Imo and the Thargoids

Imo

Imo
Hello fellow commanders :)

I know the ELITE games since the 8 bit version on the Commodore 64, had the ATARI ST version and Frontier ELITE II for the same machine later. In the classic ELITE the Thargoids were a challenge to defeat as well. I even managed to fight my way through endless waves of four big Thargoids to reach the Thargoid space station which was for surprise the only so called "DODO" space station in the 16 bit versions that has been forgotton or dropped completely for an unknownn reason in ELITE Dangerous. And all I needed to succeed was to take my tiny Cobra Mk III, outfitted with the military lasers that I bought from the hard earned Credits made via trading. But not so in Elite Dangerous ...

In ELITE Dangerous things are completely different and that's where the game starts to put me off. Not only that I spent "endless" hours in this game - over ten thousand - to get decent ships, good parts for outfittings and even more time to engineer all modules - when it comes to take part in the Thargoid stuff nothing of what I archieved so far is worth anything much. Why not just take what you built up with so much time and effort to finally bring it to success over that dangerous alien species? Only Frontier knows why. My hard earned and built up ships are mostly useless when not completely re-build and re-fitted from scratch only to fight the Thargoids. -.-

And that's the point when the Thargoids in this game finally put me off to the point of no return to the Thargoid play. I think there is nothing more disappointing than a game that obviously does not want to be played. It is not just a bad game design. It is a bad game design by intention. And for me that really sucks. -.-

Rest in one piece commanders
Cmdr Imo
 
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Tyres O'Flaherty

Tyres O'Flaherty
There's more to the game than Thargoids.

I, personally, am not involved with the whole 'goid war thang. It's just not my cuppa English Breakfast.

However, if they ever do on-foot Thargoid fights - without some very silly and grindy prerequisites before you can just actually survive getting to a fight (read: my existing stuff should more thabn good enough but I could use Xeno-Defence Protocols and AX Combat Logs for some weapon/suit engineering) - then I may change my mind.
 
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Shurimal

Shurimal
If you don't plan getting into the cold-orbit duelling Medusas and Hydras the gimballed human enhanced AX multicannons combined with the enhanced xeno scanner is good enough to take out Cyclops and Basilisks you'll commonly find in AXCZ-s. You can buy these from the rescue megaships with no unlocks needed. The other adjustments recommended is going shieldless and installing 3 MRP-s and is not really that different from setting up your ship for different non-AX combat situations (eg doing transport/SAR missions with pirates interfering vs. going into CZ-s).
 

aRJay

aRJay
Imo said:
Hello fellow commanders :)
Click to expand...
Hello Imo

Imo said:
I know the ELITE games since the 8 bit version on the Commodore 64,
Click to expand...
Spectrum 48k for me.
Imo said:
had the ATARI ST version and Frontier ELITE II for the same machine later. In the classic ELITE the Thargoids were a challenge to defeat as well. I even managed to fight my way through endless waves of four big Thargoids to reach the Thargoid space station which was for surprise the only so called "DODO" space station in the 16 bit versions that has been forgotton or dropped completely for an unknownn reason in ELITE Dangerous. And all I needed to succeed was to take my tiny Cobra Mk III, outfitted with the military lasers that I bought from the hard earned Credits made via trading. But not so in Elite Dangerous ...
Click to expand...
The only times I survived Thargoid encounters back then was when I had an energy bomb and could get out of the blast range before it went off.

Imo said:
In ELITE Dangerous things are completely different and that's where the game starts to put me off. Not only that I spent "endless" hours in this game - over ten thousand - to get decent ships, good parts for outfittings and even more time to engineer all modules - when it comes to take part in the Thargoid stuff nothing of what I archieved so far is worth anything much. Why not just take what you built up with so much time and effort to finally bring it to success over that dangerous alien species? Only Frontier knows why. My hard earned and built up ships are mostly useless when not completely re-build and re-fitted from scratch only to fight the Thargoids. -.-
Click to expand...
The larger Thargoid ships require more skill and perseverance than I have to do more than damage them scouts are more straightforward and don’t even need special weapons and I can handle them. The only re-fitting I have done is swap a couple of utilities over and change some of the guns.
For non fighting Thargoid activities I did swap modules around so one of my Orcas was even faster and packed with passenger cabins.
As I have more ships than I regularly use leaving some with AX weaponry wasn’t an issue.

Imo said:
And that's the point when the Thargoids in this game finally put me off to the point of no return to the Thargoid play. I think there is nothing more disappointing than a game that obviously does not want to be played. It is not just a bad game design. It is a bad game design by intention. And for me that really sucks. -.-

Rest in one piece commanders
Cmdr Imo
Click to expand...
There is stuff in ED that is the be all and end all for some players that I have zero interest in and won’t participate in, such as PowerPlay, there is other stuff that I have no real interest in and don’t participate in in a deliberate way, the BGS, that is again important to some.
To me Thargoids have always been in almost that sort of category, I am sort of glad they were in the game for continuity if nothing else but I was happiest with them when they were more mysterious and an almost off stage sort of threat.
I did have a go after the Maelstroms arrived and while I enjoyed what I did I left to do other stuff, bio hunting, with no regrets and even the impressive looking Spires haven’t seriously changed my plans.

The thing is for all that they are currently in the focus the Thargoids are present in such a small part of even the bubble that it is easy to do all the other stuff you like without having to reset so as to fight them.
 
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Fizzatron

Fizzatron
Imo said:
Hello fellow commanders :)

I know the ELITE games since the 8 bit version on the Commodore 64, had the ATARI ST version and Frontier ELITE II for the same machine later. In the classic ELITE the Thargoids were a challenge to defeat as well. I even managed to fight my way through endless waves of four big Thargoids to reach the Thargoid space station which was for surprise the only so called "DODO" space station in the 16 bit versions that has been forgotton or dropped completely for an unknownn reason in ELITE Dangerous. And all I needed to succeed was to take my tiny Cobra Mk III, outfitted with the military lasers that I bought from the hard earned Credits made via trading. But not so in Elite Dangerous ...

In ELITE Dangerous things are completely different and that's where the game starts to put me off. Not only that I spent "endless" hours in this game - over ten thousand - to get decent ships, good parts for outfittings and even more time to engineer all modules - when it comes to take part in the Thargoid stuff nothing of what I archieved so far is worth anything much. Why not just take what you built up with so much time and effort to finally bring it to success over that dangerous alien species? Only Frontier knows why. My hard earned and built up ships are mostly useless when not completely re-build and re-fitted from scratch only to fight the Thargoids. -.-

And that's the point when the Thargoids in this game finally put me off to the point of no return to the Thargoid play. I think there is nothing more disappointing than a game that obviously does not want to be played. It is not just a bad game design. It is a bad game design by intention. And for me that really sucks. -.-

Rest in one piece commanders
Cmdr Imo
Click to expand...
The short answer is to join a squadron and team up. Things have moved on since the 8bits, talking as one who first played Elite on a C64 and pretty much followed your path as well, but on the Amiga*. There's a real-time simulated galaxy with other players who can help (or hinder).

*just like Doom..
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Imo said:
when it comes to take part in the Thargoid stuff nothing of what I archieved so far is worth anything much
Click to expand...
Broadly, because they messed up so badly with engineering balance in the original implementation that Thargoids have to be able to ignore large parts of it to be a challenging and interesting opponent. And arguably even before engineering they'd made generalist ships relatively ineffective, so even without Thargoids and their list of immunities "new activity" = "build a new ship for it".

The Cobra III in the original was an extremely powerful ship compared with what the NPCs were generally flying, but it couldn't just sit there and ignore an entire wing shooting at it for minutes, so the Thargoids could be dangerous while still being vulnerable to conventional weapons.
 
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