Spire Site is empty?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

As I'm getting a bit better with AX stuff and have a decent, well-engineered ship, I thought I'd try one of these Thargoid Spire sites people are talking about. I wasn't quite sure how to find them in-game - can we, or is it an external tools thing? - so I used DCoH Tool recommended to me. I found a Spire site near my location, and it showed AX Combat Operations being present. So, I headed there.

Arriving at the site however, it's totally empty, no activity at all. Thought I'd gotten luck that one happened to be near my current location (near Taranis, I've been collecting stuff) but I'm guessing now these sites die when the Titan does? As I mentioned DCoH is still showing that there are active AX Combat Operations going on here, but perhaps it's out of date.

I only really decided to try this, as there appeared to be a location quite close by to try it out. I was just going to go an watch for a bit, before possibly joining in...

FYI: I'm in Trianguli Sector BA-A D85, body 15 b - that's where the Spite site is.

Edit: My current plan is to find a Rescue ship and see if it offer any missions to Spire sites, then make a note of the location.

 

[BDelacroix]

Are the rescue ships where such missions come from? I have enough parts to hand in for some sabotage goo, but I don't want to fly around for an hour just trying to find a mission to do it.

 

[Brother Sabathius]

All of Taranis' Spire sites had been shut down before the titan was attacked.

DCoH will be able to indicate active ones. If you're after Sabotage missions, you can get those from the rescue megaships.

 

[Scoob]

Yeah, I just went to a rescue ship and got a site based on the mission offers. It appears that DCoH is out of date, as it's listing dead Spire sites near Taranis as still having active AX Combat operations.

For the record, I've found a site "arietis sector hg-x b1-0" with a Spire site on Body 5. I've marked a good staging station in HIP 18843, Alexander Freeport, that'll be nicely in-range for my ship. Have run out of time this eve, so will revisit this tomorrow. Hopefully the missions won't just vanish and the Spire site shut down...

I say tomorrow, but today's play session was unexpected, I don't usually get a chance until the weekend, usually Saturday evening...

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

HIP 25654 at Taranis is active. Trianguli Sector BA-A d85 is not. Neither of them show on the galaxy map as having spires (since they were retaken by the thargoids).
If you're going to fight at a spire it's more beneficial to do it at one of the active maelstroms, since any progress will go towards clearing multiple other systems.
The "AX Combat operations" icon has nothing to do with the system's state, that just means some player group has advised DCoH that they will be doing activities in that system. Most groups don't update their status often and afaik the operations aren't cleared after any amount of time, they just stay registered forever.

Finding the spire missions at rescue ships is tiresome, first you need to go to the right ones (the rescue ships that passengers never want to go to, so you can't combine two activities in the same run) and then hope that the missions will show up - it seems roughly half of the game's mission servers aren't working properly / don't produce these missions so you have to keep relogging to desktop until the game decides to connect to a server that produces them.

 

[Kira Goto]

HIP 25654 at Taranis is active

It actually isn’t. Unless its state is flicking back and forth every other week now, it was turned off again when I visited it on Tuesday.

Two guaranteed to be active spires are at Oya, Lyncis Sector WU-P b5-0 and Cephei Sector XO-A b3 - the former is currently used as the primary site for the cleanup of Oya’s controls in preparation of the Titan assault, the latter appears to be where sabotage missions go(but I don’t recall which of the nearby rescue ships sends you there).

HIP 19870 at Indra is also an active spire which was never shut down in the past.

 

[Scoob]

Found myself an active Spire site - the one I mentioned above - I seem to lack the DPS to kill anything big though. I've been shredding the various scouts, which is quite fun, and I'm attacking the bigger guys. However, they ALWAYS flee before I can kill them. I see a jump anomaly thing, larger Thargoid arrives, I shoot it constantly counting any Shut Down fields it generates. However, it will then jump out again after a minute or so.

Basically, I need to be able to kill one in UNDER a minute or it just flees. I only have Enhanced AX MC's on my Krait II - five of them - but that's simply not enough. Wanted to do this solo to build up my skill, but I need to do more damage.

Couple of other things... My ships runs cold - around 14% usually - but it never gets below 17% at this Spire site, often sitting bang on 20% for some reason. Also, those ground units that launch missiles, they see if no matter how cold to get it seems. However, staying a little higher up generally, seems to make them a non-issue. I see the odd missile streak past me when I get a little lower when manoeuvring, but generally I can dodge them. I dodged them better once I saw they had quite a large AOE, and just avoiding them hitting me wasn't enough lol.

My ship is still in good shape, so I'm going back in, but I do need more DPS. I debated AX Missiles, but then that makes the little Scouts near impossible to hit.

 

[Kira Goto]

AXMCs aren't that good for breaking through shields - and Orthrus have quite a strong one protecting them when they drop in(6,250 raw strength), though like with all other Thargoid shields, it decays naturally over time(25 Mj/sec). So having a xeno scanner to see the shield strength(if you don't have one) and picking ones where it's gone down a bit already would make it easier to take them out before they run away.

You can also swap one of the multis out for a shield stripping weapon. AXI stats list the Orthus at 1,170 hull HP and 130 armor, if that is of any use for further decision making - will take a little for AX multis to go through that, due to the damage reduction they'll suffer from..

AX missiles are also the preferred tool for taking them out as far as I'm aware. Not that I've ever done any Orthrus shooting myself outside of seeing what they were about in the starting points of the war.

 

[Scoob]

Thank you. I swapped the scanner out for the anti-shutdown device. I could likely drop one of the two Caustic Sinks to fit the scanner. Is the Orthrus's shield more susceptible to conventional lasers? I could fit a couple of beams potentially.

I can see how this is a squad-based activity. I can configure the ship to be good at taking down scouts, or good at taking down larger ships (AX Missiles) but trying to do both, compromises both. I don't have any of the Guardian Weapons unlocked - I have materials stored for three, at least I did have not checked lately - but never bothered considering the Titan's ability to fry guardian tech.

I've been doing this alone in my own Private Group - no other members online - but I might log in to Mobius to see if anyone else is around. I'd hope to be more help than hindrance!

 

[Kira Goto]

Is the Orthrus's shield more susceptible to conventional lasers?

All Thargoid shields have a vulnerability to thermal damage afaik. A frag cannon with incendiary rounds could also do quite well at stripping it away.

And yeah, don't bother with Guardian weapons for Orthrus. I don't remember for sure but it's sticking around in my mind that while Titan and Glaive Guardian melters do it in about a minute and a half (ish), Orthrus Guardian melter fields are super potent and do it in far less time than that(and also plague your HUD with a ridiculous amount of distortion). Not to mention the necessary repairs if you did manage to kill one with those weapons.

 

[Scoob]

When my Carrier arrives - likely next game session now, darn 40+ minute jump times - I might fit a couple of Beams into the C2 slots on the Krait.

 

[RaketeMike]

When my Carrier arrives - likely next game session now, darn 40+ minute jump times - I might fit a couple of Beams into the C2 slots on the Krait.

I heard that it is best to use cytoscramblers for their shields. Powerplay Module, unfortunately.. I once tried a huge gimballed beam on an FDL together with 4 medium AX missile racks, and could barely take them out with this setup, just in time. Two C2 Beams won’t suffice for the shield I’m afraid

 

[Scoob]

I heard that it is best to use cytoscramblers for their shields. Powerplay Module, unfortunately.. I once tried a huge gimballed beam on an FDL together with 4 medium AX missile racks, and could barely take them out with this setup, just in time. Two C2 Beams won’t suffice for the shield I’m afraid

Ooo, I have some of those! Might replace the Two Class 2 EAX MC's...

 

[RaketeMike]

Cytoplasma sounds good. I can't / won't unlock powerplay stuff so instead I go for the shield with large/small/small fixed frag cannons, double shot and incendiary on an Anaconda. 3 large and 2 medium Sirius missiles for hull. It works fine unless I get buffeted several km away at the start

,. this might also be an option.

From this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/orthrus-hunting-fdl.623722/#post-10329537

 

[Scoob]

You know, I did the grind to unlock the Sirius stuff ages ago. But I encountered a bug where my rep gain got stuck with the Faction, so I could never qualify for access. I might be remembering wrong - it was a while ago - but I was gaining rep to have access to a Permit-locked system where I could buy what I needed. I've had many instances where things haven't unlocked how they should, from Ranks back in the day - I'd have to "Qualify" several times before the actual next rank would unlock properly - through to Guardian stuff where I'd do the thing, but bit of the thing would fail - from Pylon things not deploying, to deployed Pylons not counting, to scanning the Orb thing yielding NOTHING. This was a long time back now though, but I'm still irritated by it lol.

 

[Kira Goto]

You know, I did the grind to unlock the Sirius stuff ages ago.

I believe you don’t actually need Sirius rep to get access to the Sirius tech broker(may be wrong - been allied with them on my main long since before they even added those specific ones, iirc), as they are present on several megaships which are in freely accessible systems. I believe there is one in Leesti.

(If you’re on about Marco Qwent… well… sorry.)

 

[Scoob]

Oh, has something changed then? I recall I had to gain sufficient rep with them to get some sort of Permit. Due to the bug, my rep stopped increasing with them, despite doing a lot of missions. I sorta gave up at that point, then took a break from the game for a while. I might take a look at doing this again.

 

[Kira Goto]

The only thing I ever remember needing a Sirius permit for is, well, getting access to Sirius (system) where that guy Qwent has his engineer base. Which is different from their pre-engineered items like the heatsink and AX missile rack.

 

[Scoob]

The only thing I ever remember needing a Sirius permit for is, well, getting access to Sirius (system) where that guy Qwent has his engineer base. Which is different from their pre-engineered items like the heatsink and AX missile rack.

Maybe I'm miss-remembering something, but I was doing a Rep grind with a Faction to gain access to some AX Weapon - it was quite a while ago now though, so I cannot remember exactly. I just remember it was bugged, and my rep gain got stuck before I had access to what I needed. I think it was a System Permit or something.

Also, I just tested Cytoscramblers and they do next to nothing. I can barely tell the difference between 2x Cyto's and 3x C3 EAX MC's when it comes to the rate the shield comes down. I did fit a Xeno Scanner though, and I can see that the Thargoids are escaping at 70% Hull or there about. Another Minute and I'd have brought them down. That must be a dozen+ that have escaped me now. I had hoped my buddy would be on this eve to help me out - he's quite new to AX stuff too - but he wasn't.

 

[Scoob]

Well, this is frustrating... I'm now doing significantly more damage to the larger Thargoids - thanks to five AX Missile Racks. However, the buggers just jump out MUCH sooner now. Also, I cannot fight Scouts very well at all lol. Of course, what does the instance spam me with? Yeah, dozens of Scouts that find me right away, despite being well under 20% heat.

So, in summary, I'm dealing many time more DPS, however, within seconds of engaging a larger Thargoid - that's just entered the instance (not from the Spire, via a jump cloud thingy) - they jump out.

Gonna keep trying, but if it keeps spawning loads of Scouts, I'm gonna struggle to stay on the larger ship. I can readily tank the damage, ignoring the Scout long enough to take out the big guy IF it didn't jump right away.