X3: Albion Prelude

X3: Albion Prelude

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How to capture a Aran
By Grimstock
This guide will help you how to find and capture this yellow, hulking beast.
   
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Preparations
Before you start off finding a Aran, you must finished the 2nd mission of the plot 'PHQ', or the end of Goners' Plot if you are on X3 Terran Conflict, in order to receive the unfocused jumpdrive and have a corvette or a ship of your perference that could deliver the marines as well as have a command that could order your ship to use piracy command. Combat Software Mk.1 and 2 is needed in this case.

Before we begins off with finding the Aran itself, you must first trains all 8 or more marines to 100 in everything (Hacker, Mechanic, and Engineering). Also on the contrary, you need to find the combat skills in marines by using the Bio Scanner. it is highly recommended to get marines with 65-100 combat skills rating, or they will fail in boarding op, forfelting your effort. You will also need a mountain of credits in order to cover whooping high costs of having to train their vital skills.

Ship you could use could be TP, M7M, or M6. But M6 is recommended for the run. In this case, Centaur is favorable for undertaking this expedition. As it is tough enough to afford you to get to Aran with mininal menevers to dodge damage. This also is a reward during Albion plot if you happened to be Argon or any non Terran species. If you could rise enough Terran rep rank and found Aldrin and its shipyards, Springblossom may be superb chose for this as it is very fast and could equip flak weapons to swat off peaky fighters (such as Xenon L).

Also, on the side note, you will need salvage insurances to ensure you don't lose any form of progress while taking over Aran.
Hunt for the Aran
If you meet all of the requirement mentioned in last section, you may be prepared for what lies ahead. It times to repeat the unfocused jump many times to search for the Aran as it is very rare to find one. When you do, it times to start your engines to it as there may be enemies covenaging on you and you may not have the time to get it. But if they don't give chase, that may be perfect oppunity to repair the Aran abit, and get it to hate you in the progress. Which it is, on firsthand account, glitched. Which means you can't target it with your usual mouse clicking or T buttom. Whatever if you are in the cleared or not, you must get it to hate you by using repair tool (in your space suit), you also have to test the hulls with the marines to test if it is safe enough to sustain a suessceful attack run and it is randomizied with every encounter. While you fixing the ship up, and If battle music start, don't panic, it won't move on you or things like that. If you saved before a suessceful run, it may be the time to get the marines to space walk by: Shift+C, Piracy, board, and press the buttom that says something about Aran. Click it, and marines will move out to it, soon as they board, be sure to exepct casutiles as not many come out alive. If even one marine is alive to reach to the computers, you'll be glad that you invested enough credits as s/he may able to turn it over to you due to their 100% in hacking. Soon as it is turn over, board the ship with your ship, exchange the jumpdrive and e-cells to it, and off with you to normal universe. Your final task now is to take it to a shipyard and have it repaired for whooping 1.6 million credits for each percentage repair or just zap it for hours with your repair tool
Final Thought and Comment
I figured out how to do this since I learned from the Rougey's site and little encouragement from one of my friends to write this guide. When I find the first time i seen Aran, i was lucky to ride my centaur with 8 best marines onboard and sufficient E-cells to return home. Took a few trys to finally take over a behemoth with 1 remaining marine. Also used salvage insurences in this velture to ensure I don't lose any good progress on capping the ship.

If you have any thoughts how would you have done in this case. Put it in the comment so we might use your tactics to capture the ship
10 Comments
Twisted Soul 14 Oct, 2013 @ 12:17pm 
neededlotus5. same as you, nothing works, tried above method, tried boarding pods.nothing works in my game either.found countless aran`s.all the same NOTHING
Grimstock  [author] 3 Oct, 2013 @ 4:52pm 
If you can't target the ship, then have you tested the piracy option? with mk.1 and 2 as i mentioned? if not, then you may have to surf around the forums for it
neededlotus5 3 Oct, 2013 @ 4:38pm 
no you still cannot target the aran and the above capture description does not work either at least in my game..
DRASKILL QC 3 Sep, 2013 @ 4:28am 
OK TANK !!!
Grimstock  [author] 7 Aug, 2013 @ 6:36am 
Well, can't find it in my news feed somewhere. I think it still buggered in 3.0 last time I took over the ship
Abakus 7 Aug, 2013 @ 4:19am 
It was fixed in patch 2.7
Grimstock  [author] 6 Aug, 2013 @ 8:06pm 
Really? I don't think my game is updated, or what am i missing something out? This guide was made for vaillian gameplay to make a note
Abakus 6 Aug, 2013 @ 4:51pm 
I heared this "no-targeting"-glitch was fixed a version ago :)
Grimstock  [author] 22 Jun, 2013 @ 6:42pm 
Gryoz@ well, it up to you to decide as a viewer how to approach it. And, thank for pointing out about Hulls hps. Will update about that
Gryoz 22 Jun, 2013 @ 3:57pm 
It might be a good idea to use a ship capable of firing missile pods (any M7M, the frigates with missile turrets, except the skirnir can fire them) as it makes it easier for the marines to breach the hull (lowers the engineering skill requiered).

It might not be possible to board any Aran you find as they have a random amount of hull left and as the hull drops during boarding it may get too low and the marines will abort the boarding. If that happens you will have to search for a new Aran to try and board.