Can somebody explain why you care about fighting Thargoids?

[Lord Baron Von Vaderham]

I'm still only a few months into this game, but I absolutely hate everything mechanically around the Thargoids. I'm not a good fighter nor do I try to be one. But I have been blown up twice now just for visiting a Titan corpse to pick up a few mats. I tried my hand at AX, looked up the guides, etc, etc... but I honestly find these things (and fighting them) annoying, complicated, and poorly balanced. If they were just a thing off to the side that I didn't have to worry about or something I could escape from, I really wouldn't care. But when you're burying "human" tech (V1 SCO drives) under rare Thargoid parts (Titan Drive Components) that I have never seen in about five-six hours of looking at two different titans, I just start to wonder what other pitfalls are waiting for me in this game.

The funny thing is that I like the lore around them. But as the title implies, I just cannot see why anyone would want to have anything to do with this content. Could somebody explain the appeal?

 

[Jmanis]

I'm still only a few months into this game, but I absolutely hate everything mechanically around the Thargoids. I'm not a good fighter nor do I try to be one. But I have been blown up twice now just for visiting a Titan corpse to pick up a few mats. I tried my hand at AX, looked up the guides, etc, etc... but I honestly find these things (and fighting them) annoying, complicated, and poorly balanced. If they were just a thing off to the side that I didn't have to worry about or something I could escape from, I really wouldn't care. But when you're burying "human" tech (V1 SCO drives) under rare Thargoid parts (Titan Drive Components) that I have never seen in about five-six hours of looking at two different titans, I just start to wonder what other pitfalls are waiting for me in this game.

The funny thing is that I like the lore around them. But as the title implies, I just cannot see why anyone would want to have anything to do with this content. Could somebody explain the appeal?

Getting TDCs doesn't really need fighting or AX gear... most important thing is to just have a cold fit (definitely less than 40%, less than 20% ideally) and keep clear of them (500m, but ideally keep 1km or so between you).

I wouldn't call SCO's "human" rather "hybrid" tech, even though there's no icon... but either way, it's not exactly "basic" as a contrast to the "rare" TDCs... that implicitly makes SCO's rare (to me, at least, see later). Anything that's tech-broker only is what I guess you'd call a mid/late game item.

Fighting Thargoids is good money once you get the hang of it (not that I ever have, my interests are elsewhere) but obviously with the lull in the Thargoid war, but the appeal of fighting them is more at people who like fighting NPCs but consider human NPC enemies a "solved" challenge... Thargoids need different tactics and weapons, and fights are much more prolonged.

My interest in them continues to be the unresolved mysteries behind them, and the wont for more "research and exploration" type activities related to them. Things like why they react "positively/submissively" to Meta Alloys in your cargo hold... what unclassified relics could be for (other than another widget for a delivery CG in the Thargoid war)... and if you want to go even deeper... things like "What's the relevance of COL 70 Sector FY-N C21-3 is".... or even just what the Thargoid Spires and the semi-refined minerals were for, what the Orthrus were doing, or what's next in the storyline. There's a heap of non-combat stuff to explore.

That's just some of the things that interest me with it, but YMMV.

 

[aXeL]

I'm still only a few months into this game, but I absolutely hate everything mechanically around the Thargoids. I'm not a good fighter nor do I try to be one. But I have been blown up twice now just for visiting a Titan corpse to pick up a few mats. I tried my hand at AX, looked up the guides, etc, etc... but I honestly find these things (and fighting them) annoying, complicated, and poorly balanced. If they were just a thing off to the side that I didn't have to worry about or something I could escape from, I really wouldn't care. But when you're burying "human" tech (V1 SCO drives) under rare Thargoid parts (Titan Drive Components) that I have never seen in about five-six hours of looking at two different titans, I just start to wonder what other pitfalls are waiting for me in this game.

The funny thing is that I like the lore around them. But as the title implies, I just cannot see why anyone would want to have anything to do with this content. Could somebody explain the appeal?

It sounds more to me ( just my perception ), that it's more a case of you needing to vent some frustration, very understandably, when getting acquainted with the game's main antagonists. For years I wouldn't even go near the things because they just seemed impossible. Like you say, I'm not a good fighter and I was terrified of running into one! After spending a lot of time reading about tactics and AX builds and buddying up with a veteran for confidence building, here I am mooching around Pleiades waiting for Interceptors dumb enough to hyperdict me because it's suicide for them. If someone told me a year ago that I would solo them for a lunchtime interlude, I would've laughed my socks off at them. Now it's much more satisfying than hovering around CZs. I still recall when I wouldn't dare go near a Low CZ.

Oh and I used to have the mindset of, "Eeek, my shields are down to 92% - run away!". Now it's more a case of, I don't use shields, my canopy is gone but my hull is still at 60% so let's go kill another one. I promise you, you can get so good at this stuff ( says an old man ), that later you will look back and wonder how they ever gave you trouble.

 

[Frankymole]

I found 18 Titan Drive Components in Sol without even fighting a single Thargoid, or even meeting one.
A friend gave me a good design for an AX build, small ship (Krait Mk II) on EDSY and I could solo most hunter and interceptor variants, even though I'm crap at combat. All it took was some patient engineering to get the right modules.

 

[Lord Baron Von Vaderham]

I found 18 Titan Drive Components in Sol without even fighting a single Thargoid, or even meeting one.
A friend gave me a good design for an AX build, small ship (Krait Mk II) on EDSY and I could solo most hunter and interceptor variants, even though I'm crap at combat. All it took was some patient engineering to get the right modules.

I have checked both Hadad and Taranis. My first time out (Hadad) I found three TDC then got jumped by a Thargoid. Got away only to be killed by corrosion damage. I have not seen a single TDC since then.

Also, Krait MkII is a medium. Good ship. Good for Thargoid Hunting, I'm told. I use mine for hunting Pirates. All I know is that for all the AX this and guardian that, nothing ever feels like it hurts a thargoid. I have never even seen a heart. I somehow killed a thargoid without ever actually seeing the heart. Just a long ways off, fired the Guardian rail guns and watched the thing explode. Liked the bounty but I have yet to get another kill. (Also, I have learned to hate multi-cannons because of thargoid hunting.)

Worst part is I can't even log back on at the moment to try again. Ever since they reoppened the colonization, I can't stay connected for more than a minute.

 

[aXeL]

I found 18 Titan Drive Components in Sol without even fighting a single Thargoid, or even meeting one.
A friend gave me a good design for an AX build, small ship (Krait Mk II) on EDSY and I could solo most hunter and interceptor variants, even though I'm crap at combat. All it took was some patient engineering to get the right modules.

I'm using Shards on my AXKII, they're so effective it's just hilarious.

 

[pvaljann]

I have checked both Hadad and Taranis. My first time out (Hadad) I found three TDC then got jumped by a Thargoid. Got away only to be killed by corrosion damage. I have not seen a single TDC since then.

Sol is Thargoid free, and has the same TDC spawn rate - for me anyway. TDCs appeared between 10 and 40 minutes, doing laps ~10km out from the Titan waypoint (class A those sensors!) Sometimes it takes 40 mins, and sometimes I got TDCs back to back. To pass time time, hoover up manufactured materials (focus on propulsion,) the poor souls trapped in bio pods, and your choice of thargoid parts into normal and anti-corrosive cargo racks. Pretty easy to avoid the pirate NPCs, and even then they usually demand a meta-alloy or two. Its not like another isn't going to spawn in a minute.

To reduce the jankiness of being in someone elses instance, and get regular loot show up, it's one of the places I do solo mode. That should save on your bandwidth as well - yes, since colonisation the data stream coming into the client is much more than it used to be.

In terms of appeal, well it's something different. Above that, joining forces with other players to take down a Titan was very appealing.
Soloing an interceptor with AX cannons, AX missiles and removing their swarm threat using flak was satisfying from the point of initial difficulty, and learning how the mechanics work. That satisfaction will wear out for some. During the invasion, defending stations from interceptors with fellow pilots when you all have a bunch of guardian weapons was kind of satisfying, even if every interceptor is hugely outgunned (and the lower ones killed in seconds) once you get a bunch of people with Guardian shard launchers.

 

[Rebel Yell]

But as the title implies, I just cannot see why anyone would want to have anything to do with this content. Could somebody explain the appeal?

Very likely because NPC ships offer very little challenge and poor AI.

For the same reason I just look and prefer player to player interaction.

 

[Lord Baron Von Vaderham]

Sol is Thargoid free, and has the same TDC spawn rate - for me anyway. TDCs appeared between 10 and 40 minutes, doing laps ~10km out from the Titan waypoint (class A those sensors!) Sometimes it takes 40 mins, and sometimes I got TDCs back to back. To pass time time, hoover up manufactured materials (focus on propulsion,) the poor souls trapped in bio pods, and your choice of thargoid parts into normal and anti-corrosive cargo racks. Pretty easy to avoid the pirate NPCs, and even then they usually demand a meta-alloy or two. Its not like another isn't going to spawn in a minute.

I do not have access to sol, unfortunately. Gotta work on my faction rep... all of them.