Angels Fall First boarding guide — breach capital ships, destroy cores, and evacuate on Steam.
Angels Fall First capital ship boarding assaults.
Boarding is what separates Angels Fall First from every other combined-arms shooter on Steam. Infantry ride dropships into enemy capital ships, fight through full-size interior maps, sabotage subsystems, and destroy the reactor core to delete a frigate or battleship from the inside while the external fleet still trades torpedoes.
Combined-arms sci-fi warfare — infantry, vehicles, fighters, and capital ships on planetside and in space. Each of the 16 capital ship types uses a different corridor layout — hangar aft, engineering midships, bridge forward, lockout consoles on separate decks. There is no single universal route, but the objective chain is always the same: establish a breach spawn, cripple optional subsystems, strip core lockouts, kill the core, evacuate via hangar.
Boarding appears on space Territories maps and several Incursion space-station objectives. Frigates and battleships are the primary hull targets; stations use the same infantry flow with different art passes. Ground-only maps still teach CQB skills, but dropship timing is learned on Eye of God, Ixion, or Lellebah.
This Angels Fall First boarding guide covers dropship approach, EVA/breach mechanics, subsystem sabotage, core breach, defender counters, and recommended weapons loadouts. Read vehicles for Cricket/Dragoon handling and commander guide for when to authorize a boarding push.
Offline bot matches run full boarding flows — practice breach timing without live opponents via the single-player guide.
Boarding starts in a Dragoon (ULA) or Cricket (AIA) dropship. Spawn on your team's battleship or territory rearm pad, enter the pilot seat or side gunner position, and fly toward the target capital. Dropships are fragile — have friendly fighters sweep PD before you commit.
Acquire a boarding target by pressing G with crosshairs on the enemy hull. A door icon marks the breach point. Fly to that vector, bleed speed until a yellow ring appears with Press F to board, then tap F to begin automated docking.
A dialog asks whether to re-deploy into the assault. Press F and run to the rear drop pod bay before docking completes. If you linger in the cockpit, the boarding pod launches without you — the rear door locks and you must either respawn via tac map into a fresh pod or fly back to a rearm point for another boarding charge.
Side gunners suppress hangar mouths and PD turrets while the pilot holds approach. AI can helm if you swap to gunner — useful for solo bot practice. Once docked, friendly infantry use the breach as a new spawn location on the tac map, same as capturing a ground point.
Dropships double as space spawns while airborne, but spawning directly on a moving Cricket is risky — two gunner seats cannot hold a full squad. Rally on the capital hangar, load the pod together, then launch.
| Step | Action | Failure mode |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Press G on target hull | No breach icon — wrong angle or out of range |
| 2 | Align with door icon; slow to yellow ring | Overshoot — loop for another pass |
| 3 | Press F to dock | Taking PD fire — fighters must suppress first |
| 4 | Sprint to rear pod; confirm redeploy | Locked out — pod left without you |
| 5 | Spawn on enemy interior | Defenders kill breach before squad loads |
EVA in AFF context means exiting the drop pod into vacuum-adjacent breach tunnels and boarding corridors — not open-space jetpacking across the map. The assault pod physically cuts into the hull and opens a breach point your team owns until defenders destroy it.
Breach icons appear on port and starboard beams near the bow on most frigates — rarely on the ventral plate. Scout the target in a Rapier/Iret if the door icon is confusing from the helm seat; gunners on the capital see you approach long before you dock.
If your pod is destroyed mid-flight, rearm at a map rearm point or friendly lineship / battleship pad to receive a fresh boarding charge. Losing the pod without a rearm ends the assault until logistics respawn another dropship.
Some Incursion missions board space stations instead of mobile capitals. The same G targeting and F dock flow applies — follow interior signage toward reactor rooms. Station maps may lack fighter hangar escapes; plan tac map respawn instead of core timer evac.
Enemy fighters can shoot exposed boarding pods mounted on the hull exterior after a successful dock. Defenders launch interceptors to peel attackers off the pod; attackers should clear hangars quickly so the breach spawn stays active even if the external pod dies.
Not every boarding run must rush the core immediately. Sabotage subsystems first to blind the ship for your external fleet — weapon consoles, shield emitters, engine rooms, and hangar controls are labeled in corridors.
Shooting a weapon subsystem console disables the associated turret bank outside. Engine sabotage leaves the capital a sitting duck for bombers. Shield generators shorten effective Z bursts — torpedo windows open wider.
Subsystem consoles accept rifle damage, grenades, and explosives. MNL System sticky grenades excel at clustered console rooms. Engineers on the defending team repair with KMD Multiwrench — kill repairers before they undo your work.
Optional sabotage buys time while more squadmates spawn on the breach. On large Huginn / Anubis interiors, split fireteams: one trio farms PD consoles, another pushes engineering for lockouts.
Tac map shows attack objectives on the hull edge when your team owns an interior spawn — use it to coordinate which subsystem to starve before the core push.
| Subsystem | Interior sign | Effect when destroyed |
|---|---|---|
| Weapons | Turret control / weapons | External turret bank offline |
| Engines | Engineering | Capital cannot reposition |
| Shields | Shield generator | Weaker shield bursts |
| Hangar | Hangar control | Fighters cannot launch |
| Breach point | Enemy spawn door | Removes attacker respawn |
The win condition is core destruction. Battleship and heavy frigate cores sit behind engine core lockout consoles — destroy every lockout to drop the reactor force field, then focus fire on the core itself.
Lockouts are scattered across decks; follow signage toward engineering / stern. The core room is always aft on Huginn-class layouts — community maps label it with reactor iconography. All damage types work, including melee finishers on wounded defenders.
When the core dies, a meltdown timer starts (~30 seconds). Evacuate through the fighter hangar — enter any remaining friendly starfighter and boost clear. If hangars are destroyed or you are on a corvette-tier target, tac map respawn is the fallback.
Attackers who die in the blast still secure the kill credit but waste momentum — assign one player to steal a defender Rapier/Iret early so evac is guaranteed. Defenders who cannot hold core should scuttle external breach pods (see defense section) rather than feed respawn waves.
Destroying the core ends the capital for both teams — coordinate with your commander so external torpedoes do not waste ammo on a hull your infantry already killed from inside.
There is no automatic boarding alert — check the tac map for enemy attack objectives on your hull outline. Empty turret seats and silent engineering are how frigates die unnoticed.
Priority one: destroy the breach point with gunfire or remote explosives. Shooting the enemy spawn door enough times removes their interior respawn. If defenders stacked autocannons and mines on the breach, attackers may try external pod sniping — launch a fighter and destroy the mounted drop pod on the port/starboard beam.
Interior defense holds chokepoints between breach and engineering. Shotguns and SMGs beat rifles in tight AFF corridors. Engineers repair core-adjacent systems while gunners sweep hangar ladders — boarders love vertical flanks.
Destroying the external pod bypasses a fortified breach room entirely — no pod, no spawn. Coordinate PD and fighters to catch Cricket/Dragoon approach vectors before F dock completes.
Run light Combat budgets — P4 / YAS / Aeger TA SMGs, Sonic Knife, and N8D frags. Skip heavy LMGs that slow sprint between decks. Support budget funds med kits; Command budget optional for suppressors if yellow points allow.
Anti-engineer builds bring MNL for console rooms. Anti-vehicle outside the ship still needs Falken RID / Kaller MLI, but swap to SMG primary before entering corridors — railguns are awkward at knife range.
Boarding squads should share roles: breacher (explosives), medic (Multiwrench + medkit), rifle (P6I/DK11A for mid halls). See loadout and requisition for budget math.
Fly a Dragoon/Cricket to a hull breach icon, dock with F, spawn in the drop pod, capture the interior breach, sabotage subsystems, destroy core lockouts, kill the reactor, and evac via hangar before detonation.
Standard space boarding requires a dropship pod. Some station Incursion objectives use the same breach flow from map-scripted transports — not open EVA across the battlefield.
External bombers soften shields while an infantry squad boards, strips lockouts, and destroys the core. Pure external DPS alone rarely kills a fresh Huginn/Anubis before timers end.
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