If your reading this guide I'm guessing you want to know how to capture a Xenon Q without having to train 40 or more 5 star marines. Well let me tell you it is possible but it will take a lot of reloading and some understanding of how the game determines a successful boarding operation. Read on if you're still interested.

For my normal boarding operations I use the following fleet:

OTAS Boreas with

• 8 x Ion Cannons mounted to the front turret,
  
• All other weapons slots have flak or HEPs and
  
• Set the front turret to attack target and all others to either fighter or missile.

OTAS Sirokos with

• Boarding Pods (at lease 5),
  
• rear turret mounted with flak and
  
• 20 five star marines (21 for capturing a Q).

Argon Griphon with

• Main and front turrets fully loaded with CIGs,
  
• all other turrets fully loaded with flak and
  
• at least one docked ship with a Jumdrive.

All ships need to be fully upgraded and have alll equipment including Jumpdrives, Cargobay Life Support and enough energy cells to jump to and from the sector you are capturing from. You will also need salvage insurance, about 20 should be enough although you won't need that many.

Once you have all of this read on.

Ok so you have all your ships and equipment, from here I'm somewhat presuming you have done some boarding operations before.

I normally cap my Qs from Xenon Sector 347. The main reason for this is the Q is the biggest ship you will see in this sector and they normally have one or two in the sector.

I always fly the destroyer with the Sirokos set to follow me and the Griphon set to protect the Sirokos. I fly until I am about 12KM from the Q then tell my Sirokos to Stop, I then continue at full speed towards the Q until I am 10KM then cut my engines. Now save the game for the first time.

I now either just wait for the Q to come into range and let my front turret take out the shields or swap to the front turret myself and start charging my shots when he gets to 7KM. The second method is advised if the Q you are chasing has anti-capital weapons mounted.

Either way once the shields are down select your Sirokos and use the pirate option to launch the boarding pods at the Q. As soon as I have done this I jump to one of the jump gates within the same sector. The Q should follow you after you jump so select a gate that is not in direct path of your other ships. I normally try to select one at right angles to the direction that my fleet was aproaching the Q from. If you hear that the boarding operation failed reload and try this again. If this all worked save once you complete the jump.

The Trick to All of This

None of what I have said so far should be too new to you, the next part is the key to doing this with only 21 marines. Now bring up your property menu and go to the personel tab. You will need to watch the boarding operation from here. Every time you hear a marine talk the game has calculated if your marines were successful and how many will continue to the next stage. The trick is to save the game everytime you hear a marine speak and no one dies.
I usually save once the marines get through deck 1 with no deaths. From here I use two saves and alternate between them saving at the end of each deck if I don't lose too many marines. You will need to have a minimum of 15 marines at the end of deck 4 to move onto the Core. When I say minimum at 15 you will still probably have all your marines die instantly once deck 4 is cleared and need to reload. So just keep reloading each deck until you have enough marines to take the core.

A big part of doing this is patience. You will be reloading over and over again as the game rolls the dice on how many of your marines will die at each stage. If you have the patience it is possible to capture a Xenon Q without losing any of your marines at all.

I'd like to finish by saying good luck and happy hunting. If you have any feedback on the guide please let me know in the comments section.