Can't find who said this quote but it's worth mentioning:
If you're not taking damage, you're not trying hard enough.
AX - shields or no?
- Thread starter molgrips
- Start date
If you're not taking damage, you're not trying hard enough.
You absolutely 100% need shields. There is a lot of reading to do and YouTube to watch.
I recommend starting with these two..
How to build an Anti-Xeno Ship | ED Tutorials
www.edtutorials.com
Basic Combat Guide
The fundamental concepts of AX combat and how to fight an Interceptor.
wiki.antixenoinitiative.com
As a sort of guide - will be useful after a month of trying to kill the weakest - a cyclops.
Consider yourself intermediate if you can Solo a Medusa but not a Hydra. If you can solo a Hydra then your an expert. Multiple Interceptors solo well that’s just Yoda level.
Now if your serious about this you won’t be helping the war as you need to go off and learn - like young skywalker.
Finding Thargoids
How to find Thargoids in Elite Dangerous, from solo interceptors to AX Conflict zones and everything in between
wiki.antixenoinitiative.com
Personally I searched around Merope when I started. You need to look at the threat level and the icons associated with that threat level to find a single interceptor of the type your after - Cylcop to start.
NHSS Threat level five for a cyclops, six a Basilisk, seven Medusa and Eight Hydra, but also look for the right activity icons salvage should mean a solo encounter.
Non-Human Signal Sources
About Non-Human Signal Sources and Finding Thargoids
wiki.antixenoinitiative.com
I should add all the above makes you a specialist hunter and while your Knowledge will have grown you’ll be little more use in a CZ than you are now. Fighting in a fast moving CZ is a bar room brawl, soloing an interceptor is a ballet.
When flying shieldless make sure to equip ample module reinforcement packages, ideally of the Guardian variety. Even though these sit on internal slots they will magically sponge damage which would otherwise hit the canopy since the canopy is, ironically, a module. You should have a minimum of 4 equipped - 5 are better obviously - to get enough protection coverage. It's OK to put them into smaller optional slots (read on as to why).
Re: shield vs. shieldless, it depends on the size of your ship (i.e. the max. size of the shield generator you can fit) as well as the size of your power distributor, and - surprisingly, but to a lesser degree - the amount of utility slots your ship has on offer. Not requiring power for SYS can be such a relief for your weapons, particularly if you bring Gauss or Plasmas, and shields significantly increase your thermal signature - so you need more heat sinks (hence, utilities matter). My personal threshold (YMMV) is the Krait MK2 - anything lower (including Chieftain and Challenger) I'd fly shieldless. Challenger (and smaller) requires a lot of pip juggling, so these benefit a lot from no load on SYS. But the Krait basically is a huge oversized PD with cockpit and propulsion strapped on; never runs out of power (though sometimes out of heat sinks).
The pinnacle of shield tanks then is of course the Cutter - 2x size 8 slots allow for a mega shield plus a matching SCB, and the many optional slots can be filled with Guardian shield boosters. Lastly, 8 utility slots leave enough room for mode shield boosters and for heat sinks.
Re: MRPs, while for HRPs only raw integrity counts, MRPs have 2 important stats - protection percentage and raw integrity, the former being (arguably) more important than the latter. Protection percentage is the amount of damage going to MRPs instead of the module targeted. It starts at 60% and works incrementally - so the first MRP will divert 60% damage, leaving 40% to modules. The second will add 60% on the remaining 40%, sou you end up with 84% protection, and so on. At 5 MRPs you'll have 99% protection. Optimise for coverage first, and only bump raw integrity (by using larger optional slots) should you get your MRPs sniped off in combat.
Just don't get hit and your canopy is going to be fine.
(Stay out of lightning range and use heatsinks to avoid the goid's main gun.)
Actually it's the other way round. The higher class the biweave, the faster it regenerates.
(5c thermal res + lo draw biweave: 2.2/s regen, 5.6/s broken regen,
6c thermal res + lo draw biweave: 3.2/s regen, 8/s broken regen)
Last edited:
Generally it takes longer to recharge a bigger shield using the exact same biweave shield generator, but that's not true with different classes of shield generators.
For example, these are the shield stats of a typical 2-booster biweave setup on a Chieftain (with 6c G5 thermal resistant + lo draw biweave and 2 A-rated G5 resistance augmented + super cap boosters):
Now if you keep the same boosters but change the generator to one class smaller (5c G5 thermal resistant + lo draw biweave), this is what you get:
In other words, not only will you have fewer megajoules of protection, but that weaker shield is going to regenerate slower.
That cat diagram fella covers it succinctly. Shield for tanking, no shield for subtlety.
I'm as subtle a Scottish claymore, so there's that.
I'm as subtle a Scottish claymore, so there's that.
Thargoid phasing isn't 100%.
Shield regenerate
Hull no.
So yes, I use shields on my AX ship.
I even use size 1 guardian hull, because it provide few % of caustic resistance. Why 1? Smaller guardian hull-smaller loss of HP, because human reinforcements are better. But even size 1 guardian hull provide 5%.
wiki.antixenoinitiative.com
Shield regenerate
Hull no.
So yes, I use shields on my AX ship.
I even use size 1 guardian hull, because it provide few % of caustic resistance. Why 1? Smaller guardian hull-smaller loss of HP, because human reinforcements are better. But even size 1 guardian hull provide 5%.
Caustic Resistance Study
An in-depth study into Thargoid Caustic Resistance and Phasing Damage
wiki.antixenoinitiative.com
I'm just can not get the balance right trying to cold orbit and I frankly don't have the patience to just keep after perfecting it so I like shields. They give me a bit of breathing room and I can't see how one more HRP is going to provide more than the shield does. I know it's going to go down at times. I'll even sacrifice it to the lightning if I know I can land that last shot to clip that leaf in the lightning. Each time I've tried shieldless it just has not clicked for me. I also don't have the patience for soloing Medusa+. I enjoy working in groups more.
My combat technique is somewhere between a viking berserker and Leeroy Jenkins, if there aren't alarms screaming and your cockpit isn't full of smoke you aren't doing it right