Assimilating Allied Vessels

posted on December 22nd, 2009, 3:20 pm

I've found I can use the auto-assimilator against allied ships and turn them into derelicts, but then when I board them they belong to my ally again. This was done against an ai player so I don't know if it will work in multiplayer.  I would like to be able to capture these derelicts, or else not be able to use the auto-assimilator on my allies ships (for revenge when ally boards the Galaxy class I wanted, but since I can't make those derelicts mine it's not worth the waste of special weapons energy.) Is this a bug and will it be changed in the next release?

posted on December 22nd, 2009, 3:54 pm

That goes back to A1. I think it was intentionally put in there to keep people from turning on their team mates.

posted on December 22nd, 2009, 4:03 pm

But it still allows me to make the ships derelict, isn't that kind of turning on a teammate?  Some of the ships I auto-assimilated got tractored away by those NPC vessels (Ferengi I think.)

posted on December 22nd, 2009, 5:29 pm

It's one of those few remaining special weapons that works on your own vessels and/or allied vessels. Extremely irritating and I hope they will get "fixed" for the next patch as it damages micromanagement if there are a large swarm of your and your opponent's vessels that are blobbed up together.

You can only take over a vessel if your opponent has laid claim to it by boarding it. If it is your allies, no matter how it lost crew (maybe life support failed) if you beam on crew it will remain in their possession.

posted on December 22nd, 2009, 6:22 pm

That goes back to A1. I think it was intentionally put in there to keep people from turning on their team mates.

If you want to turn on your teammate, all you have to do is manualy target their ships and stations.

posted on December 22nd, 2009, 6:37 pm

Yeah, now that I think about it. Maybe it has to do with the way alliances are set up in that you can transport to an allied vessel and bolster its crew. The game probably can't make a distinction between bolstering allied crew and capturing an allied derelict.

posted on December 23rd, 2009, 9:50 am

yea, i guess that was intended by the developers that way. i assume there is absolutely also no reason to work against allied players by capturing their vessels, too

posted on December 23rd, 2009, 2:24 pm

Though, at least the crew should change, one modder pulled it off that when you beam crew onto an allied vessel (say if you are Klingon and your ally is Feds), then the crew would change, but not the team.

posted on December 24th, 2009, 8:02 pm

I'd prefer to be able to attack allied ships, no fix needed... except maybe to allow taking them or at least setting the 'controlling race' to yours while not moving it to your team.

posted on December 24th, 2009, 9:18 pm

You can use the "Give Unit" system for that.

[Tyler]

posted on December 24th, 2009, 9:20 pm

Last edited by Tyler on December 24th, 2009, 9:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, but then you can't make the construction ships yours so they build stations with your race (Federation building assimilated Shipyards...). I was thinking more like beaming aboard the target without your crew transforming into another race.