Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
SergMx said:
Unable to install such a switch, it's part of the thermo-ventilation system at Thargoids.
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Aegis scientists have recently held a public forum to discuss ongoing research into the wreckage left behind by Thargoid Titans. The Xenological Scien...
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It was a joke. Obviously by the time the Titan begins exploding it's most likely so wrecked any failsafes to prevent a catastrophic fusion reactor overload (aside from exposing whatever the thermal core is to space) are probably not working any longer either.
Felix DiCestria said:
Hopefully Ms Jin Ae will regain consciousness soon and we can get on with Cocijo.
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I would guess/bet that Raijin going boom might get her back around. If it going into meltdown doesn't already. The question then rather is will we get to go on with Cocijo unimpeded.
 

Aleks Zuno

Aleks Zuno
Being bio-mechanical¹ though, I imagine one may not simply shut down any Thargoid vessel in the mechanical context without killing it in the biological context. Building their vessels out of themselves clearly has had its advantages, but this is not one of them!

As another aside, Thargoid behaviour here remains still quite interesting to observe. Given that Hunters and Interceptors can miss a cold Human vessel only a few hundred meters away yet sometimes notice it from over ten kilometers away and move to investigate, it seems to me that the Titan can sense such a formation of metals and ask a smaller Thargoid to help identify it. I think the patrols are as blind without the Titan commanding them as the Titan is defenceless without the patrols protecting it!

1. As revealed in the item description of any Research sample.
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
Aleks Zuno said:
Being bio-mechanical¹ though, I imagine one may not simply shut down any Thargoid vessel in the mechanical context without killing it in the biological context.
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I would have thought of it more like a period of dormancy rather than outright killing it*. Though I suppose it depends on how much the ship is biological and how much it is mechanical and which of those aspects has the priority.

It’s an academic consideration anyway, considering the Thargoids appear to prefer the outcome of simply evacuating as many ships and onboard Thargoids from the doomed Titan as they can within the meltdown window, rather than shut it down and perform basic repairs before retreating it out of the war zone.

*Whatever the Proteus Wave mechanism did to reverse the shutdown of all Thargoid ships in HIP 22460 when subverted, it didn’t seem to particularly affect any of them.
Aleks Zuno said:
Given that Hunters and Interceptors can miss a cold Human vessel only a few hundred meters away yet sometimes notice it from over ten kilometers away and move to investigate, it seems to me that the Titan can sense such a formation of metals and ask a smaller Thargoid to help identify it.
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What strikes me as more curious is that a Titan is incapable of locating targets which are clearly firing at it directly even while the thermal core is being attacked, or a ship is taking down its turrets, and this isn’t exactly a war where Thargoids are facing down other Thargoids and there is a possibility of confusion amidst targets.

… it also seems inconsistent when an Interceptor or Glaive ‘recognizes’ a human ship, as sometimes they require straying into auto-detection range before they will open fire and alert the Titan, other times they will begin firing from 2-3 kilometers away (but not cause the Titan turrets to obtain a target lock). Mind that my experiences are only from Titans which have yet to become vulnerable to attack, as opposed to taking part in assaults.
 

Aleks Zuno

Aleks Zuno

Week 100, 24th October 3310​

Maelstrom Cocijo
Control: Reactivated ports are at Vocovii and Col 285 Sector UD-G b12-2.
Spire: All gone! (Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-2 is a normal Control system)

Report
One Alert repelled at HIP 40786.
Three Invasions defended at Laumas and Col 285 Sectors OS-T d3-146 and YT-F b12-3.
Thirty Control evictions at Trianguli Sector BA-A d85, Col 285 Sectors DA-E b13-8, BF-E b13-0, OS-T d3-102, DA-E b13-4, BF-E b13-1, UD-G b12-2, ZE-P c6-20, OS-T d3-130, XI-H b11-5, ZT-F b12-7, VY-Q c5-19, ZT-F b12-4, BA-P c6-4, TN-H b11-5, WN-H b11-5, XT-Q c5-1, YT-F b12-0, YT-F b12-7, BA-P c6-16, ZT-F b12-0, UN-H b11-1, OS-T d3-144, XT-Q c5-5 and VN-H b11-3, Vocovii, 19 Puppis, HR 3048, Mapon and HIP 36809.
In addition to the defended Invasions, three recaptured systems starting Recovery are Vocovii, Col 285 Sector UD-G b12-2 and Mapon.
Nine Control systems were abandoned as the cost of reactivating three Spire sites.

Targets updated at 05:20 31st October 3310
Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-7 Control 42% — Cocijo 24 Ly, 3852 strength
Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-0 Control 36% *36.4% — Cocijo 26 Ly, 4151 strength
Col 285 Sector BA-P c6-16 Control 20% — Cocijo 22 Ly, 5411 strength
HIP 36809 Control 2% *3.9% — Cocijo 16 Ly, 6815 strength
Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-0 Control 0%
Col 285 Sector UN-H b11-1 Control 0%
Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-144 Control 0%
Col 285 Sector XT-Q c5-5 Control 0%
Col 285 Sector VN-H b11-3 Control 0%
Col 285 Sector CA-E b13-1 Control 92% *92.5% — Cocijo 26 Ly, 487 strength
Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-13 Control 84% *84.7% — Cocijo 23 Ly, 1017 strength
Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-106 Control 54% — Cocijo 23 Ly, 3076 strength
Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-7 Control 36% *36.7% — Cocijo 25 Ly, 4170 strength
Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-105 Control 34% *34.8% — Cocijo 22 Ly, 4408 strength
Col 285 Sector SS-H b11-2 Control 30% *30.1% — Cocijo 24 Ly, 4624 strength
Col 285 Sector BP-F b12-1 Control 30% — Cocijo 28 Ly, 4499 strength
HIP 35633 Control 26% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 4792 strength
Col 285 Sector SS-H b11-3 Control 22% *23% — Cocijo 23 Ly, 5137 strength
Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-6 Control 18% *18.8% — Cocijo 20 Ly, 5562 strength
Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-2 Control 18% — Cocijo 24 Ly, 5424 strength
HIP 36901 Control 18% — Cocijo 23 Ly, 5467 strength
Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-1 Control 16% *17% — Cocijo 24 Ly, 5498 strength
Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-115 Control 16% — Cocijo 26 Ly, 5475 strength
Desurinbin Control 14% *14.7% — Cocijo 25 Ly
Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-17 Control 12% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5695 strength
Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-6 Control 12% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5706 strength
HIP 38718 Control 10% *11.6% — Cocijo 21 Ly, 6019 strength
Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-16 Control 10% *10.5% — Cocijo 19 Ly, 6171 strength
Col 285 Sector VD-G b12-1 Control 10% *10.2% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5799 strength
Col 285 Sector AU-F b12-7 Control 10% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5831 strength
Col 285 Sector UN-H b11-2 Control 8% *9.5% — Cocijo 21 Ly, 6137 strength
Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-5 Control 8% *8.9% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5896 strength
Col 285 Sector XT-Q c5-2 Control 8% — Cocijo 25 Ly, 6065 strength
Col 285 Sector AU-F b12-0 Control 8% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5943 strength
Col 285 Sector AF-P c6-2 Control 8% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5926 strength
Col 285 Sector VY-Q c5-2 Control 8% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 5936 strength
Col 285 Sector US-H b11-6 Control 6% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 6092 strength
Col 285 Sector XT-Q c5-6 Control 4% *5.3% — Cocijo 25 Ly, 6211 strength
Mahlina Control 4% *4.6% — Cocijo 21 Ly
HIP 37906 Control 4% *4.5% — Cocijo 27 Ly, 6194 strength
Qinganu Control 4% *4.2% — Cocijo 9 Ly
Col 285 Sector UN-H b11-3 Control 4% — Cocijo 19 Ly, 6613 strength
Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-10 Control 4% — Cocijo 20 Ly, 6555 strength
Col 285 Sector XY-F b12-3 Control 4% — Cocijo 7 Ly, 7288 strength
Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-15 Control 2% *2.7% — Cocijo 18 Ly, 6754 strength
Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-2 Control 2% *2.1% — Cocijo 22 Ly, 6610 strength
Col 285 Sector VY-Q c5-10 Control 2% — Cocijo 15 Ly, 6985 strength
Col 285 Sector XT-Q c5-22 Control 2% — Cocijo 23 Ly, 6557 strength
HIP 38235 Control 2% — Cocijo 21 Ly
Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-8 Control 2% — Cocijo 21 Ly, 6650 strength
Col 285 Sector KM-V d2-69 Control 2% — Cocijo 24 Ly

Notes
An update is planned for Tuesday 29th Thursday 31st October 3310.
The Alert report lists predicted attackers.

Week 99, 17th October 3310​

Report
One Alert repelled at Daisla.
Three Invasions defended at Col 285 Sector ZE-P c6-11, Picenile and Asletae.
Nine Control evictions at Col 285 Sectors KM-V d2-122, OS-T d3-116, YT-Q c5-12, BA-P c6-10 and YT-F b12-4, Hez Ur, Canaharvas, Khwal and Vucumatha.
One Matrix system cleared at Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-3.
In addition to the defended Invasions, four recaptured systems starting Recovery are Hez Ur, Canaharvas, Khwal and Vucumatha.
Titan Raijin has overheated and exploded.
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Cocijo is going to be a very different one to Raijin
Cocijo-edges.png
A relatively small number of inhabited systems, and almost all of them on one side [1] of it, which is also where its (small) remaining perimeter is. Equally, there are whole clusters of uninhabited systems out the back which under the current rules purely serve as ballast [2].

At the average Raijin pace of recapture the estimated date of vulnerability would be 12 December, but there's obviously very high uncertainty in that even before Frontier realises it really must survive into the new year.


[1] As always these maps aren't spatially accurate, but in this case the bottom-right quarter is roughly the "bubble" side of the maelstrom.
[2] Retaking the front half plus the few systems around ZE-P c6-21 and HIP 38235 would lead to an odd partial stalemate where Cocijo couldn't attack and didn't hold any claimed human territory but there'd also be limited appetite for grinding through its back half of uninhabited systems; the focus of counterstrike activity on the "front" side of a maelstrom and inhabited systems means that might even happen unintentionally!
 

Aleks Zuno

Aleks Zuno
Ian Doncaster said:
Retaking the front half plus the few systems around ZE-P c6-21 and HIP 38235 would lead to an odd partial stalemate where Cocijo couldn't attack and didn't hold any claimed human territory
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With partial stalemate, I presume that is due to paying Control systems to restore Spire sites? Notably those have some visibility of populated systems:

Spire systemPopulated targets
Col 285 Sector XT-Q c5-18Col 285 Sector BA-P c6-19, Nyani, Ulche
Col 285 Sector VN-H b11-1—
Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-143Col 285 Sector OS-T d3-117, Col 285 Sector WY-F b12-3
Col 285 Sector ZT-F b12-3HIP 38235
Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-2Col 285 Sector YT-F b12-3


Ian Doncaster said:
At the average Raijin pace of recapture the estimated date of vulnerability would be 12 December, but there's obviously very high uncertainty in that even before Frontier realises it really must survive into the new year.
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Is that potential survival for story reasons? If Galnet would suffice then I can imagine Frontier preferring the final Titan attack to fall either firmly before or firmly after Christmas, although if updates to Elite are involved than that could motivate the latter.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Aleks Zuno said:
With partial stalemate, I presume that is due to paying Control systems to restore Spire sites? Notably those have some visibility of populated systems:
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Yes - and then clearing the Spires would of course weaken a bunch of the other Controls, and that could loop round a few times until it was all gone.

(Also because players could take out the boring uninhabited systems eventually, even at a rate of 2-3 systems a week)

Aleks Zuno said:
Is that potential survival for story reasons? If Galnet would suffice then I can imagine Frontier preferring the final Titan attack to fall either firmly before or firmly after Christmas, although if updates to Elite are involved than that could motivate the latter.
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Oh, no particular insights, it'd just be normal by now for them to want to slow the final attack down because some other dependency isn't ready yet - and therefore since Frontier has a fairly long new year shutdown period, it'd need to be quite a significant slowdown compared with what's happened recently.

Current average rate windows:
Vulnerable date21 November28 November5 December12 December19 December26 December2 January9 January
Clearance rates36+29-3524-2821-2318-2016-171513-14
So as you say, assuming that they don't want w/c 19th or especially 26th December as the finale (because they'll be running skeleton staff over the Christmas/new year break) then if they need to slow things down below the 12 December pace (which would match the average for "normal" Raijin weeks) they'll need to slow them down a lot - and potentially need to start that process fairly soon, because the later they leave it, the more implausible-looking the intervention.

Alternatively, if Raijin's 9-week lifespan was the aberration and they want to get back to something more like Oya-to-Thor's 5-6 week pace to keep things moving, then they're going to need to provide some mechanism to speed up the counter-attack a lot to get the average recapture rate into the 30s.
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
Felix DiCestria said:
If Cocijo started moving on Tuesday... Thursday perhaps...
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I would guess Thursday simply based on the weekly tick. Which the update could set up for…

… now let’s say, going purely into speculative mode here, Cocijo were to take all its Thargoids and move them all into populated systems only somewhere within the core of the Bubble (while going with them, and making them more than token assaults for players to have a fun activity). Now that could be lighting things on fire. But I’m not sure whether to expect anything like it since that, unless accompanied by its own specific rules regarding direct Titan engagement, would also delay the matter of taking the last Titan out… probably significantly.

Nevermind the whole Powerplay 2 nonsense. I guess we’ll probably see next week anyway.
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
aRJay said:
Not the place to miss time your shutdown field neutraliser then.
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Very much not. Maybe I’ll get to doing around to doing some combat there if it hasn’t been taken out yet, by the time I do.

Also…

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Thargoid War Bulletin: The Last Mothership - Elite Dangerous

Titan Raijin in the Pegasi Sector IH-U b3-3 system has been destroyed, leaving only Cocijo still operational. Aden Tanner, anti-xeno strategist for Ae...
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Signposting that Cocijo will actually not go down easily or quickly? Probably. And they better hold on to those long term Titan presence plans…
 
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