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[Silas Vitalia]

A couple of things to consider:

We don't have a lot of established PF in this area, so people's opinions vary wildly based on what their own assumptions are.

I'm going to go with yes, ship boarding happens, see that previously linked marine item.

Points of Intereset:

1. Capsuleer vs Non Capsuleer ships:

Boarding a non capsuleer or civilian ship is likely much easier;  The capsuleer likely has intimate knowledge of every nook and cranny of their ship and would be a fantastic medium to direct a counter boarding response.  Capsuleer ships also have the latest and greatest technological whizz-bang devices, so I would expect expensive capsuleer ships, especially the large capital ships, to be full of all sorts of nasty marine teams, automated turrets, and difficult-to-overcome obstacles around critical ship areas.  Larger ships from empire navies also full of scary things to shoot boarders.

Capsuleers are very unlikely to allow their ships to be taken over by baseliners; they can always pull the plug and blow the ship, unless they have sentimental attachment to valuable cargo or personnel.   Now I personally leave room in my little lore universe for special cases to ruin a capsuleer's day and control over their ships.  I have to imagine if we have giant modules that can remotely 'remove' energy from a targeted ship, then perhaps fancy whizz bang technology to snap a capsule's connection to a ship, or maybe even remove the power from the pod gantry for escape purposes Who knows, plenty of possibilities here.

Non capsuleer ships are probably getting pirated and captured 'erry day in scary parts of space.  Sanshas, Blood Raiders, regular pirate folks, lots of hunting on the space lanes.  Boarding and capturing some hauler out of lowsec full of 'civies and refugees is likely not especially difficult for some of the more hardened space killers out there.


2. Why board a ship?

Steal Cargo. Steal people. Kidnap a VIP. Take the ship.  All good reasons.  One wouldn't board a ship to destroy the ship, as there are a bazillion better methods that many of us use on a daily basis in PVP (blast them until they explode).

3. Gravity

I'm going to assume with handwavium that ship's gravity is much more of an 'on/off' sort of duality, or very difficult to control on localized basis.  'artificial gravity' is a damned ugly handwavium in lots of sci fi; it's convenient and easier to have people walking around on spaceships that resemble earth naval ships than to really deal with the annoying zero g aspects.  People in eve have artificial gravity control, but they don't weaponize it. I call this pure handwavium, assume the gravity control is complex and not easy to manipulate aside from amarr hover-chairs and cars, and try not to think about it.  Otherwise shit gets complicated really fast for weapons and combat and we don't see any of that in EVE so far.


3. This is all RP conjecture

None of this is reflected in gameplay and is entirely in our own little RP head space.  There is no ship boarding gameplay, and until they weave Dust into capturing stations and pos, there won't be. 


So lore-wise it happens, although not in any detail that we can agree on and it's strictly in our heads as to specifics.

[Arista Shahni]

Was wanting this since 2009.  Already said why.  Oldschool piracy wanted one of two things: money, ships or rigs.  ..

.. oldschool piracy wanted one of three, THREE things:  money ships, rigs, or tears.

... oldschool piracy wanted one of FOUR things..

Anyway.  Piracy has become a non-thing as it makes no money.  The ability to .. even TIMER something, like a module, etc, to steal someone's ship or make it jettison a fit module, or something...

[Nissui]

Be sure to carry an ample supply of small arms for your crew.

[Lyn Farel]

CCP told us pretty well a year ago or so that it's the goal they imagined when they introduced that pre DUST teaser where they discover the first dust implants... They wanted us to leave our ships and eventually go roam in the entrails of some sleeper facility...

Though considering how incarna turned out for them, that sounds like vaporware to me.

[Esna Pitoojee]

With respect to the PF on such things: While I am hesitant to rely on RL to guide my EVE thought, I suspect here we can get some general ideas about why someone would board a ship as opposed to simply ripping it to shreds:

- The ship is poorly defended, and is valuable by nature of its very existence to the attackers (AKA, 'the pirate reason'). Boarding a ship for its cargo, its crew, or even the hull itself. Much like Somali pirates in RL, I suspect this niche would be primarily occupied by small gangs of relatively poor attackers, primarily preying on Industrial-related hulls in poorly patrolled reaches of space. The effectiveness of this reason is reliant on the target being nonmilitary and unable to effectively defend itself.

- The target holds an extremely high-value object or person who is desired for recovery. Missions where we blow up ships and inevitably recover our VIP in perfect condition, actually ripping a hull to shreds to try and pick up someone alive is a pretty poor idea. I imagine this to be the most common reason any of the 'elite' military forces are ever deployed for boarding operations; it would also be the most dangerous of the reasons, as any ship holding a VIP is probably going to be crewed by competent defenders.

- The attackers wish, for religious, national, or other reasons to save a particular portion of the crew alive. Covers Blood Raiders attacking a ship to drain the passengers, Sansha attacking to True them, Minmatar attacking a ship to rescue a slave crew, Amarr attacking a ship to enslave the crew... The main difference from the 1st reason above is that the boarded ship is not a poorly-defended target of opportunity; the difference from the 2nd reason is that there is no particular VIP or object the attackers are after. They are simply insane (or driven, depending on your point of view) to take up the extremely risky tactic of boarding a particular target rather than finding a more poorly-defended option.


I've got a post on the mechanisms and tactics forming in my head, but that'll have to wait until later.

[Lyn Farel]

In terms of game mechanisms it could be cool if you can actually get the WHOLE cargo, without much loss like when you destroy the hull...

It would be rather awesome also to see human traffic with actual and useful crews to add to a ship (and so, to loot...).

[Louella Dougans]

Boarding only makes any kind of sense, when the target of a boarding action is a merchant or industrial vessel.

Anything with a high hull mass, and relatively low powered engine.

Disable the engine, then commence boarding action.

Objectives would be documents, cargo, specific individuals. Seizing the ship entirely may also be a possibility - but with the engine having been disabled, then repairing it to fly away under own power may be problematic - although control of the ship means control of the cargo-handling systems etc.

The aim of the attacking boarders is to secure the objective as quickly as possible. The defenders aim is to delay the attackers long enough, that the objective item can be destroyed to prevent it falling into the attackers hands. There is the possibility of holding out long enough for a rescue force to arrive, but that seems unlikely - if the attackers see more defenders arrive, they may prefer to destroy the ship rather than let the defenders recover it.


So, I don't see boarding as something that would happen with the target being any kind of armed vessel. They have too big an engine to be disabled without damaging most of the ship, the guns would have to be disabled too.

Stations, habitation modules, any other space structures, merchant ships, are the only things I can grasp where boarding actions make any kind of sense.

[Silas Vitalia]

Boarding only makes any kind of sense, when the target of a boarding action is a merchant or industrial vessel.

Anything with a high hull mass, and relatively low powered engine.

Disable the engine, then commence boarding action.

Objectives would be documents, cargo, specific individuals. Seizing the ship entirely may also be a possibility - but with the engine having been disabled, then repairing it to fly away under own power may be problematic - although control of the ship means control of the cargo-handling systems etc.

The aim of the attacking boarders is to secure the objective as quickly as possible. The defenders aim is to delay the attackers long enough, that the objective item can be destroyed to prevent it falling into the attackers hands. There is the possibility of holding out long enough for a rescue force to arrive, but that seems unlikely - if the attackers see more defenders arrive, they may prefer to destroy the ship rather than let the defenders recover it.


So, I don't see boarding as something that would happen with the target being any kind of armed vessel. They have too big an engine to be disabled without damaging most of the ship, the guns would have to be disabled too.

Stations, habitation modules, any other space structures, merchant ships, are the only things I can grasp where boarding actions make any kind of sense.

What does the size of the engine have to do with disabling it?  Eve tech seems to show stasis webifiers and warp scramblers work regardless of engine size?

[Vic Van Meter]

Boarding only makes any kind of sense, when the target of a boarding action is a merchant or industrial vessel.

Anything with a high hull mass, and relatively low powered engine.

Disable the engine, then commence boarding action.

Objectives would be documents, cargo, specific individuals. Seizing the ship entirely may also be a possibility - but with the engine having been disabled, then repairing it to fly away under own power may be problematic - although control of the ship means control of the cargo-handling systems etc.

The aim of the attacking boarders is to secure the objective as quickly as possible. The defenders aim is to delay the attackers long enough, that the objective item can be destroyed to prevent it falling into the attackers hands. There is the possibility of holding out long enough for a rescue force to arrive, but that seems unlikely - if the attackers see more defenders arrive, they may prefer to destroy the ship rather than let the defenders recover it.


So, I don't see boarding as something that would happen with the target being any kind of armed vessel. They have too big an engine to be disabled without damaging most of the ship, the guns would have to be disabled too.

Stations, habitation modules, any other space structures, merchant ships, are the only things I can grasp where boarding actions make any kind of sense.

What does the size of the engine have to do with disabling it?  Eve tech seems to show stasis webifiers and warp scramblers work regardless of engine size?

That's very true.  Not to mention that a heavily armed vessel would be a good target for any pirate group that wanted to take it.

I mean, depending on your corp's lore, you may be able to construct a supercruiser in-game, but you may not want to say you've done it ICly (some pirates want people to think they're old-school raiders, not an industrial powerhouse.  Hell, it might be fun to get your people together and RP out how you board and stole a ship of that size and from whom.

It'd be good story material, anyway.  Nothing seems as un-pirate-y as asking where they got their massive battleship, and they say, "Oh... well... we own a factory and saved up our money in our piggy bank..."

[Leon026]

I would go with : "Well of course, boarding would occur".

Why? Because shooting at something has a high level of violence/conflict.

Why must people be relegated to shooting something up in all situations?

Sometimes there are other things than just cargo bays that can be carried in. Sure, CONCORD as well as mods could scan cargo bays, but a ship scanner wont be able to scan for clandestine trafficking of people, documents, or other things not inside the cargo bay.

This means, that you would have routine VBSS teams conducting searches under warrant. In EVE, yes, people tend to use violence as a first resort, but it doesnt mean that in the EVE Universe that should always be the case.

Some RL-based reasons on why a ship could be boarded:

- (noted above) Pirate reason to hijack shipping and kidnap crew for ransom

- (noted above) HVT recovery. Person or thing.

- (noted above) Wanting the ship intact for a myriad of reasons

- Security patrol / Show of presence - Routine boarding of shipping in a certain zone would act as a show of force and show of presence from local security

- Treaty compliance checks - Some weaponry could be banned: NRBC weapons, Viral Bombs, Capsule frequency scrambler to fry the capsuleer to anti-planet bombs perhaps could all be part of restricted weaponry. It could even be use of restricted Jove technology on-board ships. Security/treaty-enforcement teams may visit ships to check for compliance on agreed-upon treaties.

- Assistance - boarding doesnt have to be aggressive and offensive in nature. It could be that ships are in distress and require medical/engineering assistance

- Quarantine zone enforcement - Could be HAZMAT related or even disease related. HAZMAT teams may board a ship full of refugees to screen for potential infection diseases


Multitude of reasons where simply blowing up the ship into tiny pieces would not necessarily help.

[Louella Dougans]

What does the size of the engine have to do with disabling it?  Eve tech seems to show stasis webifiers and warp scramblers work regardless of engine size?

for merchant and industrial ships, the engine room wouldn't be as integrated into the rest of the ship. If you're shooting at the engines to disable the ship, then it's easier to do that to a ship where the engines are almost an afterthought.

also, for merchant ships, the engine is low-powered, so the ship isn't really capable of making sudden changes in attitude or course that would make docking a boarding shuttle problematic.

[Nmaro Makari]

From a pf standpoint, I remember there was definitely something in a dust Chronicle about a squad boarding a ship.

[Isis Dea]

I just remember the days where CCP would state how our ships were designed to function independent of crew. I've always considered that aspect when it comes to boarding. I imagine a truly diabolical capsuleer would willingly let boarders onto their ship, knowing they can control every power grid, switch the gravity on or off in whole sections, program their nannites to feast on soldiers trapped in passageways, reconfigure hallways/passages (especially in ships with bastion/siege/triage mode), seal troops inside their cargo, vent passageways etc. etc.

In other words, I've always imagined boarding a capsuleer's ship to be something of a nightmare if the capsuleer actually can sense/expects you.

And that's not even considering the crew, who will be fighting on home turf. Remember each ship is built from a different source and blueprints only fine print the interior of a ship so well. Especially when it comes to Minmatar vessels, I'm sure there's some freedom to vary the design internals a little bit, especially for purposes of crew commendations/smuggling.

Assassinations are one thing, invading as a force is another. I shiver at the thought of a capsuleer who wants to have a little fun...

[Vic Van Meter]

I just remember the days where CCP would state how our ships were designed to function independent of crew. I've always considered that aspect when it comes to boarding. I imagine a truly diabolical capsuleer would willingly let boarders onto their ship, knowing they can control every power grid, switch the gravity on or off in whole sections, program their nannites to feast on soldiers trapped in passageways, reconfigure hallways/passages (especially in ships with bastion/siege/triage mode), seal troops inside their cargo, vent passageways etc. etc.

In other words, I've always imagined boarding a capsuleer's ship to be something of a nightmare if the capsuleer actually can sense/expects you.

And that's not even considering the crew, who will be fighting on home turf. Remember each ship is built from a different source and blueprints only fine print the interior of a ship so well. Especially when it comes to Minmatar vessels, I'm sure there's some freedom to vary the design internals a little bit, especially for purposes of crew commendations/smuggling.

Assassinations are one thing, invading as a force is another. I shiver at the thought of a capsuleer who wants to have a little fun...

There's a problem with that, though.  For a capsuleer to have sensation all over the ship, even the interior, it needs hardline connections all over with a direct neural link.  Maybe it's just my Shadowrun background, but the first thing that comes to mind is that once someone is inside your shield and armor defenses, if you have that much control over your ship interior, anyone can splice into any instrument you have control of and hack your brain.

If capsuleers have that much control, I'd suddenly imagine that a boarding crew was a nightmare for a capsuleer.  Imagine if, instead of being able to see through a camera, someone used a camera's information line to send you into a seizure.  Or to cut power to the ship itself.  Or to disengage the lock and fire your neural remapper without transmitting the information.

I've always thought that the capsuleer had better sensation outside, where they were protected, but specifically because of the threat of a boarding party, you hired goons to man the hallways.

It might be more difficult for the boarders if they were equally matched, but I'd imagine that's a much better trained and higher paid job for a shipboard soldier.  I guess it depends on how much you spent on security and defense inside the ship.  If your crew abandoned stations to repel boarders, I don't know your sonar tech is as well trained and equipped as a black-ops boarding team.

I do imagine that well-designed ships also use natural chokepoints and the like to make their job easier.  That would be rendered somewhat less effective if you could get a data line to someone's brain from anywhere on the ship.

[Isis Dea]

My chess instincts instantly have me asking the question, "While true, what if a capsuleer can sense a break-in within their ship. As in the capsuleer feels a terminal being used to access their brain and instead toys with that terminal? If said capsuleer is native enough to the network of their own ship (while the hacker isn't) that they're able retract themselves into a corner of the ship's network after instinctually telling the console to overload itself (or that section of the ship to lock down and vent its contents)?"

In other words, it almost seems like two invasions have to happen at the same time. A physical, and a digital invasion. The boarding of a capsuleer ship being a high-risk high-reward venture with dire consequences; whoever wins the race of dominance in the ship simply survives? (As in if the infiltrators win, failsafes would induce brain spike early and the capsuleer would escape… although if that failsafe doesn't trigger, you could easily have a capsuleer hostage. Something I wouldn't suggest very fair unless in agreement with the other RP party.)

Much like present day ghost sites.  xD