Glad to hear that :). I'm currently on a short pause but will jump back in the saddle in a while. I'm not done with the Xenon yet!

PBEs are not that common. I recommend manufacturing your own (and this is the case for all the weapons you regularly use).

Say, care to tell how many ships you own all told? Seeing as how you have never sold any it must be quote the number.

Well done playing through your first week in game!
No need for long reports but the odd comment or two would be nice. Maybe tell about your first boarding experiences?

I should have time to play this weekend again, hopefully energy too. Reading about how far you have come I am eagerly anticipating getting somewhere myself.

The current ship count is 112, 10 Mistrals and 1-4 of everything else. The class breakdown is: 2 M7, 10 M6, 1 M8, 25 M3, 22 M4, 20 M5, 2 TL, 24 TS, and 6 TP.

The Great Drake Migration has started. Starting at Family Rhy they have thirteen sectors to cross, with one stop along the way, before they reach Legend's Home and get jumpdrives, then they need to get fuel and make a jump to TerraCorp Headquarters for their final pickup before they are handed over to the traders.

I figured out what I was doing wrong with the CLS refueling. It turns out I was telling it to load fuel from me, not to me. Now that that is sorted out it is working as intended.

I have now completed a number of boarding operations, and thought I would offer some comments on the process.

I started by recruiting the cream of the crop from around the X universe, in terms of fighting skill at least. Other skills took quite some time to train up, and I concentrated on giving all my marines a high engineering skill (used to minimise damage to the ship while boarding), and then specialising in one of the other two. By the time I made my first boarding attempts my marines were experts in their fields.

I began by using boarding operations to claim a couple of M7s I was asked to retrieve (a third Deimos, and – more to my taste – a Tiger). This gave my already highly skilled marines a chance to train their fight skill up some more, and gave me a bit of experience with how boarding works.
My first real test came as an assassination mission targeting a Pirate Carrack. I loaded 21 marines in my Ocelot and after pounding the shields down with the Tiger and sending in a swarm of Fighter Drones II to keep them down and act as a distraction I slipped in close and ordered the marines to board. This went reasonably well, although I took some minor damage while making the drop, and after the marines reached the ship they had no trouble overrunning the defenders and seizing control. As an added bonus I rounded up the defenders and pressed them into service, although only two were skilled. Strangely, I still failed the assassination mission though.
My second target was also a Carrack, this time I had some more difficulty, and resorted to using my M7s to try and draw enemy fire away from me, also turning off the turrets on my Ocelot to appear as less of a threat seemed to help, and after a few attempts I managed to drop off the marines and get out with about 8% of my hull remaining. Again, the marines had little trouble taking control once they were on board.
My third target was a Yaki Akurei (another assassination target, this time from a pirate). Mindful of the damage I took last time I switched to the Angel, as it has better shields and hull strength. This was a mistake, and I eventually went back to the faster Ocelot to survive the drop. Another mistake I made was only taking out the shields, using fighter drones ordered to attack shields only. At full health the Akurei was simply too fast for my marines, they would get left behind and picked off one by one. Eventually I succeeded in beating the ship down, boarding, and taking control with 23% of its hull remaining, again adding the defending marines to my forces, swapping out those with 100 fight skill for others who can still improve.

Thankfully, the next M7 I was asked to retrieve was an Ares, which can use boarding pods. When the Goners asked me to recapture the Truelight Seeker I got a chance to test it out, and found the experience much easier and less stressful, although you should take some steps to distract the target's missile defense. The game went a bit buggy in the next mission so I ended up reloading and simply claiming the Truelight Seeker, which was later returned complete with the defending marines.

After that there was a bit of a lull, although I did board another Ares to claim it (that makes five Paranid M7s, do the pilots just not like them or something?), but a defend station mission gave me a chance to add both the pirate corvettes to my fleet. The Osprey was lagging behind the rest of the attackers, and a few flail barrage missiles took care of its shields, and a couple of boarding pods delivered my men for the kill. After retrieving my crew (and substituting a couple of them for defenders from the Osprey) I turned my attention to the Centaur. I used my Kestrel to knock out the fighters (claiming a couple in the process as an added bonus), and then moved in to board. I had some problems with the Centaur hiding behind the mine it was attacking, causing my missiles to miss and annoy the owners, but once I got close enough to avoid this problem I fired off a volley of flails, and followed it up with the boarding pods, adding a few more flails to keep the shields down. It gave me a pounding with it's guns after that, but the victory was never in doubt. I was surprised to note afterwards that I had fired around 40 missiles of my ~65 missiles - no wonder people build complexes to support them.

My latest (and greatest) catch is a Hyperion Vanguard that I came across leading a Paranid raiding party in Argon space. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to take on a Hyperion without angering the entire sector I moved quickly to engage, using my Tiger to knock the shields out (and a fair chunk of the escorts), and then firing off the marines. Having learnt from last time, as soon as the marines were through the hull I jumped my Ares to a gate on the other side of the sector, and sent the (slightly damaged) Tiger to a different sector entirely. Despite at least two countermeasures being installed, my boarders had little difficultly taking control, and thankfully the rest of the escort ships did not attack my prize.

In terms of future targets, I would like a Yaki Chokaro or two as their cargo capacity is a considerable boost over the Angel and Ocelot that are my current errand boys, while the speed is a bit better than the Angel – also I do not have any TMs yet. Xenon ships would also make nice prizes, I happen to know there is a lone Xenon Q parked outside an equipment dock in Getsu Fune that is tempting, but I have heard they are particularly difficult to board so I am not about to rush in. A P or PX could be a good test run for boarding Xenons, and as my corvette collection is now only missing Xenons, Terrans, and the Heavy Centaur Prototype they would be welcome. I scanned a Pirate Brigantine in Lost Order that had over 40 Incendiary Bomb Launchers on board, which makes it all the more tempting a target, and I currently have nothing larger than an M7. And lastly, having completed the Goner plot and received the unfocussed jumpdrive, I can now go hunting for Arans.

I also happen to be staking one at the moment, but have yet to board it since I am looking to up my rep with the Paranid before doing that (don't want to anger them too much).

I can confirm the Chokaro is probably the best TM you can have.

To say it is difficult is an understatement. Let's just say that if you've boarded a Q, you've become a boarding master
(-blaster :).

P.S.: That mission you got is downright hilarious :).

Thanks for update :-)

My reputation dropped from 10 to 7, so I have some rebuilding to do there.

I do have a lot of marines with 100 fight skill, most with at least one other 100 skill, although only one so far is 100/100/100/100 so I will probably make an attempt and see how it goes, but I will definitely save beforehand.

Nice catch!

Waiting it out in Ocracoke's Storm near the south gate usually pays off. That's where and how I captured most of my Yaki ships, including two Akurei, two Chokaros and three Ryus. I've never seen an Akuma come that far north though.

I need 250,000 crystals for the Hub plot, so I have spent some time building a complex to produce them. Here is my newly constructed four layer, 154 factory construction. Now I just have to connect all of them together and pump in enough energy and silicon to get it up and running.

Impressive :D. All I can say is that you're going to need *A LOT* of silicon mines to fire up those kilns.

That is one insane complex :-)

I already produce about 90% of what this consumes since I set up silicon mines at the same time I established my ore mines for the previous delivery. I will still be setting up more mines since the next deliveries will both require about twice as much silicon as this one, and even with this complex it will be over a day before I have enough crystals.