Esacpe pod narrative speculation

[rOmiLaYu]

So I'm thinking...not really following the narrative too much. Not even really playing that much honestly. But I logged back in the other night to continue my search for a Green Gas Giant when I was listening to GalNet. And I don't remember what the article was but they went out of their way to mention that Thargoids were taking occupied escape pods. And I remember back in the very beginning, they were doing that. And I also remember we were "experimenting" by jettisoning occupied escape pods to see what the Thargoids would do. And I had a thought...

Is this the in-game explanation for when on foot Thargoid FPS gameplay comes? oH nOooO, tHeY mUtAteD oUr OwN pEoPLe aGaiNsT uS!!!!11!!!!1eleven!!!11!!!1 It allows FDev to recycle already created assests, too. Basically just put cosmetics on the already vanilla NPC. Poof. tHaRgOiD!

Or am I being cynical?

 

[Aella Fess]

Do they need to mutate them though? There are enough of crazy people in the galaxy like Far God Cult to do their bidding.
I was thinking more of scenario where goids create some kind of "sleeping agents" that would behave normally but when proper signal comes they would start murdering everyone etc.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Unless it's for the Goid version of Kumo Burgers, I wouldn't be too surprised to see Goid-Human-Zombies at one point (actually I expect them to make an appearance); if only as an intermediate step until we get to meet Stacey.

(If you don't know who Stacey is: Ask Malic. And don't click on the link unless you really want to. I warned you.)

 

[MVBanks]

Now that you mention it, I'm going to start thinking I'm a Thargoid!

 

[shockbait]

Is this the in-game explanation for when on foot Thargoid FPS gameplay comes? oH nOooO, tHeY mUtAteD oUr OwN pEoPLe aGaiNsT uS!!!!11!!!!1eleven!!!11!!!1 It allows FDev to recycle already created assests, too. Basically just put cosmetics on the already vanilla NPC. Poof. tHaRgOiD!

Or am I being cynical?

I mean, I've always assumed that's what "Thargoid Foot-Soldiers" will be, anyone that was expecting "Starship Troopers"-esque bug hoards I imagine is going to be disappointed.

I figure if we ever do actually fight a Thargoid on foot, it will probably be inside one of the Thargoid Structures, or at least somewhere without terrain, like maybe attacked Megaships if we can ever disembark on them, so they can reliably program it's pathing, and we'll probably only fight one at a time, maybe with waves of "zombies" and Scavengers.

Just my thoughts given how bad the current NPCs pathing is, the number of scavs that get stuck on tiny rocks and become immobile is a little too high for me.

 

[AnchorWriter]

There's always the chance of the Thargoids

Spoiler: <REDACTED>

studying the pods' active life-support electronics, which might be useful enough to reverse-engineer their own portable human bioscanner.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

There was speculation they're planting Barnacles in the ctrl systems.
Perhaps the escape pods are for fertilizer.

 

[rOmiLaYu]

There was speculation they're planting Barnacles in the ctrl systems.
Perhaps the escape pods are for fertilizer.

If they ever open up the Col 70 sector...

 

[Angelpichu]

I mean the update size is larger than usual, IIRC, so it's probably not just reskinned humans; might be some actual new on foot Thargoids to fight with mutated/controlled humans as kind of low level fodder enemies with actual Thargoids being more tanky/elite in on foot combat.

 

[Kira Goto]

There was speculation they're planting Barnacles in the ctrl systems.
Perhaps the escape pods are for fertilizer.

Spoiler alert.

Spoiler

It’s more than just speculation at this point.

 

[Jmanis]

It's worth noting, Thargoids don't just collect Escape Pods. They will also collect Slaves, Imperial Slaves, Hostages, any cargo that represents "people". So whatever the rationale, it's important to note it's not specific to escape pods, it's for any humans.

I don't have a video, owing to I remember going to upload something and thinking "Hmmm... maybe I don't want to upload 'Feeding slaves to an interceptor' on Youtube..."

 

[Angelpichu]

In any case I imagine the new hunter class Thargoid is probably meant to act as a counter to collecting escape pods from Thargoid alert/invaded/controlled systems and transporting refugees from alert/invaded systems. I haven't tested it, but that probably means that if you take an escape pod or refugee mission that could weaken Thargoid control, they now realize it weakens them and will try to chase you to keep you from delivering them to a rescue ship. If you have unrelated escape pods or passengers they'll probably grab them too opportunistically, but I'd think hunters would only come after you if you're carrying passengers or cargo marked as Thargoid war related. Have we seen any hunters chasing people around the bubble who just took escape pods from random locations outside the Thargoid war areas?

 

[SlickPBW]

<rubs hands together, evil grin, sinister laugh, and all that stuff goes here>

So, today I did some BH to stock up on some mats, but more importantly to get some occupied escape pods. Step 1, complete.

Over the next few days I will try to find some Scythes for some "aggressive negotiations".

My unknowns that I intend to test:

• Look in various systems (states) near titans to see where Scythes like to hang out. signal sources? near stations? interdictions?
• Do you need to drop an occupied escape pod to bait them? or is having one in your cargo enough?
• See if I can find some tactics that work and also tactics that don't work; also what I should change on my ship builds.
• Try different weaponry to determine what they are vulnerable to; I intend to start with my scout killer Krait Mk2, which has 5 enhanced gimballed AX MC's to see how well that works against them. Then try other weapons/ships: gauss cannons, shards, etc. I haven't bought the new superwhamodyne, overcharged, autoloading toasty AX MC's yet, but maybe I'll give those a try too...
• What weapons do the Scythes have? and do they have the ability to emit a shutdown pulse?
• learn about what they drop when they pop as far as mats go (and if they are corrosive), also data.
• determine if there's any way to stop their collection of escape pods; can the thimpets be killed?
• maybe take some tissue samples

Full Disclosure: Admittedly, I haven't researched very much about them and it's quite possible that some/all of this is already known. If you have any pointers or advice or answers to some of my unknowns above would be greatly appreciated. Wish me luck. Wish them luck!

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

• Do you need to drop an occupied escape pod to bait them? or is having one in your cargo enough?

You definitely don't need to drop it, if you have one in the ship they will find you. I don't want to spoil the fun by saying anything else.

 

[Shadowsnog]

im still hoping that we will not get the green npcs as a goid on-foot combat so i (wishfuly) think they are collecting us to reverse engineer us. they are supposed to be bio-mech combo with fast evolution (/modification) as their trait. see ho many new ships they sent after us in what little time. i think they are adapting themselves with our biology to be more resistant/immune to whatever the construct used against them that lost them the last war.
tldr: making a tharg-man tech that will be used against construct when the time comes.

 

[Kira Goto]

im still hoping that we will not get the green npcs as a goid on-foot combat so i (wishfuly) think they are collecting us to reverse engineer us. they are supposed to be bio-mech combo with fast evolution (/modification) as their trait. see ho many new ships they sent after us in what little time. i think they are adapting themselves with our biology to be more resistant/immune to whatever the construct used against them that lost them the last war.
tldr: making a tharg-man tech that will be used against construct when the time comes.

I wouldn’t call it reverse-engineering when they’d improve on the human biology by adding their stuff to it.

What we did with Guardian stuff to make it compatible with ours, that’s reverse engineering. (I dread to think what a pure Guardian weapon would be capable of.)

 

[Taimaru]

The Thargoids are obviously collecting Escape Pods to get Thargoid credits which allow them to upgrade their ships.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Dorn: "I felt the best chance for peace was if we could meet neutrally and trade, and it turns out that the Thargoids also will do anything for G5 lightweight life support"

 

[Morbad]

I wouldn’t call it reverse-engineering when they’d improve on the human biology by adding their stuff to it.

You do generally need to know how something works before improving upon it in any deliberate manner.

Of course, not many samples of a rather genetically homogeneous population (like humanity) should be needed to thoroughly reverse engineer them.

 

[Alec Turner]

I seriously hope FD don't go with the idea of zombified human foot soldiers. What players want (who want on foot combat with the Thargoids at all) is to battle actual aliens. If FD can't deliver that then they really shouldn't go with this half baked cop out solution at all (imho). But there’s no point complaining, if that's the path they're going down then that path will have been set in stone many months ago.

What I find funny about this is that I can't help thinking what FD have in mind with these Scythes (and their occupied escape pod stealing "thimpets") is that players will be running evacuation missions and will be horrified to find their passengers being abducted and try hard to prevent it. Hello? Have you met gamers?!?! What's actually going to happen (IS happening) is that players are deliberately procuring/buying occupied escape pods and feeding them to the Scythes because they want to see this new feature of the game!