how many ships have self destruct buttons, jedmon24? lol, i agree though, a small ship couldnt take a ship with that large a crew. boarding doesnt make a lot of sense anyways, its like saying a few navy men could do the same things that a marine could do, they dont have the same training... not very realistic, especially saying that they could take another ship and know how to operate one. thats about the equivelent of saying a marine could do the same things a navy man could do. and, not only would a small crew not be enough to run a huge ship like a capital,they would have no idea whatsoever how to run it. for example, if you took the crew from a TEC cruiser or two, just the right number of men needed to run the ship and replaced them for the crew of a TEC capital ship. they would be fishing in the dark as how to operate it, because they were never trained how to run it, and thats on their own vessel, let alone some totally different ship they have no idea about. how much of this game is realistic though? lol. i could go on forever about the unrealism but i dont really want to.
inspite of all this, i think boarding would be a cool feature to add because it would be a lot of fun. most of you guys say that it should be just like this: send up a ship, hope that it takes the one you told it to. if it was like that, that means that whoever has the bigger crew wins, that implies that cap ships are unbeatable when it comes to boardin. pretty stupid if you ask me. i think it should be so much more than that.
first, you should be able to research something on the tech tree called combat engineers training or boarding crews level of training, or whatever, i dont care what its called just as long as its there.this allows you to make your ships way better in space battles (example. the ships lasers would do more damage because the crew is better trained.) and in boarding battles(the men fight better and kill more of the enemy crew faster). that way its not just whoever has the bigger crew, its whoever has the better trained crew/boarding party. that would mean that you wouldnt need to use a capital ship to capture another capital ship you could use something much smaller. you should also be able to hold some of the crew hostage, that way you can actually run the ship.
second, you should be able to send the boarding parties on missions such as : "eliminate the men running the engines" or "destroy the engines completely."that way you could immobilize the ship for the duration of the battle, or until you destroy it. or whatever else anyone can think of for mission ideas. this way you have more options than just taking the ship.
third, you should be able to choose how many men go on the mission. that way it you dont send the whole crew ( unless you want to) when you dont know what your up against and lose the ship because they wipe out your crew. so you just send in a small group at first, then if your crew is better trained than theirs you send in more guys, if not then you pull out and save your ship.
last, for the big ships like caps, i think you should be able to board with more than one ship at a time. maybe even two capitals on one capital at a time, but only one on each side of the enemy capital, that way there is actually room for them. for smaller ships against bigger ships i think you should be able to board with as many as can fit on the ship comfortably. this way if you know that you are out matched, you can try to win by brute force.
i hope they add this in sometime, whether it be by expansion or in the second SoaSE.
thanks for reading, i hope you like atleast a few of my ideas.