SPOILER How do I collect watchtower ship parts?

[dawnroselyn]

My understanding is that I can now mark a disabled watchtower ship as salvaged, at which point Gren will have modules I can buy. The problem is that in order to disable the ship, I can't bring my whole fleet, because they blast everything before I can dock with it. If I don't bring my whole fleet, then the incoming reinforcements outrun the ability of my one ship to disable a ship without getting blasted myself. I can't whack the moles fast enough. Every time I take out a ship to thin the herd enough to disable another, 2 more jump in and join the fight.

What do I do here? arm my entire fleet with laser and EM only and hope for the best?

 

[Ragnos21]

My understanding is that I can now mark a disabled watchtower ship as salvaged, at which point Gren will have modules I can buy. The problem is that in order to disable the ship, I can't bring my whole fleet, because they blast everything before I can dock with it. If I don't bring my whole fleet, then the incoming reinforcements outrun the ability of my one ship to disable a ship without getting blasted myself. I can't whack the moles fast enough. Every time I take out a ship to thin the herd enough to disable another, 2 more jump in and join the fight.

What do I do here? arm my entire fleet with laser and EM only and hope for the best?

Personally, I fly without a fleet, alone. On the corvette watchtower. I destroy any threat alone and without the help of the console. Recently, I single-handedly destroyed an entire fleet with a huge cruiser at the head. Therefore, I have no problems with capturing ships.

 

[Torberg]

My understanding is that I can now mark a disabled watchtower ship as salvaged, at which point Gren will have modules I can buy. The problem is that in order to disable the ship, I can't bring my whole fleet, because they blast everything before I can dock with it. If I don't bring my whole fleet, then the incoming reinforcements outrun the ability of my one ship to disable a ship without getting blasted myself. I can't whack the moles fast enough. Every time I take out a ship to thin the herd enough to disable another, 2 more jump in and join the fight.

What do I do here? arm my entire fleet with laser and EM only and hope for the best?

A suggestion I saw in another thread is to equip your fleet with Lasers (to take out shields) and EM weapons (to non-destructively disable enemy ship systems) and not to give them Ballistics or Particle Beams. I've been trying it myself and have been able to board/capture a few enemy ships (though I haven't tried it with WT ships as I'm not up to that point in my current playthrough). I've seen mixed results, as Laser weapons can still damage hulls, so I need to find the right balance of minimal-hull-damage laser weapons to use on my fleet. Generally the enemy ship has been damn near destroyed by the time I boarded.

 

[Bobwalt]

That is really a workaround rather than a solution. It would be better if once a player uses targeting on an enemy ship system that ship will no longer be attacked by other ships in ones fleet. This would allow disabled ships to be boarded or marked and left for salvage. I am also not certain none of the parts would be salvageable if a ship was destroyed. Sometimes there would be useable items left besides what was in the ship’s hold.