Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

[Phill P]

So… does that make them almost equal to populated alerts in terms of the samples required for a clear?

(Still believe that alerts should somehow facilitate combat slightly without turning it into invasion state 2.0… but that’s easier said than done.)

Unless populated Alerts have changed as well then it's close. An unpopulated Alert at 20ly is now 2000, a populated Alert at 20ly is 2592 unless that has changed as well.

It looks even more ridiculous when you take a system like Cephei Sector ZZ-Y b3 in Oya. If Controls are unchanged it takes 4149 as a Control. With this change to Alerts, as an unpopulated Alert it now takes 6168.

 

[Kira Goto]

Unless populated Alerts have changed as well then it's close.

Ah. Well, if it means anything it doesn’t look like pop alerts changed. At least the registered number of samples for Gliese 9035 on Overwatch is 1,973(20.49 ly - don’t know how they do it so quickly).

Balancing is usually fine and all but I feel like there’s a point being missed slightly in why people rely on samples so much for unpopulated alerts, and repeatedly reducing its effectiveness is unlikely to make them engage with the other means… because they’re just not practical.

 

[yttrbio]

Quick test for unpopulated controls at Col 285 Sector VN-H b11-0 (25.04 ly from Cocijo)

Started: .003150
After 4 scout kills: .003158
After turning in 51 samples: .054390

 

[Phill P]

Quick test for unpopulated controls at Col 285 Sector VN-H b11-0 (25.04 ly from Cocijo)

Started: .003150
After 4 scout kills: .003158
After turning in 51 samples: .054390

So if my calculations are correct that's now 996 to clear, up from <500. To all intents and purposes empty alerts and empty controls have doubled.

 

[Kira Goto]

Actually, nevermind.

 

[Phill P]

Ah. Well, if it means anything it doesn’t look like pop alerts changed. At least the registered number of samples for Gliese 9035 on Overwatch is 1,973(20.49 ly - don’t know how they do it so quickly).

SNPX delivered 4461 in total for Gliese 9035 which is overkill unless there has been an increase. If nothing has changed it would need 3522.

As for how - buddy sampling, but it's still not enough.

Balancing is usually fine and all but I feel like there’s a point being missed slightly in why people rely on samples so much for unpopulated alerts, and repeatedly reducing its effectiveness is unlikely to make them engage with the other means… because they’re just not practical.

Exactly. The point seems to have escaped them that we only went to sampling because the other activities were so much slower. Plus there's not much else to do in an unpopulated Alert.

 

[Kira Goto]

As for how - buddy sampling, but it's still not enough.

I know, it just surprises me how quickly they in particular always seem to get those numbers done.

I was going to suggest that maybe it was a nerf specific to Scout samples and to see if a Cyclops was now a reasonable alternative, but seeing how the unpopulated control strength also has gone up, and populated alerts (possibly) didn’t change, that doesn’t seem very likely.

Oh well. I guess the point of “You weren’t supposed to push the Titans back yet” has well and truly been hammered in, with extra nails being added in the form of “Ram Tah is preparing a Titan shooty weapon, just go use that when it gets thrown out while a ‘Thargoid resurgence’ serves as a backdrop for it”.

Not that I can say the current balancing trend feels too genuine, certainly not until the effectiveness of blasting a Titan is determined. And until anyone can actually begin doing that.

 

[yttrbio]

I dusted off the interceptor-sampling cutter to test cyclops samples. I forgot how much more fun it was. It seems like there's a good chance the frame rate trick works for interceptors, too, though it's not almost 100% the way it is for scouts, and it was only one run.

Still at Col 285 Sector VN-H b11-0 (unpopulated control 25.04 ly from Cocijo)

Before: 0.054390
After 35 cyclops samples and 2 scout kills: 0.089553

Still the same as scouts.

 

[Shayan al Nasarwa]

SNPX delivered 4461 in total for Gliese 9035 which is overkill unless there has been an increase. If nothing has changed it would need 3522.

As for how - buddy sampling, but it's still not enough.

Ah. Well, if it means anything it doesn’t look like pop alerts changed. At least the registered number of samples for Gliese 9035 on Overwatch is 1,973(20.49 ly - don’t know how they do it so quickly).

@PapaDragon_I calculated a need of 4277 samples, so it does not look like a overkill. This morning I checked the progress in Gliese 9035: 105%! So there is a confirmed change to inhabited alerts, too.

Yes, we did buddy sampling yesterday. We had 8 Type-9 collecting samples and 5 taxi drivers delivering them to a carrier. This community is what we are proud of. But after this latest change of difficulty yesterday we decided to stop working.

The eviction of Gliese 9035 took us about 2.5 hours, but was the result of the concentrated work of 13 (!) commanders. These 13 commanders may come back, if there are changes that give us a motivation again. But for now, we give FDEV what they deserve: demotivated commanders doing something else in the nearer future. And this may be NOT playing Elite Dangerous.

For me personally: I surely will continue playing ED, but for the moment not being engaged in the Thargoid war.

 

[Kira Goto]

Well, at that rate, it might as well be worth reviewing inhabited control strength. Not that I see anybody bothering to retake anything any time soon. Or in the next month, since U18 is looking like a possible mid-end of February drop.

 

[yttrbio]

Cyclops is still 30% of a sample in an uninhabited control, so they didn't selectively make samples worth less, it's just an across-the-board difficulty increase

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Seems oddly superfluous - the Thargoids were getting a 75%ish win rate even without it, uninhabited systems were already being largely ignored at most Maelstroms.

Even allowed an infinite Alert budget and undefeatable system strength the Thargoids can't get Meene quicker than about 24 weeks, so if they want to get at Ram Tah's pile of Guardian relics they're not going to get it that way.

 

[Kayvan]

Yeah, well I've never been involved in sampling, but at this point I would say the same as Phill: just ignore unpop Alerts completely now. Do anything that sparks joy instead. I suppose the worst thing that can happen is that the frontline gets pushed to 30, maybe 40ly from the maelstroms, and at that distance the invasions should be so weak they are easily defeated. And probably the next story twist - i.e. Ram Tah's ominous guardian project - will change the situation long before that happens anyway.

The whole gameplay situation is really absurd anyway: imagine you're invited to a board game, and you're sat at the table but aren't told any of the rules. Actually, your opponent is the game's inventor who makes all the rules but tells you none of them, you have to figure them out during play. Then as soon as you have figured out an important rule, and start using it in your favour - your opponent changes that rule!
I dunno, I can't imagine anyone would ever want to play such a game. But here we're expected to just swallow that week after week.

---

Change of topic:
What is the current state of evacuation missions? Are you still being pursued by Scythes all the way to the rescue ship? What are the differences between passenger and pod missions?
Haven't run hot zone evac in many months; back then pod missions were pointless because it was just onesies-twosies, so you'd rather take a couple of passenger missions that would fill your cabins quickly.

 

[Untilting]

Change of topic:
What is the current state of evacuation missions? Are you still being pursued by Scythes all the way to the rescue ship? What are the differences between passenger and pod missions?

Not in my recent experience on Obamumbo, I did a bunch of passenger runs and there was almost always a Scythe hyperdiction on the first jump, but nothing after that.

I haven't done proper pod runs recently, but played with an anti-Scythe Krait build a couple of times (baited with some evac mission pods), both times I had to jump back and forth between Obamumbo and a nearby system twice before a Scythe took an interest. Not exactly a huge sample set though.

 

[Danieros]

Frontier really wants to write a monthly war report about the Thargoids having taken a record number of control systems, don't they? A 100% difficulty increase on top of all the other changes they've been doing... rule change after rule change.

Or maybe this Titan-breaching weapon will be really good...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Frontier really wants to write a monthly war report about the Thargoids having taken a record number of control systems, don't they?

They need to boost them a bit more, then - the original post-arrival balance had them taking ~70 net systems a week, which they wouldn't be doing now even with no opposition. It'll take them about six months to get back to their previous greatest extents.

 

[Kayvan]

Not in my recent experience on Obamumbo, I did a bunch of passenger runs and there was almost always a Scythe hyperdiction on the first jump, but nothing after that.

I haven't done proper pod runs recently, but played with an anti-Scythe Krait build a couple of times (baited with some evac mission pods), both times I had to jump back and forth between Obamumbo and a nearby system twice before a Scythe took an interest. Not exactly a huge sample set though.

Okay, I just gave it a try with my hot zone Python that used to be fine before Scythes were introduced. I went to a damaged outpost and was immediately attacked, lost shields before I even docked. So I repped and took all the passenger missions available, which didn't even fill my entire capacity - just about 110 out of 130 seats.
As I took off, I was again immediately under fire, lost shields, took hull damage, and did not manage to ECM the FSD-reboot missiles. Also couldn't prevent their limpets from docking. The reboot took FOREVER and when I finally jumped I was down to something like 55% hull.
In the first jump I was hyperdicted, and again did not manage to ECM the reboot missiles. But I managed to evade the enemy fire a bit better, still now when I finally high waked I was down to 36% hull. Passengers sure complained a lot!

At least the rest of the journey (3 jumps total to the rescue ship) was smooth sailing. I lost a total of 12 pax, but the survivors were grateful.

Still, I'm not doing this again unless I manage to improve my ship.
Turns out I didn't need heat sinks, SFN or CSL, so I might replace some or all of those with shield boosters, only keeping the ECM (which I apparently need to practice more with).
Also maybe I should replace the heavy duty Lightweight hull with a lightweight Military one. And maybe a bigger Prismatic shield, since there weren't even enough passengers to fill all the cabins I have. Downside is this all reduces my speed, which is already below 500 due to all those heavy cabins.
And obviously I should plug in a pre-engineered FSD. That's okay, I have one spare in another ship that doesn't need it.

Many problems could be solved by using my Clipper instead -- but that one can't dock at outposts, of course.

 

[Untilting]

Okay, I just gave it a try with my hot zone Python that used to be fine before Scythes were introduced. I went to a damaged outpost and was immediately attacked, lost shields before I even docked. So I repped and took all the passenger missions available, which didn't even fill my entire capacity - just about 110 out of 130 seats.
As I took off, I was again immediately under fire, lost shields, took hull damage, and did not manage to ECM the FSD-reboot missiles. Also couldn't prevent their limpets from docking. The reboot took FOREVER and when I finally jumped I was down to something like 55% hull.
In the first jump I was hyperdicted, and again did not manage to ECM the reboot missiles. But I managed to evade the enemy fire a bit better, still now when I finally high waked I was down to 36% hull. Passengers sure complained a lot!

Ahhhhhhhh my bad, I may have misunderstood - I wasn't evacuating from a hot zone, just a regular station in an Invasion system. Apologies for the near-rebuy....

Still, just the one hyperdiction.

 

[Shurimal]

Okay, I just gave it a try with my hot zone Python that used to be fine before Scythes were introduced. I went to a damaged outpost and was immediately attacked, lost shields before I even docked. So I repped and took all the passenger missions available, which didn't even fill my entire capacity - just about 110 out of 130 seats.
As I took off, I was again immediately under fire, lost shields, took hull damage, and did not manage to ECM the FSD-reboot missiles. Also couldn't prevent their limpets from docking. The reboot took FOREVER and when I finally jumped I was down to something like 55% hull.
In the first jump I was hyperdicted, and again did not manage to ECM the reboot missiles. But I managed to evade the enemy fire a bit better, still now when I finally high waked I was down to 36% hull. Passengers sure complained a lot!

The best ship for combat evac is Phantom--it can comfortably outrun Scythes, outruns Glaives if you boost and get out of their engagement range right after dropping into realspace, almost outruns the FSD reboot missiles, has great jumprange and still carries 80 passengers. You can whistle your way through the thargoid blockade, nothing is able to touch you.

 

[Kayvan]

Ah, so that's the new meta then. xD Yeah the Phantom is a ship of many talents. But to go through all that trouble for only 80 pax... hmm idk.

But it probably does make more sense than the Python in the current environment. I did refit my Python, and then on the way into the system got hyperdicted by a Glaive. It didn't manage to wear down my new shields, but it was still very difficult to get away because it kept lightning-ing me and rebooting my FSD. Eventually I aborted the attempt and returned to my carrier.

So I guess I will try out a Phantom, but annoyingly it uses just the wrong optional slot sizes, so I'll have to get some new modules.