Capturing
Capturing is a mechanic in which an AI ship is taken over and converted into a Wild Bot. This is done with the use of any weapon with the Injects Prism Control attribute, such as a Prismatic Conversion.
Successful capture of a ship has several requirements:
- The ship is capturable (see the list of capturable ships)
- Skills at a level equal or higher than the requirements of all the gear on the ship (and the ship itself) to be captured
- For example, an AI Space Blue Alpha Scout is a tech 3 ship, so Piloting 3 is needed.
- For example, an AI Space Blue Alpha Scout has a Blue Energy -- a tech 5 energy -- so Electric Engineering 5 is needed.
- Certain non-core skills may be required: for example, an AI Inferno has an Infernal Energy which requires Piracy 1 to be equipped.
- Sufficient wild bot slots (determined by Remote Control level and the Wild Man advanced subskill)
- Sufficient free hull space on the ship to be captured for the Prismatic Controlbot (size 1)
- Some AI ships have no extra hull space with their regular gear, so they can only be captured with a capacity augmenter equipped or with Miniaturized gear.
To capture a ship, it must be irradiated, where its shields are reduced to zero with Radiation Damage. A spray of orange sparks and a temporary invulnerability indicates that the ship is irradiated and ready to be captured. The disabled ship can then be attacked with a capture weapon such as a Prismatic Conversion to turn the ship into a wild bot. If the ship is destroyed regardless of the final blow's damage type, this means the ship is uncapturable. Certain ships like Pax Astralogicas are immune to radiation damage, meaning they are practically uncapturable.
Ships as wild bots have certain attributes unique from combat or trade bots:
- Owners cannot remotely interact with their inventories
- Wild bots occupy wild bot slots, separate from conventional combat bot slots or trade bot slots
- Wild bots do not enter Stasis when killed, being susceptible to re-irradiation or permanent destruction!
To ensure a ship is not permanently destroyed in combat, a wild bot must be docked into a Station, where it can either be flown by a player, or re-activated as a combat or trade bot.
For the purposes of combat, it may be advisable to keep wild bots wild to field a larger bot fleet. Wild bots can be ordered by RTS-selection in the same manner as combat bots, and have combat bot management options like Fight Enemies & Attack My Target.
Fleet Commanders with the Radiation Expert subskill can capture certain uncapturable ships, but cannot dock these wild bots.
Wild bots with this Radiation Expert eligibility are known as Radx, Radex, or Radexable bots. (See Wild Bots)
Radiation Expert's three stages enables the capture of increasing ranges of radexable bots:
- Radiation Expert 1: Techs 7 and below
- Radiation Expert 2: Techs 14 and below
- Radiation Expert 3: Techs 20 and below
Historically, Statis Generators were required for all bots to avoid permanent destruction at 0 shields, but they have been depreciated after allowing combat and trade bots to automatically enter stasis without stasis gens.
To see an example of capturing ships: [1]
