Thargoid War System States
The Thargoid War works by applying system-level states, which change on the weekly server cycle. These states follow a simple flowchart. Each system shows its progress (if any) towards the human-favourable next state. The current position is on the
left side of the white progress chevron; if 100% progress is made the white chevron vanishes entirely. There does not appear to be any limit on how fast progress can be made with sufficiently focused forces, and the bar appears to update in semi-real-time.
Since U16, where an Invasion, Alert or Control is completed, Thargoid forces will retreat in real time.
The political simulation appears to be frozen with no influence or state movements during any non-default state, with existing states set to None (though global expansions from other systems still appear and affect the economic simulation).
(Unknown: are inbound expansions allowed?)
(
Unknown: how are systems assigned to each maelstrom? Do they act independently or is it just the closest?)
Maelstrom/Titan (red)
The eight maelstroms each form the centre of a Thargoid invasion somewhat analogous to a Powerplay Headquarters. Maelstroms can be investigated for materials, captive retrieval, or direct attacks on the Titan, and the internal environment is extremely hazardous though survivable for prepared ships. A force effect protects the centre of the Maelstrom from inspection, but with sufficient equipment the Titan at the centre can be reached and sampled.
Maelstroms are named after storm gods from different religions. Currently all are positioned in fringe bubble systems on the “south” side of the bubble, mostly below the Sol plane. Their order in the map loosely reflects their original order of arrival.
- Taranis: Hyades Sector FB-N b7-6
- Indra: HIP 20567
- Leigong: HIP 8887
- Cocijo: Col 285 Sector BA-P c6-18
- Oya: Cephei Sector BV-Y b4
- Thor: Col 285 Sector IG-O c6-5
- Raijin: Pegasi Sector IH-U b3-3
- Hadad: HIP 30377
So far all Maelstroms have been founded in uninhabited systems on the fringes of the bubble, containing at least one Ammonia World, and the Maelstrom POI orbits that AW. There have been no signs of mechanisms by which Maelstroms can be added, moved or removed dynamically yet.
Since 5 October 3309 it has been possible to rescue human captives from the Titan at the centre of the Maelstrom. The effect of this has varied from week to week and is currently uncertain; there is some evidence that it may help provide progress to formerly-inhabited counterstrike systems.
Since 26 February 3310 it has been possible to directly damage the Titan using a combination of Nanite Torpedoes and conventional AX weapons. The exact mechanism is uncertain but the following has been established:
- Titans have eight hearts which need to be removed in sequence. A considerable amount of collective damage across multiple instances is needed to remove even a single heart. The Titan system damage display shows these as concentric circles, with the current one partially completed as a dial.
- Multiple hearts can be destroyed in a single week. Unlike other system types, Titan damage is not repaired/reinforced between weeks.
- Once a Titan loses all hearts it becomes critically damaged and loses its defensive shield. A 24 hour timer then starts and its interceptor fleet begins to evacuate, before the Titan is destroyed and replaced by a debris field, which is temporarily inaccessible.
- Titans have a damage resistance property related to their Control count; in practical terms the earlier version of this allowed successful attacks at 3 Controls or fewer, which is now formalised.
- The resistance is presumed to make heart progress slower; the exact equations are unclear but data so far is provided below.
- Destroying a Titan has the following effects on its owned systems:
- The Maelstrom is unable to place any new Alerts in following cycles and any existing Alerts will automatically fail at the end of the cycle
- The 33% reinforcement of existing systems stops, but existing Control systems are retained
- Any Invasions which were already active will continue towards Control
- Control Systems appear to retain their former distance-based strengths
- The role of Spire sites in this is uncertain but doesn't appear to be very significant beyond their role in the wider Control system strategies.
Safe System (white)
The initial default state – whether uninhabited or human occupied – of all systems.
It is possible at times for Thargoid activity to appear in these systems - for example the Scythe raids after Update 16 - but in general normal pre-war conditions apply.
Thargoid Alert (yellow)
A number of Alerts are generated each week
. These Alert states last for one week and are characterised by Orthrus-class Interceptors placing and retrieving Sensors and Probes in the system. Alert states can occur in both inhabited and uninhabited systems. They can be fought by destroying Thargoids, and if the system is inhabited also by completing missions, delivering supplies, and evacuating civilians. As relatively small numbers of Thargoids are present, this makes inhabited Alerts much more practical to defend against.
If sufficient activity takes place in the system, the alert ends and the system returns to Safe. Otherwise, a Thargoid Invasion begins if the system is inhabited. Uninhabited systems move directly to the Control state.
Target Selection
The target selection mechanism has been analysed and a model which largely explains observations so far is as follows:
- A Maelstrom gets a number of points of Alert budget each week. Prior to 16 March, uninhabited Alerts cost 1 point and inhabited Alerts cost 4 points; now both types cost 4 points. Originally the budget was 20 points; from 7 December 2023 it became more variable, switching without particular cause between 24 and 32 several times. More monitoring is needed and the current expectation of Alert count is provisional.
- Each Alert must be generated from a Control system within 10 LY (or very slightly more subject to rounding), and any individual Control system may not generate an Alert more than once every other week. Controls cannot generate an Alert in their first week of existence. The Titan itself does not count as a Control system (though see below), but Matrix systems work normally.
- Systems to be selected must not currently be in Recovery (though they can be ending their recovery period to go directly into Alert) or as of 15.02 in the first clear week after a 3-week recovery
- Systems selected must not have been in Alert or Invasion state in either of the previous two weeks
- Systems selected must not have been in Control state in any of the previous four weeks
- As of 7 December 2023, the Titan can also generate an Alert directly in limited circumstances: the Maelstrom must have exhausted all other possibilities to generate Alerts, and the Titan's target(s) must obey normal cooldown. As with a normal Control, the Titan can only do this every other week. It appears that if an earlier Control attack has switched the Maelstrom into external targeting, the Titan does not switch back to internal targeting even if it could. There appear to be some additional limitations on this attack but further research is needed. It is likely that the Titan's attack is only usable if the Maelstrom has fewer than 3 control systems, but the exact conditions are unclear.
The following image shows the effects of the various cooldown periods on re-attack cycles, assuming that active control systems are available to attack and the system remains high up the priority list.
Having established the targets which may be attacked, the prioritisation for which will be attacked is approximately as follows:
- Start by attacking - closest target first - the nearest system to the Titan, using the nearest control to the Titan which can reach it. As each control can only be used once, this may result in the targets hit not being the five closest, if one of the close targets can only be attacked by a previously-used control. There is no global optimisation here: if A and B are controls (A closer to the Titan) and X and Y are targets, where X is closer to the Titan and A and B can both attack X but only A can attack Y, then A will attack X, nothing will attack Y, and the attack will move on to targets after Y.
- If all Alerts can be placed this way before the Alert-Titan distance exceeds the highest Control-Titan distance at this location, the process ends. If, however - which may sometimes happen before any Alert is placed - the next Alert would be further out than the furthest Control, a change in priorities occurs. Changing priority in this way to "nearest attacks furthest" costs a fractional attack (say 0.1 attacks; under the current circumstances determining the exact value or indeed if this is the precise mechanism seems impossible).
- Following the priority change, select the nearest control to the Titan which has targets remaining. Attack the most distant of those targets, unless some but not all targets are inhabited, in which case attack the most distant inhabited target. Where nearer targets that this particular control can attack were skipped over by this process, add them to a "backtracking" list. Unknown: if more distant targets are skipped do they also get added to the backtracking list?
- Targets on the backtracking list cost 0.1 attacks fewer than normal, though do not appear to be prioritised on this basis unless budgeting makes them the only choice. [1]
- If at any point, a Maelstrom runs out of targets - generally due to cooldowns and losses of "perimeter" controls - then the unspent Alerts are wasted.
There appear to be some minor details not yet finalised on this algorithm: since the likely change to it around 16 March, some weeks with "outside" attacks have not quite followed the above - either placing an Alert at a closer system than the furthest possible, or making use of an unexpected Control. Further research continues, though these exceptions are relatively rare.
[1] The consequence of this and the fractional switching cost is that a Maelstrom which switches will lose an Alert
unless it can place a backtracking Alert at some point. As this requires at least two Alerts to be placed after the mode switch (one to set up the backtrack and one to use it), a Titan which switches late will always lose an Alert (and even an early switch may do, depending on the perimeter)
Thargoid Invasion (orange)
In a Thargoid Invasion state, the system is under intense Thargoid attack. Supercruise traffic may be interdicted by Thargoids, hyperdictions will occur, and stations in the system will become AX combat zones. Stations will gradually (
unknown: in what order, and when in the invasion process?) become damaged and abandoned via this process, and it appears possible from detail in the system map to tell if a station is at risk this week.
In inhabited systems, this state lasts for at least 2 weeks and often more, depending on the number of ports in the system, and can be resisted by destroying Thargoids, delivering supplies, evacuating civilians to rescue ships, and completing missions. The variety of support activities available will change during the course of the state - with a much smaller selection available at "abandoned" ports compared with active or damaged ones - and may have differing effects.
If sufficient activity takes place in the system, the attack is repelled and the system enters the Recovery state. Otherwise, it either moves to Control or the current battle to protect stations is lost, extra stations are damaged or abandoned, and the progress to repelling the attack resets to fight over the next set of targets. Invasion is generally best thought of as a series of consecutive one-week battles to defend stations, rather than an N-week battle to defend the system.
Duration in inhabited systems: the duration for invasions appears to be one week per targetable port (non-Odyssey dockables), plus an extra week with no ports left, in most cases. However, some but not all systems with many ports show a shorter duration than this: there are examples of 5 port systems taking 4 weeks while 4 port systems take 5 weeks. There may also be an upper limit on invasion duration regardless of the number of ports.
The system population gradually reduces as the Invasion state progresses and stations are lost (though in the final week with no active stations, some population still remains).
(Uncertain: stations appear to be selected for attack in reverse order of Political importance, leading up to the Main Station in the final week. Is this accurate?)
Thargoid Control (green)
Thargoid-controlled systems are occupied by Thargoid forces. If they were previously inhabited, the population is zeroed, all political factions are removed, and any stations are abandoned.
Recapture attempts are made weekly on these systems, requiring the destruction of a large number of Thargoid ships. If the recapture attempt is successful, the system returns to Safe (if previously uninhabited) or Recovery (if previously inhabited)
Control systems on the "front lines" gain combat zones to make it easier to find Thargoids. The definition of "front lines" is not currently clear but seems based on
observations at Oya to require both a minimum distance from the Maelstrom and a maximum distance from some other point (possibly Sol). These systems are marked as "Counterstrike" on the map and vary somewhat from week to week.
Powerplay Exploit systems under Thargoid Control appear to stop generating CC (though this only appears on the Power's CC total, not on the per-system data). (
Unknown: what happens if they take over a Powerplay Control system?)
From Update 15, Odyssey Military settlements in Control systems generate on-foot infiltration missions, which must be taken from an incomplete populated Alert system within 20 LY. These missions appear to provide a small benefit to both systems. Due to luck of targeting, these currently can only appear at Oya, Indra, Cocijo and Raijin, and may be unavailable at times due to Alert distribution.
With Update 16, some Thargoid Control systems gained Barnacle Matrix presence, which evolved into Thargoid Spires in Update 17. So far the requirements for this are unclear - it requires a landable atmosphere planet and an uninhabited system, but there are far fewer Matrix systems than those criteria alone would allow. Systems containing a Spire cannot be progressed directly - see "indirect progress activities" below - but can be indirectly recaptured which puts the Spire into a
dormant state. It is unclear if further systems can gain this presence (and immunity). A recaptured Spire system becomes eligible for Alert on the normal timescale, though this does not immediately reactivate the Spire site, and the Alert can be defeated normally.
The Spire site does apparently reactivate if the system is recaptured, but the system appears on early inspection to behave as a normal Control - it can gain progress even if not peripheral.
It is not clear exactly what actions cause progress gains and this may be a bug.
(
Unknown: can a faction whose home system is under Thargoid control be retreated from its last remaining inhabited system?)
Recovery (purple)
Systems in the recovery state have a request to deliver construction materials. The state lasts for multiple weeks and lists the number of inactive ports, with the outcome of the state listed as returning to full human control. Unlike Invasion, this is a genuine multi-week state, and the progress bar is carried forward from previous weeks. The progress bar will also gradually advance automatically - it is possible to speed this up, but requires an immense delivery effort to fast track the repair of a station so is usually impractical.
Stations under repair have a special Repair economy requesting a range of industrial and personnel supplies, and offer source-and-return missions for many of these goods. They have a very limited set of services while repairs are completed.
If the state was entered from Invasion, stations successfully defended during the invasion do not need to be repaired. If the Invasion was defeated in the first week, the system will still enter the Recovery state, but this will last only 1 week and instantly complete its progress bar. Otherwise, the process appears to take 4 weeks regardless of the number of damaged and undamaged stations. The 4-week timer can be shortened by a week (unless already in its final week) by restoring power to all Odyssey settlements in the system ... but this seems to exhibit as the system getting a 3-week visible timer, which may then be followed by a surprise additional 1 week timer in some situations, which makes determining future system state difficult.
The population of a system in recovery is reduced significantly, even in the 1-week version of the state, which may involve further reductions from its previous week in Invasion. It returns to normal, as do all markets, once the state completes.
It does not appear possible for systems to be attacked again during Recovery, but they do not necessarily need an intervening full Safe week in all cases either.
