Proposal: PoB boarding attacks

[jammi]

Capturing PoBs is completely out of the question because the first thing the new owner would do is: desconstruct all modules, and kill it off with a few commands. That's because Disco (for many of its players) is about destroying something others built, and the harder it was to make, the better it feels to destroy it. In theory, nice. In practise: no.

Absolutely. Capturing is completely off the books and not something I'd be willing to even consider within the scope of this idea. People here have proven time and time again that they just can't be trusted with that kind of thing.

As for complaints that the idea would make micromanaging bases more tedious? Not so. Garrisoning defence marines is entirely optional. You can do so in order to nullify any potential boarding damage for as long as you have troops, or you can opt not to and simply swallow boarding damage via your repair mats as you would for a conventional attack.

I've also specifically pointed out in the OP that a freighter unloading troops would inflict half the damage a regular siege battleship would, at most. I feel the freighter's reduced damage and massively increased vulnerability compensates nicely for their reduced pricetag. Remember, these ships must be stationary so they'll be sitting ducks if attackers arrive and aren't immediately destroyed.

Naturally, specially trained boarding marines (PoB version of the Marine commodity) could also be priced to around $15,000 per unit as well, to add a financial aspect to the attackers.

Oh and I forgot to put this in the OP, but yes, boarding would count as an attack. This would raise the shields and set the base hostile to the attackers. Considering you'd need an attack declaration for anything over Core 2, I'd hope cheese attacks wouldn't be so much of a problem. For Core 1, well, this would basically be designed to allow for factions who don't have battleships to actually deal with them.

Furthermore, there is no reason a Military base should defend better. I bet Liberty Rouges are fierce defenders and Mollys would at least be as badass as a BowEx security squadron and all of them would be comparable to a bored military security crew on a base.

I'm pretty sure a company of Royal Marines would receive better training and equipment than local Bowex or IMG militias. I'd really like to see House military factions receive some kind of bonus though, to represent their access to high levels of professional, military training. I'm thinking instead of a passive defence buff, maybe freighters with a military ID/IFF would receive a small damage buff? 10-20%? Or perhaps the ability to kill enemy troops 1:1 instead of 2:1?