Don't miss out on the Titan community goal

[Sylow]

Don't have an AX weapon to my name, can't do the ECM stuff, ship will just melt before I get to the Titan, if the only way to get the CG reward is to shoot at the Titan certainly won't happen for me.

I am grumpy on FD for a number of things. But the titan here, anybody who has a ship with 4 utility slots available can do it. All gear you need can be bought from the rescue ship Hutner. Engineering optional.

The only difference i would suggest to what others proposed: use two utility slots for caustic sink launchers. Put both on one button in one fire group. Put the thargoid pulse neutraliser on the other button in the same fire group.

When approaching the Titan, you have to fly like 90 km through the cloud. Do not follow the messed up navigation system. Rather try to head for the red glow. (If you are in open or in Mobius and thus have other people in the instance, it's even easier: fly to where you see the player laser beams. )

Boost as much as you can, but try to avoid the mines on the way. (Once you set one or two up, you will know what i mean. ) The the pulsewave happens, all energy to systems and hold the pulse neutralizer button down. Hope that your energy lasts long enough that you can get through the wave unharmed. (It got me the first times, as the energy drain of this thing is much higher than of the normal pulse wave neutralizer. ) And keep your eyes on the status of the caustic sink launchers. Once the bars of BOTH launchers are full and you start taking acid damage to your hull, trigger them. That will eject both sinks and you are good to continue. Edit: according to info below, you can use the thargoid pulse neutraliser with the same button as the normal shockwave tool. This saves a button, so you can put the two caustic sink launchers on two different buttons. Thus you can always trigger them seperately, without having to take any caustic damage in between. After doing a few runs with them split on two buttons, I personally still feel like triggering both at once is easier, but i do see the advantage of operating them seperately.

You can engineer them to have higher capacity. But i did my very first attack on a titan on Thursday. I managed to get to the Titan and attack the vent on my very first try, despite first following the messed up navigation first, then ramming some mines. But used up all my caustic sinks in that way and had to burn off caustic damage by overheating. So, one non-engineered caustic sink laucher might be enough for somebody who is really good in this. For anybody else: engineer and/or bring two of them.

For the rest: only on my third time there, i really got it what the people do with the torpedoes. Thanks to several people being there, my first contribution was merely to shoot at the exposed core when others made sure it got exposed. And i can say that even a thermal vent beam and my AX Multi-Cannons allowed me to do some damage and thus get some contribution. The AX missiles might be more powerful, but i decided to first rather try with the multi-cannons on board, and it also worked.

Additional observations:

• My ship is not fully set up for AX combat. My old AX ships all have too many guardian components on board, which i never engineered to resist the Anti-Guardian effect. So instead of spending a lot of time and materials on engineering, i picked my normal bounty hunting Krait MK II and did just some changes.
• I even left the shield on. With the thermal venting beam (which i already had), i am able to keep my temperature very low (single digit, often even 0%) even with shields present and switched on. At the same time, the shield does absorb some damage, both from the mines and from the turrets on the titans surface. Real veterans might do better without shields, i personally think i profited from them.
• SCBs and other stuff i generally replaced with HRPs and one MRP.
• I guess some repair limpets would be an advantage when you are comfortable around the titan, know where to hide and to recover. I have not had them along and feel that anybody there for the first time has so many other things to figure out, that they won't be too beneficial.
• While i got a some contribution the first time there, zero was credited for the CG. The second time there, i racked up several millions of contribution before i blew up, but only like 2700 credits were seen as contribution to the community event. I have not yet figured out, what counts and what does not... it still seems random to me, but shooting at the heat vent seems to be the thing to do.

And all in all: you just have to deal a little damage which is registered as contribution. I yet have to get out of there alive, but i earned more than the rebuys have cost me and i have contribution to the community event. And if i can do it, with as little clues as i had about this just two days ago, then you can also easily do it.

 

[Sublime]

The only difference i would suggest to what others proposed: use two utility slots for caustic sink launchers. Put both on one button in one fire group. Put the thargoid pulse neutraliser on the other button in the same fire group.

Once the bars of BOTH launchers are full and you start taking acid damage to your hull, trigger them. That will eject both sinks and you are good to continue.

Put one caustic sink on primary fire and the other on secondary. Once one is full the other will start filling and you can eject the first one without waiting to start taking any hull damage, that’s just silly.

Also just bind the pulse neutralizer to a dedicated fire button and you don’t need to worry about fire groups with it (it’s the same as the OG neutralizer in the bindings).

 

[Sylow]

Put one caustic sink on primary fire and the other on secondary. Once one is full the other will start filling and you can eject the first one without waiting to start taking any hull damage, that’s just silly.

Also just bind the pulse neutralizer to a dedicated fire button and you don’t need to worry about fire groups with it (it’s the same as the OG neutralizer in the bindings).

Also works, yea. I merely did it the described way, as i was told to do so in the AXI discord when i started out. And got to admit, i did not check if the button for the neutralizer also works on the new one. I kind of, based what they told me on discord and on how many other things work in the game, assumed that it would not. Mea culpa.

Also, just noticed a nice useful thing: i actually just, after helping blowing up the heating vent thingie, managed to retreat from the Titan merely using reverse thrusters. By going straight up above it, i ended up outside of the damage fields range, while being able to keep my thermal vent beam still constantly running. Useful.

And finally, one grumbling towards FD: this is fine. And if the first Titans would not have been locked behind several grindwalls in a row, many more people would have participated in the past. And all the "now it is there, but there is too much grind, i can not participate anyways" stuff would never have happened.

Edit: First update: i can confirm, with engineered caustic launchers, i can even get out alive again. Even with 3 sinks spare. So i guess a practiced pilot can even do it with one engineered launcher or with a pair of non-engineered ones.

Also, out of curiosity: if somebody really can't make it to the titan: my Krait MK II refit is so incomplete, that i still have my fighter hangar on board. As the area right around the titan seems to be clear of caustic, the fighter might actually survive there for a while. Thus i wonder: would somebody who pilots a fighter also get contribution to the CG? If yes, that could be a kind of solution cut for people who either really can't make it through the cloud, or simply are too far away to make it to sol on time.

Thus: does anybody know if multicrew allows somebody to contribute to the CG?

 

[Mohrgan]

Every time I start to consider getting in on the Thargoid fight, I am just turned off by the onerous 'Boss Fight' mechanics, and completely separate ship builds required. I start watching videos on how to get prepared for a thargoid fight, and my eyes just glaze over, and I start looking for cute puppy videos on the internet.

FDev can keep their FSDs. I ain't going.

 

[Lee Archer]

I see. Too bad that tele-presence does not work, then.

Grab an Orca, put HRP's in every possible internal it has, and do G1 heavy duty on all of these (you can do that all in farseer). Bring 2x caustic launchers, one heat sink and anti-emp thingy from rescue ship, and bring random AX weapon as well while shoping. Its one way ticket, as after landing single hit, getting back alive is not required either, as progress does not care if cmdr came back alive or not.

The only G5 engieering should be done is thrusters for speed, or just go with whatever max grade you had unlocked, even G1 is enough. Long as it can boost to 500 m/s, then its good enough. Again, this is one-way only, and minimal enigeering should be enough to about make inside. You aint coming back, so dont sweat over " too much engieering" to point where it allows to comeback, its not your goal here, get it?

Thats the part most cmdrs misunderstood about titan play... its easier to get inside and die there, than get inside and be able to go back. And in order to get inside, much is not required.

Try many times as needed, as probly you will die few times, but its not really difficult. Charge anti-EMP module right before big EMP hits, and spam those caustic sinks, and once inside titan, just join the fray with other cmdrs, and when they expose the core, shoot at it once. You dont need even go back after landing hit, just eat rebui, and it still will count as progress. How the heck is that difficult?


Honestly, I dont get it... every single time, there is bunch of cmdrs in these forums, who have all that time to complain "its too hard, its not for me" or "I give up", and more wierd is that some of these cmdrs are around for YEARS, yet they still quite incompetent, when it comes to anything that is combat related or AX.

Man up cmdrs, and stop whine. Go and do your part for humanity, and claim the prize once done much as SINGLE hit.


There is bulid, lol. > ORCA

It has only one engineering at it, G1 dirty drives. Thats preety much all is needed. 3,4k hull is more than enough to make it one way. Really it is.

Good content updates.

 

[Zalia]

Every time I start to consider getting in on the Thargoid fight, I am just turned off by the onerous 'Boss Fight' mechanics, and completely separate ship builds required. I start watching videos on how to get prepared for a thargoid fight, and my eyes just glaze over, and I start looking for cute puppy videos on the internet.

FDev can keep their FSDs. I ain't going.

Just did it with my alt, that has no engineers or anything else unlocked. Took about 2 hours to build the ship and get enough damage for the CG. Those SCO FSDs are too tasty to let them slip.

 

[Lee Archer]

The grindy time is beloved- I can get by-my questions answered in Discords; thanks all.

 

[kofeyh]

Every time I start to consider getting in on the Thargoid fight, I am just turned off by the onerous 'Boss Fight' mechanics, and completely separate ship builds required. I start watching videos on how to get prepared for a thargoid fight, and my eyes just glaze over, and I start looking for cute puppy videos on the internet.

FDev can keep their FSDs. I ain't going.

Double. Special. As long as you hit the core, and do a registerable amount of damage, job done, don't even have to survive leaving.

The most onerous part is getting to the titan. Two caustic sinks, a heat sink, the pulse neutraliser and a xeno limpet controller (covers repair and caustic) will get you to the asteroids surrounding titan just fine and patch you up.

After that, wait for it to make a sound similar to the capital class ships arriving, boost to the first vent, give it a cuddle with a torp, boost to the second, shoot it with a torp too, for good measure, then casually cruise down under the big fella and shoot at the core with ax missiles, once it extends. There is a covas notification for this as well.

That's it, job done. Surviving is optional as any bounties earned are kept and the CG reward is calculated based on at least some damage to the core (it's a bit over 2 mil bonds worth of damage I believe for the titan reward, which is separate).

I wasn't going to either. Then I heard about the FSD drives, and a friend encouraged me. I am glad he did. The sound design and atmospherics are Frontier at their best. Absolutely worth it.

I'm not going to tell you to do it. Not my style. But I would encourage you to give it a shot. We don't know what Frontier are cooking up (the update was chunky for a single ship) but this might be the last time we see a titan for a good bit (or ever, if Frontier move the story along).

 

[Mohrgan]

Just did it with my alt, that has no engineers or anything else unlocked. Took about 2 hours to build the ship and get enough damage for the CG. Those SCO FSDs are too tasty to let them slip.

Yeah, that's exactly why I even had a look. But then I started to really consider the reward. I would only score one fancy FSD. The only size I can use is a c5, for the new SCO ready ships. After that, it would just be storage filler that I don't need.

I still ain't going.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

For the explorers; This is the ship that my exploration alt did it in with firegroups shown.
Single strike all done.

 

[Mohrgan]

Double. Special. As long as you hit the core, and do a registerable amount of damage, job done, don't even have to survive leaving.

The most onerous part is getting to the titan. Two caustic sinks, a heat sink, the pulse neutraliser and a xeno limpet controller (covers repair and caustic) will get you to the asteroids surrounding titan just fine and patch you up.

After that, wait for it to make a sound similar to the capital class ships arriving, boost to the first vent, give it a cuddle with a torp, boost to the second, shoot it with a torp too, for good measure, then casually cruise down under the big fella and shoot at the core with ax missiles.

That's it, job done. Surviving is optional as any bounties earned are kept and the CG reward is calculated based on at least some damage to the core. It's a bit over 2 mil bonds worth of damage I believe for the titan reward, which is separate.

I wasn't going to either. Then I heard about the FSD drives, and a friend encouraged me. I am glad he did. The sound design and atmospherics are Frontier at their best. Absolutely worth it.

All of that chatter about how easy it was is just Blah-blah-blah to me. Boss fight mechanics are poison. I'm getting sleepy just reading your post.

Don't let me belabor the point. You guys are all having fun. I am just incapable of bringing any of the care to the thargoid stuff.

 

[Lee Archer]

I am grumpy on FD for a number of things. But the titan here, anybody who has a ship with 4 utility slots available can do it. All gear you need can be bought from the rescue ship Hutner. Engineering optional.

The only difference i would suggest to what others proposed: use two utility slots for caustic sink launchers. Put both on one button in one fire group. Put the thargoid pulse neutraliser on the other button in the same fire group.

When approaching the Titan, you have to fly like 90 km through the cloud. Do not follow the messed up navigation system. Rather try to head for the red glow. (If you are in open or in Mobius and thus have other people in the instance, it's even easier: fly to where you see the player laser beams. )

Boost as much as you can, but try not to avoid the mines on the way. (Once you set one or two up, you will know what i mean. ) The the pulsewave happens, all energy to systems and hold the pulse neutralizer button down. Hope that your energy lasts long enough that you can get through the wave unharmed. (It got me the first times, as the energy drain of this thing is much higher than of the normal pulse wave neutralizer. ) And keep your eyes on the status of the caustic sink launchers. Once the bars of BOTH launchers are full and you start taking acid damage to your hull, trigger them. That will eject both sinks and you are good to continue.

You can engineer them to have higher capacity. But i did my very first attack on a titan on Thursday. I managed to get to the Titan and attack the vent on my very first try, despite first following the messed up navigation first, then ramming some mines. But used up all my caustic sinks in that way and had to burn off caustic damage by overheating. So, one non-engineered caustic sink laucher might be enough for somebody who is really good in this. For anybody else: engineer and/or bring two of them.

For the rest: only on my third time there, i really got it what the people do with the torpedoes. Thanks to several people being there, my first contribution was merely to shoot at the exposed core when others made sure it got exposed. And i can say that even a thermal vent beam and my AX Multi-Cannons allowed me to do some damage and thus get some contribution. The AX missiles might be more powerful, but i decided to first rather try with the multi-cannons on board, and it also worked.

Additional observations:

• My ship is not fully set up for AX combat. My old AX ships all have too many guardian components on board, which i never engineered to resist the Anti-Guardian effect. So instead of spending a lot of time and materials on engineering, i picked my normal bounty hunting Krait MK II and did just some changes.
• I even left the shield on. With the thermal venting beam (which i already had), i am able to keep my temperature very low (single digit, often even 0%) even with shields present and switched on. At the same time, the shield does absorb some damage, both from the mines and from the turrets on the titans surface. Real veterans might do better without shields, i personally think i profited from them.
• SCBs and other stuff i generally replaced with HRPs and one MRP.
• I guess some repair limpets would be an advantage when you are comfortable around the titan, know where to hide and to recover. I have not had them along and feel that anybody there for the first time has so many other things to figure out, that they won't be too beneficial.
• While i got a some contribution the first time there, zero was credited for the CG. The second time there, i racked up several millions of contribution before i blew up, but only like 2700 credits were seen as contribution to the community event. I have not yet figured out, what counts and what does not... it still seems random to me, but shooting at the heat vent seems to be the thing to do.

And all in all: you just have to deal a little damage which is registered as contribution. I yet have to get out of there alive, but i earned more than the rebuys have cost me and i have contribution to the community event. And if i can do it, with as little clues as i had about this just two days ago, then you can also easily do it.

Great info sheet; let’s get it done.

 

[Sylow]

Great info sheet; let’s get it done.

Most of it actually is presented better by other players. I merely added a few details from my own experience... and i am not the big expert.

But after all i read, i really am curious now... SLFs in multicrew, do they allow somebody to get contribution or not?

 

[kofeyh]

All of that chatter about how easy it was is just Blah-blah-blah to me. Boss fight mechanics are poison. I'm getting sleepy just reading your post.

Don't let me belabor the point. You guys are all having fun. I am just incapable of bringing any of the care to the thargoid stuff.

Good-oh.

 

[varonica]

I didn't at the start of today, either. Have never done anything Titan related.

No, no I tell a lie, I grabbed some passenger escape pods when Titan first arrived, loaded up my fast Python, got hyperdicted on the way out of the system, the Goids released some pods, when I dropped the remaining off I got fined more than I made for the run for losing pods, under attack by thargoids, while saving lives, yeah that was fun. Stopped then and went back to what I was doing before that.

 

[BDelacroix]

Since you now realize how easy it is, just do it a few more times and put your mind at ease about your SLF pilot. Don’t forget we still have to destroy this thing for everyone to even get any rewards so keep on attacking, every bit helps.

If your employee is lazy, fire her. At any rate, the margins aren't so close as to be worried about 10% of 2 million. You'll get a lot more than needed with just a little work.

 

[Mr Lindsay]

Boost as much as you can, but try not to avoid the mines on the way.

 

[Sylow]

View attachment 411608

I just spotted the typo and fixed it... along with adding the info about the different way of using the caustic sink launchers. But thanks to still pointing it out, you posted this just while i edited. I did not note it, before i edited now for the other thing.

(Although, it very much represents my first two runs to the Titan, before i learned what to watch out for... So either i was very lucky, or just ignoring the mines is a viable approach, just costing some more caustic sinks. Mind you, i ran with shields... most people advise to go for Thargoids without shields, but i find that my bi-weaves give me absolution for a number of mistakes i make on the way. )

 

[Sylow]

Much talk of Difficulty not much about “Fun”; combat complexity gameplay isn’t my thang but the rewards are Exploration FSDs which i would use to have Fun.
It’s just a game; I have real life to force undesirable activities on me.
But if it keeps the game alive HuRRaH!!! Caustic gods are worshipped.

I think i have to give credit where credit is due: for the longest time, AX combat was exactly how you describe it: grindwall after grindwall, merely to be able to access it. It was one of FDs very traditional big mistakes. (Without that grindwall, i would probably be looking forward to my eigth AX star, instead of the first. But when they first put in the titans, i saw that merely being able to go for them would require me to spend my gaming time of two weeks. So i then would be able to see the new content. Thus i concluded, that it was yet one more content patch of ED which had "best played on youtube" all over it. )

Now, i merely went to the rescue ship, replaced my weapons and utilities with with the AX equipment for sale there. Did no engineering or anything. (Check my postings above. My ship is faaar from what the AX people advise to use. But it is what i had at hand and felt like using. And despite being very non-meta, still carrying shields and a fighter hangar (!), i was able to go there and do stuff. ) So the biggest effort for my first attack run was actually: to travel there. And i also got to say, the thing is hell of confusing at the start. You have to figure out things to do. (Or, like i did, find some people already there, copy what they do... sure, i made some mistakes, did not survive the first few tours, but i learned. )

And doing so was hell of an experience. It was real fun. One can just wonder how much more people would enjoy this, if FD would not first have followed their boring old "any new content first requires ages of stupid grind" approach. But right now, with the AX gear being there for mere credits, it is accessible and actually fun.
It still has a learning curve. But compared to the learning curve when coming to ED and learning the basics of combat, it actually is kind of tame. Even an untrained casual pilot like me, who took several months of a break, can get into it again with limited effort. I sure won't be one of the top aces there, but i can contribute.

So yea. I stand by it, as long as it had all the grindwalls, the AX content was best played on youtube. Now that it is actually easily accessible, i can say that it is fun and i would advise to take a look. (And i still wonder if somebody using an SLF could also get contribution to the CG. If he does i could even offer people to join and pilot my fighters when i am there. After all, i still drag the SLFs around for no other reason than i spent very limited effort on changing my ships configuration. If it helps people getting contribution, they would suddenly have some value. )

 

[Shir]

Watched a couple of videos on YouTube... nah I never got into Thargoid combat. Never enjoyed pvp raiding in any game, it just seems like too much effort to memorize all these mechanics. Lots of other fun things to do in Elite.