Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

[Kira Goto]

The Thor idea has been put forward more than once. Response is to post a list of Indra systems they don't want us going after.
So I guess we're improvising our own missions at this point?

The only issue I’m seeing is that you’d have to separately track those stored samples of Indra and those from Thor, unless it goes with a “Collect and deliver” scheme instead.

But might give those spire hitters otherwise sitting around idly something to do in that time.

(Also occurs to me this Indra plan would be a lot trickier to pull off without the sampling trick but that’s a separate issue/matter entirely.)

 

[Phill P]

Is there a list of FCs that can store tissue samples for specific systems? I mean for preparing the work for the next titan, for example.

Being put together at the moment, some carriers are in place already, others we will have to wait to see who is available after Hadad goes down.

Meanwhile two systems that need help are below;

HIP 20419 - 7276 samples needed - deliver to PDES Cloudbase 2 in HIP 20826.
Hyades Sector NN-S b4-2 - 4315 samples needed - deliver to Hypatia of Alexandria in HIP 20826.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So I guess we're improvising our own missions at this point?

Isn't everyone? Here's the state of Thor at the end of this cycle.

Spoiler: Thor Map

At this stage, just starting to trim off its outer control systems is as good a strategy as any; it has a very limited perimeter to actually place new Alerts with, so focusing on the ones predicted to place an Alert the following week will take its expansion ability down quite a bit. Someone has already been doing that a bit - it's likely to be down to just 4 Alerts this week as a result.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Response is to post a list of Indra systems they don't want us going after.

Very much in the absence of immediate time to subtract those from the remaining M. Indra systems! The general-but-abstract answer to the question "how to help that Indra approach now?", which will be still true in week 78, is to complete systems which cannot be attacked by its inner 39 or the other four active Spire sites.

That is a complicated list to produce! Definitely it is a list I want to provide each week; the immediate trouble is that a wide overview of how a successful Indra approach could be done turned a bit into wanting something to do in the meantime before T. Hadad becomes vulnerable at the arbitrary Thursday date-line. I had expected to list specific systems eventually, just not quite that soon!

I know that a complicated list is the product of a complicated plan, but at present I see no other way it would succeed.

Additional: Said list also ought to subtract anything already stored by or on behalf of PDES!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

That is a complicated list to produce!

As it happens it's a list I already largely have the tools to generate from other data requests. Test run based on the just-completed week, easy for me to fine-tune further.

In terms of systems which can be attacked

Spoiler: Indra 39+4S Map

(All of the outer Spires except HG-X are annoying for adding a substantial amount of extra perimeter, but HR 1358 is incredibly so! Don't think that one can practically be stopped from placing an Alert!)

Spoiler: Indra 39+4S System List

----- inner systems -----
51 Tauri
63 Tauri
64 Tauri
71 Tauri
75 Tauri
76 Tauri
Arietis EQ-Y c18
Arietis HG-X b1-0
Arietis HG-X b1-1
Arietis HG-X b1-2
Arietis IG-X b1-4
Arietis KR-V b2-1
Arietis KR-V b2-2
Arietis MM-V b2-1
Gaezatorix
HIP 19098
HIP 19263
HIP 19870
HIP 19934
HIP 20082
HIP 20086
HIP 20187
HIP 20349
HIP 20350
HIP 20357
HIP 20480
HIP 20563
HIP 20827
HIP 20916
HIP 21112
HIP 21138
HIP 21179
HIP 21912
HIP 22350
HR 1358
HR 1385
Hyades RT-Q b5-3
Hyades RT-Q b5-4
Hyades ST-Q b5-5
Hyades TO-Q b5-4
Hyadum I
NN 3281
Raidal
----- directly reachable systems -----
48 Tauri
55 Tauri
57 h Tauri
58 Tauri
60 Tauri
70 Tauri
77 Theta-1 Tauri
78 Theta-2 Tauri
79 b Tauri
80 Tauri
83 Tauri
86 Rho Tauri
92 Sigma-2 Tauri
97 i Tauri
Arietis DA-Z b3
Arietis HG-X b1-3
Arietis JR-V b2-1
Arietis JR-V b2-2
Arietis JR-V b2-3
Arietis JR-V b2-4
Arietis LM-V b2-3
Arietis LM-V b2-5
Arietis TY-P a6-0
HIP 19157
HIP 19781
HIP 20019
HIP 20146
HIP 20397
HIP 20419
HIP 20482
HIP 20485
HIP 20491
HIP 20492
HIP 20527
HIP 20577
HIP 20605
HIP 20616
HIP 20679
HIP 20712
HIP 20741
HIP 20815
HIP 20826
HIP 20850
HIP 20899
HIP 20948
HIP 21261
HIP 21475
HIP 21918
HIP 22265
HIP 22524
HIP 22688

And that leaves as safe to clear before then...

Spoiler: Alerts, Invasions and Controls not on the inner/perimeter list

37 A1 Tauri
Arietis DQ-Y c9
Arietis FL-X b1-0
Arietis HG-X b1-4
Arietis KM-T a4-0
Arietis KM-T a4-2
Arietis LM-V b2-2
Arietis NH-V b2-0
Arietis OS-R a5-0
Arietis TY-P a6-1
Arietis TY-P a6-2
HIP 19789
HIP 20890
HIP 21008
HIP 21788
HIP 22203
HIP 22422
HIP 22496
Hyades AR-J a10-0
Hyades BR-J a10-0
Hyades LC-U b3-4
Hyades NN-S b4-0
Hyades ON-S b4-6
Hyades PI-S b4-1

(which doesn't have any exclusions for samples collected so far, of course)

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Isn't everyone? Here's the state of Thor at the end of this cycle.

Spoiler: Thor Map

View attachment 393598

At this stage, just starting to trim off its outer control systems is as good a strategy as any; it has a very limited perimeter to actually place new Alerts with, so focusing on the ones predicted to place an Alert the following week will take its expansion ability down quite a bit. Someone has already been doing that a bit - it's likely to be down to just 4 Alerts this week as a result.

Well yes but lack of a clear direction to follow perhaps.
Trimming Thor sounds like as decent a direction as anything else now.

 

[yianniv]

Being put together at the moment, some carriers are in place already, others we will have to wait to see who is available after Hadad goes down.

Meanwhile two systems that need help are below;

HIP 20419 - 7276 samples needed - deliver to PDES Cloudbase 2 in HIP 20826.
Hyades Sector NN-S b4-2 - 4315 samples needed - deliver to Hypatia of Alexandria in HIP 20826.

Thank you for your reply. I usually look at the first post of this thread for systems, and when I collect samples I deliver them directly. I'm not a member of any anti-Xeno group, just play casually, and I don't know where to look for such info.

 

[Phill P]

The only issue I’m seeing is that you’d have to separately track those stored samples of Indra and those from Thor, unless it goes with a “Collect and deliver” scheme instead.

But might give those spire hitters otherwise sitting around idly something to do in that time.

(Also occurs to me this Indra plan would be a lot trickier to pull off without the sampling trick but that’s a separate issue/matter entirely.)

Which sampling trick do you mean?

Anyway, there are not that many massively high sample systems in the ones we want to collect for in the 18-28 range. Many are for relatively small amounts so it's the number of systems, not the number of samples, that is the bigger issue logistically.

Progress has begun there too. Two carriers have already collected for a number of small systems and we have put together a list for Indra which will be revised as necessary. Carrier owners will have access to update their positions and tallies etc., once we know who they are. We didn't expect this to kick off fully till Hadad went down, but that doesn't mean nothing has been done or planned either.

The list at present is here, it was taken from a list given to us by Aleks a couple of weeks ago and no doubt needs updating a little but that is not an insurmountable task. I am currently going through it making any necessary corrections to the numbers.

 

[Kira Goto]

Which sampling trick do you mean?

Just sampling, and how you can store it for a mass delivery. I’m not sure how feasible it would be to achieve the Indra plan by doing combat instead, if it were the most/similarly effective to sampling in them.

 

[Phill P]

Just sampling, and how you can store it for a mass delivery.

Which every Titan clearance so far has had to do. Singling out Indra for this seems odd.

I’m not sure how feasible it would be to achieve the Indra plan by doing combat instead, if it were the most/similarly effective to sampling in them.

Indra's ability to always be able to spam alerts would be the problem no matter what but it's a moot point to say we couldn't use an option that was never available to us. Combat has never been worth much in Controls. I think Invasions are the only systems it does work well.

 

[Phill P]

All of which is academic atm since I can't log in. Can anyone else?

 

[Phill P]

Back now, that was late.

 

[Kira Goto]

it's a moot point to say we couldn't use an option that was never available to us

Fully aware of that… and I was going to mention it(not knowing how it would be performed if combat did work), but I guess the brain wasn’t fully out of the morning haze yet.

… and I suppose it doesn’t really differ too much from the other Titans, but herding the cats across some 60 different systems that require clearing is simpler with the sampling. I’d imagine, anyway, but who am I to know. Not much of a leader or planner, myself. I just think sometimes.

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

Elite Dangerous | Update 18.06 | Thargoid War overhaul |Tuesday 28 May 2024

Greetings Commanders! Following player feedback and internal reviews of the Thargoid War and Titan progression, we are making a number of significant changes. These changes are designed to make the war more accessible, and ensure that every contribution at any time feels valuable. These...

forums.frontier.co.uk

What are the new changes going to mean for the next stages of the war?

 

[Untilting]

Crikey - that's a lot of changes.

 

[CMDR Daiyus]

Crikey - that's a lot of changes.

I've got to be honest, I've never really got my head around how the intricacies of the war work. I pretty much help out the indicated spire sites and do bombing runs when the Titan is ready. To a layman like me, it looks like these changes will make it clearer where to go and what to do, with a more balanced approach as to what activities I can do to make a positive contribution. It seems there's a natural outside-in approach now clearly displayed.

 

[Untilting]

I've got to be honest, I've never really got my head around how the intricacies of the war work. I pretty much help out the indicated spire sites and do bombing runs when the Titan is ready. To a layman like me, it looks like these changes will make it clearer where to go and what to do, with a more balanced approach as to what activities I can do to make a positive contribution. It seems there's a natural outside-in approach now clearly displayed.

Yeah, the boffins will update the models and work out fresh plans. I'm just mildly surprised that all these changes are being introduced when we're 50% through the Titans and I thought the story arc was yawning and glancing at its watch.

 

[yttrbio]

There's a very good chance that this is "yawning and glancing at its watch" if the net effect is to make fighting back the titans much easier. That said, I don't necessarily have faith that an update that intends to improve things won't actually make things harder, because of a lack of comprehension on how these systems work in practice. E.g. the fact that it seems to have taken them a year to notice how sampling is the only effective way to push back as you get closer to the Titan doesn't bode well for the designers' understanding of what does and doesn't work.

The spire changes are interesting. If I'm reading that correctly, you can only use a spire once (since they don't regenerate), so you can't keep hitting 85% over and over again. And spires don't get the push from being in the outer 10... but that's the only way to push spire sites. How will they progress now? Is that what "retuned" means? Because it used to be literally 0 for everything else.

 

[Cori]

Yeah, the boffins will update the models and work out fresh plans. I'm just mildly surprised that all these changes are being introduced when we're 50% through the Titans and I thought the story arc was yawning and glancing at its watch.

Well, there's always hope for an evil reveal at the end.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

What are the new changes going to mean for the next stages of the war?

This is the critical bit, which significantly changes what strategies (as opposed to in-system tactics) are viable.

• System difficulty is now linear with respect to distance from a Titan
• All system scores have been re-balanced using the new war contribution values

Exactly what it means depends on where the actual numbers end up on the balancing, but it almost certainly means there's no real "stable equilibrium" - if a force can push a maelstrom back at all then it has a very good chance of pushing it all the way to zero. Conversely, if a maelstrom is overcoming its attackers then it can probably expand near-indefinitely.


The spire changes look like the ones they tried to introduce in 18.04, with a few minor adjustments to stop a single spire being able to clear an entire maelstrom in a day. Probably won't make too big a difference in general but they do neaten things up; the Titan resistance changes probably only make a real difference in the 4-6 control range, but the other changes mean that a Titan hanging around in that range probably ends up on 0-3 the next week anyway; counterstrike designations might start to matter if combat clearances actually do become viable but again it's probably not that important.