Marines

Ware Marines/Mercenary Cargo Class M Volume 8 Min. Price (Cr) Ave. Price (Cr) Max. Price (Cr)

Encyclopedia Entry

Marine

A marine is a simple creature. Feed it and tell it what to do and many things become possible. The marine's primary role now is combat boarding operations and for this reason, as well as being proficient soldiers, Marines are also well versed in either computers or engineering.

Mercenary

Trained in a variety of combat skills and technical specialisations, Mercenaries are developed for a wide range of tasks and are essentially sold on to pirate clans and guilds. Private security firms also make use of mercenaries for their own aims.

Overview

Marines are soldiers trained in boarding and defending ships.

A strong marine is a major investment of time and Credits.

Marines may be recruited from Military Outposts, Military Stations, Marine Training Barracks, or Mercenary Stations. Their cost varies depending on skill ratings.

Marines are rated in several areas:

Combat

Marine combat rating indicates their fighting strength and will only increase through boarding operations.

It is the most important stat as it influences the survival of the boarding team and the suppression of onboard defenses. Or on defense it dictates how effective the marine is at opposing the boarding team.

Engineering

Engineering affects how much damage the marine does as they pass through the ship. A marine with low engineering skill will cause higher hull damage during a capture. If the ship has moderate to high hull damage marines with low engineering skill may lower the hull too far and cause the boarding operation to fail.

It can be improved through training aboard Military Outposts and Stations.

Hacking

Hacking is important for the final stage of the boarding operation, hacking the ship's core. A successful hack will grant you control of the ship. An unsuccessful hack means the boarding operation was a failure. Of the surviving marines who reach the core some must have hacking skill in order to succeed. As you cannot determine which marines may survive to reach the core it is important that a large number of the boarding party have high hacking skill.

It can be improved through training aboard Military Outposts and Stations.

Mechanical

The mechanical skill is the ability of the marine to cut through a ships hull, different ship classes have different minimum required mechanical skill to successfully breach the hull.

It can be improved through training aboard Military Outposts and Stations.

Min Mech Skill for Hull Breaching

Ship Class	Min Space Walk Mech	Min Boarding Pod Mech
M1	100	50
M2	100	50
M6	17	10
M7	50	35
TM	10	10
TL	85	35

Warning: If the target ship has hull polorization equiped then the required mech skill is much higher. e.g. A M1 with hull polorization will require 85 mech skill with boarding pods to breach.

To reach peak effectiveness, Marines must be trained.

Engineering, Hacking and Mechanical skills can all be improved at training facilities which are typically the same stations they can be hired from: Military Outposts, Military Bases, or Marine Training Barracks.

Training these skills is expensive and varies between 20,000Cr to 500,000Cr. It will also take about 50 Minutes or more to simultaneously train all of the marines.

Combat skills can only be improved through boarding actions.

Aboard Ship

To transport marines, a Cargo Lifesupport System is required. Ships may only carry a limited number of marines:

Ship Class	Marines Allowed (TC)	Marines Allowed (AP)
M1 Carrier	20	20
M2 Destroyer	20	20
M6 Corvette	5	8
M7 Frigate	20	20
M7M Missile Frigate1	20	20
TM Military Transport	5	8
TL Large Transport	20	20
TP Personnel Transport	10	40

¹ M7M Missile Frigate Sirokos carries 30 marines.

For unknown reasons the maximum boarding party is one more than the maximum carriage limit. For example, 21 Marines can be fighting aboard a Colossus at once.

If the supernumerary survives the boarding attempt, that marine will leave the boarded ship to return home to the boarding ship. Boarding ships equipped with transporter devices can transport them back aboard when they pass within 5 km of the space walker.