Marine usage: no xp when you take down a ship?

[Tuidjy]

Originally Posted by wrestless

Ouch!

What level were you at?

I used Squishy, you can see a snapshot here:

And yes, you are correct that at low levels marines work really well. But at level 50, when a single weapon dishes out a thousand damage per second, the marines simply cannot handle Squishy's regular prey. And the point is to board the elite/veteran/named enemies for their loot, not the common laser fodder.

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Well, Squishy hit level 50, and it's time to level my marine again. Here's a picture:



Against the kind of targets my ship fights, the marine does 8 damage per attack. He seems to be getting one per second. My laser? A bit over 1,100. I think everyone can see the problem.

After leveling him to level 50, here's my rule ZERO for using marines: Marines are only really effective if you start and pause your game.

In the heat of combat, it's pretty much impossible to ensure that your marine attacks the target at the right time, and that you do not shoot him to pieces while he is boarding.

But, if you pause to make sure that you are sending him when the target is sufficiently hurt, and if you are careful to switch targets only while the game is paused, so that you do not shoot the one being boarded, and you stop using area weapons, and there are no race ships around, and the marine can overwhelm his target's regeneration, and if the target doesn't have a damage-over-time effect... Then marines are a good way to get loot, if not to actually fight a battle.

But I consider pausing (except for screenshots) a bit of an exploit, so... I will still level my marine, and use him while he is being leveled, without pausing. I'll keep posting about it.