Capture Watchtower Ships

[Bobwalt]

Will I still be able capture Watchtower ships after completing the story? I would dearly love to, at least, be able to salvage one. Heck, perhaps you could even increase the likelihood of one landing as I have only seen it happen once.

 

[Lostinwhere]

Yup, I capture them all the time. How often you come across them after finishing the main story depends on your progress when you completed The Last Watch. When I finished, I had only destroyed the first major hub array, Alpha. That left the other four major hub arrays intact and all their minor arrays. If you go after the minor arrays one at a time and leave the corresponding major hub last, you'll be spawning a lot of Watchtower ships as you destroy each minor array. Now if you've destroyed all five major hubs, then the chance meetings with Watchtower ships goes way down. There is a gameplay setting where you can increase or decrease the chance of Watchtower ambushes. I have it set to give the most chance and I still rarely see random ambushes. You can capture them on the ground, but they're not supposed be captured planet side. As you've probably observed, they tend to land quite a distance away and then immediately take off. I use this mod https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/2952 to greatly slow time and increase the speed of my in game movements.

 

[Kevin]

Now if you've destroyed all five major hubs, then the chance meetings with Watchtower ships goes way down.

So far I've only encountered WT ships two times after completing the MQ, both were battles between Spacers & WT. But thanks to a fleet with ships that have all EM weapons I was able to capture another WT ship.

There is a gameplay setting where you can increase or decrease the chance of Watchtower ambushes.

I thought that only affects WT ship encounters while the MQ is still open?

 

[Lostinwhere]

So far I've only encountered WT ships two times after completing the MQ, both were battles between Spacers & WT. But thanks to a fleet with ships that have all EM weapons I was able to capture another WT ship.


I thought that only affects WT ship encounters while the MQ is still open?

I believe that setting affects WT ship encounters after finishing the main quest as well. Twolargepepperoni would have to clarify.

 

[Bobwalt]

All this is something the designers can change if they want.

 

[Lostinwhere]

All this is something the designers can change if they want.

They've already added an option to make random ambushes more frequent if desired. If you want as many encounters with Watchtower ships as possible, track down all the minor arrays before going after their respective major array hub. Once you expose the minor array, you don't even have to destroy it. Just fire at it with an EM only weapon and that'll spawn a response. Then, if a Corvette, Destroyer or Battleship shows up, capture it. Drones you can't capture by design. You may be able to leave the system, come back and cause another response to spawn.

 

[Bobwalt]

Unfortunately, that ship sailed a while ago. I was going along and taking out the occasional listening posts I ran across in my exploration rather than go after the long list of posts I had in activities when I went to harper to turn in my latest batch of info when she informed me there weren't any left. I guess I was a victim of my own success. As to rearming my fleet with just EM weapons. that seems to me like a cheesy tactic. It does not sound like something a Fleet Commodore would do.

 

[Lostinwhere]

Unfortunately, that ship sailed a while ago. I was going along and taking out the occasional listening posts I ran across in my exploration rather than go after the long list of posts I had in activities when I went to harper to turn in my latest batch of info when she informed me there weren't any left. I guess I was a victim of my own success. As to rearming my fleet with just EM weapons. that seems to me like a cheesy tactic. It does not sound like something a Fleet Commodore would do.

When you go into your "Activities" section, do you still have the objective : "Locate Watchtower Array Hub Kappa" or any of the four remaining major hub arrays? You can actually turn in enough intel and purchase enough intel from Harper that she will tell you that that aren't any left. At that point, if you still haven't destroyed Upsilon and Omega, it's actually easy to track down all the remaining listening posts and arrays. Once you destroy Omega, then it gets very hard to find any listening posts. I don't use a fleet. I have the JJ U.S.S. Enterprise in a highly modded configuration. I have a set of EM only weapons that I modded in xedit stricktly for capturing ships.

 

[Bobwalt]

No they all disappeared after Harper said there were none left. I think I blundered into the major arrays and destroyed them.

 

[Lostinwhere]

I did the same thing after finishing the main quest. I saw the objective "Locate Watchtower Array Hub Kappa" down in the "Activities" section. So I located and destroyed it and then the remaining three ending with Omega. What I didn't realize at the time was destroying the major arrays also eliminates the minor associated arrays. Also, once you destroy Omega, Harper will no longer accept any intel and she'll tell you that you've destroyed all the listening posts. Not really true. You can still locate the listening posts, but the computer will say something to the effect that the array location has been purged. That is true. At that point, you can't spawn the minor array. I ended up going back to a save that I made right after finishing the main quest, The Last Watch. At that point, I had only destroyed Alpha. Then I progressed forward and carefully went after each minor array associated with whatever Major hub was showing in that "Locate Watchtower Array Hub XXXXX" objective. If you want to spawn as many possible encounters with Watchtower ships as possible, you're probably going to have to back track until you have some major arrays left. Even if you go back to where you destroy Upsilon and have Omega on your activity list, that will give you 29 minor arrays connected with Omega. Both Upsilon and Omega have are 30 array hubs, 29 minor plus the major hub. The other hubs, Alpha, Kappa and Omicron have smaller hubs.

 

[Bobwalt]

With me that was 50 levels ago. I never went after the arrays I just ran across them. Interestingly, I just found an array in a system. I’m saving it for after I finish The Veil. Maybe there’ll be a Watchtower fleet guarding it. BTW— I’ve been in no hurry to finish the main either.

 

[Lostinwhere]

If you go into your star map and back out until you see all the solar systems, Do you get the line at the bottom right of your screen that says: Watchtower (Major) [F1] ? You have to be out of your pilots seat for this option to show up.

 

[victoriaks01]

Yup, I capture them all the time. How often you come across them after finishing the main story depends on your progress when you completed The Last Watch. When I finished, I had only destroyed the first major hub array, Alpha. That left the other four major hub arrays intact and all their minor arrays. If you go after the minor arrays one at a time and leave the corresponding major hub last, you'll be spawning a lot of Watchtower ships as you destroy each minor array. Now if you've destroyed all five major hubs, then the chance meetings with Watchtower ships goes way down. There is a gameplay setting where you can increase or decrease the chance of Watchtower ambushes. I have it set to give the most chance and I still rarely see random ambushes. You can capture them on the ground, but they're not supposed be captured planet side. As you've probably observed, they tend to land quite a distance away and then immediately take off. I use this mod https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/2952 to greatly slow time and increase the speed of my in game movements.

best weapons to use to disable a ship and your favorite technique to implement the boarding. I have weapons that quickly destroy them but to board, that is a different strategy and weapons

 

[Lostinwhere]

I have ship weapons that I modded in xedit that deal EM damage only. I simply disable all the enemy ship systems and then board their ship. I'm guessing most people using vanilla weapons are choosing some weapons that deal EM damage with minimal hull damage. Then they target shields and engines to disable the enemy.

 

[victoriaks01]

I captured and cleared a watchtower battleship but when I went to sit and claim it, was not allowed due to the ship's controls being different. Thought it might be automatically added to fleet but alas no WT Battlecruiser. What am I doing wrong? Heck I am lvl 70

 

[twolargepepperoni]

I captured and cleared a watchtower battleship but when I went to sit and claim it, was not allowed due to the ship's controls being different. Thought it might be automatically added to fleet but alas no WT Battlecruiser. What am I doing wrong? Heck I am lvl 70

To pilot a Watchtower ship, you need to have destroyed at least two major arrays and returned to Gren.

 

[victoriaks01]

To pilot a Watchtower ship, you need to have destroyed at least two major arrays and returned to Gren.

Perhaps Toren or Gren should have informed you. I have to admit it was fun clearing out like 50 or so watchtower soldiers even though I was denied the ship. Wonder if it goes poof or you can reclaim it later?

 

[Bobwalt]

Now if I could just capture them on the ground.