Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

Kira Goto · Aug 12, 2023

So, as I was poking around Maelstrom/Titan(which to use now that the galaxy map interface has been updayed?) Raijin for a while, looking at the barnacle matrix sites, and a question occurred to me…

Some of those odd outliers where alerts were launched at systems strangely far when closer options were available, is it possible that they were aimed at a system with a candidate body for a barnacle matrix? It’s the closest thing I could (currently) imagine for that goal that the Thargoids have been hinted at having.

It’s one for those who have been into analyzing the systems more, so I’m not sure this is the completely right thread for it, but I don’t know a better one to ask either.

TL;DR I’m wondering if there’s a chance some outlier alerts at uninhabited systems oddly far from any others of a Maelstrom, earlier in the war, could have been meant to take a system with a thin atmospheric body, now that we know barnacle matrix sites go there.

Aleks Zuno · Aug 13, 2023

Victories in Hyades Sectors JN-K b8-4 and QD-T c3-15, Arietis Sectors LM-W c1-14 and MX-U c2-18, Canaharvas, Pegasi Sectors EB-W b2-2 and DG-X c1-6, Trianguli Sector EQ-Y b7 and HIP 9016! Very nicely done at M. Leigong; in a single evening of eviction activity it loses four of its attacks.

Alerts at 08:20 13th August 3309:
Pathamon Alert 96% *97.1% — Leigong 22 Ly, 105 Ls starport, 2696 Ls outpost, 105 Ls planet
Nu Guang Alert 92% *93.1% — Raijin 19 Ly, 44 Ls starport, 44 Ls planet
Fotlandjera Alert 62% *62.3% — Hadad 20 Ly, 1266 Ls outpost, 1269 Ls planet
HIP 11111 Alert 46% *46.4% — Oya 24 Ly, 2567 Ls outpost, 2474 Ls planet
Unktety Alert 46% — Thor 25 Ly, 92 Ls outpost, 38 Ls planet
HIP 20899 Alert 42% *43% — Indra 23 Ly, 876 Ls outpost, 2991 Ls planet

Evictions:
Kamato Control 62% — Raijin 27 Ly, 586 strength
Omumba Control 10% *11.6% — Hadad 14 Ly, ~24k strength

Clean-up:
Col 285 Sector RM-B b14-8 Alert 98% *98.3% — Hadad 21 Ly, empty
68 Tauri Control 72% — Indra 26 Ly, empty, 131 strength
Col 285 Sector NG-E b12-1 Alert 68% — Thor 23 Ly, empty

Kira Goto said:
Maelstrom/Titan(which to use now that the galaxy map interface has been updayed?)

Thinking about it a bit, this is a good distinction to make! I will see how it goes if I start using Maelstrom to refer to the surrounding systems and generally any part of it which can be visited without use of a Pulse neutraliser, Titan for that nucleus area within, and either or perhaps preferring Titan if the context admits no confusion.

Kira Goto said:
Some of those odd outliers where alerts were launched at systems strangely far when closer options were available, is it possible that they were aimed at a system with a candidate body for a barnacle matrix? It’s the closest thing I could (currently) imagine for that goal that the Thargoids have been hinted at having.

It’s one for those who have been into analyzing the systems more, so I’m not sure this is the completely right thread for it, but I don’t know a better one to ask either.

There is indeed a thread which would be interested heavily if the misbehaviour at M. Oya can be explained! Each weekly summary here includes a link to its Alert reports—see Analysing the Thargoid Simulation.

That said, mind that it is very difficult for most hypotheses to fit well! INIV has been making the occasional attempt at finding a way which something spurious could occur mathematically, such as with how sectors and coordinates are managed. The biggest problem, both generally and specifically with your atmospheric landfall idea, is that any such idea really needs to work everywhere. That is to say, it needs to explain also why such does not occur at all of the other Maelstroms!

Ian Doncaster · Aug 13, 2023

Kira Goto said:
TL;DR I’m wondering if there’s a chance some outlier alerts at uninhabited systems oddly far from any others of a Maelstrom, earlier in the war, could have been meant to take a system with a thin atmospheric body, now that we know barnacle matrix sites go there.

Probably not, though hard to prove definitively either way as we didn't have the analysis tools set up to study their early stages. Even among those Maelstroms which still have Controls significantly further out, the majority of their Barnacles are within their 15 LY auto-capture or 20 LY auto-attack ranges anyway.

Looking at the others that they have, from the outside in:

The two furthest ones are at Leigong just over 30 LY out, both attacked 19 January, a week where Leigong didn't use its full Alert budget due to targeting constraints and Control exhaustion anyway, and hit three systems unsuitable for Matrix conversion further out.
Next is a 24 LY one at Cocijo, attacked in March as part of in-fill after the targeting priorities were already changed.
Next a 24 LY one at Indra, attacked in late Feb after the priority change
Next a 24 LY one at Hadad, attacked 9 Feb (priority change 2 Feb)
And then a 24 LY one back at Leigong, attacked 22 Dec but definitely not an outlier for Leigong's targeting - it was one of the closer ones hit

There's a few more in the 20-24 LY range I don't have time to check right now, but it looks like in general they were either hit as "had to hit something", or were hit as part of later in-fill after the priority change, or were close enough that they weren't the ones being hit by the long range moves anyway.

Of course, there's a counterfactual here of "which ones further out would also have Matrix sites if they hadn't been recaptured" which is harder to analyse, especially since many eligible systems already don't have them.

Kira Goto · Aug 13, 2023

Ian Doncaster said:
Probably not, though hard to prove definitively either way as we didn't have the analysis tools set up to study their early stages. Even among those Maelstroms which still have Controls significantly further out, the majority of their Barnacles are within their 15 LY auto-capture or 20 LY auto-attack ranges anyway.

Looking at the others that they have, from the outside in:

The two furthest ones are at Leigong just over 30 LY out, both attacked 19 January, a week where Leigong didn't use its full Alert budget due to targeting constraints and Control exhaustion anyway, and hit three systems unsuitable for Matrix conversion further out.

Next is a 24 LY one at Cocijo, attacked in March as part of in-fill after the targeting priorities were already changed.

Next a 24 LY one at Indra, attacked in late Feb after the priority change

Next a 24 LY one at Hadad, attacked 9 Feb (priority change 2 Feb)

And then a 24 LY one back at Leigong, attacked 22 Dec but definitely not an outlier for Leigong's targeting - it was one of the closer ones hit

There's a few more in the 20-24 LY range I don't have time to check right now, but it looks like in general they were either hit as "had to hit something", or were hit as part of later in-fill after the priority change, or were close enough that they weren't the ones being hit by the long range moves anyway.

Of course, there's a counterfactual here of "which ones further out would also have Matrix sites if they hadn't been recaptured" which is harder to analyse, especially since many eligible systems already don't have them.

Oh well. Worth a thought, I guess. I’d have at least suspected that they would have aimed for those types of systems, but I suppose not.

Kind of think there might be a radius between the barnacle sites where none spawn, but I haven’t made any kind of measurements to support that idea.

Ian Doncaster · Aug 13, 2023

Kira Goto said:
Kind of think there might be a radius between the barnacle sites where none spawn, but I haven’t made any kind of measurements to support that idea.

If there is then it's probably too small to be relevant - the pair at Oya are only 3.7 LY apart, and even if that's an unusual case because Oya is short on suitable controls total, the closest pair at Leigong and Raijin are each <6 LY apart and the closest at Cocijo are about 7 LY apart.

Looking at the map at https://map.canonn.tech/codex.html?hud_category=Thargoid set to just show Barnacle Matrix and Caustic Generator sites, there doesn't seem to be any consistent geographic pattern in terms of e.g. which side of the Maelstrom they're on either - Indra's mostly face the bubble, Taranis' are all around it, Hadad's mostly face away.

Doing a few more tests: Oya has 4 uninhabited control systems with landable atmospheric planets and converted 2 of them (1 and 3 by distance); Hadad has 23 and converted 6 of them (1, 5, 12, 14, 19, 22 by distance); Indra has 30 and has converted 8 of them (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15 by distance). No obvious patterns there either.

Disemboweled Ego · Aug 13, 2023

It'd be a pain to do the stats on that but maybe the detailed material composition of the planets matters?

Felix DiCestria · Aug 13, 2023

Perhaps figuring out why they chose not to put a site in the systems they skipped would yield something. We already know they avoid systems containing human settlements.

Starsong · Aug 13, 2023

Felix DiCestria said:
Perhaps figuring out why they chose not to put a site in the systems they skipped would yield something. We already know they avoid systems containing human settlements.

Star class or amount? Candidate planet temperature? There’s a few possible reasons.

Ian Doncaster · Aug 13, 2023

Well, here's what I've got for the three I checked - narrowed down just to the obvious "must be a Control" + "must have at least one landable atmospheric planet". Should be enough to spot patterns if there are any.

Maelstrom	System	Dist	X	Y	Z	Placed Matrix
Oya	Cephei Sector XO-A b3	5.82	-0.94	4.97	-2.88	Yes
Oya	Cephei Sector WO-A b3	8.52	-7.38	-1.38	-4.03	No
Oya	Lyncis Sector WU-P b5-0	9.13	-1.38	6.66	-6.09	Yes
Oya	Cephei Sector AF-A c9	15.68	5.69	-14.56	1.22	No
Hadad	HIP 30439	3.68	1.41	0.41	-3.38	Yes
Hadad	Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-6	7.62	4.88	-2.19	5.44	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector VN-Z b14-0	9.69	-6.47	-5.28	4.91	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-5	9.98	5.16	-1.34	8.44	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-7	10.06	7.66	2	6.22	Yes
Hadad	Col 285 Sector QM-B b14-5	11.64	-2.16	2.25	-11.22	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-0	12.11	-9.75	-1.16	-7.09	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector SH-B b14-1	12.11	-1.91	-10.69	-5.38	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector QM-B b14-4	12.42	-0.03	1.06	-12.38	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-2	13.13	3.5	10.69	6.78	No
Hadad	HIP 31648	14.58	-1.31	12.16	-7.94	No
Hadad	HIP 31223	15.34	14.69	-1.28	4.25	Yes
Hadad	Col 285 Sector WN-Z b14-0	15.88	7.66	-13.25	4.25	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector KW-M c7-15	16.07	12.81	-5.91	7.69	Yes
Hadad	Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-6	16.23	-8	5.13	-13.16	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-1	17.35	7.72	14.56	5.41	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector RM-B b14-3	17.63	17.28	-3.16	-1.44	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-2	18.74	-6.06	14.75	-9.84	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector SX-Z b14-0	19.08	-2.72	18.09	5.41	Yes
Hadad	Col 285 Sector SH-B b14-6	19.59	1.81	-19.44	-1.63	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector KW-M c7-28	22.16	16.56	11.81	-8.78	No
Hadad	Col 285 Sector VS-Z b14-3	24.12	22.78	7.22	3.25	Yes
Hadad	Col 285 Sector SH-B b14-3	24.32	14.97	-19	-2.53	No
Indra	Hyades Sector RT-Q b5-4	6.88	5.56	3.28	-2.38	No
Indra	Arietis Sector KR-V b2-1	9.92	0.25	8.25	5.5	Yes
Indra	HIP 19870	13.69	-12.28	4.25	4.31	Yes
Indra	HIP 20187	15.03	8.06	-7.81	10	Yes
Indra	Hyades Sector JH-V c2-13	18.59	3	-7.28	-16.84	No
Indra	Arietis Sector HG-X b1-0	21.39	-5.63	-4.56	-20.13	Yes
Indra	Hyades Sector ST-Q b5-5	21.7	18.53	11.28	-0.56	Yes
Indra	HIP 22350	21.92	1.31	21.88	-0.31	Yes
Indra	HR 1358	22.04	5.59	0.56	21.31	Yes
Indra	Arietis Sector JR-V b2-1	22.11	-13.63	14.13	10.19	No
Indra	Ross 378	22.3	17.5	-3.84	-13.28	No
Indra	Arietis Sector TY-P a6-1	23.28	-1.13	20.84	10.31	No
Indra	HIP 19789	23.94	-18.78	0	-14.84	No
Indra	Hyades Sector ST-Q b5-2	23.96	19.97	13.22	0.78	No
Indra	Hyades Sector DX-H a11-1	24.16	-2.22	23.88	3	Yes
Indra	Arietis Sector HG-X b1-4	24.29	-21.59	-6.72	-8.88	No
Indra	Arietis Sector DQ-Y c9	24.59	-22.34	-7.75	-6.75	No
Indra	HIP 21788	24.69	-9.03	19.56	-12.06	No
Indra	Arietis Sector DA-Z b3	25.44	-11.28	-1.91	-22.72	No
Indra	Arietis Sector FL-X b1-1	25.61	-14.66	7.72	-19.53	No
Indra	Hyades Sector IM-V c2-11	25.84	17.94	8.41	-16.59	No
Indra	Arietis Sector TY-P a6-2	25.9	-0.41	23.09	11.72	No
Indra	Arietis Sector NS-R a5-1	26.01	-15.75	20.53	2.59	No
Indra	Hyades Sector JH-U b3-5	26.14	-0.72	0.13	-26.13	No
Indra	Hyades Sector AR-J a10-1	26.54	2.69	25.81	-5.56	No
Indra	Arietis Sector OH-V b2-5	26.7	1.06	-23.53	12.56	No
Indra	Hyades Sector WK-L a9-2	26.79	3.91	19.69	-17.75	No
Indra	Hyades Sector EX-H a11-1	27.04	1.66	26.34	5.88	No
Indra	Arietis Sector NS-R a5-0	27.42	-14.91	22.44	5.09	No
Indra	Hyades Sector XU-O b6-1	29.81	14.88	-16.88	19.56	No

Disemboweled Ego · Aug 13, 2023

The problem with spotting patterns there is that there's might also be a choice of planets in the same systems that are suitable, but were probably limited to 1 site per system currently.

Ned Flandalorian · Aug 14, 2023

Given the choices around Oya were extremely limited and they still managed to place two sites, the chances of there being some criteria that isn't immediately obvious (i.e. a landable atmospheric body) is very unlikely.
It doesn't make sense that the locations would have been picked months in advance because there was no way to tell which ones we would reclaim in the meantime.

Aleks Zuno · Aug 14, 2023

Victories in Pathamon, Cephei Sector AF-A c22, Nu Guang, Col 285 Sectors RM-B b14-8, EA-Q c5-17, IA-G b11-0, KV-F b11-2, KV-F b11-3, OC-V d2-80, RW-D b12-0, RW-D b12-1, JA-G b11-3 and UH-C b13-2, HIPs 19501 and 18776, Kamato, Fotlandjera and Pegasi Sector YQ-J a10-2! That also takes M. Thor down to two attacks this week.

Alerts at 08:10 14th August 3309:
Tagin Alert 96% — Raijin 23 Ly, 636 Ls outpost
Isla Alert 96% — Raijin 24 Ly, 888 Ls starport, 888 Ls planet
HIP 11111 Alert 76% *77.7% — Oya 24 Ly, 2567 Ls outpost, 2474 Ls planet
HIP 20899 Alert 76% — Indra 23 Ly, 876 Ls outpost, 2991 Ls planet
HIP 29596 Alert 64% — Hadad 18 Ly, 2098 Ls starport, 3038 Ls outpost, 1550 Ls planet
HIP 19157 Alert 60% *61.2% — Indra 22 Ly, 705 Ls starport, 1277 Ls outpost
Unktety Alert 56% — Thor 25 Ly, 92 Ls outpost, 38 Ls planet

Eviction:
Omumba Control 14% — Hadad 14 Ly, ~24k strength

Clean-up:
Col 285 Sector NG-E b12-1 Alert 82% *83.3% — Thor 23 Ly, empty
68 Tauri Control 82% *82.9% — Indra 26 Ly, empty, 80 strength
Col 285 Sector UH-C b13-0 Alert 50% — Thor 23 Ly, empty

I have some questions related to evacuations from Alert systems:

Given a vessel which is impervious enough to Scythe attacks, how would one rate the credits rewards from the VIP Passenger missions after a bit of reputation is formed?
Is it worth stopping to destroy a Scythe for the extra 4.5 million credits, or better not to delay the missions?
Is it better generally to stay with bulk Economy transport, to get more Business, more First, or a balanced proportion?
It is worth the extra investment to harden a Saud Kruger vessel in return for making Luxury available?

For a little context, a Commander was seeking to earn credits and became my Orthrus-slaying apprentice for a bit, and has now very much graduated after destroying eighteen of them alone in Fotlandjera. There are still some earnings remaining to reach a Fleet Carrier though; it occurred to me that a Missions board with VIP rewards averaging around 8–10 million credits at neutral reputation could become at least competitive with Orthrus combat bonds, and it would be quite nice to add Scythes to the skill-set.

Felix DiCestria · Aug 14, 2023

Ian Doncaster said:
Doing a few more tests: Oya has 4 uninhabited control systems with landable atmospheric planets and converted 2 of them (1 and 3 by distance); Hadad has 23 and converted 6 of them (1, 5, 12, 14, 19, 22 by distance); Indra has 30 and has converted 8 of them (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15 by distance). No obvious patterns there either.

Ned Flandalorian said:
Given the choices around Oya were extremely limited and they still managed to place two sites, the chances of there being some criteria that isn't immediately obvious (i.e. a landable atmospheric body) is very unlikely.
It doesn't make sense that the locations would have been picked months in advance because there was no way to tell which ones we would reclaim in the meantime.

Though as Ian said Oya had a choice of 4 and picked 2, skipped 2. Why did they skip 2? Possibly Thin Neon atmosphere isn't suitable?

Kira Goto · Aug 14, 2023

Felix DiCestria said:
Though as Ian said Oya had a choice of 4 and picked 2, skipped 2. Why did they skip 2? Possibly Thin Neon atmosphere isn't suitable?

No, there’s definitely sites on planets with thin neon or neon-rich atmospheres. Check the spreadsheet listing all current known locations - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zetAjIi8dPcbt7j3KK30vUsIx_vuyxDatq3_P8Kg-Co/htmlview#

Untilting · Aug 14, 2023

Aleks Zuno said:
I have some questions related to evacuations from Alert systems:

Given a vessel which is impervious enough to Scythe attacks, how would one rate the credits rewards from the VIP Passenger missions after a bit of reputation is formed?

Is it worth stopping to destroy a Scythe for the extra 4.5 million credits, or better not to delay the missions?

Is it better generally to stay with bulk Economy transport, to get more Business, more First, or a balanced proportion?

It is worth the extra investment to harden a Saud Kruger vessel in return for making Luxury available?

For a little context, a Commander was seeking to earn credits and became my Orthrus-slaying apprentice for a bit, and has now very much graduated after destroying eighteen of them alone in Fotlandjera. There are still some earnings remaining to reach a Fleet Carrier though; it occurred to me that a Missions board with VIP rewards averaging around 8–10 million credits at neutral reputation could become at least competitive with Orthrus combat bonds, and it would be quite nice to add Scythes to the skill-set.

I did evac runs out of Ebisu in the last alert cycle, where I already had reasonable rep with a couple of the factions, and the earnings on bulk economy runs were very variable but very high - 50-150 million credits per Cutter run (4 jumps each way, usually a couple of Scythe 'dictions on the way out and an interceptor hyperdiction when returning empty to the Alert system). Was green with all the factions by the end of the day, the grateful tykes. I did try refitting First class and taking VIPs once, but IIRC they insisted on a separate cabin for each party, so the return I made on that run was substantially less than the bulk runs which used all the spaces - 16+ groups. My ship was unarmed, so for Scythes I just ECM'd and ran.

Grimscrub · Aug 14, 2023

Omumba carrier report - 5,015 samples thus far. When current buy order is complete, will transfer ~13k to the secondary carrier and continue.
It might not be done in a week, but better uptake than I'd feared - and the conflict zones give an option for folk when they need a break from sampling.

Felix DiCestria · Aug 14, 2023

Kira Goto said:
No, there’s definitely sites on planets with thin neon or neon-rich atmospheres. Check the spreadsheet listing all current known locations - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zetAjIi8dPcbt7j3KK30vUsIx_vuyxDatq3_P8Kg-Co/htmlview#

The list states Neon or Neon Rich but no 'Thin neon' atmosphere.

Ian Doncaster · Aug 14, 2023

Felix DiCestria said:
The list states Neon or Neon Rich but no 'Thin neon' atmosphere.

This is probably just a terminology difference: all the barnacle matrix sites are on planets with a "Thin X" atmosphere, because otherwise they wouldn't be landable, so the sheet seems to have omitted the "Thin" qualifier throughout.

EDIT: yes, Arietis Sector KR-V b2-1 is listed as "Neon" on the sheet and "Thin Neon" on Spansh, for example

Disemboweled Ego · Aug 14, 2023

Disemboweled Ego said:
It'd be a pain to do the stats on that but maybe the detailed material composition of the planets matters?

I looked at that and got nothing obvious.

Maybe they have an unusual % of tier 1 mats? What's would the average for an odyssey planet be anyway? I guess a low amount would indicate the presence of more other materials.

What are the odds of randomly covering all the unique planetary materials with the amount of sites they dropped? It could still be a fluke though.

Ned Flandalorian · Aug 14, 2023

Felix DiCestria said:
Though as Ian said Oya had a choice of 4 and picked 2, skipped 2. Why did they skip 2? Possibly Thin Neon atmosphere isn't suitable?

Because they would be trivial to find if they used every possibility. Also immersion breaking for a maelstrom that has been beaten back so successfully to suddenly have four brick-wall (no recapture progress possible) systems present.

I think at this point the only conclusion that could be made is that whatever these sites are, they are going to involve Odyssey-exclusive (space-legs) content in some way due to being placed only on planets with atmospheres.