Attack Dark Cloud [4]'s unmanned Reconoiter (50,000-247) (Y/N) [N]? Yes
How many fighters do you wish to use (0 to 10,000) [0]? 9999

Scout has been boarded.  Aborting combat

what the heck is that? i was about to blow his unmanned ship to dust and just because he xports into it, combat is aborted? sheesh.

If I had to guess, and this is just a quasi educated guess at that, since the game treats occupied and empty ships differently, and they appear in different places in the combat order, it changing from unoccupied to occupied gave it a hiccup.

You also get the "aborting combat" even with a lock on the targeted ship if they xport out before you launch the fig wave:

Flight Risk lands on the StarDock.
Flight Risk blasts off from the StarDock.

Command [TL=00:00:00]:[18644] (?=Help)? : A
<Attack>
Attack Flight Risk's unmanned Iolaus (75,000-0) (Y/N) [N]? No
Attack Flight Risk's Nemesis (75,000-75,000) (Y/N) [N]? Yes
How many fighters do you wish to use (0 to 15,000) [0]? 15000

Flight Risk is no longer aboard this ship.  Aborting combat

The next wave will still attack if the player xports to the Iolaus (really bad move in this case) as it ignores the Nemesis. A multiple wave attack works well.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

I had made a little script several years ago, that is great for unlimited games, it consisted of traveling around in a large defensive ship while towing an offensive ship, then when it got a power up message it would x-port into the offensive ship and shoot a wave at the first manned ship and then wait for another power up message and then xport back into the defensive ship and wait for another power up message and so on, then whenever figs got so low it would make sure a fig was dropped in the sector and xport to a ship in a sector with a maxed out planet and warp it back.

Then after that I made another version that instead kept the offensive ship on standby in sector with a maxed out planet, and just traveled around in the defensive ship and then when it got a power up trip it would make sure a fig was dropped and then it would x-port me into the offensive ship warp back with the planet, launch, attack, and wait for power up messages then would x-port back and forth sending an attack each time. I thought that was a pretty kewl little trick… IIRC it was fairly effective, and best of all it gives a new meaning to cat and mouse, heh.

imo, its lazy programming. it should be trivial for the twgs to apply the correct odds even if someone xports into/outof a ship mid-attack.