Capturing
Something not fully described in the manual is the use of Salvage Corvettes.
I have to admit, the game does demonstrate their use during Lev03 but I saw that
as a unique encounter and thought no more about SC's until my mate told me their
real use (when I was half way through Lev05). If you handle your squad of
SC's properly, you can amass a vast fleet at no cost to yourself (and usually
without loosing more than 2 SC's per level.)
A group of SC's can 'salvage' or 'capture' (although I prefer the term 'rescue'
<grin>) most of the enemy ships. They also are not affected by Grav Wells.
You cannot convert any enemy mothership to your cause. Most of the time you will
be rescuing Capital Ships from their evil ways but an SC chasing an enemy corvette
will certainly hamper it long enough for your strike craft to arrive and demolish
it. The number of SC's required to capture an enemy ship is shown below:
|
Ship type
|
SC's
|
Ship type
|
SC's
|
|
Combat Capital Ships
|
|
Assault Frigate
|
2
|
Ion Cannon Frigate
|
2
|
|
Support Frigate
|
2
|
Drone / Defense Field
|
?2?
|
|
Destroyer
|
3
|
Missile Destroyer
|
3
|
|
Heavy Cruiser
|
5
|
Carrier
|
5
|
|
Noncombat Ships
|
|
Resource Collector
|
2
|
Resource Controller
|
3
|
|
Cloak Generator
|
2
|
Grav Well Generator
|
2
|
|
Sensors Array
|
2
|
Research Ship
|
?3?
|
Certain ships (which belong to NPC's) cannot be captured. Some of these can
be destroyed, though. Some of these can only be destroyed in some circumstances
and will not be attacked in others.
An enemy ship will continue to behave as normal until the full numer of SC's
has 'latched' onto it with their tractor beams. So if you set four SC's on a
Heavy Cruiser and have another one on its way, chances are that the first four
will be blown by the time it gets there. Once secured, the enemy ship is ignored
by your ships (and allies) unless they were attacking it before you had it
secured, in which case they will continue to attack it. This can result in the death
of one SC (and thus the reactivation of the enemy ship) or in the destruction of
the enemy ship, leaving a group of bemused SC's hanging at odd angles in space;
their pilots blinded and 'shocked' at the sudden and brilliant demise of their
charge.
Orchestrating a successful rescue is a tricky task indeed, especially if the
target is moving and / or firing. If the enemy is in close formation (say assault
frigates in Broad formation) it is nigh impossible to take them out. Many times
the pilots will miscalculate and when collision occurs, the SC will pop. This often
happens to the tail SC when rescuing a Heavy Cruiser. When SC's are coming in for
the final approach, they move very slowly before they latch. And the enemy is not
disarmed until they are all latched on. So they are very vulnerable. Being
Corvettes, they have decent armour compared to a fighter, but they can't take
evasive action or dodge bullets. (Hey, someone write a patch that includes a Salvage
Frigate, will you?) The Missile Destroyer's missiles are devestation to a wing of
SC's trying to rescue several enemy Cap Ships. The MD is quite capable of defending
itself with those missiles and can take out a few other SC's on the side.
So set a Support Frigate 'Z'ing each SC sent on the MD and they'll
rescue the MD no probs.
