Something's not right here (thargoid sampling..)

[Xevyr]

Hey guys...

So, uhm.. now with the new FSD booster introduced and everything, I figured I'd finally start the guardian stuff and try to get some of those materials while doing the Ram Tah mission.
In preparation, I read the articles on canonn and other places to see what I would need. These apparently include thargoid tissue samples from the 3 types of Interceptors, which currently seems a pain to gather.

I'm usually not the stealthy type of person so I re-outfitted my Python to be able to take a slight beating ad slapped on a research limpet controller..
That 'sort of' worked out in the Nhss 5 against a Cyclops.. after kiting everything around and avoiding most of the damage (except the unavoidable stuff the interceptor is shooting in your face) I managed to get a Cyclops sample with ~70% hull remaining and went on my way..

After that I spent hours trying to find nhss 6 and 7 for the basilisk and the medusa.. I only found a single instance of threat 6, with 4 scouts present and the interceptor waking in later.. I figured since I didn't have a shutdown field neutralizer I'd leave and try to find an instance with just the interceptor (was afraid it might use the EMP after waking in and leave me there to be torn apart by the scouts).

I couldn't really find any more threat 6 for a bit. I was searching in Maia, just because it's full of aliens anyway and obsidian orbial is there for quick repairs without having to worry about fines since it's anarchy.
Well, since I couldn't find any... I went to the neighboring system with the distress call of the destroyed majestic.. jumped in like 5 times with nothing there, but canisters and then on the 6th jump there was a Basilisk.. BUT.. also a Cyclops.. so the Python taking on the damage from two interceptors was a no-go.. barely escaped with 40% hull..

So I figured, time to try the sneaky version.. I landed on blackmount habitation one system away (eagle eye 1) and transferred my Chieftain there, since that had heatsinks AND the corrosion resistant cargo rack (didn't wanna lose the Cyclops sample I already had) along with other fancy AX tech (scanner, field neutralizer and the likes).. Btw.. reason the Chieftain is equipped like that is because I wanted that ship as my alien-hunter since it was featured for that purpose in the cinematic, but apparently it's one of the worst for the job as the thargoids really like aiming for the canopy, which still likes breaking too easily, but that's another story...
Anyway.. after successfully transferring over to that ship I set off again, and immediately as I was leaving the planet surface I found a NHSS 6 with a single Basilisk inside..

Ha! I was happy that I finally found the damn thing... He came up in my face.. stared at me for a bit.. then turned around and I used the research limpet, just as the 'recipe' says..
I then turned on silent running... and kept 2-3 km away from it.. even used some heat-sinks.. so I was IN silent running, but still at 0% heat with the canopy all icing up...
Guess what?.. apparently the Thargoids read these guides as well.. cuz as soon as the limpet engaged, he turned towards me and started straight up shooting in my face..
Needless to say I couldn't escape that one as I had no shields to begin with due to silent running and the Chieftain's not that tanky with all that AX stuff on-board.. so yea, lost my Cyclops sample as well
So yea.. there goes the sneaky approach right out the window..

Now as a last resort.. I dished out another 10 million.. and hit the transfer on my battle Corvette that has like 3k shields and almost 5k hull... If that can't stay alive till the stupid limpet does its job.. idk what would..
I'm currently waiting for the transfer and figured I'd come to the forums and cry about it a bit, since I have the time anyway...
But seriously? am I missing something? has it been secretly changed and they now notice you regardless of your heat levels? And what exactly does Frontier expect us to do? Like.. considering how 'simple' other stuff in the game is... most people would've definitely given up by now after struggling this much, just to get some silly goid samples so they can start an additional grind of visiting a bunch of guardian ruins..

So there you go... what do you guys think? Should this be done in a wing or what am I missing here? I mean, people were farming these in bulk some time ago just for selling on the black market... I really wonder whether the thargoids were 'upgraded' in the past few weeks or if it was somehow a bug or bad luck, but technically he shouldn't have noticed me at 0% heat and silent running..

 

[Xevyr]

Okay.. so far this overkill approach is working a bit better...
Got a Cyclops again from a threat 5, that was like a walk in the park in this ship.
Then jumped into a threat 7, where I expected a Medusa... Instead I found 4 scouts and actually a Basilisk warping in and immediately firing the EMP ) Didn't even have time to swap pips to shields.., but I did fire the limpet. Was sitting there in the dark for the duration, taking the full damage of the Basilisk and the scouts not knowing what will happen.. Well, the lights came back on and I still had one ring of the 2 pip-strength shield and was somewhere around 80% hull (the breach percentage seems to be super high on thargoids.. I want that mod! lol).. Anyway, fired some scbs to get the shields back, casually stopped and waited till the limpet returned and then waked out.. This whole thing took me down to like 65% hull (all from breach damage, shields never dropped).
So I'm fairly hopeful that I might be able to take on the Medusa as well in a similar manner... if only I can find one..

What still bothers me though is that even if I get it done.. the amount of force I had to throw at this was just... out of this world lol.. And then I'll have to juggle around ships and corrosion resistant racks, since obviously I can't store cargo at stations.. and I can't go to guardian ruins in a g vette probably wouldn't even be able to find a spot to land it lol.. Life's complicated in space..

Edit: Allright!.. I finally found a Medusa and got the third sample.. that thing packs a punch though if you don't have the remote detonation stuff to take out the thargons... once I grabbed the sample I had to high-wake out at 47% hull (still had shields though, so the penetration amount must be super-high)

 

[AimForAverage]

I found the thargoids on their own at the wrecked megaships. Jump in/out until you get the one you want. I did munch a couple of rebuys learning to do this, but I was only in a DBX not a corvette ;-) . As soon as you can target the thargoid, launch the limpet. When the thargoid gets close and starts to scan, boost past it, enter silent running. Spam heat sinks as required. Stay 1-2 km away. When the limpet starts to come back point you underside at the thargoid and open the hatch. Stay still until the limpet docks. Close cargo hatch, leave silent running at leg it.

 

[Xevyr]

I found the thargoids on their own at the wrecked megaships. Jump in/out until you get the one you want. I did munch a couple of rebuys learning to do this, but I was only in a DBX not a corvette ;-) . As soon as you can target the thargoid, launch the limpet. When the thargoid gets close and starts to scan, boost past it, enter silent running. Spam heat sinks as required. Stay 1-2 km away. When the limpet starts to come back point you underside at the thargoid and open the hatch. Stay still until the limpet docks. Close cargo hatch, leave silent running at leg it.

Yea, that's pretty much what I did when I tried with the Chieftain, though it was at a random NHSS and not the megaship. Fired the limpet.. avoided his scan.. he went on doing his business while I engaged silent running and used heat sinks.. kept my distance above 2 km.. but as soon as the limpet engaged he just turned towards me and opened fire lol.. That's why I said it's either bugged or they're reading all the guides and adopting... Maybe it was just the one I found and bad luck, I don't know what I could've done differently, everything went according to textbook, until he killed me rofll..

Anyway, through the brute force of Core Dynamics engineering that is the Corvette.. I got my samples now, successfully switched to the Chieftain without getting fined again (they hate me enough already around there for carrying these things lol) and now I'm at a thargoid site getting my Link. My only regret is not fitting the ASP with the corrosion resistant rack as well, since it has twice the jump range and there's not gonna be much fighting from here on out anyway. But oh well.. this chieftain has everything as well.. fuel scoop.. 27ly range.. srv bay.. so whatever.. I'll just take my time Still a better option than trying to experiment with swapping ships, potentially losing all my precious illegal cargo I worked so hard for.. which we all know I'm just gonna dump somewhere or sell on the black market after all this is done (I really need that cargo storage somewhere... Fdev! hear the cries rofl.. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/410742-Player-cargo-storage )

So right.. wish me luck.. and guardian stuff

Cheers!

 

[AimForAverage]

If you haven't activated the thargoid machines before, that's well worth doing while you're at the thargoid site. Very cool- really looks great. You'll need the sensor and probe though.

 

[Xevyr]

If you haven't activated the thargoid machines before, that's well worth doing while you're at the thargoid site. Very cool- really looks great. You'll need the sensor and probe though.

Now that you mention it.. yea, it would've been nice to do that
Though I wouldn't have had enough space in the SRV anyways to take the probe AND get the link.. and I couldn't wait to get out of that place haha (I'm still a bit dizzy when driving SRV in VR.. add tunnels to that.. and you get the idea), but I did see Cmdr Malic doing it on stream a couple of times so I hope I didn't miss anything other than the 'stars' lighting up above the machine.
(That's one more thing I kinda don't like in ED.. you pretty much 'have to' watch all the spoilers to actually get things done.. I mean we would never figure out all this on our own in a reasonable amount of time.. so it's all.. googling and watching streams / videos.. meh)

Thanks for the tip though, I'll activate it the next time I'm at one of these places, might look more awesome in VR anyway !

 

[Trickylion]

echo the frustration on this mission, i just wanted to drive around the new ruins and enjoyed the last ram tah mission.
my question is can you offload the commodities to the tech broker bit by bit, or you have to carry all the stuff to unlock the corrosive resistant rack that ummm you need to carry all the corrosive stuff to get the rack, ...... ummmm in order to carry the corrosive stuff to do the mission.
then i need my T10, which in thargoid land, but I want to sneak it with my DBX,
hmmm not worth it I think, never found a probe anyway before, might just do the mission part without the thargoid stuff.

 

[Xevyr]

echo the frustration on this mission, i just wanted to drive around the new ruins and enjoyed the last ram tah mission.
my question is can you offload the commodities to the tech broker bit by bit, or you have to carry all the stuff to unlock the corrosive resistant rack that ummm you need to carry all the corrosive stuff to get the rack, ...... ummmm in order to carry the corrosive stuff to do the mission.
then i need my T10, which in thargoid land, but I want to sneak it with my DBX,
hmmm not worth it I think, never found a probe anyway before, might just do the mission part without the thargoid stuff.

you have to carry them all at once, there is no partial hand-in possibility unfortunately
Yea, I had the same problem.. thankfully my ASP was equipped for 72 tonnes of cargo at the time so it was just enough to get the corrosion resistant racks.

As for the probe, I found mine in a threat 4 NHSS (kinda strange...) near Maia and Merope in one of those neighboring HIP systems.. It was just the probe and nothing else.
Same for the sensor, that's strange as well given that it was in a Threat 5 NHSS, again.. all by itself, no thargoid in sight lol.. (should have been in a threat 2 when there's no thargoids, so I was surprised)

But yea, you need at least 70 cargo space on a ship to unlock the corrosion resistant cargo racks.. 28 of those being Meta-alloys 30 at remote markets and 12 mission rewards.. to make it even more 'fun'
What I did was, I went for the meta-alloys first.. got them from an active barnacle site, bought the radiation baffles in imperial territory and then went 'home' and did a planetary scan job that rewarded 22 Neofabric Insulation - had to transfer to another ship with bigger cargo just for this, since I couldn't hand in the mission in the ASP.. then sold 10 of the insulation and I could switch back..

Anyway, I have all my thargoid stuff now.. and picked up both ram tah missions (haven't done the first one either, but maybe it gets some progress while doing the second, who knows...). Now comes the long and boring figuring out where to travel and scanning and shooting artifacts n stuff (any decent archaeologist would prolly stab you for shooting at the ruins..)

Good luck!

Edit: Oh forgot to mention, but it's kinda obvious from my post.. For the corrosion resistant rack you do not need any thargoid stuff or guardian blueprints.. the only 'alien' things are the meta-alloys so you're fine in that regard, but you still need to hand them in all at once ;/