Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

[Shurimal]

I saw it on my contacts and decided to instead investigate. I would say it was worth it.

Poor thing has had enough about endlessly respawning non-killable commanders with gauss cannons, modshards and plasma chargers... She's having a complete nervous breakdown, I think she need a cup of hot chocolate and a hug

(98% Cyclops and Scouts only). And then bang, the two Hydras arrive & you have to relog, which is kind of crazy and removes a little bit of satisfaction.. (at least for me). Of course there is still open play, but I observed that more CMDRs do the brave Sir Robin (which I try to avoid in open) when the Hydras drop in than at planet sides.

Yep, the difficulty cliff is real. Sometimes you get a good instance and 2 or 3 AX aces willing to take the Hydras on. I just wait for a minute after the endbosses make their entrance, check my player contact list and whether there are colourful beams going on in the dark. If yes, join the party; if no--well, time to cash in. It's not that my 3 modshards can even exert a heart on these things before it going into rage state.

but as is I’m not very confident I’d like to take a Guardian-only weapon build to a surface port

If there are other commander the Glaives won't live very long, IME they become everyone's top priority. Modshards take them out before they can melt the guns and a Cutter could have 3 large eAXMC-s plus 2 modshards and 2 TV beams for effective "do-it-all" rig that can kill Cyclops easily, Basilisks reasonably well and Glaives very effectively. 2 modshards, 2 eAXMC-s and a TV beam Krait is also very effective. The biggest downside is having to do the 10 second scan for targeting hearts with the MC-s, but 2 modshards can take out a Cyclop's heart fast enough, just set the sights to trailing. Of course such a set up is not very helpful at dealing with a Hydra, even if you have 2 of the same ships attacking it.

30 minutes! Last time I soloed an instance, it kept me busy a full 90 minutes. Sure, a better pilot might get through somewhat faster, but not by that much.

I'd say ~60 minutes for a "normal" AX ship; 30 minutes is certainly GibConda territory. Trick is to engage multiple interceptors at a time--exert and destroy a heart on one, switch to the second and do the same, switch to the third if available. The NPC-s can keep them busy during the shield stage and you can cycle through them pretty efficiently. 4 modshards mean you don't even need to destroy the last heart, by that time their health is low enough you can just gib them. If you're lucky you can even gib a Cyclops after two hearts with 4 modshards, best to deliberately get caught in the lightning which gives the perfect position to dump the mag and gives a few extra seconds before the goid goes into shield state. Always make sure you have full magazines before your attack run, reload times can ruin a good gib opportunity

 

[Kira Goto]

She's having a complete nervous breakdown, I think she need a cup of hot chocolate and a hug

I tried to offer support by stopping the tumbling(as you see toward the end). Unfortunately, a Hydra’s weight class is just slightly above that of a Krait. And by slightly, I mean a lot.

 

[Kayvan]

Well, maybe it was her weight class that caused the breakdown!

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

An average outpost instance will have around 12-14 cyclops before the hydras appear. You can "encourage" interceptors other than cyclops to appear by taking missions for them and restarting the instance - it's not 100% guaranteed but there is a much better chance the ones you need will then spawn in (assuming you don't also take missions for cyclops kills...).

 

[Shurimal]

Well, maybe it was her weight class that caused the breakdown!

"Yo mama Thargoid queen" jokes incoming...

 

[RaketeMike]

30 minutes! Last time I soloed an instance, it kept me busy a full 90 minutes. Sure, a better pilot might get through somewhat faster, but not by that much. Maybe with a 6-shard Instagib Conda; haven't tried that. If I tallied the score halfway correctly, there were about 22-24 Cyclopes, or over 90 hearts. You really saying you can wreck the shields, exert a heart and destroy it, all in 20 seconds total, 90 times in a row, without fail, and after every 4th heart the next Clops is lined right up without ever having to cover distance? If so, then chapeau. Sorry if I'm sounding a bit incredulous, but yeah, I am.

Ok ok, touché.. no I am definitely not a that good AX pilot. What I wanted to express was that soloing an outpost CZ can be rather fast and easy, faster than I thought at least. And I am constantly changing between a 5 Azimuth AXMCs, 5 and 4 modshard Krait, and a 6-shard Anaconda (the latter one only at planets), that might be a small excuse to my calculations. Sorry..

Edit: .. by the way, is it possible that the relation scouts / clopses changes significantly? From what I remember, I had only around 10-12 clopses and lots & lots of scouts. I would say I had far below 20 clopses in the playing round I was referring to

 

[Shurimal]

Or you could hang out around the outpost anyway and witness the carnage that the presence of Scythes around it(and their big friends called in as backup) causes.

Went to the Converse Legacy in Mahlina. "Carnage" is the understatement of the year Some 4 or 5 Scythes buzzing around, zapped one, and holy Mahoney, in 5 minutes there were half a dozen interceptors in the instance, all dogpiling up on me specifically. Took 2 hearts out from one, 1 from another, hull down to 50%. The station declined my docking requests, at least two swarms decided to go kamikaze on me at the same time and that was it, "Say hello to the rebuy screen, puny human!".

Low AXCZ went better, fought off 2 Cyclops (but was credited with only one because an NPC finishing off the goid takes precedence apparently), had to bug out when a Basilisk showed up and I was down to 30% hull after 2nd heart.

 

[Kira Goto]

Went to the Converse Legacy in Mahlina. "Carnage" is the understatement of the year

I did the same at Luggerates’ damaged outpost, because I’d taken some missions there the day before(and didn’t complete them).

Of course, nobody else was there… at most, I could kill one or two Scythes before an interceptor decided to drop by, and with S&R NPCs(poorly outfitted S&R NPCs) potentially taking up the pads, I was not tempted to stick around. Especially with Basilisks often as the first(or next) thing to spawn in and often no AX NPCs unless RNG gives you a hand. Definitely not something to go do solo unless you’re masochistic.

(Now you know how I feel when I try to clean up Scouts near an interceptor before engaging it or helping those already fighting it, and suddenly everything drops what it was doing and begins to shoot me.)

Other minor annoyance - apparently the game just doesn’t count contributing to a kill unless… I don’t even know. You do a certain amount of damage or get the killing blow? I’ve certainly not gotten any kind of progress for Hydra kill missions even when I did more than just tag them with a beam laser from afar.

Or similarly Cyclops kills unless I was the one to finish them, which is a bit stupid imo.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

It's always been like that; missions will only progress if you or your teammates do the final damage on an interceptor.

 

[Kira Goto]

Right. Well, I guess you do get to learn something new every day. (Why didn’t I know this? I have no clue.)

assuming he has an AMD cpu)

You don’t actually need an AMD CPU or GPU for FSR to work - that system had an intel CPU and the 1060, still got framerate improvements out of the FSR. It does unfortunately come with a fairly heavy hit to visual quality, but that is… well, at least more tolerable compared to an unsteady framerate.

The biggest downside is having to do the 10 second scan for targeting hearts with the MC-s,

That definitely feels like a bit of a tedium for the AX multi build I’ve been using(beam laser as fifth, even with an unengineered powerplant, that actually is more than sufficient for keeping the ship at 0-1% heat with all four multis firing). Note that I didn’t ditch on heatsinks because .4 heat efficiency is still a bit awful when entering silent running(but I wasn’t bothered to resolve the “Do I support Sirius for powerplant engineering” debate for that alt character’s RP, so I went with it anyway)… and for burning off caustic.

Am familiar with the trailing sights though, quite like those. Works great with those high [shot] speed modified Guardian weapons… experiences from my time doing AX in the Bubble on my main until I devoted it to a non-violent path. Then I got an idea for another RP character, and here we are. I have yet to shill for Azimuth even temporarily… because they’re a well-known corp(if for the wrong reasons, lately) and that whole mess surrounding the Proteus Wave, plus preceding events.

Seriously, just how did they get away with the Alexandria without literally anyone ever pulling them up on that [redacted]?

(Also had my first ‘fun’ with a single Glaive in a hyperdiction today. Left with 73% hull after juking it a few times and winning the fight. Turns out it’s possible to boost right past it when it wants to engage its lightning and not have it try again until later, even though it slows down on purpose. And my Krait’s thrusters are not even G5 engineered.)

 

[Shurimal]

I have yet to shill for Azimuth even temporarily… because they’re a well-known corp(if for the wrong reasons, lately) and that whole mess surrounding the Proteus Wave, plus preceding events.

As someone so eloquently put it when discussing licking Azimuth boots to get the Good Stuff at the start of the war: "I can always kill them later".

I don’t even know. You do a certain amount of damage or get the killing blow?

Beats me. it's either killing blow or dealing damage within certain time before it dies. I suspect the latter since it works this way with human NPC-s: you can shoot the pirate down to 1% hull left, but if you don't hit them less than 10(?) seconds before they die in the hands of a System Authority, you don't get the credit. I've lost many small ship kills in high RES-s that way when using plasma accelerators. Considering that taking out a Cyclops/Basilisk heart is a ~30 second process if all goes smoothly the AX NPC-s have plenty of time to steal the kill if you turn your attention to another goid after shooting out the last heart of the first one and it goes to the shield phase. Makes GibConda rather appealing, frack you and your hull regeneration, you bloody Cyclops!

 

[Kira Goto]

Makes GibConda rather appealing, frack you and your hull regeneration, you bloody Cyclops!

Well, I’m not a fan of it so, it doesn’t really occur to me to try ‘gibbing’ over shooting off all the hearts(though I will happily try to sneak in the killing blow before the final shield gets raised… while feeling a bit sorry for the poor interceptor if I do get it).

That latter bit of finishing them prior to shield raise after the final heart is partly due to those pesky NPCs once killing a Basilisk from under my nose, after I did all the work and boosted away from it following the final heart(as I tended to do prior to replacing flak with a beam laser). There were enough of them that they cut through the shield and shot out its remaining hull before I got a chance to get back into range.

Also tend to forgo trying to double tag ones between hearts now for similar reasons, and I usually don’t like tempting fate if I’ve already buzzed a Basi into basically perma aggroing to me. Wouldn’t do to get a Cyclops lightning striking you from first heart destruction, while you managed to catch a Basilisk’s aggro right at that moment.

(I don’t understand why you can tag a big goid or anything else once, with a beam laser, and if a player kills it you get support credit anyway, but if an NPC in your solo instance finishes off a goid while you look the other way, after you did all the hard work? Nah, you get nothing. Another reason I avoid hitting more than one interceptor at a time now, will happily swat Scouts though.)

 

[Kayvan]

I wasn’t bothered to resolve the “Do I support Sirius for powerplant engineering” debate for that alt character’s RP, so I went with it anyway)

Ha, I pulled one over them: I got friendly with them by selling them exploration data... of previously explored systems! Hahaha! It's like selling them a bunch of addresses that you copied from a public phone book.

--

Played an instance in Open tonight (at 20577) and was joined by two other CMDRs... but unfo we didn't synergize well; somehow I kept bumping into someone, and I took way more damage than normal, even than playing solo and alternating between 3 Clopses. I guess it did speed up the process, but not by much.

Anyway, then towards the end I got the feeling the game trolled me: I was just leaving the station after repairing, and got the Surge alert... and the surge struck EXACTLY in the millisecond that the docking clamps released my ship, before I had the chance to engage the SFN. Then when the ship reactivated, I was already down to 94% hull again... and then there was another surge, which I neutralized, and immediately after YET ANOTHER, before my SFN could recharge. And still hadn't had the chance to boost away, so I was dead in the water AGAIN for the second time in one minute. And after that I was down to 80% already. Bah those ******s.

As for gibbing: at the very least, I try to kill it directly after breaking the final heart; for that I need 2 shots left in the mag. If it has one heart left and I still have 4 shots in the mag, I'll also happily gib it. 3 shards generally isn't enough to gib when it has 2 hearts left, unless you get help from someone else of course.

I've experienced very, very rarely that NPCs would kill a Ceptor... they do a decent job drawing aggro and also exerting hearts, but they rarely break one. Maybe if it's a big ship, a Conda or a Vette.

--

I meant to keep track of how many Ceptors would spawn in this outpost CZ, but I didn't manage. :/ I thought I was being smart by remembering my bond value at the beginning of the instance and doing the math, but then halfway in I realized I had been looking at some Bounties I forgot to cash in. Anyway, this one really didn't seem too big, maybe those 12 or so that have been mentioned earlier. However, even that small instance was enough to max out my ARX for the week. That was super-fast.

 

[Phill P]

If someone is also working at M.Oya. SNPX plans to let Hip 2422 go into Invasion (because with that layout of stations it will be a wonderfull invasionsystem) while clearing Aowicha and the other uninhabited alerts. @Phill P I think it was you who said that pdes doesn´t want to have invasions. However it would mean you can focus on the other 5 inhabited alert systems.

Perhaps. It's a nice thought. I know Invasions can be used as buffers and my opinion of it as a tactic hasn't changed as far as that goes. Being forced to use any kind of system as a buffer was and is a tacit admission that pilots are overwhelmed with the pace of expansion, so when people need to do that to have a chance of moving forward, or even forcing a stalemate, there's either a balance issue or it's intentionally overwhelming. In the first few months I still believe it was intentional but with a good story reason for it so I had no problem with being initially overwhelmed while we discovered how the war machine worked. I trusted the story to tell us why they want all this territory at some point and meanwhile things would be hectic until we understood the war machine and that process would take time, if for no other reason than the obvious one, that things cannot be deduced until they have been observed. I was cool with that.

But this time we've simply been knocked back hard by god handing for no other purpose than to drag it out for longer and create more Controls to stall us with. Because of ill judged and reactionary difficulty changes we've all been forced back to a stage we'd already moved on from through no fault of any pilots, and apparently making other activities more viable is not happening even though this latest nerf shows they could do that any time, so we are simply forced backwards.

What I said still holds true, ideally we want to clear Alerts before they become Invasions and clear the Controls that cause the Alerts because that's what we're supposed to do, we've seen it work, it's how we've all got as far as we have. Going round in circles protecting the same systems over and over while allowing more Controls to spawn is going backwards again. Not for any good reason this time, or one you can fit into a story and make sense of, but just to artificially hold us up.

Splitting rescues and deliveries between Invasions and Alerts further exacerbates the problem of not enough people in time to do it all so now we're back at the juggling Invasions stage again because of a panicky knee jerk reaction by the devs to everybody's hard work and progress, implemented with all the subtlety, style, sophistication and intelligence of a brick in the face.

It is currently impossible to clear all the Alerts in a week without more people. It can no longer be done by our small sampling division, Operation Kleenex. We've adopted a form of CMDR Mediocre's buddy sampling when we are together online and it works significantly faster than solo or two people on a signal, but the massive hike to the workload had people quitting who are only now slowly wandering back. We are also making and testing a sample calculator for unpopulated Alerts which is already good for 10-25 Ly so we know exactly what will be needed, or near as makes no odds.

We'd settle for knowing we could once again clear all the unpopulated Alerts at the very least because they are the most time critical, they will become new Controls and must be stopped if we are not to become overwhelmed again. Let the rescue and delivery side of things do whatever they can on populated Alerts and Invasions, no worries there. But the ability to clear unpopulated Alerts is a stage we need to be at to have any chance of preventing further expansions and new Controls happening for the very simple reason that they are not stopped, which will only make more work for those doing Controls.

If you're also up for doing unpopulated Alerts that's great to hear, hooking up and coordinating would seem to be a no brainer. Discord invite in my sig.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

It feels like with the return of invasions and the changes to Orthrus behavior in 17.01, everybody has abandoned the most effective way of retaking systems: spire activity.

 

[Starsong]

It feels like with the return of invasions and the changes to Orthrus behavior in 17.01, everybody has abandoned the most effective way of retaking systems: spire activity.

I’m not sure it is that good, though. With the extra required effort to kill Orthrus it’s very difficult to get up to 85% peripheral progress… and without INIV to sample the remaining 15% who’s going to clear them anyway?

 

[PapaDragon_I]

Perhaps. It's a nice thought. I know Invasions can be used as buffers and my opinion of it as a tactic hasn't changed as far as that goes. Being forced to use any kind of system as a buffer was and is a tacit admission that pilots are overwhelmed with the pace of expansion, so when people need to do that to have a chance of moving forward, or even forcing a stalemate, there's either a balance issue or it's intentionally overwhelming. In the first few months I still believe it was intentional but with a good story reason for it so I had no problem with being initially overwhelmed while we discovered how the war machine worked. I trusted the story to tell us why they want all this territory at some point and meanwhile things would be hectic until we understood the war machine and that process would take time, if for no other reason than the obvious one, that things cannot be deduced until they have been observed. I was cool with that.

But this time we've simply been knocked back hard by god handing for no other purpose than to drag it out for longer and create more Controls to stall us with. Because of ill judged and reactionary difficulty changes we've all been forced back to a stage we'd already moved on from through no fault of any pilots, and apparently making other activities more viable is not happening even though this latest nerf shows they could do that any time, so we are simply forced backwards.

What I said still holds true, ideally we want to clear Alerts before they become Invasions and clear the Controls that cause the Alerts because that's what we're supposed to do, we've seen it work, it's how we've all got as far as we have. Going round in circles protecting the same systems over and over while allowing more Controls to spawn is going backwards again. Not for any good reason this time, or one you can fit into a story and make sense of, but just to artificially hold us up.

Splitting rescues and deliveries between Invasions and Alerts further exacerbates the problem of not enough people in time to do it all so now we're back at the juggling Invasions stage again because of a panicky knee jerk reaction by the devs to everybody's hard work and progress, implemented with all the subtlety, style, sophistication and intelligence of a brick in the face.

It is currently impossible to clear all the Alerts in a week without more people. It can no longer be done by our small sampling division, Operation Kleenex. We've adopted a form of CMDR Mediocre's buddy sampling when we are together online and it works significantly faster than solo or two people on a signal, but the massive hike to the workload had people quitting who are only now slowly wandering back. We are also making and testing a sample calculator for unpopulated Alerts which is already good for 10-25 Ly so we know exactly what will be needed, or near as makes no odds.

We'd settle for knowing we could once again clear all the unpopulated Alerts at the very least because they are the most time critical, they will become new Controls and must be stopped if we are not to become overwhelmed again. Let the rescue and delivery side of things do whatever they can on populated Alerts and Invasions, no worries there. But the ability to clear unpopulated Alerts is a stage we need to be at to have any chance of preventing further expansions and new Controls happening for the very simple reason that they are not stopped, which will only make more work for those doing Controls.

If you're also up for doing unpopulated Alerts that's great to hear, hooking up and coordinating would seem to be a no brainer. Discord invite in my sig.

Yeah, i agree the last nerg was and still fells like a brick to the face. And we also see that more and more cmdr leaf sampling and honestly we don´t blame them wanting to do something more fun. However we were able to get many of them back in the cycle of chrismas. If it isn´t to often we sent a call for help many of them wanted to help us.
You said you were testing a sample calculator for unpopulated alerts. If you need more data for that we have about 9 systems measured since the nerf so we can give you that data if needed.
And also which sampels tactik do you mean? Is it that one were you produce a scout which doesn´t move and give 100% rates?
And about Hip 2422, we´ve now decided with that progress it already has, that it won´t be possible to let go into invasion so were now clearing Hip 2422 instead of Aowicha. Plus the last uninhabited alertsystem.
o7 and thanks for the detailed answer

 

[Shurimal]

I think it all comes down to having fun. While I like doing rescues in alerts--they pay well and are quite chill--fighting in invasion systems is undeniably a lot of fun for most players. Group fights in open around stations make AX combat accessible to anyone and the pay is good, no wonder people jump at the opportunity and stop doing other war activities. Spire sites before 17.01 were kind of cheesy, I never participated in it. Not much challenge in zapping Orthruses that don't even try to escape or deploy countermeasures, but good easy money so people had another gold rush which coincidentally was also helping the war effort.

I think people would flock back to spire sites if the interceptor spawns were dialed down to a few Cyclopses and a rare Basilisk and we had truly effective human AX weapons that could deal with the 130 armor rating of Orthrus. For comparison, 'Clops is 100, Basi 140 and class 3 eAXMC has armor piercing of just 33, Azimuth plasma charger is 110. Or anti anti-guardian field equipment to keep the actually good AX guns alive (would also help with Glaives). Come on, Aegis, haven't seen anything new from you for quite some time, get your scientists and engineers at it again!

 

[Kira Goto]

It’s not just armor rating but also hitpoint pool. When you consider that the Orthrus has a 6,250 MJ shield on top of its 1,170 hull HP(thanks AXI wiki), well, those human AX weapons start to feel rather inadequate. Might be a good idea to have someone with incendiary frags or something like that around(but those run out of ammo quickly… so I guess cytosrcamblers would be in order if you have them).

… the Basilisk serves as an even better example of the way the health pool matters a lot as well. Cyclops with 100 armor rating already reduces AXMC damage fairly significantly but they work great against it.

Meanwhile, you fight a Basi with them… you spend nearly half of your ammo reserves to exert it on the first two hearts, and need to stay within the ideal damage range at pretty much any moment. It absolutely still works(as I’ve done it myself)… and while having to worry less about the aiming and more about your flying is nice, it also makes me wish for the Guardian weapons when I fly a more support-centered build and find a Basi going about the instance.

(Would I try a Medusa? I’m not so sure.)

So yeah, human AX weapons are puny and the fact that they haven’t seen further development is almost criminal. Especially in light of things like the Glaive.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I’m not sure it is that good, though. With the extra required effort to kill Orthrus it’s very difficult to get up to 85% peripheral progress… and without INIV to sample the remaining 15% who’s going to clear them anyway?

I think the idea was to use it against Alert and Invasion systems, although I am extrapolating a bit there. Assuming that premise though, indeed it encounters a few logical hurdles I am about to list below, and indeed I cannot ask for harvest sessions within 20–25 Ly unless the goal is at least victory-adjacent!

It feels like with the return of invasions and the changes to Orthrus behavior in 17.01, everybody has abandoned the most effective way of retaking systems: spire activity.

Spire massacres have a quite slippery notion of exactly when they are effective, and are often very inefficient:

• The outer systems have to align with those one is attempting to complete; the only way to make choices is via non-peripheral clearing to manage the periphery reach next week.
• The efficiency drops a lot unless all of those systems are being cleared, so Commanders clearing the latter 15% need to match a mix of Alert, Invasion and Control which varies weekly.
• If their higher strength per point has not been reverted a bit, it calls upon so many Commanders for a such large amount of the week that one has to consider all of that firepower and whether it would be better just to visit Conflict zones at the present Maelstrom distance, a comparison overridden only when used as a means for combat wings to help Alert systems.

I think people would flock back to spire sites if the interceptor spawns were dialed down to a few Cyclopses and a rare Basilisk and we had truly effective human AX weapons that could deal with the 130 armor rating of Orthrus.

Have you tried the Sirius missiles? They introduce a bit of jitter and they have the original shot speed, but with more fire rate and a lot more capacity, and a very fast reload which improves also the long-term rate!