Refining Crew Combat is one of the major goals for the mod. Starting out, I had hoped it would be simpler than it is turning out to be.

I have discovered the following about boarding in crew combat:

• Boarding location is determined before the crew are selected for combat.
  
• Boarding location may influence who appears in enemy combat.
  
• Enemy combat crew (probably) all have to be eliminated BEFORE you will see an enemy captain in combat.
  
• + Boarding Dice have a minor and (potentially) indirect impact on location and enemy crew combat team selection.
  
• Agility/Speed have a major impact on location and enemy crew combat selection.
  
• Most morale damage comes from health damage.
  
• Crew that lose all health are removed from the ship's roster, but crew who lose all morale are not. This means that average crew morale stays high as the crew who die also have the largest morale decreases.
  
• Sometimes the enemy combat crew will include a non-combat job crew member, even if there are other combat crew still on the enemy ship.
  
• Enemy Crew talents selection and tactics are hard-coded.
  
• Crew Panic (after winning Boarding Combat option) is hard-coded.

The current changes I've been exploring.

• Given the impact of Speed/Agility on boarding, I've increased the speed/agility of smaller ships to get them to target critical components sooner. This should result combats ending sooner.
  
• Given the relatively rarity of morale decreasing effects and the low impact of morale, I've doubled the value negative morale effects. This should result in ship surrendering more often due to morale loss.
  
• I'm exploring improving all of the post-boarding talents to result in 2 crew being disabled. This would result in 8 crew removed per boarding attempt (4 (killed in combat) and 4 (2 per boarding effect)). This should drop crew combat length by half.

If you have additional ideas, insights, or contributions, please add them to the discussion.