It might actually be quite interesting if they brought thargoid kill rewards back in line before the nerf.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
Current state of the Thargoid war
- Thread starter Shadowsnog
- Start date
In terms of vulnerability:
- HIP 20056: recaptured 6 July, definitely not going to be giving any more missions
- HIP 21261: 20-25 LY range, could definitely be recaptured (at that distance, wouldn't even need sampling) though Indra has nine easier targets for inhabited recapture, so probably not for a while.
- Chinas, Kaurukat, HIP 20679, Mapon, Obamumbo: 15-20 LY range, difficult recapture, poorly-contained Titans Raijin, Cocijo and Indra, likely to last a while and have nearby suitable Alerts for a while
- HIP 8525 and Liu Huang: also 15-20 LY range but at Oya, difficult recapture and the Oya group aren't treating further recaptures as a priority, should be fine most weeks but Oya itself is being weird and placing fewer populated Alerts than it might be expected to
- Warnones, HIP 21112: 10-15 LY range, no real chance of recapture but will depend a bit on the shape of the week as to whether there's a populated Alert close enough (HIP 21112 at Indra more likely than Warnones at Oya just because of how those Titans are positioned)
- HIP 21165, Lhou Mans: 5-10 LY range, absolutely no chance of recapture but depends on Oya to put an Alert in the right place
I suspect most of those will be safe for quite a while; either Raijin or Indra is the best bet (they have multiple suitable Controls, and place a lot of inhabited Alerts too) if you don't want to travel too far. Oya and Cocijo should be fine too some weeks but are less reliable about having inhabited Alerts in the first place.
So the sampling will take multiple weeks, but that's not exactly unprecedented.
Ultimately I strongly suspect the mission is on borrowed time, we just have to enjoy it while it lasts.
Multiple weeks per system, there's no particular reason to target most of those systems ahead of others at a similar distance [1], and any system which needs multiple weeks to sample from Control to Recovery then won't be beatable at the Alert stage so will also become a multi-week Invasion.
Sampling is overpowered, no argument there, but it's not magic. It means that the stalemate line is going to be closer to 15LY than to 20LY, but the difficulty escalates so rapidly within 15 LY, especially for inhabited systems, that there's no practical way of systematically getting much further on current balance.
Indeed, in the medium term, it might help with these missions: recapturing an inhabited system near to one of the above and in the 15-20LY range generally provides a fairly guaranteed once-every-three-weeks populated Alert which is itself tough enough that it won't be finished by Friday
[1] Mapon, perhaps, because of its bottleneck location. HIP 21261 will probably be gone by the end of October if nothing changes just because at some point it'll be the easiest remaining recapture at Indra. HIP 8525 at Oya might make sense to target eventually. The rest I would expect to last long enough that other changes by Frontier will make the question irrelevant.
I would argue that a recapture closer than or at 10ly to a Maelstrom would also be somewhat pointless unless you are absolutely assured that it will be cleared. For reasons that I think don’t need stating, there is no actual data available for how difficult an alert or invasion at that range would be - if it even went into alert at that distance to begin with.
Njorog on 24 August will I think be the first opportunity a Maelstrom has had to place an Alert within the original 15LY auto-capture sphere, so that'll be one to watch.
If it eases the minds of some to know, the INIV harvest wing sets a containment/eradication region at 20 light-years for the moment, with one special exception I will mention in a moment. That is to say, inhabited systems within 20 light-years are not soon on our target list. Our targets are also almost entirely empty systems!
Whether that range remains at 20 light-years will depend on the outcome of Operation Redacted, a project to discover whether a Titan can attack a system itself. This ought not affect any reactivation missions for now; it concerns three empty systems close to T. Leigong. If our test system is attacked with a normal Alert, it will be a little disappointing, but we are okay with losing it again and happier in the knowledge that it is as well to stay 20 light-years away.
If the Titan cannot attack, indeed that admits the possibility of clearing a Maelstrom region completely, although:
I suggested this very idea two months ago! From Add Thargoid port attacks to Control systems which have been targeted for recapture:
Whether that range remains at 20 light-years will depend on the outcome of Operation Redacted, a project to discover whether a Titan can attack a system itself. This ought not affect any reactivation missions for now; it concerns three empty systems close to T. Leigong. If our test system is attacked with a normal Alert, it will be a little disappointing, but we are okay with losing it again and happier in the knowledge that it is as well to stay 20 light-years away.
If the Titan cannot attack, indeed that admits the possibility of clearing a Maelstrom region completely, although:
- As @Ian Doncaster said so well, that outcome would be still a very long time away. For example, for us to capture a system such as Eoto without any help, it would take just about the amount of time between any two major updates.
- If there are specific systems which are needed for keeping that reactivation mission type around, or more generally if one is trying to achieve something based on which systems are Thargoid-controlled, please say so in that targets thread! Speaking for myself, I like to take an accommodating approach rather than to target systems indiscriminately.
I suggested this very idea two months ago! From Add Thargoid port attacks to Control systems which have been targeted for recapture:
Yep me also.