Elite Dangerous | Update 18.07 - 5th July 2024

[CMDR KSI_Asmo[dai]]

Anti Guardian Bits

Tactical Core Chips can still be had (at any time or tick) by going to a Thargoid Controlled System with a Military Surface Base e.g. HIP 19198 2B: Frank's Military Fort. (Note Controlled system, Invasion System not needed) Kill the Banshee and initial Revenant cadre in your SRV (Scorpion), then hang out in the Base's Courtyard and wax Revenants every time they get dropped off by a Scout (the Scouts do not attack you, they will hover on top of you though). The chips are a rare drop, so maybe one per three Scout drop offs from the Revenants you blast, but you can get other Mats plus the cash for killing the things. Better with a couple Wing Mates.

Caustic Crystals can be had in numbers by going to a live Titan, push into the Maelstrom until you get past the initial Pulse, then motor around the middle darker cloud and you will see Caustic Shards and Crystals (the needed Mat). Just troll back and forth - you'll see the white triangles pop up. Use a big ship with many Caustic sinks on one trigger, let 'em all fill up then jettison them. It's quite melty there, you will dissolve. Avoid getting too close to the Titan inner apple (reddish cloud) as you will generate more Pulses.

Hardened Surface Fragments can be had by exfoliating a live Titan, enjoy.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

Previously destroyed Titans have caustic shards floating around in space among other mats and items to pickup. I have heard that the hardened surface items are available as well from destroyed Titans. However I did not have the xeno pwa on my last trip so I cannot verify that yet.

 

[Torrle]

I fly the FDL with no hull repairs. I usually have 5-6 passes before I realize I need to leave.
(not a cold ship)
If you fly with hull repair, you can make so many passes until you get bored.

I do have repair, so yeah I generally fly until I run out of nanite torpedoes. I can comfortably hit 5-7 vents in a run, so that's usually around 11 runs for me.

I could synth more, but flying back to a station to reload is faster and more convenient than farming the mats.

Other advantages of shards over missiles are that they seem to deplete ammo slower (allowing for more runs before having to leave for restocking), and are easier to use against Scouts, Hunters and Interceptors. I personally did not have any issue with heat, maybe because of a beam laser with thermal vent that I was firing at the same time. Their major drawback as Torrle mentioned is their quite short range (1.7km, but in practice you will have to get even closer to the target to maximise damage because of the pellet spread). This makes repositioning near the core after bombing the vents much trickier than if you are using missiles.

I use a Krait mkII for my runs, so no room for a thermal vent beam (just relying on heat sinks).

Your Cutter build looks really good, and I've been tempted to build one similar. I imagine the thermal vent beam is a necessity if you're running shields.

 

[SergMx]

Either remove glaives from CZs and other instances that don’t have landing pads for repair, or let us immunize our combat ships somehow.

Sorry, I understand correctly that glaives are only available in high and very high intensity AXCZ ?

I had no problem completing the light and medium zones. I haven't seen glaives there, but when I encounter glaives, they are a very easy target for me. A little harder than scouts.

 

[SergMx]

Your Cutter build looks really good, and I've been tempted to build one similar. I imagine the thermal vent beam is a necessity if you're running shields.

I think it's just from overheating when shooting.

 

[CMDR KSI_Asmo[dai]]

Previously destroyed Titans have caustic shards floating around in space among other mats and items to pickup. I have heard that the hardened surface items are available as well from destroyed Titans. However I did not have the xeno pwa on my last trip so I cannot verify that yet.

Note: You'll need the Caustic Crystals for the Anti Guardian Engineering, not the Caustic Shards.

I found no Hardened Surface or Caustic Crystal bits in my Destroyed Titan searches. I did not use a Pulse Wave Analyzer in my search. Doesn't mean they won't be there at all, perhaps more opportunity in a newly destroyed Titan. The Titans I visited were very much degraded from what they looked like when visited immediately after their destruction.

 

[STRONTIUM DOG]

I have only found hardened fragments on spots next to gun emplacements on live titans target the spot & vent laz them or abrasion blast which can alert interceptors to release then scoop or limpit so vent laz is better i find
they are not next to every gun emplacement however............
i find night vision helps find them and not sure if still available whilst in a vulnerable state a cold build ship is key to sneaking around........
as for tac core chips i use limpets and dumb fires without landing at ocuupied military bases but avoiding the banshee and interceptor fire is tricky
caustic crystals and shards can be found at dead titans just keep leisurely patroling till they spawn the odd goid may turn up so again a cold build is better to just sneak about i find using the contacts panel to locate and set limpets to ignor the stuff that melts your ship like hearts
though as mentioned shards are just used to craft more caustic sinks on the go

 

[CMDR Hanchen]

I do have repair, so yeah I generally fly until I run out of nanite torpedoes. I can comfortably hit 5-7 vents in a run, so that's usually around 11 runs for me.

I could synth more, but flying back to a station to reload is faster and more convenient than farming the mats.



I use a Krait mkII for my runs, so no room for a thermal vent beam (just relying on heat sinks).

Your Cutter build looks really good, and I've been tempted to build one similar. I imagine the thermal vent beam is a necessity if you're running shields.

Thanks! Krait MkII is also a ship I was considering for Titan bombing because the Cutter can sometimes be frustrating to fly with its sluggish turn rate and insane drift. But I ended up choosing the Cutter for the additional utility slots and the class 7 repair limpet controller that allows me to support other CMDRs in the instance. It also has higher firepower if you equip the nanite torpedo and/or beam laser on the Krait (instead of another shard or missile rack). But Krait can probably bomb more vents due to its higher speed and agility, which makes up for it (with Cutter, I can get only up to 5 vents in solo).

I like to equip my Cutter with a low power low draw class 6 biweave. It tends to collapse fast, but doesn't consume too much power nor distributor draw, recharges very fast, and - from my experience - absorbs lots of damage over time that would otherwise go to your modules and module reinforcements. Even with the shield, normal heat (speed at full throttle, no boosting, laser not firing) remains below 20% (around 17-19%) which is enough to stay undetected as long as Thargoid craft doesn't get too close to you. The laser is still useful to make the approach of the Titan safer since you basically get to 0% heat as soon as you are within firing range, and helps to save heat sinks overall by keeping the heat low whenever possible.

I think it's just from overheating when shooting.

I actually didn't check my heat levels during firing at the core, but it is definitely not overheating if you are putting 4 pips in weapons (regular shards generate very significantly less heat than the Salvation variant). I think firing a volley of shards however puts you above 20% heat because I remember drawing fire from neighboring scouts. But as long as no Interceptor or Hunter was also attacking, the shield was enough to absorb most or all of the incoming damage.
EDIT: nevermind, I checked again heat levels while bombing the core, and it stays at 2-5% while unloading shards and firing the thermal vent laser when having 4 pips in weapons.

 

[nemolomen]

I fly the FDL with no hull repairs. I usually have 5-6 passes before I realize I need to leave.
(not a cold ship)

I'm doing the same with a Clipper...

 

[BDelacroix]

Sorry, I understand correctly that glaives are only available in high and very high intensity AXCZ ?

I had no problem completing the light and medium zones. I haven't seen glaives there, but when I encounter glaives, they are a very easy target for me. A little harder than scouts.

They sometimes show up in any of them I've been to. Often in a group of three. However, they don't always appear.

 

[Snaik]

for some reason, after this update, I got into a separate instance from all the commanders, and for some reason only on a certain PC, I logged in from a friend's PC and everything was fine, I tried different methods to solve the problem, even reinstalling windows did not help, a support request was sent 3 days ago and nothing happened

 

[SergMx]

I'm doing the same with a Clipper...

Yes I like the Clipper very fast and maneuverable but it only has 4 utility slots, and on FDL I play from the shield.

 

[nemolomen]

Yes I like the Clipper very fast and maneuverable but it only has 4 utility slots, and on FDL I play from the shield.

My clipper is shieldless.

 

[DemiserofD]

Greetings Commanders,

A new update will be available for Elite Dangerous Live/4.0 on Friday 5th July. This update focuses on improvements to the Thargoid War experience.

Release Schedule - Friday 5th July 2024

• 7AM UTC/8AM BST - Server off
• 11AM UTC/12PM BST - Servers back online*

*Please be aware that these are approximate timings and as such are subject to change.

Features of Note:

• Ram Tah has been hard at work continuing his investigations of the Anti-Guardian Zone deployed by Thargoids. His most recent breakthrough now allows all Guardian Modules to have the Anti-Guardian Zone Resistance modification applied to them, without penalty.
  • The reduction to Guardian weapon damage has been removed
    • All weapons previously modified with the damage reducing modification have automatically received the improved modification
    • The AX Chieftain prebuilt ship is now delivered with the improved modification

Titan Multiplayer Improvements

• A number of improvements to Titan instance stability & improvements to the Titan venting cycle
• Reduced maximum number of Thargoid Ships within Titan instances

I've tested it, and Guardian Fighters are still damaged by the Anti-Guardian Field. Any chance he could shield them, as well?

 

[SergMx]

By the way, I've written this before and I'll say it again. In fact, of the modules we can not change only ModShard and ModPlasma.
ModGauss is a variant of the imperial hammer and in fact it is worse than the original gauss. Certainly not better.

 

[jnTracks]

Sorry, I understand correctly that glaives are only available in high and very high intensity AXCZ ?

I had no problem completing the light and medium zones. I haven't seen glaives there, but when I encounter glaives, they are a very easy target for me. A little harder than scouts.

Yes, Glaives can show up in high intensity and very high intensity CZs. The issue is not that they are hard to kill, especially next to the higher level interceptors you've already been fighting in these zones. The issue is the Glaive melts the mod shards I'm using. AX MCs are not viable in this level of thargoid combat. This makes these instances pointless to start since they likely can't be completed, so they may as well not exist.
The glaive, interesting as it was as something new at the time, was a misstep from a game design perspective. Making AX combat more difficult by... taking away our weapons... doesn't really cut it. And in response we've seen the glaive systematically reduced and removed from all the places where it would make lore/game sense: interdictions, hyperdictions, CZs meant for lower level combat... The aggregate response from the player base at large was "this is impossible; I'm going to take a break from this game". And so both Hunters were all-but removed from the game.
But they remain in a few key spots and currently they remain in the highest level AX CZs, where we need to use high level equipment to fight... So those instances might as well not exist.
So myself and others were so excited to see that the Ram Tah mod could now be applied to "every" guardian module, and now without damage penalty. This would allow our ships to be immunized fully and therefore high level AX combat could be accessed again as part of the war... Finally...

But it's not the case.
Low and Medium CZs are still the only viable ones. And we wait longer for a fix that probably won't come before the end of the war.

 

[SergMx]

Everything is clear except for this one :

AX MCs are not viable in this level of thargoid combat.

Medium differs from easy in only one way, there is less of a progress bar when destroying scouts.
As for interceptors, there are no differences. I on medium I can kill only Cyclops and on light and Medusa and Basilisk.
And all the difference is in the number of scouts killed.

 

[jnTracks]

Everything is clear except for this one :

Oh, I didn't realize. umm well. AX MCs are significantly less powerful than guardian guns. Kills of single interceptors higher than cyclops with AX MCs considered challenge kills. not just because they require a scanner, which gives up a heat sink launcher... Gauss and MOD Shards are the effective weapons of choice, shards being my favorite. (MOD plasma sees some use, too)
In medium CZs we do see some higher interceptors mixed in, so that's not terrible for the fun I'm after. Last medium color run I did saw 8 cyclops, 1 basilisk, 2 medusa. Which was a pretty good roll, I thought.
High and very high would be great for increasing the probability / concentration of basilisk and medusa through the fight. But I wouldn't bring AX MCs to that fight!

The game is in a good spot for entry/low level AX combat now, with this update bringing invasions back, and especially guaranteeing zones with landing pads and usually surface sites so there's no swarms. That's good for most players and especially needed since it's pretty well the only focus of the game right now. And the Glaive is conspicuously but necessarily absent from that. Even though technically they would fit better in the lower level instances since those are some you could reasonably leave the guardian guns at home for!
But for those of us who like higher level AX combat the options have been non-existent or at least very limited. Got slightly better since it matters toward war progression now, but when I was testing this all out the high intensity had a glaive, which fired the AGF and ended the fight right there.

 

[Paul_Crowther]

I've tested it, and Guardian Fighters are still damaged by the Anti-Guardian Field. Any chance he could shield them, as well?

The Ram Tah breakthrough helps protect modules against damage. The fighters are ships, not modules, so the protection does not apply.

 

[jnTracks]

Everything is clear except for this one :

Medium differs from easy in only one way, there is less of a progress bar when destroying scouts.
As for interceptors, there are no differences. I on medium I can kill only Cyclops and on light and Medusa and Basilisk.
And all the difference is in the number of scouts killed.

That's an interesting claim and I'd love to know the source. While I've seen times when the "roll" of what showed up seemed to be an outlier, generally I think I consistently see higher level interceptors have more likely spawn rates in higher intensity zones. I usually ignore the scout phase so I wouldn't really know.
Has anything been published on that?