New red-orange dot approaching the bubble at 0.8ly per minute-- Thargoid mothership?

[Leadfoot]

So have the Far God chaps made a pilgrimage to Taranis yet?

Of course not.

I'm reconfiguring my mixed-use Python to carry cargo. I'd be happy to switch that to passenger compartments and drag them there if someone would be kind enough to stuff each of them into life-pods for me. I'm sure once in "their" territory I can quickly drop them off for pick-up by the Thargoid Far God Servants without too much damage to the ship.

Guessing that the post-midpoint speeds are going to give arrivals during the Thursday downtime, then.

What a coincidence that they're arriving during the server maintenance on Thargsday. As new players I wonder if they know about server maintenance?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Well, destinations as predicted at least.

Guessing that the post-midpoint speeds are going to give arrivals during the Thursday downtime, then.

For #2 there's a lot of uninhabited systems and relatively few inhabited ones in the same sort of range that #1 spread out to, so we'll see what it prioritises.

Are those impact points symmetrical, or are they near significant systems? And, do they have ammonia worlds?

 

[LilacLight]

Maelstrom's are now present at both HIP 20567 (around body 7) and HIP 8887 (around body A 4)

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

From the vids Ive seen the maelstrom’s caustic cloud is populated by “spiky capsules”. Dont know what they're called, but are they creating the Cloud? Has anyone tried to engage them to see what happens? IIRC (not gamed that style of game for a long time) with a boss encounter the minions have to be depleted first.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

From the vids Ive seen the maelstrom’s caustic cloud is populated by “spiky capsules”. Dont know what they're called, but are they creating the Cloud? Has anyone tried to engage them to see what happens? IIRC (not gamed that style of game for a long time) with a boss encounter the minions have to be depleted first.

They're called caustic generators. Act like mines if you get too close and have the ability to propel themselves around by emitting caustic gas.
Currently the focus of an issue report because scanning them notifies about a new xeno codex entry but it either doesn't appear in the codex or disappears shortly after.
You can destroy them with weapons (recommended to do it from a distance) and they drop some mats, can also be sampled using research limpets.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

From the vids Ive seen the maelstrom’s caustic cloud is populated by “spiky capsules”. Dont know what they're called, but are they creating the Cloud? Has anyone tried to engage them to see what happens? IIRC (not gamed that style of game for a long time) with a boss encounter the minions have to be depleted first.

They're caustic generators, and simple proximity will cause them to go boom.

 

[CmdrZaratan]

They're called caustic generators. Act like mines if you get too close and have the ability to propel themselves around by emitting caustic gas.
Currently the focus of an issue report because scanning them notifies about a new xeno codex entry but it either doesn't appear in the codex or disappears shortly after.
You can destroy them with weapons (recommended to do it from a distance) and they drop some mats, can also be sampled using research limpets.

How do you use research limpets on them? I wasn't able to target them. Is there a trick to it?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Are those impact points symmetrical, or are they near significant systems? And, do they have ammonia worlds?

All impact points so far have been uninhabited systems with an AW on the edge of the inhabited bubble. The second and third were exactly to the systems predicted earlier on this thread, too, once the first got a hint as to what to look for, which makes me more confident about the remaining five predictions.

The impact points (or projected impact points, for the remaining five) are not symmetrically distributed at all - they are largely on the "south" side of the bubble and far more are below the Sol plane than above it.

"Significant" depends on what you mean - none of them are likely on initial attack to hit any superpower capitals, powerplay headquarters, engineer systems or otherwise really obvious systems.

 

[Alec Turner]

From the vids Ive seen the maelstrom’s caustic cloud is populated by “spiky capsules”. Dont know what they're called, but are they creating the Cloud? Has anyone tried to engage them to see what happens? IIRC (not gamed that style of game for a long time) with a boss encounter the minions have to be depleted first.

Basically Thargoid proximity mines protecting the inner sanctum of the maelstrom.

 

[Athum]

There are strange structures inside the Taranis maelstrom: they actually behave like a living creatures - molluscs or smth, moving towards the ship and attacking somehow (I missed that moment because I was "out" with external camera) and they are distructable.

Spoiler: Pics

 

[molgrips]

Whhoah.

Is it possible to build a ship with the most hull possible, fly a suicide mission into the maelstrom and last long enough to explore to try and find more of this stuff?

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Try it!
(Says me from over 4 kylies away )

But I’d assume anything Guardian (e.g. shield booster) is not going to last very long. Big decon limpet, plus controller limpet to get the mats if you’re collecting them.

This vid was interesting

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NQXiNeOJapQ


& he recommended this build
https://coriolis.io/import?data=H4s...Q4GYmB3BsxzlF6BTbDwidYe_Mc_4x_vN_4G6DB8RKAAA=

 

[CmdrZaratan]

Whhoah.

Is it possible to build a ship with the most hull possible, fly a suicide mission into the maelstrom and last long enough to explore to try and find more of this stuff?

I've spent a couple of hours in there in my Cutter and haven't died once. It can get hairy though. Decontamination limpets are a must.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Are Guardian modules preferentially damaged?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

All impact points so far have been uninhabited systems with an AW on the edge of the inhabited bubble. The second and third were exactly to the systems predicted earlier on this thread, too, once the first got a hint as to what to look for, which makes me more confident about the remaining five predictions.

The impact points (or projected impact points, for the remaining five) are not symmetrically distributed at all - they are largely on the "south" side of the bubble and far more are below the Sol plane than above it.

"Significant" depends on what you mean - none of them are likely on initial attack to hit any superpower capitals, powerplay headquarters, engineer systems or otherwise really obvious systems.

I wonder if high population systems being affected will cause economic changes?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I wonder if high population systems being affected will cause economic changes?

There was certainly a hint that they might in Galnet a few weeks back.

The bubble's economy is too redundant and redundantly-linked for systems being lost to cause major changes in itself, because you lose as many consumers as producers from a "geographic" attack like the Maelstroms, and only a tiny number of systems produce things which are both essential and limited to them - but there's certainly plenty of justification for the bubble-wide economy to move to a war footing and therefore have major price and availability changes more generally.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

and only a tiny number of systems produce things which are both essential and limited to them

Hmm. And those things are materials which at least pre-U14 were common requirements for completing station repairs. So if we lost one of those clusters, it might be incredibly difficult to get it operational again even if we fought the Thargoids off.

Not something which is likely to happen in the near future - they're all deep enough into the bubble to be safe for now - but something to watch out for later.

I took steps to ensure that Colonia obtained a stockpile of certain of these key materials - boosted by significant donations from many public-spirited individuals - a couple of years ago: probably enough to repair one station in an emergency. I wonder if the same idea has occurred to anyone in the bubble yet?

 

[Sublime]

They're called caustic generators. Act like mines if you get too close and have the ability to propel themselves around by emitting caustic gas.
Currently the focus of an issue report because scanning them notifies about a new xeno codex entry but it either doesn't appear in the codex or disappears shortly after.
You can destroy them with weapons (recommended to do it from a distance) and they drop some mats, can also be sampled using research limpets.

I’m surprised the fragile limpets are not destroyed instantly in the caustic environment.

 

[Biff Stryker]

Excellent. I moved my carrier in as close as I could to HIP 20567 and opened up shipyard, bar and basic services. Let the shenanigans begin!

Ok Fdev, now just give us something alien like to shoot at on foot.

 

[Sublime]

The answer is most likely yes, been tried, but has anyone checked to see if there are any benefits to using meta-alloy hull reinforcements inside the maelstrom?