missed this thread thus far...