Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

Lol. fdev saw players were planning to prolong the war by not attacking Oya when it is possible this week and so encourage the attack this week.
It seems a bit premature to assume that Oya can be defeated in a single week even under all-out attack, though. People are out of position and Thursday morning is always the quietest time of the week, but the current rate is not suggesting its defeat this time. Knocking a bunch of hearts off it to make a future attack easier, sure, might be worthwhile.

(And of course the Pilots Federation notice points towards not attacking Oya this week, though it's quite possible that it's an automated message that hasn't been edited to cover the latest adjustments)

But the way the targeting seems almost erratic in nature, it feels more like a panic attack to me. Surely a system nearly 50 light years out from the Titan won’t be what saves it.
The outer ones stop Spire attacks being used to soften any of the inner ones (or retake further Control systems), making it virtually impossible even if Alert repelling at Oya was a priority to get any of the nearer ones, and ensuring a comfy double-figure Control count the next week.

In theory they also give Oya a whole bunch of anchor points to launch further Alerts from without being constrained by the sparseness of systems nearer to Oya ... but since Alerts no longer need to be launched from Control systems and can disregard the previously-established cooldown periods, that doesn't really matter.
 
My tin-foil hat theory is they've finally worked out what's causing the core bugging out and need another couple of weeks to test and deploy an update so we don't have a third case of "everyone who was in the system that week gets the decal", so we've hit the brakes.
That would be nice. On my first trip into Oya now, the core came up twice while I was flying into the cloud (and awarded £4k bonds for doing nothing) but got stuck in the down position as soon as I got to it. So back to the carrier I go to repair and reload the caustic sinks to get through the cloud again. Annoying.
 
It seems a bit premature to assume that Oya can be defeated in a single week even under all-out attack, though. People are out of position and Thursday morning is always the quietest time of the week, but the current rate is not suggesting its defeat this time. Knocking a bunch of hearts off it to make a future attack easier, sure, might be worthwhile.

(And of course the Pilots Federation notice points towards not attacking Oya this week, though it's quite possible that it's an automated message that hasn't been edited to cover the latest adjustments)
Frankly, it's one week it, or given the alerts include such gems as WO-A b3, projected to be 100,000 samples By Itself going by PDES' alert samples calculator, plus the inherent, USS are less reliable than 'drop out anywhere and the thargoid comes to you', going backwards even if we went all-in on blocking.

I'd rather hope, try, and hit it as hard as we can, than roll over and just take the critical burnout that will result from this, especially when we were over 70k through preparing the final systems.
 
Frankly, it's one week it, or given the alerts include such gems as WO-A b3, projected to be 100,000 samples By Itself going by PDES' alert samples calculator, plus the inherent, USS are less reliable than 'drop out anywhere and the thargoid comes to you', going backwards even if we went all-in on blocking.
Oh, absolutely - an all-out attack is the only plausible option this week.
 
Cephei Sector LC-V b2-5
  • Initial journal "WarProgress":0.000712
  • Drop in on a NHSS 4 signal
  • Shoot across the bow of the Orthrus so it departs
  • 8 Inciters destroyed
  • 111 Inciter samples collected
  • 9th Inciter destroyed
  • Samples sold at Tritea rescue ship, Kisseih
  • Return to Cephei Sector LC-V b2-5
  • Post sale journal "WarProgress":0.003159

Suggesting either 45k samples required, or the system update takes more time than my return took, or I don't understand how sample measurements work


Off to Krait Mk II to help against Oya which has damage resistance of High. O7

Pilots' Federation Alert received today
"If we hope to defeat this Titan we must do what we can to push it out of every star system it currently controls"
Once more they appear to be suggesting a sub-optimal approach versus bruteforcing the Titan itself
Are we going to be able to kill it off in a week
Or will it be a case of biting a bit off, wearing down Controls, and repeating
When did you sell the samples?
 
Add to which the broken instances will be disruptive. I've tried once in open and once in AXI, both broken so same as @Cori

At least I've learnt to work that out before clearing the caustic barrier
 
The impression here is that it is designed specifically to follow this:

As it currently stands, Thargoid Titans create alert systems whilst they continue to threaten the galaxy. These alert systems are challenging to reclaim if they are close to the Titan and currently even if the Titan is destroyed these still need to be taken back.

We're making a change that will take effect this Thursday: Alert states will be considered defeated if the Titan met a fiery end before they could initiate the subsequent Invasion. That means you won't have to worry about trying to complete an impossibly hard Alert state or any subsequent invasions beginning as long as you can take out the source.

We have unprecedented Alerts, no access via peripheral progress, a Titan which can be destroyed with around four days if everyone present at T. Taranis were to attend, and the first and only time in the history of the war that a rule-change has actually been announced is telling us that destroying the Titan will stop the Alerts. Piece it all together if you will, but do so while outfitting your Nanite torpedos and AX missiles!




My tin-foil hat theory is they've finally worked out what's causing the core bugging out and need another couple of weeks to test and deploy an update so we don't have a third case of "everyone who was in the system that week gets the decal", so we've hit the brakes.

If it is actually this, and rather than simply pausing the war the Frontier solution is instead to reoccupy systems we have just now cleared and saturate the periphery so they cannot be cleared again soon, I expect almost nobody will continue at all. I know at least that V is displeased regarding Cephei Sector WO-A b3, for which we gathered 9400 with the understanding that our time buys that specific system four weeks of protection, not zero weeks.


About 5 minutes before I posted. "timestamp":"2024-04-04T10:27:22Z"

Indeed; check again after around 11:20! Very loosely, actions seem to be considered to fall within one-hour segments which align on the hour itself, and the results seem to appear after approximately 20 minutes. I have seen this vary however, and others may know some more closely-observed timings than mine.
 
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It is accurate but incomplete; the truth more fully is that either a Titan will need to be much more vulnerable for the attacks of one Commander to be effective, or we just need many more Commanders for their combined attacks to reach the same effect!
 
It is accurate but incomplete; the truth more fully is that either a Titan will need to be much more vulnerable for the attacks of one Commander to be effective, or we just need many more Commanders for their combined attacks to reach the same effect!
I'll watch with interest.
 
We have unprecedented Alerts, no access via peripheral progress, a Titan which can be destroyed with around four days if everyone present at T. Taranis were to attend, and the first and only time in the history of the war that a rule-change has actually been announced is telling us that destroying the Titan will stop the Alerts. Piece it all together if you will, but do so while outfitting your Nanite torpedos and AX missiles!
That's certainly consistent and I'd be more inclined to believe it intentional on Frontier's part if the in-game message weren't telling CMDRs to do the least useful possible action this week of continuing to attack Oya's remaining Controls.
 
Indeed; check again after around 11:20! Very loosely, actions seem to be considered to fall within one-hour segments which align on the hour itself, and the results seem to appear after approximately 20 minutes. I have seen this vary however, and others may know some more closely-observed timings than mine.
Will do

Got into a working instance just as @Grimscrub departed. I was able to get about 940k each heart exposure. Fingers crossed other CMDRs can get some good results and not see too many broken instances (remember, only 1 CMDR at a time with the nanites to minimise breakage)
 
but since Alerts no longer need to be launched from Control systems and can disregard the previously-established cooldown periods, that doesn't really matter
Are we sure it doesn’t for everything, or just the Titan ‘emergency attack’(as I’m going to refer to it until a different/better term emerges)?

And I am also not seeing any of the populated systems which are in recovery/cooldown period being affected by this attack either. Other than Tougeir and Muchihiks, everything else is an unpopulated target.

The point about the periphery does stand, though.
 
Will do

Got into a working instance just as @Grimscrub departed. I was able to get about 940k each heart exposure. Fingers crossed other CMDRs can get some good results and not see too many broken instances (remember, only 1 CMDR at a time with the nanites to minimise breakage)
0.000712Start Test
111Samples
0.395975End Test
0.39526Progress
0.60474Remaining
170Samples needed


Which would suggest total of 281 samples. That system was 41Ly edit: 49.1ly from Oya I believe. Is that the expected figures?
 
Are we sure it doesn’t for everything, or just the Titan ‘emergency attack’(as I’m going to refer to it until a different/better term emerges)?
Because it's so unprecedented in multiple aspects - ignoring cooldowns, ignoring attack distance, ignoring the requirement for Alerts to be placed by Controls / limited to one per placing system, ignoring normal budget limits, etc. - then there doesn't seem any grounds to assume that Oya can't do it again next week too, or at least, on any other occasion where its Control count gets "too low".

If it wasn't a simple hand-edit of system states to ensure a suitable "speed of plot", then the only explanation I can find for why the other five didn't do anything special, and nor did Oya or Leigong or Taranis in their previous weeks under heavy attack is that this is a new ability gained in U18 to make extra anomalous attacks in any week a fully active Spire [1] is recaptured.

It's also the case that all those uninhabited Alerts outside the 20LY line can - if this week's attack fails - likely be taken out at Control in their first week before they can actually do anything, so it doesn't necessarily help that much to extend the perimeter even if Oya reverts to conventional targeting hereafter.

[1] i.e. one which has never previously been captured, or Leigong would have got one of these too, though too late to do it any good.

And I am also not seeing any of the populated systems which are in recovery/cooldown period being affected by this attack either. Other than Tougeir and Muchihiks, everything else is an unpopulated target.
Yes - it does appear that whatever it is did go for systems in state None (with invisible cooldowns) rather than those in actual Recovery.
 
I was hoping that these mass alerts would signify the Thargoids deploying the human captives as war effort (with something nasty coming near the weekend), but only two of all alerts were on populated systems, so there goes my dream.

Also, tried a run solo, and the Thargoids are way more aggressive than usual. I got clocked while running at less than 5% at about 6 km (it's usually closer to 5 km), and the Titan itself is more trigger happy (specially with the caustic torpedoes). I tried 3 runs and botched the third (the first vent I targeted refused to blue up all 3 runs), totaling less than 1.5m (700k on the first two). I can usually get 2m on one run, so I'm dropping out of this one. Goids can have this week, that's okay.
 
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