Are PDF ships not boardable?

They practically self destruct as soon as "Shields" reaches 0%

I'm currently on a Pirate world conquering kick, and I notice that all ships launched directly from the planet never settle in the "Disabled" state. Rather, they seem to self-destruct as soon as I deplete their shields, not even waiting for me to start whittling down their armour, as if they have none. Are planetary defense ships specifically flagged to not be captured?

all defense fleet ships are non-disable, they keep running till 0.

The thing about the ships being killed right away is probably due to you having good anti-armour weapons. However, you are right in your assumption that planetary defense ships cannot be disabled. They actually do take armour damage, but rather than being disabled at 33% or 10% (varies depending on what ship it is) they go all the way down to 0% and then die. But even when dying, they still shoot at you.

Dominating planets can suck big-time.

** Edit:** Fastest. Working. Karma. Ever.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 25 August 2010 - 11:11 PM

QUOTE (Edwin| @ Aug 26 2010, 12:07 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

all defense fleet ships are non-disable, they keep running till 0.

is that a new thing? for some reason i remember being able to capture one or two. though, it has been years since i went through it.

This post has been edited by antihero : 26 August 2010 - 07:07 PM

It's a pragmatic thing. If the ships in defence fleets could be disabled, you could purposely leave them floating so as to fill up the system to its limit (especially in the older games, where that limit is much lower), and force the ships to come one at a time.

Or you could just capture the ships and get some extra help the entire time. They'd be in poor condition, but they'd make excellent shields for a moment or two. They also might take down one or two enemies for you before being blasted themselves.

Well from what I'm reading, it sounds like the problem isn't that they're not getting disabled when they normally would, but that he doesn't get a chance to hit their armor at all. Once their shields hit 0% they blow up.

QUOTE (G-Spark @ Aug 28 2010, 06:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well from what I'm reading, it sounds like the problem isn't that they're not getting disabled when they normally would, but that he doesn't get a chance to hit their armor at all. Once their shields hit 0% they blow up.

I know what he's saying, I'm saying that's not the case. Whatever weapons he's using must just be really good against armour. That or he's just not noticing the target display switching from Shields to Armour. Possibly, but unlikely, he has a plug-in that decreases armour on all ships.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Aug 29 2010, 01:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know what he's saying, I'm saying that's not the case. Whatever weapons he's using must just be really good against armour. That or he's just not noticing the target display switching from Shields to Armour. Possibly, but unlikely, he has a plug-in that decreases armour on all ships.

Nope, no cheat plug-ins. Though I did fashion a plug-in that got rid of the "You can sell secondary weapons that are currently equipped, and still use them!" bug. Unless that was meant to be a secret feature, in which case I'll disable that plugin.

Also, the way the Classic pack for Nova is setup, when shields are down, that's literally what the target's status displays, "Shields Down". It doesn't switch to an armour bar or percentage.

Never heard of that bug, but it definitely sounds like something unintentional.

I meant when the display switches from shields percentage to saying 'Shields Down'. Sorry, I should've been more clear on that. At any rate, are PDF ships still blowing up right when their shields hit 0% or is that no longer a problem?

oh, this is the classic version on ev nova. s###, here i thought you were playing the old school 1.5 one. the rules are a bit different.

s### i feel old now.

QUOTE (David Arthur @ Aug 26 2010, 08:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a pragmatic thing. If the ships in defence fleets could be disabled, you could purposely leave them floating so as to fill up the system to its limit (especially in the older games, where that limit is much lower), and force the ships to come one at a time.

i thought that was the strategy. if i remember correctly, one of the ways you could cheat the system was use the cheater plug in, load up on lightnings in bays, and launch like 32 of them to force the issue. took forever if you miscounted and had to fight 100 ships one at a time, but it usually worked. the other, more legit strategy, was hire 8 kestrals, which each had 2 lightnings, and then launch your fighters as well, and wait for a big fleet to come in to limit the responding ships.

This post has been edited by antihero : 05 September 2010 - 09:12 PM

It's not a bug, in Nova, you can set ships to only show shield% (or not even that if you'd like) and then they'll just show the "shields down" status until they´re disabled or destroyed. I don't know of any way to make ships un-disable-able except giving them extremely low armour, but perhaps Nova has the same PDF-ships can't be disabled functionality.