what have you found to be the easiest way to get a new ship?
I got lucky and some colonizers were asking for help so I helped them out, then just out of curiosity I lock picked to get into their ship and was able fly off without consequence.
I tried doing the same thing with other landed ships but then it just says I'm not authorized
Congratulations you have a new ship for free. If you are well geared, this is incredibly easy and you can knock out a ship in a single shot.
You can also just hang around on planets and wait for ships to land nearby. If they aren't Spacers or Ecliptic teams being dropped, you can sneak aboard and fly away. Though I find it kinda lame you can't also take the drop ships used to spawn enemies. Dumb door to go inside is always [inaccessible] :/
Every ship I own I got for free either doing the above, or as a reward for a quest.
Are you killing the enemies first? I found that if I kill the enemies it will say [inaccessible] and they'll fly away, but if you make a break for the ship you can take it.
Oh ho ho! Interesting. Yeah, I usually kill them all before I've gone up to the door, not wanting them to follow me in after. But next time I see one, I'm gonna rush the door and see if I can get in.
Ah ok so I guess I need to invest in one of those emp guns, at least when I tried to target a ship I wasn't sure if it was disabled or not and ended up blowing them up each time
Targeting control to disable the engines- to do that, you need at least rank 1 of the skill (Dunno if more ranks are worth it. I get by with just the one.) Which then lets you lock onto ships. Controls are for PC, sorry, Don't have xbox, but, e lets you target one, then, when you get close and properly locked on... hit and hold r to activate the targeting control systems skill
This opens up what is basically a minigame, with a new display of their power systems. you can cycle through and target the various systems- weapons, engine, shield. grav drive. Cycle the selection to engines and take their ship's shields down if it's not.
once the ship's shields are down, and the engine modules turn a nice red color (active modules are white,) you can board. The shields don't have to stay down, mind. To board, you press and hold R, if you're inside of 500 meters.
You can only jack one ship at a time, so kill the spares first- because you just trashed the ship you're jacking...
Edit: uh... I might have just found a way to jack more than one ship per outing. apparently, you can convert the new ship to home through the ship menu (H, to get there quick. Then press H again. no idea what the command is on xbox.) I'm not sure I'd recomend docking in the middle of a multi-ship engagement, But both new ships were available for sale at the landing pad. (next I'll test if you can swap ships in the middle of space this way... I'd have assumed not...)
Fast way: You have to dock with the enemy ship, clear it, sit in the seat, undock from your main ship, quickly open the menu, set the ship you're in as your home ship, redock with your main ship before it flys away, and then presumably you'll want to set that back as your home ship.
Slow way, dock, clear, sit, fly somewhere (grav jumping sets whatever ship you're in as your home ship), land at a ship technician, set your main ship back as your home ship. You have to repeat this for every ship you take.
The fast way keeps you in system with your main ship so I prefer it, especially if I'm in the Serpentis system trying to make 100,000 credits collecting var'uun ships.