PSA: Kill NPCs before engaging Orthruses at Meltdown Titan next 24h

CMDR Mechan

CMDR Mechan

[As surmised by Xeno Strike Force pilots tonight ...]

With Hadad now in meltdown, most of us are eager to get in on the action of clubbing the Orthruses that spawn non-stop from the Maw, especially since these are the last 72h of them being worth 40m a pop - before the giga-nerf of Tuesday (when they will be brought down to 15m a pop.)

We have just confirmed that patrols will aggro NPCs in the instance and "go active" as a result. Once patrols do go active, there is NO WAY to reset the instance to "peaceful" - the only way is to reset the instance by logging off en masse of switching to a different (blank slate) game mode.

If, however, you take the NPCs down BEFORE you start engaging Orthruses, and leave other interceptor variants alone, it is possible to shoot down retreating forces with (mostly - still need to deal with shutdown fields) impunity. Note: As you no longer need a TPN, do others a favor and bring an SFN instead - as it will protect others in the instance as well.

The NPCs are "lawless" so you will NOT incur a bounty for killing them.

Let's make the enemy retreat from Hadad a costly one.

Glory, to Mankind!

-- CMDR Mechan
 

IstvaanDCIV

IstvaanDCIV
My internet decided to cack itself this morning, and might not be fixed until Tuesday afternoon.

So it looks like I will be missing out on both a pretty explosion and my last chance to have a whack at the Orthrus credit piñata. Grrr.
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
Human depravity knows no end.

(RP) Joking aside, I was definitely tempted once to, ahem, encourage an NPC to leave when I was running rescues at Oya and the idiot bot kept firing at Orthrus just at the right time to constantly cause shutdown fields at perfect intervals to spend barely any time functional. And of course, I carried two caustic sinks on my Krait then instead of a neutralizer(to avoid cargo hatch damage from overheating, stupid thing is too fragile).

So I kind of understand the sentiment even if from the opposite side. Though I didn’t do anything about the bot in the end.
 

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
Kira Goto said:
Human depravity knows no end.

(RP) Joking aside, I was definitely tempted once to, ahem, encourage an NPC to leave when I was running rescues at Oya and the idiot bot kept firing at Orthrus just at the right time to constantly cause shutdown fields at perfect intervals to spend barely any time functional. And of course, I carried two caustic sinks on my Krait then instead of a neutralizer(to avoid cargo hatch damage from overheating, stupid thing is too fragile).

So I kind of understand the sentiment even if from the opposite side. Though I didn’t do anything about the bot in the end.
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Whilst gathering semi-refined minerals the Orthrus fans were constantly triggering shutdown fields. For the most part it's just an annoyance though I feel very vulnerable stuck in the SRV. Occasionally I get a situation where the vehicle doesn't boot up again afterwards, including one time in my ship...
spire3.jpg
 

Adam_Aster

Adam_Aster
WILLIAM BILL ADAMA said:
😅
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Plasma chargers will work very well against human ships, (though with the engineering to counteract the anti guardian field I'm not sure this still applies with the damage nerf) the rest will not. So I guess the choice would either be to use plasma chargers or do a loadout swap while someone holds the instance. Or use configurable multis but those are, eww.
 

WILLIAM BILL ADAMA

WILLIAM BILL ADAMA
Adam_Aster said:
Plasma chargers will work very well against human ships, (though with the engineering to counteract the anti guardian field I'm not sure this still applies with the damage nerf) the rest will not. So I guess the choice would either be to use plasma chargers or do a loadout swap while someone holds the instance. Or use configurable multis but those are, eww.
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😅
 

Weps

Weps
RP aside, this is a very frustrating experience. Is the whole aggro vs. peaceful instance mechanic new? I don't remember it being like this in the past. Or at least I remember aggroing a few interceptors here and there, and being able to lose them and return to my biopod rescue activities.

Now this isn't the case anymore. Apart from interceptors roaming about with their swarms out, the biggest problem for me was the continuous wave of Orthuses coming out in their conga line and EACH ONE firing their shutdown field. The shutdown field bubble always hits the dorsal side, this makes any mining operations on the top practically impossible.

If the Titan would only have deployed this tactic before going into meltdown! We would have never been able to take it down!

Sigh... it shows that some of the scenario designers are no longer with the company...
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
Weps said:
RP aside, this is a very frustrating experience. Is the whole aggro vs. peaceful instance mechanic new?
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Afaik, it was discovered during the Taranis meltdown that if you have more than 2 or 3 players in the instance, Thargoids will become hostile and start shooting things around the Titan instead of continuing to evacuate…

… but I don’t recall whether it requires anyone to actually shoot them or not.

And the perma-shutdown nonsense? That’s the (my) aforementioned case of an idiotic AX NPC getting stuck near the maw(please stop referring to it as the “front” of the Titan, for those that still do) and triggering Orthrus shutdown pulses. Every. Single. Time. One passes, gets shot at, shuts down the idiot bot and you if you - relatively reasonably - didn’t bring a pulse neutralizer or what have you, then the next Orthrus in line gets shot at and triggers another pulse when the idiot bot powers back up.

Extremely infuriating. It would be even worse if it caused your collector limpets to be killed off, but nope, stays perfectly active, that thing.
 

SergMx

SergMx
I'm sorry, I don't understand. People are outraged that they just weren't allowed to make a few billion in one hour again?
Is that the kind of Elite we need? I wonder why people need so much money.
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
SergMx said:
Is that the kind of Elite we need? I wonder why people need so much money.
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They don’t. Big numbers just make “monke brain” hit positive notes even if the core activity of Orthrus slaughter is (probably) boring, once you’ve done it one or two times.
 

SergMx

SergMx
Kira Goto said:
They don’t. Big numbers just make “monke brain” hit positive notes even if the core activity of Orthrus slaughter is (probably) boring, once you’ve done it one or two times.
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I don't quite follow you. Wrong video title?

UPD: Weird, I definitely saw in the announcement of this video (or another one like it) it says 15 billion per hour (7x2).
It's been removed somewhere :(
 
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Weps

Weps
SergMx said:
I don't quite follow you. Wrong video title?
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The video is not a complaint - it's just an informative video on how to optimize Orthrus hunting at the Titan in meltdown, for whomever is interested in that sort of thing.

I kinda hijacked the thread complaining about the aggro mechanics that the video is meant to explain, because these mechanics also interfere with other activities.
 

Adam_Aster

Adam_Aster
SergMx said:
UPD: Weird, I definitely saw in the announcement of this video (or another one like it) it says 15 billion per hour (7x2).
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That was the livestream thumbnail. And was also clickbait. A few billion an hour yes, but for the average player that watches youtube guides, 15 no. But youtubers gonna do youtubers stuff because it is the way the youtube game is played.
 
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SergMx

SergMx
Adam_Aster said:
That was the livestream thumbnail. And was also clickbait. A few billion an hour yes, but for the average player that watches youtube guides, 15 no. But youtubers gonna do youtubers stuff because it is the way the youtube game is played.
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Yeah, but you even had to kill your allies to do it, is that a normal game?
 
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