Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

Next week's invasions will be easier because some of them will have planetary ports instead of outposts, but given the fact there's most likely going to be 9 we're probably going to lose some. Especially Scythia - no chance a 270KLs solitary outpost gets defended.
 
@Phill P , yeah I see what you mean with systems like that -- I would say it's wisest to just write it off and let the goids bother with those quaternary hellholes.

Chinas ticked up 3% since I last wrote. Well if anything it's gonna be a close race.
Will next week's invasions also be that hard? As there's gonna be quite a few of them, we'd never be able to defend all of them at this difficulty.
Well one thing about Invasions is they last longer than a week so you get several goes at it, kind of thing. Alerts are sudden death, they only last a week. But let's be clear about the difficulty. It seems only sampling has been nerfed a bit and other activities like rescues, deliveries etc. work as well as they have always done.

On that note Invasions do not appear to be any more difficult to clear than they were the last time we had them. But that doesn't mean they won't take a lot of work. They will. Chinas was always a bit tougher than the average Invasion due to being 17.46 Ly from the Titan. Like all systems the difficulty starts to ramp up severely from 20 Ly in.
 
Unless some kind of last minute attempt at overthrowing Scythia’s alert happens in the few hours from here to the reset… well, I feel a bit sorry for the work GXI’s put into retaking that system. (Though I’m not sure/aware of why they chose to go for it in particular, only that they did.)

As it’s been said, a 270k ls outpost is already a very unfavorable scenario where they are generally the least popular… and with 7-8 other invasions to go around for that same week? Well, I’m not gonna hedge any bets…
 
Well, the good early news this week is, Taranis appears to behave according to rules and has gone for Hupang only.

Though I do remain reserved about any potential early post-maintenance shenanigans possibly still occurring.
 

Week 56, 21st December 3309​

Report
Fourteen Alerts repelled at Cephei Sectors AV-Y b0, AV-Y b6, AF-A c21, ZE-A c8 and WO-A b4, Pegasi Sectors RE-N a8-0, DG-X c1-6 and JH-U b3-9, Col 285 Sectors OB-E b12-4, MG-E b12-2, EA-Q c5-6 and JA-G b11-0, HIP 9709 and Vistnero.
Five Invasions defended at Chinas, Obamumbo, Iduni and HIPs 21261 and 7338.
One Control eviction at Pegasi Sector MY-O a7-5.
The defended Invasion systems will start Recovery.

Targets updated at 06:30 28th December 3309
HIP 20577 Invasion 74% — Indra 18 Ly, 3 ports, 169 Ls 1.4g planet attack
HIP 22524 Control 70% *70.2%Indra 20 Ly, 1360 strength
Mahlina Invasion 58% — Cocijo 21 Ly, 1 port, 224 Ls outpost attack
70 Tauri Invasion 58% — Indra 21 Ly, 2 ports, 3010 Ls outpost attack
Lei Hsini Control 54% — Indra 21 Ly, 1816 strength
Hyades Sector JH-V c2-13 Control 38% — Indra 19 Ly, 1594 strength
Hyades Sector NN-S b4-3 Control 38% — Indra 19 Ly, 1522 strength
Hyades Sector PI-S b4-3 Control 38% — Indra 20 Ly, 1366 strength
Scythia Invasion 26% *27.1%Indra 20 Ly, 1 port, 270k Ls outpost attack
HIP 20712 Alert 24% — Indra 19 Ly
Luggerates Invasion 18% — Oya 22 Ly, 4 ports, 14k Ls outpost attack
Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-1 Control 10% *10.9%Hadad 19 Ly, 2047 strength
Col 285 Sector WY-F b12-3 Control 10% — Cocijo 18 Ly, 8693 strength
Col 285 Sector RH-B b14-5 Alert 6% *7.7%Hadad 15 Ly
HIP 22265 Alert 6% — Indra 18 Ly
Arietis Sector MM-V b2-1 Alert 4% *5.9%Indra 17 Ly
HIP 116360 Alert 4% *5.6%Raijin 21 Ly, 649 Ls outpost, 462 Ls planet
Col 285 Sector RH-B b14-4 Alert 4% *5.2%Hadad 16 Ly
Pegasi Sector KC-U b3-0 Control 4% *4.9%Raijin 27 Ly
Pegasi Sector KC-U b3-3 Control 4% *4.9%Raijin 27 Ly
Pegasi Sector NN-S b4-3 Matrix 4% *4.2%Raijin 24 Ly
Pegasi Sector BQ-Y d71 Control 4% — Raijin 26 Ly, 1475 strength
Iceniguari Control 4% — Raijin 23 Ly, 2589 strength
Pegasi Sector BQ-Y d93 Control 4% — Raijin 24 Ly, 768 strength
Pegasi Sector KC-U b3-2 Control 4% — Raijin 24 Ly, 800 strength
Pegasi Sector PE-N a8-2 Control 4% — Raijin 23 Ly, 931 strength
Pegasi Sector TK-L a9-5 Control 4% — Raijin 25 Ly, 584 strength
Sugalis Control 4% — Raijin 23 Ly, 2375 strength
HIP 113535 Control 2% *3.2%Raijin 20 Ly, 4224 strength
HIP 20397 Alert 2% *2.9%Indra 18 Ly
HIP 8525 Control 2% *2.6%Oya 18 Ly, 8914 strength
HIP 38718 Alert 2% *2.1%Cocijo 21 Ly
HIP 21475 Alert 2% — Indra 18 Ly
Col 285 Sector UH-C b13-2 Control 2% — Thor 21 Ly, 1602 strength
Dhang Tzela Control 2% — Thor 19 Ly, 6893 strength
Col 285 Sector JA-G b11-1 Control 2% — Thor 19 Ly, 2366 strength
Col 285 Sector MG-E b12-0 Alert 2% — Thor 19 Ly
Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-2 Control 2% — Hadad 19 Ly, 2461 strength
Col 285 Sector QB-E b12-2 Control 2% — Thor 19 Ly, 2364 strength
Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-0 Control 2% — Hadad 18 Ly, 2667 strength
HIP 19046 Control 2% — Thor 18 Ly, 2663 strength
Pegasi Sector GW-W d1-115 Control 2% — Raijin 23 Ly, 2892 strength

Notes
The Alert report lists predicted attackers.

Week 55, 14th December 3309​

Report
Nineteen Alerts repelled at Cephei Sector AF-A c22, Col 285 Sectors KA-G b11-0, NG-E b12-3, KB-O c6-2, UN-H b11-5, YT-F b12-6, SS-H b11-4, OS-T d3-105, JA-G b11-3, ZT-F b12-4, PM-B b14-3, PM-B b14-4, SH-B b14-2, KW-M c7-31 and RM-B b14-8, Arietis Sector LM-V b2-3, Nu Guang and Pegasi Sectors NY-O a7-1 and QE-N a8-1.
One Invasion defended at Kurumanit.
The defended Invasion system will start Recovery.
Maelstroms Indra, Oya and Thor each lose one attack.
 
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Mahlina also only has one station (an outpost) so if it doesn't get defended this week it may not be salvageable.
That really depends on how much progress it gets during the first week, and whether the scenario which spawns lots of Scythes(and, more often than not, interceptors) is active at anything other than damaged surface ports*, so combat remains technically viable.

*I didn’t ‘visit’ Chinas to see if that is the case around its damaged outpost, and it will also clear before I log on again anyway. Also presumes what occurred in Omumba at the end of U16 was not just a one off. I never saw any Glaives there, though.

(And that enough people care or even know about it to visit Mahlina, but with Hupang as the absolute guaranteed invasion next week, that’s unlikely.)

Still has a better chance than Scythia though.
 
Mahlina also only has one station (an outpost) so if it doesn't get defended this week it may not be salvageable.
Seems that we'll take Chinas back today or tomorrow morning at latest. Mahlina is precisely my next place to fight in*—anyone deciding to go and fight there will have at least one crazy for a company, timezones and instancing allowing🙂

*While surface ports are easier to fight at (no swarms, plenty of landing pads, plenty of people around to make taking out Hydras rather trivial), I get stuttering when very close to the port and that makes aiming harder. Besides, I need practice avoiding swarms.
 
*While surface ports are easier to fight at (no swarms, plenty of landing pads, plenty of people around to make taking out Hydras rather trivial), I get stuttering when very close to the port and that makes aiming harder. Besides, I need practice avoiding swarms.
I might’ve joined you there except I’m still busy getting my alt set up to even be capable of(and have a ship for) fighting Thargoids. Which I don’t think I’ll be getting through with this week… as I have yet to get most of the engineers and am busy at the Guardian sites at the moment. Material reserves also aren’t looking too great yet while trying to avoid relog loops.
 
Yeah, Chinas is almost done (97% now, so 32% progress in ~27hrs), and conveniently there is another system with Ground CZ around Raijin so we'll have one or two more days of action before we need to think about moving. Idunis is at 22ly so it'll move faster than Chinas. If all the players stick around, it should resolve some time tomorrow afternoon.

The irony is that Idunis has a population of 968. Not 968k, but less than 1000 people. The sensible course of action in a more simulative and roleplaying approach would be to send 3 Pythons to evacuate these people and focus the combat effort elsewhere. However, when last I looked, the game didn't keep track of population available for evacuation, so we could probably evacuate a million people and it would still say Pop 968. :p
 
The irony is that Idunis has a population of 968. Not 968k, but less than 1000 people. The sensible course of action in a more simulative and roleplaying approach would be to send 3 Pythons to evacuate these people and focus the combat effort elsewhere. However, when last I looked, the game didn't keep track of population available for evacuation, so we could probably evacuate a million people and it would still say Pop 968.
2,321, technically. Invasions lose population as they progress, from week 1.

Point still applies, and yes, population sizes are... effectively... still ignored for the majority of, if not all gameplay/systems involved in or affected by the war. And lore too, since they return to full population when retaken by humans. Where would those spare 6 billion people come from if Lhou Mans around Oya was recaptured? I dunno, but I doubt most of the original population are alive at this point in time.

So this does lead to funny interactions where you can evacuate an entire population's worth of numbers(or more) and... still have evacs available. Which I dare say is reasonable as a gameplay feature. (As it is that the system is not considered 'lost' then, but one could also argue the evacuation of the civilian population and wounded military personnel does not equate losing the fight.)

Best not to question it too much. And I doubt players would be too happy for a system in invasion state to be considered 'lost' if the entire population was evacuated.
 
Yeah, ofc it shouldn't be lost when everyone is evacuated - I was thinking the other way round: when everyone has been taken to safety, you can afford to give up the system, and focus on others that can't be evacuated to easily. Now ofc this would require a new level of simulation, where the amount of dead civilians actually had a meaning.
 
Did a visit to Chinas' damaged outpost, and I can confirm the same thing happens there as Omumba - a few Scythes at first, then an ever-increasing horde of Interceptors and Scouts once you've blown up a couple. Anyone who wants to fight in one instance for an extended time will need a wing of experienced players, I think...
 
*While surface ports are easier to fight at (no swarms, plenty of landing pads, plenty of people around to make taking out Hydras rather trivial), I get stuttering when very close to the port and that makes aiming harder. Besides, I need practice avoiding swarms.
I've had this too, inconsistent frame hiccups when you're flying around no matter how low the settings are.
It was already bad enough that glaives will often show up and ruin the instance, since you either can't repair (UI button becomes inactive) or your modules degrade to at least 80% before you undock, and then they lose all of their remaining integrity before you can even reach the glaives due to the NPCs pulling them away.
Fighting at settlements is simply unbearable for me now, but I'm happy to run outposts (or the open space AX CZs, provided they're not next to a star) solo.

Why did we (supposedly) get a fix for the interceptors flying too far from the CZs, but not one for the NPCs doing the same thing when they are the actual root cause?
 
I guess I was too optimistic with my Idunas projection... the source of error being my assumption that the players present at Raijn would stick around. It's Friday night, prime time, and I just soloed an entire ground instance in Open without anyone else hopping in. :(

BTW at one point 3 Glaives came popping in, which annoyed me to no end because I was there with my (guardianized) FAS. It took a lot of docking and repairing, but together with my trusty NPC allies they were finally wiped out. Otherwise it was same old; one Basi thrown in the mix and otherwise only piles and piles of Cyclopes.
 
I guess I was too optimistic with my Idunas projection... the source of error being my assumption that the players present at Raijn would stick around. It's Friday night, prime time, and I just soloed an entire ground instance in Open without anyone else hopping in. :(

BTW at one point 3 Glaives came popping in, which annoyed me to no end because I was there with my (guardianized) FAS. It took a lot of docking and repairing, but together with my trusty NPC allies they were finally wiped out. Otherwise it was same old; one Basi thrown in the mix and otherwise only piles and piles of Cyclopes.
Some of us are sticking around, Idunas is our current target now Chinas is clear. How many in Open can't say though, but hopefully you'll get some company at some point.
 
It's Friday night, prime time, and I just soloed an entire ground instance in Open without anyone else hopping in
Likely that a considerable amount of folks are travelling for holidays or otherwise occupied with festive events, so the weekend rush is quieter this time.
 
What does pending attack report mean here, exactly? Trying to determine if it is peripheral progress or someone actually fighting there?

In general it means that INTRA has not seen anybody broadcast from there yet, such that the location of the attack it thinks must be present is considered unconfirmed, although definitely it could benefit from being given a bit of intelligence there! Short of updating them manually, a Commander landing there while broadcasting the Journal ought to jostle it.

I will have to pester V about that; obviously in this case the final or only port must get an attack, as must a non-Starport in a system with only itself and Starports, either of which could benefit also from watching other ports being confirmed safe.
 
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