AX Restoration tactics

[Kira Goto]

I suspect that these sites are actually new Thargoid Titans under construction, which will eventually lead to more Maelstroms.

Not big enough - though it can definitely be argued(and it is my assumption) that most of the structure is likely subterranean.

It is still possible they are construction sites for a capital-class ship… just not necessarily a Titan. Don’t really want to fancy our chances if there’s suddenly over 40 of them in the Bubble. Best case scenario, they’re the places where Revenants are made(might explain why they just ‘pop up’ as you get close to one of the barnacle lookalikes), but it’s not going to be that simple. It never is.

 

[Jack Winter]

Still hoping for a "burn the bubble" Galactica-style scenario. Hope dies last .

To be honest I was quite sure that would happen, just doubted that Frontier had the guts to stomp all over the player minor factions of the bubble. Seemed to line up quite well with the leak about base building, the speculation about a BGS/PP rework, and the DLC name of Odyssey. Now it looks more like we get a permanent AX war within easy reach from everywhere in the bubble.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Confirmed the disruptive mass on exit.
The other item that strikes me is the large rocks around the place. The asteroids around the Titan, do they contain barnacle spores?

 

[Felix DiCestria]

I suspect that these sites are actually new Thargoid Titans under construction, which will eventually lead to more Maelstroms.

Doesn't make sense, you don't build significant units in theatre. The only things that would make sense are command, research or observation positions.

 

[MVBanks]

This should be the stage for on-foot ax combat, I hope. But still, this disruptive mass - is it thargoid boss?

 

[Felix DiCestria]

This should be the stage for on-foot ax combat, I hope. But still, this disruptive mass - is it thargoid boss?

Remains of the asteroid would be my thought.
Stages for foot combat, but to what end?
As stated the Revenants don't patrol the Coral trees or spear roots.
Only the barnacles themselves and the gaps are big enough to land a T10 in.
So the question is what are the barnacles for?
I didn't spot an entrance but that would seem to be the logical next step, unless we're supposed to take a grelic or something.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Not big enough - though it can definitely be argued(and it is my assumption) that most of the structure is likely subterranean.

It is still possible they are construction sites for a capital-class ship… just not necessarily a Titan. Don’t really want to fancy our chances if there’s suddenly over 40 of them in the Bubble. Best case scenario, they’re the places where Revenants are made(might explain why they just ‘pop up’ as you get close to one of the barnacle lookalikes), but it’s not going to be that simple. It never is.

As I haven't done all the grind to get to a Titan, I have no idea how the size compares. I'll take your word for it.

It sounds like these new sites are the same size as the old sites with scavengers at them, so perhaps they are a smaller mothership or bases.

Doesn't make sense, you don't build significant units in theatre. The only things that would make sense are command, research or observation positions.

Yes, but nothing about this war has ever made any sense - and I don't credit all that to strategic story planning on the part of the Devs. The Thargoids spend six years doing station damaging attacks, in a haphazard fashion, and giving us time to adapt. Then they trick Salvation in to granting them the back door to subverting Guardian tech (which hasn't changed in 2 million years). After that, the Maelstroms arrive and set up a perimeter around the Bubble. Not a single one goes for the Core Worlds - not Sol, not Achenar, not Alioth. Now that they are losing territory they just gained (getting pushed back every week now), they suddenly start constructing ??? and deploying abduction ships.

Oh... whoops... forgot the whole "Titans protected by impenetrable barrier, yet they give us time to figure out how to penetrate it, and scan the titans while not doing much in response."

Seriously... I don't know how much of this is the Devs having to restrain how the Thargoids are behaving due to system limitations (e.g. pre-war routines being added to the game), how much is them not wanting to totally ruin it for players, and how much of it is "alien intelligence acting differently from human strategies."

I honestly don't care and was only throwing in my 2 cents on what these new structures might mean. Honestly, I don't care. This AX war was thrust upon the player base. Every time I actually find something fun to do in it, they bork it - intentionally or otherwise - and I've given up. Months ago I actually started to do AX combat, near ground settlements, only to have that negated by the Glaive introduction AND the loss of all these AX CZs because there aren't invasions any more. Then I had fun doing AX Restoration missions - which were hard enough to track down already - but now that is changed to only be given in Alert systems and the Alert can be cancelled before the server tick.

I am done with all of this. I may go through the hurdles to get the pulse neutralizer so I can see a Titan once. And I may keep playing once a week to do normal, human ground missions and gain those 400 ARX. But other than that, I'm done with this game for now... and definitely done with the AX content. As soon as I find something fun with AX to do, it's either going to be ruined by the next change the Devs intend to implement, a bug they introduce and fail to realize it, or both. I.AM.DONE.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Perhaps it's a Thargoid surface port, the barnacles are their landing pads/hangar entrances. Would they be large enough for a scout?

 

[MVBanks]

Remains of the asteroid would be my thought.
Stages for foot combat, but to what end?
As stated the Revenants don't patrol the Coral trees or spear roots.
Only the barnacles themselves and the gaps are big enough to land a T10 in.
So the question is what are the barnacles for?
I didn't spot an entrance but that would seem to be the logical next step, unless we're supposed to take a grelic or something.

I tried to discover some entrance, but no success, tried PWXS but nothing, it doesn't show anything.

 

[Weps]

Apologies as I didn't read the whole thread, just the last few pages - but as I understand it, bases with Revenants can be silently approached in a Scarab, not a Scorpion? I had a very different experience yesterday while in a Scarab, as soon as they caught a whiff of me (>500m away), the whole complement of Revenants aggroed me. I barely managed to escape with 20% hull and even more badly damaged ego, and then had to huff it back 3km on foot...

 

[Kira Goto]

Revenants can easily spot an SRV from around 600 meters, I believe - regardless of whether it is Scorpion or Scarab. The discussion about ‘stealthy approach’ is more on a (presumed?) bug where Scouts spawn in less than a kilometer above the surface and so detect the Scorpion*.

*Cannot say if this would also result in detection for the Scarab. Supposedly that spawn doesn’t happen with it?

Regardless of that, if you want your SRV within 400m of the settlement, best park it in a ditch with no line of sight somewhere, if available. Otherwise around 700-800m distance, maybe just outside 600, will have to do. In my experience.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Generally stay a good 500m clear of the settlement with the SRV. Some cmdrs like to find a garage to park in on site so they can collect some mat the Revs drop.
The bug with the Scorpion causes a scout to hover stationary above the parked scorpion until you come back and drive over the 800m line triggering an attack.
This doesn't happen in the scarab which is why most of us use it.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Revenants can easily spot an SRV from around 600 meters, I believe - regardless of whether it is Scorpion or Scarab. The discussion about ‘stealthy approach’ is more on a (presumed?) bug where Scouts spawn in less than a kilometer above the surface and so detect the Scorpion*.

*Cannot say if this would also result in detection for the Scarab. Supposedly that spawn doesn’t happen with it?

Regardless of that, if you want your SRV within 400m of the settlement, best park it in a ditch with no line of sight somewhere, if available. Otherwise around 700-800m distance, maybe just outside 600, will have to do. In my experience.

Yep, I can confirm this with 30+ of these missions done (though retired now, due to the rarity of these missions).

All SRVs can be spotted 600m away by Revenants, though their detection range is less than that (400m?) if they are still white (not on alert). For extra protection, try to park your SRV out of LOS of the base (behind small hill, behind large rocks, etc.); that cover really helps.

Occasionally you will get "Frameshift Anomaly Detected" warnings, even when it's NOT a scout replenishing Revenants. This appears to be scouts looking for ships still on the surface. If you've made a non-violent, stealthy infiltration and exfiltration, your Scorpion may not be detected by the scouts. If, however, you've blown up any Revenants, you may find one or more scouts hovering low to the ground. The minute you get in your Scorpion, they go hostile, and actively attack you (and will destroy you if don't take evasive action until your ship arrives). Scarabs, on the other hand, appear to be completely invisible to Thargoid scouts. It's extremely aggravating that this bug exists... more so that it affects the new, military themed (and two seater!) SRV and not the old standard Scarab.

I was actually going to document this after Update 16 dropped. However, they've limited these missions to only being available from Alert Systems and - thanks to the another change in Update 16 - the Alert can be cleared BEFORE the next server tick.

This issue is not logged in the issue tracker because you need to provide lots of evidence - and then keep getting likes on your issues - for a ticket to not expire or be silently closed; that's why there is a thread in these forums to keep track of popular issues that have been reported, to have people keep confirming them to keep them open and (supposedly) on the Devs radar. As someone who has worked in IT for over 30 years, their issue tracker ticket system is the worst, and stupidest, ticket system I have EVER seen!

 

[Felix DiCestria]

I've had scouts hovering over the Scorpion without shooting at a Revenant so that rules out that as a trigger.
The only thing that seems to make sense is proximity of the scout to the Scorpion.

 

[BDelacroix]

I swear to... sigh

Ok, so they fixed the fire issue in AX Restoration missions. Great, assuming that's true. Did they remove all the AX Restoration missions?! Prior to the update, I was hitting HIP 19198, which is a Thargoid controlled system (still the case) and has Fourteen military installations. In the last week, I was getting the missions from Unkety (about 9 ly away) and HIP 17742. The later had a more convenient station, but tended to offer less missions.

Neither of these systems are offering me ANY AX Restoration missions for HIP 19198 (still firmly under Thargoid control). Not from the "Operations" section of the ship mission board, nor the "Support" section of of the on-foot terminals. Not one mission offered. Not a single one!

Anyone else having trouble finding AX Restoration missions?

I check back in after the server tick tomorrow. If it's still an issue, I may go ahead and suspend all my fleet carrier services and take a long break from this game. I've seriously had it...

Is it due to the extreme efficiency of the skinning brigade? I mean just about every activity is shut down.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Is it due to the extreme efficiency of the skinning brigade? I mean just about every activity is shut down.

Post 16 the missions are restricted to populated Alerts, so we have to find ones in range. The last this cycle was Khwal.
Populated alerts are dealt with primarily by hauling injured to the rescue ships along with some refugees.
The number of populated alerts has dropped due to the targeted samplers reducing the number of alerts each Maelstrom can put out, this makes it easier to clear all alerts in a week.
Sooner or later they'll clear the ctrl systems we take the missions to and the AX reactivations will become a thing of the past. That might actually be sooner now the barnacle matrix sites have appeared and look likely to concentrate sampling on the formerly populated Ctrl systems.

 

[RaketeMike]

Is it due to the extreme efficiency of the skinning brigade? I mean just about every activity is shut down.

I don't want to be in a spaceship anymore - I want to pilot only limpets . Limpet Dangerous the game should be called

Sorry, I just miss my planetary defence scenarios .. wouldn't it be possible that FDEV created Locations where there are constantly available? Like the constant type of thargoid encounters you can have in the Pleiades?

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Sorry, I just miss my planetary defence scenarios .. wouldn't it be possible that FDEV created Locations where there are constantly available? Like the constant type of thargoid encounters you can have in the Pleiades?

They did back near the start of the year when the thargoids invaded Witch Head. Since it wasn't part of the war, the systems had no win condition but were functionally the same with CZs around stations.
Unfortunately Witch Head is two carrier jumps away and has no prison (it's a one-way trip to the Pleiades if you die while wanted), so most people didn't bother going out there and then fdev took it away without explanation.

 

[RaketeMike]

They did back near the start of the year when the thargoids invaded Witch Head. Since it wasn't part of the war, the systems had no win condition but were functionally the same with CZs around stations.
Unfortunately Witch Head is two carrier jumps away and has no prison (it's a one-way trip to the Pleiades if you die while wanted), so most people didn't bother going out there and then fdev took it away without explanation.

That sounds promising, so they had them in game at a fixed location.. maybe they could just relaunch the same scenario in the Pleiades? Would fit in the narrative too, the up to now neutral thargoids get more and more aggressive ..

 

[Felix DiCestria]

That sounds promising, so they had them in game at a fixed location.. maybe they could just relaunch the same scenario in the Pleiades? Would fit in the narrative too, the up to now neutral thargoids get more and more aggressive ..

IIRC there's only one surface port.
I thought it functioned as per the old incursions so the 'goids were driven off, but as Op Ida and PDES are stuck clearing alerts in the Bubble the ports in the Witch Head haven't been repaired.