Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?

[MartinG]

I do hope there is still some Thargoid content somewhere but... I don't know. The stuff I always enjoyed (doing the AX restoration missions behind enemy lines) was always very limited in availablity.

Speaking of these missions (nowadays known as Hostile Reboot), there are some available now in Procyon (or at least were a few hours ago at Hardwick Station).

Sorry but what are "AX restoration missions" exactly?

The missions Daniel mentioned are on-foot missions whose names start with “AX Reactivation: Hostile Reboot”. They are accepted at regular mission boards (the concourse being not accessible when a station is on alert or under attack), and their targets are military settlements in Thargoid-controlled systems, which means fighting Revenants and possibly a Banshee. Difficult, but good fun

 

[Leadfoot]

Is it bad that I kind of want us to lose this one? Don't get me wrong, I want it to be a bloody good fight, and I'm planning to get stuck in as much as possible, but ultimately I feel that narratively we need humanity to fail at some point.

Although I have reported you to the nearest Commissar for heresy, having billions displaced if it all goes wrong would be a great push for humans to do a Scattering a la Dune.

The Emperor protects..........


...but it doesn't hurt to have a fully-loaded bolter at your side.

 

[Leadfoot]

My biggest problem with this sudden move is not what Cocijo has done, but why FDEV had it do it now. The Thargoids lose 7 out 8 of Titans (and all spires sites) they deployed during their invasion. They've had millions of human hostages since the start of that two year invasion. But now, as the last of the Titans was poised to fall, they scrape data from Seo-Jinn (sp?) and suddenly head for birthplace of humanity?!

According to lore from Seo, she feels they are looking for something, and that something is in the Sol system. Since there's no ammonia world in Sol, that would be the logical conclusion (other than the possibility that they just want to pwon the human creatures).

 

[Leadfoot]

haven't had time yet to login today post-update , but i'm wondering if anyone has checked SOL system ( or any of the current "invaded" systems shown here--> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/thargoid-invasion-next-target-systems.612125/post-10501470 ) to see if maybe some new 'ground spire sites' are up ?

I did check the map this morning before picking a spot and engaging them for a bit before getting blown-up. I didn't see anything about that but don't spire sites require specific planetary requirements to exist? I don't think any landable planet in Sol would meet them, would they?

 

[Tifu]

I think I'll wait a few days to see how it unfolds before heading towards Sol. Not quite ready yet anyway and I've got a flower in my PP garden patch that needs attention.

 

[CMDR Protomaniac]

Hutton Orbital. And this is serious, not one of those bad jokes.... it's been attacked... and is on fire

https://twitter.com/x/status/1864720768153592213

Source: https://x.com/huttonorbital/status/1864720768153592213

My free Anaconda! Nooooooo!

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

According to lore from Seo, she feels they are looking for something, and that something is in the Sol system. Since there's no ammonia world in Sol, that would be the logical conclusion (other than the possibility that they just want to pwon the human creatures).

Yes, but would she know about Sol that the millions of captive humans didn't? Yes, they could fully access her brain, but she has more strategic information on the Thargoids than on humanity.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

i've only been playing EliteDangerous for like 7 months so i'm not familiar with all the lore & persons & history , but perhaps Seo is friends with Felicity Farseer and the Thargoids used mind-meld on Seo to get info about.....RAXXLA ?!?!?!

Sorry but what are "AX restoration missions" exactly? Do you mean what newbs like me just discovered for my 1st time here--> https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/thargoid-invasion-next-target-systems.612125/post-10491608 ... Or are you referring to longlost content that can't be done anymore?

i personally think a GROUND war surprise return of the 'Guardans' , using existing Odyssey FPS code combined with new Thargoid/Humanoid captured combo creatures, would be super fun.
But yeah i guess we'll all find out next week the hype lives up to the hurt.

You might want to read the book "Elite Dangerous Premonition" since it was written after the game had been active for a few years and covers the conspiracy to cover up the Thargoids. Also has a lot of information based on player encounters (e.g. first Thargoid contact by Commander DP Sayer (I think I got that right)). It's a good read.

Speaking of these missions (nowadays known as Hostile Reboot), there are some available now in Procyon (or at least were a few hours ago at Hardwick Station).

The missions Daniel mentioned are on-foot missions whose names start with “AX Reactivation: Hostile Reboot”. They are accepted at regular mission boards (the concourse being not accessible when a station is on alert or under attack), and their targets are military settlements in Thargoid-controlled systems, which means fighting Revenants and possibly a Banshee. Difficult, but good fun

Yeah, some available in Sirius too (currently fighting at the ground AX CZ there). My big complaint with them was that right after they fixed the bugs with those missions, they restricted them to only targeting downed military settlements within 20 ly of the mission giving system (that part was always true) AND you could only get them from Alert systems. That Alert system requirement meant that there were weeks where you could get none of these missions. Other weeks you had to race to get them done before while they were available.

It looks like Invasion systems will also give these now (maybe that made that change months ago). I'll probably dust off my Federal Dropship (with five pre-engineered AX MCs, the glaive killer) and use it this weekend.

This is the dropship I use for AX restoration missions.

 

[Kayvan]

Let's all keep in mind that this forum is mostly populated by the most hardcore players, many of which have a depth of knowledge about the game mechanics - and especially thargoid war mechanics - that the average player doesn't have an OUNCE of. People like Kira may look at the status and be disappointed because it all looks so simple and predictable (sneaky rules changes notwithstanding), but for many everyman / casual players who never dared or bothered to take the plunge into AX this looks like an utter nightmare.

We here have an idea how many systems we should be able to clear in a week - unless the rules have been changed again, and currently it looks like it, comparing the speed of clearing two weeks ago with today. Just as a rough guess it feels like they are twice as hard. And they are all final week which adds to the perceived pressure.
But if you for instance look at the ED Community group on FB... most of the folks there haven't a clue how things work.

Speaking of which, correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding any effort currently put into Sol is wasted. There's nothing we can do about the system as long as the Titan isn't vulnerable. So leaving those ports open / under attack kinda is a red herring or ruse. Many players still try to fight in Sol, and I don't see how that would help the war effort one bit.

 

[Leadfoot]

Speaking of which, correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding any effort currently put into Sol is wasted. There's nothing we can do about the system as long as the Titan isn't vulnerable. So leaving those ports open / under attack kinda is a red herring or ruse. Many players still try to fight in Sol, and I don't see how that would help the war effort one bit.

Agreed. Last time I checked only Galileo port was still open, all other orbital stations are down. Galileo is probably closed by now unless FD wanted it kept open for some reason.

I have to assume it'll be (1) get the outer control systems cleared first, (2) then clear Sol, i.e., (1) horse (2) cart.

 

[Kira Goto]

The dastardly rotters! That's all HUTTON SPACE.

They just really want those mugs. It is a shame we didn't get to teach them about our human customs.

(Thargoids would also get to cheat badly on the Hutton Run by just opening a Witch Space rift right by the station.)

I should probably have done it before the Thargoids arrived and caused a horrible mess, but I'd already gone the distance to the New Horizons probe and then both Voyagers, so I wasn't feeling like sitting through another long supercruise trek in one of my playing sessions the last few days.

I suspect FDev forgot about them because they do not have a “Rescue Ship” in their names.

They did move the Federal Haven. Into Sol. Where it is now a completely torn wreck with a few dead Thargoids in the middle of its remains. (Seriously, which idiot genius thought it was a great idea to move them into the same system as a Titan?)

I'm not expecting they actually have any plans for them if they were not forgotten, and they're rather kept on standby with an implied (or perhaps just assumed on my part) lore reasoning "If the Thargoids launch separate assaults on Achenar and Alioth as well". They did not display any jump timers when I went to visit, though, so at least next week might not see anything happen (or they also get shredded after jumping somewhere).

... but did anybody expect them to just blast the megaships? Frontier, that is. It is not surprising the Thargoids did... and it's largely a tragedy caused by humans jumping them into unsafe locations and pulling a Surprised Pikachu when they were blown up. The inbox message being like "Hm, maybe they were tracking them through hyperspace and blasted them on arrival"... that's just the icing on the cake. Duh, you jumped them into assaulted locations, what did you expect?

I did check the map this morning before picking a spot and engaging them for a bit before getting blown-up. I didn't see anything about that but don't spire sites require specific planetary requirements to exist? I don't think any landable planet in Sol would meet them, would they?

They've only been placed on thin atmospheric worlds below .1 atmospheres (which might have to do with Odyssey's features but if I were to guess from a realistic/lore standpoint it's using the thin air for cooling purposes), and while there might be one such body (Pluto? if seasonally, but it doesn't seem to be a landable even with Odyssey) in Sol I didn't see anything out of the ordinary in any of the obvious spots. All planets in the system are also already pre-mapped so not much to do there and the Titan appears to just be doing Titan things, only now orbiting Earth.

Fighting in Sol is definitely not very productive right now, but I am curious to see how many people will be drawn to fighting the Titan's forces directly there when it serves as a distraction from the actual invasions. (On purpose by Thargoids?) At a relatively rough average current rate of 5.2% per hour that would leave a few of them to slip through. Of course it's just the Thursday so it will go up over the weekend, but I guess maybe the Titan will get itself two weeks of terrorizing Sol. Especially so if it launches more invasions next week.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Fighting in Sol is definitely not very productive right now, but I am curious to see how many people will be drawn to fighting the Titan's forces directly there when it serves as a distraction from the actual invasions.

Sol has been generally third for activity behind Procyon and Sirius, the difference being a bit less than one order of magnitude.

Additional: Sirius is around a third of Procyon, and Sol is around half of Sirius.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

I don't see this lasting long enough to establish spires. But 0.0-01 ATM and < 0.6 G.
I am distrustful of anything that acts contrary to the principle of self preservation so I'm expecting some twist to Cocijo's demise, whether it does something to Earth or is acting as a distraction from something else...

 

[shevek]

Yes, but would she know about Sol that the millions of captive humans didn't? Yes, they could fully access her brain, but she has more strategic information on the Thargoids than on humanity.

Maybe Seo mentioned the Martian relic.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

They scraped Seo's mind, not Admiral Tannner.

There has been enough establishment through Galnet, comms beacons and so on that Seo is the smartest person working for Aegis and it's not even close (and also that she has far more access to Aegis' networks than Tanner or Tesreau would like)

...Aegis sends shielded probes through the Titan's repulsion field for the first time, then loses contact with them shortly after
Seo: Well, it works, but we should remember that the Thargoids will be expecting us now
Tanner: Is that what you're getting from the implant?
Seo: ...
Seo: ...
Seo: Sure, whatever, something like that
(https://elite.drinkybird.net/?guid=64536f1cfc73643c82452970 doesn't have that quite being the conversation but I think it's strongly implied)

Let's all keep in mind that this forum is mostly populated by the most hardcore players, many of which have a depth of knowledge about the game mechanics - and especially thargoid war mechanics - that the average player doesn't have an OUNCE of. People like Kira may look at the status and be disappointed because it all looks so simple and predictable (sneaky rules changes notwithstanding), but for many everyman / casual players who never dared or bothered to take the plunge into AX this looks like an utter nightmare.

Absolutely this. Sure, it's probably just going to be a routine "clear Invasions/Controls" => "next week, clear Titan" in the game mechanical sense.

But it's way more interesting it happening with an attack on Sol and the other core systems than the suspense being over "can the few AX teams who don't mind uninhabited systems clear Col 285 OS-T d3-95 to make the Titan vulnerable on Thursday, or will we need to wait an extra week?". One of the big problems with the first 90% of the war was that while it affected a large number of systems numerically, it never threatened anything really important.

 

[Factabulous]

Should the focused attacks be on the Invasions and (primarily?) one of the Controls, given that :

Titan vulnerability is now a two tier system:

• At 3 controlled systems or below, the Titan will be vulnerable to attack

This implies that 3 controls is as good as 0 Controls - so having all 4 partially done is far worse that completing a single one.

We've done about 8% of the work to take out all the Invasions / Controls, so taking everything will be a challenge. Ignoring Controls other than (presumably) Barnard's Star would reduce the target somewhat. Still seems optimistic - is there a preference between Invasions?

 

[yttrbio]

I would target the furthest-along invasion, regardless, since they're all one-week invasions and any effort spent on an uncompleted one will be wasted.

It doesn't look like there'll be enough to clear ALL the invasions and one control, and if any of the invasions are not repelled, they'll turn into controls anyway. I don't see any advantage to trying to fight for the control system at this point without a plausible case for clearing all invasions.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

Still seems optimistic - is there a preference between Invasions?

The best Invasions are those with a planetary port for combat and also a starport for evacuation, and generally Invasions are all preferable to Controls save for those few cases where a needed port is very far from the star. The combat preference extends to Counterstrikes, where the entire evacuation drive disappears.

Regarding general progress, I suspect strengths increased sharply Thursday afternoon, and I imagine it may be balanced again today one direction or the other!

 

[Kira Goto]

I suspect strengths increased sharply Thursday afternoon

I also had the impression that early on the invasion difficulty appeared to be about the same as ordinary ones, but then was doubled.

Personally, I think this is fine as it is supposed to be the end of the Titan incursion (but probably not the Thargoid conflict) and it should be more than just twelve regular invasions but placed in important systems. Somewhat, as other than Sirius and Duamta they don't appear to be targeted toward anything actually particularly important or potentially relevant to Thargoid motivations. But moving the difficulty back down would be meh and just make it too easy, if you're to ask me.

 

[Mr Lindsay]

Let's all keep in mind that this forum is mostly populated by the most hardcore players, many of which have a depth of knowledge about the game mechanics - and especially thargoid war mechanics - that the average player doesn't have an OUNCE of.

Speaking of which, correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding any effort currently put into Sol is wasted. There's nothing we can do about the system as long as the Titan isn't vulnerable. So leaving those ports open / under attack kinda is a red herring or ruse. Many players still try to fight in Sol, and I don't see how that would help the war effort one bit.

I think this goes together quite well, if a little frustrating for those that already know the rules by now.

Ultimately a bunch of players who haven't previously engaged in the war at all have been having fun running missions out of the stations in Sol, dying in the caustic cloud, being annihilated in combat as their Guardian weapons melt before their eyes. Everything that most of us in this thread went through a LONG time ago, but at least they're getting to experience that before this phase of the game is over.

By the end of this week those that have stuck around to figure things out will be extra numbers for the war effort, and those that didn't will still probably think it was a fair enough thing to do for the anniversary, even if it didn't work for them personally.