When Thargoids abduct your passengers and you cannot save them...

Speed/boost + ECM + dropping the heat sink seems to work fine. Did several trips and managed to lose 0 passengers.
On previous trip, when I lost my cargo, I attempted to hit one of the Scythe. Those things are super agile and my ship is everything but. LOL
 
I lost dozens Friday. PTSD.

The first time I ran the gauntlet, I lost 100%. Second time 70%. It was only on the 3rd try I managed to deliver the rescue pods to Cornwallis. Then I got overconfident, mistimed an ECM blast and lost my entire cargo of injured personnel to the Goids. I got so angry that I went after the Scythe with just burst lasers & shock mines, I just didn't care at that point.
 
Yawn. This rescue-escape gig is getting kinda boring now :)
I need guns! Fire! Explosions!
Is there anything for Imperial Clipper that works without Thargoid/Guardian tech and can take down those hyperdicting Scythe things?


Edit: How about:
2 L Beam Lasers OC, Thermal Vent 5*
2 M Multi Cannons, High Capacity, 1 Corrosive and 1 Incendiary 5*
 
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Yawn. This rescue-escape gig is getting kinda boring now :)
I need guns! Fire! Explosions!
Is there anything for Imperial Clipper that works without Thargoid/Guardian tech and can take down those hyperdicting Scythe things?
Enhanced anti-xeno multicannons, buy them from any rescue megaship. They come in gimballed version so you can throw them on a Clipper without much of a concern.
 
Reposting my advice to a newly returned commander seeking to fast-track his readiness for AX combat:

Correction - it's Tau Bootis
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source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...r-looking-for-ax-advice.630900/#post-10497959
 
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People claim that ECM will stop the missiles hitting you, but my experience disagrees so I'm probably doing it wrong.
To use the ECM, wait until the hatch breakers attach and just tap the the ECM on, DO NOT HOLD THE BUTTON!!! With one pip to the system it will recharge ECM quickly long before they relaunch another even if you get jumped by 2 Scythes.

PRO TIP: The ECM can be bound to any key and doesn't have to be in the fire groups like the caustic sinks. This makes it easier to tap and kill the hatch breakers

The scouts caustic missile aren't affected by the ECM, only use it for the hatch breakers. And don't panic, the hatch breakers take a few seconds to open the hatch so you have time. And don't worry about the reboot missiles, there is a long cool down between them and even a standard drive will still boot faster than they can send another. If you are running an SCO it already has fast boot applied.

Scythes are easy to kill and go down pretty fast with 2x large ax enhanced multi cannons and one medium, or 4 medium ax enhanced multi cannons... Just run a beam with thermal vent to cool you down. Really, it's a lot of fun. And you 4 million credits per kill.

If you have scouts dropping in with Scythes, run off a bit and then fight the Scythes as the scouts are slow and don't pay much but they can deal out quite a bit of pain.

I recently did a Mandalay build that was pretty good on the Scythes, but takes a bit longer than my Krait or FAS with the large points.

Good luck commanders and good hunting!
 
I'm running a Keelback whose top speed is just shy of +389 and bristles with 3 ECM. Had a single PD before but it was quite ineffective in stoping those damn limpets. Two PDs didn't help much either.

2 ECMs are enough to keep the missiles & limpets off you but in case of a mistimed ECM blast, the 3rd one is a lifesaver

I have to say, seeing injured passengers in pods captured by Thargoids is among the top unpleasant experiences I've had in ED 😞
You only need a single one, just tap it when they attach.
 
That might be where it's going wrong for you. The ECM trigger can be released at a specified range to take effect and only needs the missile to be within it to throw off target lock. Unlike the shutdown field neutralizer which requires being held down on use, ECM takes effect at whatever level it's charged to, on trigger release.

So if the Scythe missiles are within a kilometer you need to only charge ECM for one kilometer (or less) and release, which sends the missile off on a random trajectory. Then you just have to hope said random trajectory is still not going to hit your ship.


A. I think they go at around 750 like a standard human seeker missile (but the Thargoid FSD reboot missiles have a weird wobbly flight pattern which slows them down a little) and B. they are indeed guided missiles, otherwise ECM would not work on them.
You can out run them if you run away from them early enough, but why bother, the drives will still reboot fast enough,.
 
You only need a single one, just tap it when they attach.
I could agree that one "maybe" is enough... but two is safer, the goal is to avoid getting hit, so... no worries about hatch or FSD reboot.
It seems to me that your approach is "I'm staying and fighting" and shaking off the Hatch Breakers, legitimate but not applicable for everyone use case.

I think Kira and Tifu given good tips, reliable in all situations.

With one pip to the system it will recharge ECM quickly long before they relaunch another even if you get jumped by 2 Scythes
can happen that they fire missiles with asynchronous timing, and you have to add in the equation "reboot time" + "FSD charging time", best case with high-wake* is 10+15 sec = 25 sec versus a 30 sec Goid's Missile CD, it left a 5 seconds risky windows with two hunters and "out of phase" fire.

*low-wake is 5 sec but can have mass-lock issue, and loooonger charging time.

And don't worry about the reboot missiles, there is a long cool down between them and even a standard drive will still boot faster than they can send another. If you are running an SCO it already has fast boot applied.
SCO do not have "fast boot" applied by default, SCO is subject to 10 sec standard reboot, only FSDv1 (and past CG reward FSD) has fast boot pre-engineered.

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Okay, so a combination approach has made the last hyperdiction successful - no losses.

I put 5 pre-engineered Enhanced AX Multicannons on my Vette, 1 ECM, and then had to up the power plant one grade to power it, but still running cold.

Got pulled and immediately deployed weapons, targeted the Scythe and opened up on it. I ignored the missiles but when I got a message saying "foreign body attached" I would tap the ECM button just for a 100m or so and it prevented the hatch from being compromised. The 5 MCs minced the Scythe in short order, then I cleaned up the couple of Scouts as well and jumped away without any problems. Didn't even need the collector limpets to recover any pods.

Without shields, I was down to 85% hull but my evac Vette only has lightweight hull plus 2 HRMs all engineered for max hull points with deep plating, so not as much armour as a dedicated AX combat ship.
 
I could agree that one "maybe" is enough... but two is safer, the goal is to avoid getting hit, so... no worries about hatch or FSD reboot.
It seems to me that your approach is "I'm staying and fighting" and shaking off the Hatch Breakers, legitimate but not applicable for everyone use case.

I think Kira and Tifu given good tips, reliable in all situations.


can happen that they fire missiles with asynchronous timing, and you have to add in the equation "reboot time" + "FSD charging time", best case with high-wake* is 10+15 sec = 25 sec versus a 30 sec Goid's Missile CD, it left a 5 seconds risky windows with two hunters and "out of phase" fire.

*low-wake is 5 sec but can have mass-lock issue, and loooonger charging time.


SCO do not have "fast boot" applied by default, SCO is subject to 10 sec standard reboot, only FSDv1 (and past CG reward FSD) has fast boot pre-engineered.

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I wasn't sure about the SCO, but, whatever, it's just not an issue, read on for the reason...

As for everything else, I can the you I have done dozens of these rescue fights so I know what to do. I'll restrict my comments to Scythes because scouts are easy to evade and Glaives won't be be in until next week and are another ball of wax. For the record, I just killed 2 Scythes and 4 scouts in while carrying 30 escape pods and 62 passengers in my ax Krait with no shields and an armored value of ~ 3200. I did this without loosing a passenger or pod and arriving at the rescue ship with 96% Hull. I did a second run with where I killed 2 Scythes, delivering a similar amount of passengers and pods with no loss and 100% Hull.

I don't think that I have ever seen more than 2 Scythes in an instance... A while ago I had run into 2 Scythes, a Glaive and 4 scouts a couple of times, but that was shortly after the hunters appeared in the game and they nurfed it since then.

That beening said, 2 Scythes attacking will almost always alternate firing of both anti-FSD missiles and hatch breakers, but the timing in between will always allow more than enough time time for the ECM to recharge and the FSD to reboot. One ECM is plenty.

If you are going to outrun the Scythes need to be able to run at 520 to comfortably do it. You can do so in a straight line as they won't do much to you as long as the scouts can't hit you as they do more damage.

This is not a fluke, I love baiting and killing Scythes... I do it quite often.
 
Okay, so a combination approach has made the last hyperdiction successful - no losses.

I put 5 pre-engineered Enhanced AX Multicannons on my Vette, 1 ECM, and then had to up the power plant one grade to power it, but still running cold.

Got pulled and immediately deployed weapons, targeted the Scythe and opened up on it. I ignored the missiles but when I got a message saying "foreign body attached" I would tap the ECM button just for a 100m or so and it prevented the hatch from being compromised. The 5 MCs minced the Scythe in short order, then I cleaned up the couple of Scouts as well and jumped away without any problems. Didn't even need the collector limpets to recover any pods.

Without shields, I was down to 85% hull but my evac Vette only has lightweight hull plus 2 HRMs all engineered for max hull points with deep plating, so not as much armour as a dedicated AX combat ship.
Are you running a caustic sink? I can't remember if the vett will out run the scouts, but you can run off, the scouts will lag, and the Scythes will be dead shortly after, before the scouts arrive.

I used to run the vette for this and love it, but I getting jumped by 3 Glaives is very bad in the vette, after a couple of rebuys I switched to either my FAS or the Krait 2. I running the FAS but I need more cargo than it has.
 
I wasn't sure about the SCO, but, whatever, it's just not an issue, read on for the reason...

As for everything else, I can the you I have done dozens of these rescue fights so I know what to do. I'll restrict my comments to Scythes because scouts are easy to evade and Glaives won't be be in until next week and are another ball of wax. For the record, I just killed 2 Scythes and 4 scouts in while carrying 30 escape pods and 62 passengers in my ax Krait with no shields and an armored value of ~ 3200. I did this without loosing a passenger or pod and arriving at the rescue ship with 96% Hull. I did a second run with where I killed 2 Scythes, delivering a similar amount of passengers and pods with no loss and 100% Hull.
[...]
This is not a fluke, I love baiting and killing Scythes... I do it quite often.
I believe you, in the past when the first Scythe/Glaive arrived I used a shieldless Phyton with a single ECM and AXMC, as I wrote it's a legitimate approach, everyone is entitled to their own style of play.

Fly safe!
 
I just bought it over... I haven't built one as an ax build because the speed is a bit slow if you fight multiple Glaives. But for what I'm doing now it should be fine. I just hate moving modules between ships.

I tried using the PM2 but you just can't build it heavy enough, one good fight and it needs repairs. It's a shame as it would put a hurting on the Glaives...
 
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