Dropping occupied escape pods for the Thargoids... that's dark! Only pirates, of course?
Please help rescue thargoid biostorage capsules from Indra!
- Thread starter DemiserofD
- Start date
I know we can log to menu, but "like everyone else"? I seriously doubt that; many of us prize Elite because it's so immersive, not because there are shortcuts to "winning". I always fly out the way I came in.
Would that not make for the best Galnet article, though? Something such as—
Imperial Squadron Promotes Thargoid Sacrifice Strategy
Imperial Navy Intervention and Rescue has issued a controversial call for volunteers to act as decoys for Thargoid Titan patrols.
In a public statement released this morning which was denounced by Aegis immediately as "insane" and "barbaric", INIV called upon "citizen heroes" to enter escape pods and be dropped as a deliberate distraction for Thargoids to find. Its primary claim was that—if done correctly—many more survivors can be rescued safely in the meantime.
"I would do it", said anti-xeno strategist Aden Tanner in an interview with Vox Galactica. "If ever I become unable to pilot a Titan rescue starship myself, put me in an escape pod and hand me to somebody who can."
Azimuth Biotech responded enthusiastically with improvements upon the decoy tactic. "With enough funding, we can eliminate the need for humans—in the escape pods, that is to say. Our superior technology can mimic human life-signs long enough to trick any Scythe. Give us access to Professor Palin and the Nanite technology, and our new pod-bombs will end this war much more effectively than wasting time tampering with a few heat vents."
An Imperial Senate statement recognised the concept as a "military strategy" with the approval of Fleet Admiral Patreus, clarified that using Imperial Slave decoys is illegal under existing laws, and warned would-be pirates that no Imperial law protects the escape pods of interstellar fugitives. The Federation and Alliance declined the notion without comment.
A similar thing could have been said about AXI advising pilots who are looking to shoot down Orthrus at a Titan in meltdown, to destroy AX NPCs present locally. I’m not sure how much they’d bother when they are barely putting any articles out at all, at this time, and Hadad’s meltdown didn’t even receive the usual “This Titan was blown up” article.
It's just a string of words, a way of saying that it is the path of least resistance. A way of making a point without being factually correct. Doesn't mean that the majority of E: D players do it, in fact I would have no idea how many do it one way or another way.
I ride the wave out myself most of the time, simply because I like to woohoo! moment when it hits my ship.
I took people who never killed a flower on bombing runs to Hadad, but that is just too difficult.
You must be extremely proficient (or lucky) to get 2000 pods in 10hrs.
Last time I tried it took 3h to get 120, got spammed by lightning and lost half. It is just too stressful. Sold my Rescuevette.
I prefer to do conflict zones for a few more months than attempt any rescues again.
Sorry but I will not help with rescues nor try and convince anyone in my squadron.
Glaives are definitely the most challenging part. When I see them, I usually run off into the asteroid field for a few minutes until they go away. Fortunately, they are quite rare. ( alternatively, if no interceptors are nearby, you can sit in one of the nooks facing outwards on the edge of the Titan, and they can't get close enough to lightning you. Then you can use your multicannons to whittle them down in safety.)
Sorry you had such a rough time, but no worries! It can be frustrating sometimes, definitely not for everyone. But that's part of what makes it exciting for me! Nothing gets my heart pounding more than having a full hold and suddenly coming under attack by a glaive!
A minor result—attempting to use items to distract attention is not particularly worth doing. Releasing a chamber then flying to the other side of the Titan can occupy a Scythe for a bit, but I think it is as well just to work on blocking the extraction trajectory and collecting them quickly, then watching the radar and moving elsewhere. Moreover, Interceptors seem uninterested in items while a Commander is around!
Taken from destroyed Scythes, are Occupied escape pods of any use? They are marked Stolen and cannot be given to the Search and Rescue, although they can be sold at the Black Market on a Rescue megaship.
Taken from destroyed Scythes, are Occupied escape pods of any use? They are marked Stolen and cannot be given to the Search and Rescue, although they can be sold at the Black Market on a Rescue megaship.
I've actually just been building a rescue ship, and learning to do this. I've managed a bit over a hundred rescues so far.
Weird thing: I picked up two capsules that for some reason are marked "stolen" (well yeah, duh, I stole them from the Thargoids!) and I can't turn them in. I guess I'll try the black market next time I go to the rescue ship, but why on earth are people rescued from the horrid, evil aliens illicit cargo?
Weird thing: I picked up two capsules that for some reason are marked "stolen" (well yeah, duh, I stole them from the Thargoids!) and I can't turn them in. I guess I'll try the black market next time I go to the rescue ship, but why on earth are people rescued from the horrid, evil aliens illicit cargo?
Ah, just saw the post above mine: I guess they were pods that the hunter stole from me while I was extracting them, then were floating around after I destroyed the glaive (or scythe, idk). Still, why are they "illegal"?
Incidentally, to those having Hunter problems, I've got my Anaconda equipped with a decent shield, some AXMCs and AXMLs (plus thermal lasers), and you can destroy them this way. Stay close to the titan, preferably close to a hidey-hole that you can dodge into if it gets too hot, and fire on the ships which are harrassing you. They won't come too close to the mother ship, and will hold back their attacks a bit, making it pretty easy to survive and beat them. No lightning, though they will send the swarm, but it too seems to be a bit reluctant near the titan. The hunters you can take down fairly quickly as, at least in my experience, they don't put up their shields. The interceptors, if you scan them, expose a heart, then destroy it, they'll run away and sometimes not come back.
Incidentally, to those having Hunter problems, I've got my Anaconda equipped with a decent shield, some AXMCs and AXMLs (plus thermal lasers), and you can destroy them this way. Stay close to the titan, preferably close to a hidey-hole that you can dodge into if it gets too hot, and fire on the ships which are harrassing you. They won't come too close to the mother ship, and will hold back their attacks a bit, making it pretty easy to survive and beat them. No lightning, though they will send the swarm, but it too seems to be a bit reluctant near the titan. The hunters you can take down fairly quickly as, at least in my experience, they don't put up their shields. The interceptors, if you scan them, expose a heart, then destroy it, they'll run away and sometimes not come back.
I'm using an Anaconda.
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Only thing I'm not really happy with is that it's a bit of a pain to escape interdictions, as it doesn't have the speed to do it the easy way.
In case this is not a rhetorical question: an oversight by FDev, obviously.
Shooting Hunters with AX missiles? Tried that once, wasted a lot of missiles. I’d rather pack just four EAXMCs; they work best against both Scouts and Hunters, and are even good enough against a Cyclops (and in a rescue ship, I would not risk a fight with a stronger Interceptor, just boost toward the asteroids while spamming heat sinks, then wait for it to go away).
(The rest of your post is quite interesting, though.)
Interesting build. Here’s a couple of things I would do differently if I went for a Titan rescue in an Annie:
- I’d engineer the BWSG for ELP rather than Reinforced. Sure, the shields are weaker by about 1/6, but recover significantly faster and you get more power for other things.
- Turreted beams rather than fixed, with turret mode set to forward only when not in combat. Turreted ones draw least power and they’re mostly just for keeping the ship cool anyway.
- As noted above, 4 EAXMCs; with less power consumed by shields and lasers you could even go for 2 Azimuth ones for extra sustained firepower.
I actually started out with low-power shields and azimuth guns (plus pre-engineered missiles), but it felt too fragile, and the guns were running too hot...so I decided that since combat was not primary, the super-weapons were overkill, and traded them for more HP. I'm still playing with it--it's pushing right up to the border on power, so that any tiny change makes a big difference, and I have to shut things off to use other things. I've still got the other shield: I may try low-power shields + boosters and see how that feels. I didn't actually know that the difference was only 1/6 between enhanced and reinforced--that's a useful bit of information.
I like the missiles because they take down an interceptor much quicker, and have lots of ammo; killing a cyclops or a hunter with guns only uses a lot of bullets. And with the standard EAXMCs, the missiles bridge the gap while they're reloading. It's not ideal, aiming them at a hunter, but combat is only a secondary function here, when some are hanging around and won't leave. No, it's not going to work for the most powerful interceptors, but you can still run most of them off, and most of what you get are cyclopses anyway. If you get something that's too much, you just have to retreat to the asteroids like you said, or hide in a nook till they leave. With the interceptors, I don't really want to kill more than one or two hearts in this ship anyhow, because I don't have a shutdown field neutralizer.
I went with fixed-beam lasers because you don't have to target things to cool off, and also because I do a bit of material-gathering on the way in and out, since I'm in there with collector limpets anyway, and they're best for shooting mines from a distance, to get the bits for making caustic sinks. Which is why I kept the extra ones, which I have to keep turned off when I'm actually rescuing, so I can run the cargo hatch and collectors.
I'm thinking I may also swap one of the C5 reinforcements for a 4 so I can fit a C5 repair limpet.
I like the missiles because they take down an interceptor much quicker, and have lots of ammo; killing a cyclops or a hunter with guns only uses a lot of bullets. And with the standard EAXMCs, the missiles bridge the gap while they're reloading. It's not ideal, aiming them at a hunter, but combat is only a secondary function here, when some are hanging around and won't leave. No, it's not going to work for the most powerful interceptors, but you can still run most of them off, and most of what you get are cyclopses anyway. If you get something that's too much, you just have to retreat to the asteroids like you said, or hide in a nook till they leave. With the interceptors, I don't really want to kill more than one or two hearts in this ship anyhow, because I don't have a shutdown field neutralizer.
I went with fixed-beam lasers because you don't have to target things to cool off, and also because I do a bit of material-gathering on the way in and out, since I'm in there with collector limpets anyway, and they're best for shooting mines from a distance, to get the bits for making caustic sinks. Which is why I kept the extra ones, which I have to keep turned off when I'm actually rescuing, so I can run the cargo hatch and collectors.
I'm thinking I may also swap one of the C5 reinforcements for a 4 so I can fit a C5 repair limpet.
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Hmmmm, This got me thinking as I was wondering how to do pod rescues with shieldless KII titan bomber. I may look at using my mining 'Conda and swapping out necessary modules as I haven't been mining for ages.
Will be reading this whole thread to get it set up and learn how to extract the pods.
I'll then just swap back to KII to do Core bombing after (hopefully) 'Vulnerable' Thursday.
Will be reading this whole thread to get it set up and learn how to extract the pods.
I'll then just swap back to KII to do Core bombing after (hopefully) 'Vulnerable' Thursday.
True, but I think killing a Hunter with a mix of MCs and missiles is going to use nearly as much bullets plus a lot of missiles, as most of the latter are bound to miss…
Of course, it’s ultimately up to you
But you do have a TG pulse neutraliser, which works against the shutdown field as well (although it is suboptimal for that task, as it drains the SYS capacitor quicker, thus requiring better timing).
With turrets you don’t have to, either, as long as you set the turret mode to forward only.
just a small note
you can stagger hunters with missiles (and guardian plasma). iirc best results were when shot at hunters behind, but works with frontal confrontation as well.
it is a heck of a skillshot though...
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!
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!
Hang On! Are you saying get pods from Indra now but don't turn them in until after Indra is dead?
Do you get a progress for Thor from pods from Indra?
For pods from Indra, do you get progress on Indra systems, even if you don't turn them in to rescue ships? and then also Progress for Thor? seems like a bug to me - double up progress!!
EDIT note I haven't done any yet as still building my 'Conda for rescues ( too much footy on next 4 days).
Ha, sorry, no. I suppose I should have been more clear. Right now, there is only one system remaining around indra, so any pods collected from Indra will only apply to a single system. Right now, probably the best thing you can do there - assuming the spire is even still up - would be to do Spire sabotage missions.
What I meant to say was, we should switch our efforts over to collecting pods from Titan Thor, stockpiling them until Indra is dead and human forces Focus their efforts on Thor instead. We will have about 4 days before Indra becomes vulnerable to attack, but after the last Indra system is defeated, and then probably another four days next week, after Indra is dead, but before human forces have yet switched over to other systems.
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