Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

[Aleks Zuno]

Hmmm US-Z b14-7 isn't going anywhere in a hurry, seems like it would be more useful for me to help finish off SX-Z b14-0 for now, right?

You can use any Spire site to the same effect—actions at any remaining site will progress Col 285 Sector SX-Z b14-0! Most Commanders have congregated at Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-7 due to preferable gravity.

As individual rules, they are:

• Actions at any Spire site add percentage progress to the ten peripheral systems.
• Spire sites can receive only peripheral progress.

 

[Kira Goto]

Hmmm US-Z b14-7 isn't going anywhere in a hurry, seems like it would be more useful for me to help finish off SX-Z b14-0 for now, right?

Spire progress at the inner one will still count for the outer peripheral spire. Or should, anyway.

(Well, I was beaten to it)

 

[Jack Brolin]

Aha I understand, thank you! I thought that may be the case. Sorry I'm new to this AX lark & still trying to make sense of all the info, thanks for clarifying o7

 

[Grimscrub]

Q - got a wing my side sampling, reporting that astral flame, while listed as having an open buy order for KW-M c7-3 in the chart with ~5700 to go is Not buying samples - any info on that?

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Q - got a wing my side sampling, reporting that astral flame, while listed as having an open buy order for KW-M c7-3 in the chart with ~5700 to go is Not buying samples - any info on that?

Goodness—apparently the order with 3600 was complete! I am nudging V now; would you like more units or for that to be delivered?

Additional: With 12% progress and 3600 stored, it needs another 1760. It has a buy now, if you want!
Additional additional: We can also finish that in a bit if needed!

 

[Grimscrub]

Goodness—apparently the order with 3600 was complete! I am nudging V now; would you like more units or for that to be delivered?

Just checked with AffaGammaRanna - their wing's sampling for the system still at the moment, if it'd be alright to extend the buy order to the full amount, could be good to check one more off the list.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Just checked with AffaGammaRanna - their wing's sampling for the system still at the moment, if it'd be alright to extend the buy order to the full amount, could be good to check one more off the list.

Already done, also many apologies; the full 3600 was a complete surprise, and to have your wing also join it makes things move quite a bit faster than I can track! It needs just an extra 1760 to meet the already present progress.

 

[Grimscrub]

Surprised me too - same as the silent 7k delivery for my own carrier. I'd been publishing the targets listed over in discord, a screencap of the targets table here really - but didn't expect that much Active support to continue after the heavy push for endgame in Oya, thought there'd be more downtime/burnout and back to more normal efforts.

Not sure who was behind that, but I should give kudos to AffaGammaRanna and their folk - did thousands for the end of Oya in turn... AIR1 as their squadron for proper credit, 20k in the server, only 500 axin and all, lot of differing efforts going in.

 

[Grimscrub]

Midnight here, but before I ko -

Spire assist has done its job for the week.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Spire assistance has been wonderful! I have been introducing more Commanders to it by means of boarding my Cutter as a gunner role, especially those asking about Credits. Due to that, actually I was going to ask—are Commander-piloted fighters generally acceptable at a Spire site? I recall them causing some problems for Invasion port defence, but if that does not apply at a Spire site or was simply due to hired crew then I will bring the AX Taipan and perhaps unlock the Javelin.

On the clearance front, it seems our friends are not stopping—we have the next system Col 285 Sector QM-B b14-6 also cleared yesterday! I will keep the week 74 periphery updated with the next projection, or with Carriers if AIR1 wishes to announce open orders of course. I have linked also week 74 to the additional clearance effects, for which that superb effort places us presently at three extra systems.

Presently week 78 is at 8 Control with plenty of time to spare, thus a presumed Titan attack in week 79. The effects of next few advancements are:

• 6 Control in week 78
• 4 Control in week 78
• More spare time later
• 3 Control in week 78, reducing one per clearance from there.

Additional: My comment there is that the goal of advancing further has gone beyond smoothing things ahead and now would be to expedite the Titan attack. Notably such can still occur at any moment prior to week 78, so a bit more now would go towards completing it later and reaching 0 Control in week 78. I could not possibly ask for that, though!

 

[Kira Goto]

I’d play it slightly conservatively in the lack of knowledge of whether there will be another (scripted or otherwise) response event as the Titan drops to single digit controls, but at the same time, if its resistance is dropped sufficiently that it can be taken out within the week(despite the larger supercruise distance)…

On the note of that continued player interest in clearance, I have to admit I’m positively surprised about the turnout in invasion clearance. Earlier during the weekend I thought that HIP 117177 around Raijin was going to make it through to next week, with the other invasions to keep people busy, but here we are with it in the clear too(and one of the other outpost invasions around Cocijo over the 33% mark as well).

 

[Zorbul]

I'm practically a novice in Orthrus hunting, so my adventures yesterday at Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-7 weren't particularly successful. On my first attempt there were plenty of CMDRs and everything seemed easy, but then I suffered a permanent shutdown. Instead of a minute or so, it lasted so long I eventually hit the ground and bounced up and down indefinitely until I got bored and exited to the main menu. I was surprised to find that my hull was still at 75 %. The permanent shutdown must be a bug, but is it common at spire sites? Or a new bug cause I haven't encountered it before?

My other attempts weren't as promising as the first. On my second try there were no other CMDRs, so I was quickly done for. Then I found the next instance plagued by tons of scouts. There were other CMDRs and we eventually cleared the scouts, but then my hull was at 7 % and I called it a day.

 

[Grimscrub]

Rough notes -
Far as Aleks

• AIR1 were more, the wing helping fill the orders than setting buy orders themselves I believe. For now I'd set a stretch order for KW-M c7-2 aboard the Invicta in Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-2, no samples logged yet there so guessing they got what they could done then called it a night.
  ----- Addendum... It helps if I set the docking properly, samples now underway i believe.
• I Think player crewed fighters are alright but there were reports of instancing issues where they seemed to get thrown into fresh fights rather than any ongoing engagements at the spire. Might want to do a mixed team, gather your crew then wing up with someone who's already in an active spire instance for best experience?

Zorbul-wise -
- Perma shutdown usually occurs if a ship gets hit by a second shutdown field while already shut down, seeming to break the reset to powered up. Relog is necessary if it lasts much longer than the usual shutdown sadly. It was seen on and off back in the old AX conflict zones and invasions, led to people trying to focus down one interceptor at a time usually, but spires... well.

- Orthrus if they take overwhelming firepower but not quite enough to die will panic shield, firing Another shutdown/anti guardian field at approx the same time where no other interceptor does,​

- and sometimes folk are very enthusiastic to tag every orthrus they see... meaning several orthrus fire their shutdown fields in rapid succession, leaving anyone who didn't have two or three SFN on their ship a bit stuck.
​

- Scouts, it can be a reason for EAXMC ships to be a valuable resource - every orthrus hit means support called in, which can take the form of a solid chunk of scouts and-or a cyclops class interceptors, which add up a fair amount. Some anecdotally claim that taking those out makes new orthrus spawn a little faster but, not sure.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

For now I'd set a stretch order for KW-M c7-2 aboard the Invicta in Col 285 Sector PM-B b14-2, no samples logged yet there so guessing they got what they could done then called it a night.

Noted onto the week 74 periphery, and we can help that drive later!

Might want to do a mixed team, gather your crew then wing up with someone who's already in an active spire instance for best experience?

Meeting the Spire party with boarded crew was quite fine at least, although will consider that if I discover any problems with bringing three of us rather than two. After having joined the active Spire successfully, the hope then is that choosing to deploy a fighter causes no problems! Also, speaking of having a E.AX. multi-cannon gunner—

Scouts, it can be a reason for EAXMC ships to be a valuable resource - every orthrus hit means support called in, which can take the form of a solid chunk of scouts

This is a probably quite late observation, but I found that bringing the turret E.AX. multi-cannons was advantageous well beyond bringing Commanders along to crew them for Credits! Beyond around 1 km, they have been entirely better at destroying Scouts than the gimbal E.AX. or Azimuth options purely due to maintaining a such smoother aim even without crew, and indeed the INIV harvest wing now uses turrets.

A later check found that the Outfitting damage numbers are very misleading in trying to be helpful and showing the damage versus Human vessels, where actually the turrets have a higher AX damage proportion. Versus Thargoids it corresponds to around two-thirds of the gimbal option, becoming superior when the gimbal Scout hits drop below two-thirds at around 1.3 km, with turrets remaining accurate just beyond 2 km.

 

[Jack Brolin]

Spire assistance has been wonderful! I have been introducing more Commanders to it by means of boarding my Cutter as a gunner role, especially those asking about Credits. Due to that, actually I was going to ask—are Commander-piloted fighters generally acceptable at a Spire site? I recall them causing some problems for Invasion port defence, but if that does not apply at a Spire site or was simply due to hired crew then I will bring the AX Taipan and perhaps unlock the Javelin.

I've been training a pilot up at the Spire, she's had quite the baptism of fire Had my npc fighter out while a wingmate was piloting his own fighter last night and didn't notice any related issues. I'm using Lances, she can pop Cyclops hearts with her tiny gauss cannons, I'm so proud. And the Guardian fighters seem unaffected by the Orthrus module melting effect, which is nice (and means I have to try taking them to a Maelstrom now, for science)

This is a probably quite late observation, but I found that bringing the turret E.AX. multi-cannons was advantageous well beyond bringing Commanders along to crew them for Credits! Beyond around 1 km, they have been entirely better at destroying Scouts than the gimbal E.AX. or Azimuth options purely due to maintaining a such smoother aim even without crew, and indeed the INIV harvest wing now uses turrets.

For some reason I got it in my head that the turreted ones just allowed you to have a gunner and didn't auto fire, now I feel dumb, and have to buy even more AX weapons, god dammit
Srsly thanks I'll have to try them out, I've been having great success using a couple of small turreted beams to keep a Corvette cool - just follow a helpful Scout around for a few seconds, no heat, the rest of the swarm largely ignore you and you can leisurely take them out one by one - for large ships they seem way more effective than gimbals.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

I’d play it slightly conservatively in the lack of knowledge of whether there will be another (scripted or otherwise) response event as the Titan drops to single digit controls, but at the same time, if its resistance is dropped sufficiently that it can be taken out within the week(despite the larger supercruise distance)…

No INIV plan will account for that at least—because the INIV plan for that is to retire. Some benefit-of-doubt extends conditionally, as far as:

• Having more Alert attacks available.
• Using them without specific attackers.
• Sending them farther.
• Maybe with shorter non-zero respite intervals, but that is now asking much.

The biggest problem was Cephei Sector WO-A b3, for which the response to cleared Control going directly into Alert was a hard and repeated no. It said the next state would be unpopulated, yet the next state was Alert, a completely unacceptable outcome which questions what we are doing and leads to doing it no longer.

Moreover, all of this would need addressing:

• Why have other Titans not done anything like that?
  • Perhaps not T. Taranis, but why not T. Leigong?
• What did it cost?
• Why can it be done only with few Control, or why is it not done as often as possible?
• Where is the Galnet investigation into this new capability?
  • How it is that the only mention of other Titans in the Galnet article¹ was merely that five remain and what to once a Titan is reached, without considering the emergency response to attempts to reach it?
• After the intended reward system was waived for two Titans due to ongoing problems, and an attempted correction was announced at the last moment and just happened to coincide with exposing T. Oya only after delaying us, how would one possibly convince people that such a haphazard event was not to delay for time to release said fix?
  • Points about being paranoid or the idea being unprovable are not good enough here; that explanation is perfectly simple, and warrants a genuinely better alternative explanation.
  • Every single time poor Paul Crowther has to tell us about a waived reward requirement, it marks something Frontier really did not want to occur!

With that in mind, imagine asking the following:

• If the Galaxy map outcomes cannot be trusted following our time to achieve them, why should we continue?
• If this is a new capability to understand and perhaps prevent, why not just wait until the story gets around to that?
• If attempts to reach a Titan while there are ongoing Titan problems are met with delays to fix the problems, why attempt prior?
  • Fully aware that problems remain; we were already preparing M. Hadad prior to any of that, and the news about the update not having fixed it was only this week.

Of course there are no answers at present, but consider them not required in return for never happening again. It could also be something else, but try then to apply the same process if so; ask what we are lacking in response to it, and ask why we should continue given its premise!

1. For which the headline is worded uncharacteristically poorly! The phrase confirmed as destroyed by Aegis should be confirmed by Aegis as destroyed.

 

[Kira Goto]

The only meaningful answer I can really give to that is, Frontier should be upfront about if if they want a Titan assault delayed, as opposed to (only) giving it some kind of lore background.

For which the headline is worded uncharacteristically poorly! The phrase confirmed as destroyed by Aegis should be confirmed by Aegis as destroyed.

It also took several days following its destruction on Sunday to get the article. I’m also not even sure how important lore or story implications currently still are on the Titan war/arc end to Frontier*, considering how the 30 alert spam at Oya occurred. (With its ignoring ‘rules’ and all that.) So, some poor wording on their part is… sadly, not too surprising to me.

*I feel (too much?) like it is simply being rushed to an end for the Powerplay rework, and whether it makes logical sense within the ruleset established, and then discovered by players, seems to be a lesser concern.

And though I think it makes little sense for a Titan to just sit there waiting to be taken out, I also admit that just throwing out 30 alerts which care not for rules is a bit of a gut punch. Though, I’m not sure of any ways to implement a better solution pre-Titan assault… perhaps there should’ve been something when it lost a few hearts, like the interceptors with their shutdown pulse on destruction of the second-last one.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

like it is simply being rushed to an end for the Powerplay rework

The most awkward potential thing there is that having slowed down the attack on Oya a week or so, if they do want it all out of the way for Powerplay's launch - and that doesn't get delayed further - they're going to have to start bringing in other things to weaken the post-Hadad (post-Thor, maybe?) Titans quite substantially.

(If the two can coexist, then it's no big deal, of course)

Though, I’m not sure of any ways to implement a better solution pre-Titan assault…

A minor (hindsight!) modification to what they did might have been sufficient:
- place the 30 Alerts at Oya, but respect system cooldowns (so the average Alert ends up marginally further out, but it really doesn't make much difference overall)
- don't place any Alerts from any other Titan that week (instant explanation of "how?" and "why not every week?"; doesn't make a meaningful difference to the wider war)

 

[Captain-MD]

So I've missed out on offloading the last couple of systems cause I (somewhat stupidly) decided to withhold offloading after my scythe farming sessions so I'm just gonna get a head start on Col 285 Sector KW-M c7-4 since it needs the most steam and hold those until Thursday evening.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

So I've missed out on offloading the last couple of systems cause I (somewhat stupidly) decided to withhold offloading after my scythe farming sessions so I'm just gonna get a head start on Col 285 Sector KW-M c7-4 since it needs the most steam and hold those until Thursday evening.

Thank you ever so much, and excellent choice! I presume you read that after I noted it as a future attacker; either way, towards the end of a week it seems indeed a good strategy to store for those—and definitely to mention it.