Please help rescue thargoid biostorage capsules from Indra!

[DemiserofD]

Edit: Okay everyone, Indra is almost vulnerable! Great work, tens of thousands have been saved.

Now we have a golden opportunity to build up a great first strike on Thor as we wait for the Titan to realize omae wa mou shindeiru.

Gather as many as you can, and we'll turn them all in in 2 weeks, when Thor becomes the weakest titan. You'll know it's time when it gets a huge halo of counterstrikes!

--- Original Post ---


With the recent changes, rescuing people from the Titans is by far the most effective way of contributing to the war. Last week, I rescued just over 2,000 pods, taking approximately 10 hours to do so. Over the 26 systems we recovered this week, that translated to the equivalent of killing almost 2,000 cyclopses.

Unfortunately, we have nowhere near enough search and rescue Pilots running operations. In other words, we need your help! A single player running rescues from a Titan can compete an entire wing of players doing normal combat.

One caveat; these pods spread their effect across every Counter-Strike system around a Titan. This means they are primarily useful in the first half of the week, before the easier counter-strikes get cleared. So it's especially important to get in on things now, while the effect is at its maximum. I wouldn't bother after about noon on Sunday, at that point it would be better to stockpile them for the ensuing week, but each successive week will have less and less counter-strikes as we get closer to the Titan. In other words, get started right away!

This is one of the most heart pounding and exciting activities I have done in Elite in recent times. It's hard to overstate the adrenaline of suddenly coming under attack by a glaive when you have 300 Escape pods on board. It really is a lot of fun, so I hope to see more people trying it out.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Considered doing this before, but it wasn't clear to me exactly where these things should be handed in to impact the correct system. For casual players that don't engage with the Thargoid war content, and aren't part of any groups that do, it would really help to bring people up to speed on where to grab these things and where to turn them in. They can of course watch a Youtube video about the actual process of collecting the items.

 

[DemiserofD]

Considered doing this before, but it wasn't clear to me exactly where these things should be handed in to impact the correct system. For casual players that don't engage with the Thargoid war content, and aren't part of any groups that do, it would really help to bring people up to speed on where to grab these things and where to turn them in. They can of course watch a Youtube video about the actual process of collecting the items.

They just need to be collected from the Titan that is currently being focused on. You can tell which one that is by which Titan has the most Counter-Strike icons around it in the Galaxy map.

Ask for turning them in, they only need to be turned in at a rescue Mega ship. Any rescue mega ship is fine, so the closest one to Indra is ideal in this case.

Hopefully we can really get some momentum going this week!

 

[Commander Biscuit]

They just need to be collected from the Titan that is currently being focused on. You can tell which one that is by which Titan has the most Counter-Strike icons around it in the Galaxy map.

Ask for turning them in, they only need to be turned in at a rescue Mega ship. Any rescue mega ship is fine, so the closest one to Indra is ideal in this case.

Hopefully we can really get some momentum going this week!

Cheers, very helpful.

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

I haven't got a ship built for this. I don't have access to the Imperial/Federal ships yet, but I know the Cutter is a common choice. Are there any particularly good neutral ships?

 

[Kira Goto]

I haven't got a ship built for this. I don't have access to the Imperial/Federal ships yet, but I know the Cutter is a common choice. Are there any particularly good neutral ships?

Theoretically, anything with a decent bit of speed and a minimum of three utility slots(four preferable, for a heatsink, or second caustic launcher if inclined in that direction), plus the room to have a bit of cargo space, can do it.

I personally always favored the Krait MKII. Sure, it doesn’t have the raw cargo capacity of the Cutter but with the rapidly ramping Thargoid aggro around a Titan in current times even when it isn’t actively under attack itself… well, I think having less of it might actually be preferable.

I did a quick stint to Raijin yesterday - for the purposes of seeing if there was anything out of the ordinary to be found, but got a few pods out at the same time - and might’ve gotten lucky in gathering 32 pods with only one brief interruption by a nosy Cyclops(which didn’t get close enough to properly establish a target lock). Never even had to replace my set of limpets or hide, just lost it in the asteroids and headed to the Titan’s far side of where I’d been seen. Makes me think the “Get less pods for less trouble and keep changing the spot to avoid ramping the aggro too high” is a better way to go about it now than freeing several chambers of pods and sitting there for quite a while even with a Cutter’s limpet swarm, waiting to have them picked up.

Will have to see if the same can be repeated with 64 cargo.

 

[GroG79]

Id rather do a bit of everything

I certainly do not have a casual 10 hours to get 2000 pods. That is not even my weekly average game time.

So much complaining about sampling. Luckily that got nerfed..
And now we are going full on Capsule drilling? We need two FCs full by Thargsday?

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

Theoretically, anything with a decent bit of speed and a minimum of three utility slots(four preferable, for a heatsink, or second caustic launcher if inclined in that direction), plus the room to have a bit of cargo space, can do it.

I personally always favored the Krait MKII. Sure, it doesn’t have the raw cargo capacity of the Cutter but with the rapidly ramping Thargoid aggro around a Titan in current times even when it isn’t actively under attack itself… well, I think having less of it might actually be preferable.

I did a quick stint to Raijin yesterday - for the purposes of seeing if there was anything out of the ordinary to be found, but got a few pods out at the same time - and might’ve gotten lucky in gathering 32 pods with only one brief interruption by a nosy Cyclops(which didn’t get close enough to properly establish a target lock). Never even had to replace my set of limpets or hide, just lost it in the asteroids and headed to the Titan’s far side of where I’d been seen. Makes me think the “Get less pods for less trouble and keep changing the spot to avoid ramping the aggro too high” is a better way to go about it now than freeing several chambers of pods and sitting there for quite a while even with a Cutter’s limpet swarm, waiting to have them picked up.

Will have to see if the same can be repeated with 64 cargo.

Thanks for the advice. So something like this AspX (EDSY) would be viable? I'm used to getting into the maelstrom for bombing runs, and staying cold/invisible. I guess the trick is finding the right places for the extraction missiles, I'm assuming these are like displacement missiles? Is it worth packing a research limpet controller and finding a ship suitable for a class 4 corrosion resistant cargo rack to grab samples at the same time, or is getting the pods a focus on it's own?

 

[Ashnak]

Is there an "executive summary" available about what is involved here? I have a Phantom set up for cold runs to evacuate civvies from attacked stations, but no Thargoid specific utilities. Swapping out cabins for cargo (and s limpet controller) won't be an issue - gearing up to stick around an aggressive Thargoid might.

 

[Erwgd]

Thanks for the advice. So something like this AspX (EDSY) would be viable? I'm used to getting into the maelstrom for bombing runs, and staying cold/invisible. I guess the trick is finding the right places for the extraction missiles, I'm assuming these are like displacement missiles? Is it worth packing a research limpet controller and finding a ship suitable for a class 4 corrosion resistant cargo rack to grab samples at the same time, or is getting the pods a focus on it's own?

That build looks fine! If you fit a Xeno limpet controller in a size 3 slot, you can use Repair, Decontamination and Research limpets. However, only capsules have the effect on counterstrike systems.

 

[Kira Goto]

I'm assuming these are like displacement missiles?

They are. Although I thinkthe mini game is a little more obvious/predictable than the regular sub-surface one and can be succeeded at nearly all the time.

As above, though, only pods are documented to have any effect on the counterstrikes/war progress, and they only require a standard cargo rack. I wouldn’t bother with the samples anyway, a Titan has plenty of ‘spots’ from which to grab pods.

One thing to be mindful of regarding the use of a beam laser is that it will always keep the Titan in a semi-alert state because you’re tickling it. Might make it more liable to send a Thargoid or two poking your way (particularly once you freed some pods, Interceptors and Glaives may come over to investigate, or a Scythe that’s been put out).

 

[DemiserofD]

I haven't got a ship built for this. I don't have access to the Imperial/Federal ships yet, but I know the Cutter is a common choice. Are there any particularly good neutral ships?

Python would work just fine, that's what I used at first, though I've recently swapped to a Corvette.

Is there an "executive summary" available about what is involved here? I have a Phantom set up for cold runs to evacuate civvies from attacked stations, but no Thargoid specific utilities. Swapping out cabins for cargo (and s limpet controller) won't be an issue - gearing up to stick around an aggressive Thargoid might.

Here's a quick video of what I did yesterday. It shows some tips and tricks. I skipped the first 2 minutes due to mic noise but that does show a technique to get to the titan safely without interdiction.

Source: https://youtu.be/JIS8LdGOzUw?t=111


And here's a guide(slightly outdated, goid behavior has changed a bit) from CMDR Mechan:

Source: https://youtu.be/RpZHTqAI9rQ

 

[Aleks Zuno]

That build looks fine! If you fit a Xeno limpet controller in a size 3 slot, you can use Repair, Decontamination and Research limpets. However, only capsules have the effect on counterstrike systems.

The Xeno multi-limpet is fairly daft unless your goal is Research with all four limpets, which is not the case for Titan rescues at all—and doing both is at odds with limited cargo being limited further by being corrosive. The Xeno redundancy is that its Decontaminations actually are class 3 rather than class 1, which makes them repair faster than its Repair limpets.

For @CMDR Daiyus, a perfect multi-limpet for Titan rescues is the 3B Operations which produces four 1B Collectors for some extra range, very much the best one can do with a class 3 module. The best luxury is with the module space to bring 3B Operations plus double 3B Collector, where those eight Collectors then cover one full Bio-storage chamber, but begin definitely with the 3B Operations!

 

[Weps]

I dunno man... I tried, but for me, this whole gameplay section just feels awful. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

First I went there in Open. After making the trip, hyperdiction, interdictions, pulse wave yadda yadda, of course there's a player there doing the whole expose-core-cycle, I dunno why at this time, except for titan tickling practice... but whatever, the instance is full of aggro so I just go back to the nearest human station to resupply my caustics and go to Solo.

In Solo I make it to one of the humps, pulse wave and fire my first displacement, but you know, in the classic FDEV sense of humor, these things don't have a reticule. Like it's 1880 in the wild west and we're supposed to shoot from the hip. So if you're doing this in a Clipper like I am, its wonderful convergence means the first shot is always a calibration shot. And when I fire this calibration shot, the titan does a HMPFF sound, and immediately after all turrets turn red. They don't fire because I'm below 20%H, but an interceptor comes out of nowhere and instantly deploys his swarm (and it wasn't there before, I looked! I actually got to see the swarm first on my scopes, which it deployed from miles away). I manage to outrun him but not the Glaive that follows, so now I have to power everything back up and fight it. And the scouts that join the party.

So after I win and repair I go back and the exact same thing happens. This time I look carefully to see the Glaive that does a 180 well above the titan maw (must have been 10-12km out, well outside my scanner range). It knows exactly where I am and comes straight for me. So now I have to do the whole fight thing again.

Just to make sure, I try it the third time. And this time I try real hard and make sure my first missile is on the money. I don't remember if the titan growls or not, but it doesn't matter, because the same thing happens, an interceptor knows exactly where I am, immediately changes course from miles away and comes straight for me.

At this point I'm half into my limpets with all the repairs, I'm a couple of resynths in and I only have 4 pods in my hold which I somehow managed to get in all the agitation.

What am I doing wrong? Is this kind of "aggro across the map" expected?

 

[DemiserofD]

I dunno man... I tried, but for me, this whole gameplay section just feels awful. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

First I went there in Open. After making the trip, hyperdiction, interdictions, pulse wave yadda yadda, of course there's a player there doing the whole expose-core-cycle, I dunno why at this time, except for titan tickling practice... but whatever, the instance is full of aggro so I just go back to the nearest human station to resupply my caustics and go to Solo.

In Solo I make it to one of the humps, pulse wave and fire my first displacement, but you know, in the classic FDEV sense of humor, these things don't have a reticule. Like it's 1880 in the wild west and we're supposed to shoot from the hip. So if you're doing this in a Clipper like I am, its wonderful convergence means the first shot is always a calibration shot. And when I fire this calibration shot, the titan does a HMPFF sound, and immediately after all turrets turn red. They don't fire because I'm below 20%H, but an interceptor comes out of nowhere and instantly deploys his swarm (and it wasn't there before, I looked! I actually got to see the swarm first on my scopes, which it deployed from miles away). I manage to outrun him but not the Glaive that follows, so now I have to power everything back up and fight it. And the scouts that join the party.

So after I win and repair I go back and the exact same thing happens. This time I look carefully to see the Glaive that does a 180 well above the titan maw (must have been 10-12km out, well outside my scanner range). It knows exactly where I am and comes straight for me. So now I have to do the whole fight thing again.

Just to make sure, I try it the third time. And this time I try real hard and make sure my first missile is on the money. I don't remember if the titan growls or not, but it doesn't matter, because the same thing happens, an interceptor knows exactly where I am, immediately changes course from miles away and comes straight for me.

At this point I'm half into my limpets with all the repairs, I'm a couple of resynths in and I only have 4 pods in my hold which I somehow managed to get in all the agitation.

What am I doing wrong? Is this kind of "aggro across the map" expected?

I dunno man... I tried, but for me, this whole gameplay section just feels awful. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

First I went there in Open. After making the trip, hyperdiction, interdictions, pulse wave yadda yadda, of course there's a player there doing the whole expose-core-cycle, I dunno why at this time, except for titan tickling practice... but whatever, the instance is full of aggro so I just go back to the nearest human station to resupply my caustics and go to Solo.

In Solo I make it to one of the humps, pulse wave and fire my first displacement, but you know, in the classic FDEV sense of humor, these things don't have a reticule. Like it's 1880 in the wild west and we're supposed to shoot from the hip. So if you're doing this in a Clipper like I am, its wonderful convergence means the first shot is always a calibration shot. And when I fire this calibration shot, the titan does a HMPFF sound, and immediately after all turrets turn red. They don't fire because I'm below 20%H, but an interceptor comes out of nowhere and instantly deploys his swarm (and it wasn't there before, I looked! I actually got to see the swarm first on my scopes, which it deployed from miles away). I manage to outrun him but not the Glaive that follows, so now I have to power everything back up and fight it. And the scouts that join the party.

So after I win and repair I go back and the exact same thing happens. This time I look carefully to see the Glaive that does a 180 well above the titan maw (must have been 10-12km out, well outside my scanner range). It knows exactly where I am and comes straight for me. So now I have to do the whole fight thing again.

Just to make sure, I try it the third time. And this time I try real hard and make sure my first missile is on the money. I don't remember if the titan growls or not, but it doesn't matter, because the same thing happens, an interceptor knows exactly where I am, immediately changes course from miles away and comes straight for me.

At this point I'm half into my limpets with all the repairs, I'm a couple of resynths in and I only have 4 pods in my hold which I somehow managed to get in all the agitation.

What am I doing wrong? Is this kind of "aggro across the map" expected?

That's normal, but there IS a system behind it. Basically, they can visually see you from 5km away, even if your heat is very low. The trick is, they can't really see you through the body of the Titan, and after losing you, they sit there looking for you for a bit.

So what you do is dodge down through the arms of the titan, head to the opposite end, and come up with the Maw blocking its view. This gives you time to extract a few dozen pods before repeating.

You can make this even better if you can lure the goid to the bottom side of the Titan. Once down there, their patrol will give you several minutes of unimpeded extraction. Yesterday, I managed to extract 384 pods in about an hour and a half, which may be my new record.

Basically, you're waiting for a window of opportunity. You might need to reroll a dozen times, but eventually you get a chance to extract constantly, and once you do, you can fill up very fast.

Something else to bear in mind is that the turrets do a lot of damage but are quite weak, and cyclopses themselves don't do much damage. If you kill all the turrets in sight, you can often wait for your collectors to finish gathering up the last pods there before you run, which makes things go quite a bit faster.

It's a learning experience, for sure! But a fun one.

Glaives are nasty though. Be extra careful of them. Sometimes you just need to run out to the asteroids and wait for them to leave, but fortunately they're relatively rare. Mostly it's Scythes.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

What am I doing wrong? Is this kind of "aggro across the map" expected?

10km must be difficult to deal with. I've stealthed around interceptors in a Challenger. Removed the shield for cargo space (and heat) and fitted either a shielded or low emissions power plant. With that setup you're pretty cold, and they'll see you at around 4.5km give or take.

 

[Kira Goto]

(General response) I’m pretty sure the reason Interceptors and Glaives beeline to where pods are floating out in the vacuum is because, well, those aren’t supposed to be there. It’s a bit annoying but then most Thargoids would probably just not really find you around there.

 

[Weps]

but there IS a system behind it

I’m pretty sure the reason Interceptors and Glaives beeline to where pods are floating out in the vacuum

Thanks, now I think I have a better understanding of it. Went back in and tried to play hide and seek with the interceptors like advised, and noticed in the process that they are indeed interested in the capsules rather than the ship. I popped a chamber, went cold and dropped down inside a titan nook, and an interceptor came rushing from more than 5km away with absolutely no line of sight. It was obviously aiming for the pods. Only after it appeared over the ridge did it aggro me directly.

Anyway the "stealth gameplay" style where you have to wait for NPCs to move away from an area... not my cup of tea. But I get it now, it's supposed to be played differently than what I initially thought.

If I may one small word of advice: when getting out of the maelstrom, don't be a completionist. Just log to menu like everyone else. I made my way out riding the pulse, and the random malfunction cost me another 10 pods or so, despite having a cargo scoop fully repaired to 100%. Meh.

 

[Kira Goto]

I made my way out riding the pulse, and the random malfunction cost me another 10 pods or so, despite having a cargo scoop fully repaired to 100%. Meh.

I personally just use the neutralizer on the way out too, and burn off caustic once out of the cloud (or you can synth the sinks - afaik those materials are not used for anything else if you have them). Should any pods drop, picking them up outside isn’t much of a problem…

… you might even still have limpets alive there. Though I have also taken to just bringing an AFMU to avoid the malfunctions to start. May even consider a repair limpet… for those runs which aren’t as smooth.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

While yet to attempt this myself, I have an idea—is there any merit in bringing decoy items for Thargoids to find, leaving them under the Titan and proceeding with rescues above?

If it works at all then the best and cheapest would be if they chase dropped Limpets, otherwise perhaps dropped salvage such as a Black box, otherwise Occupied escape pods, otherwise retain a Bio-storage capsule itself to help begin the next visit.