Thargoid invasion - Next target systems?
- Thread starter Aleks Zuno
- Start date
It remains perfectly viable, if that's what you're asking (as it seems some meaning got lost in a translation here). Though less effective at the outer systems thanks to the rebalance making them stronger.
Effective for whom? If you take people, even after the meltdown starts, they give time for rescue ...
For the war effort / progression, from the point of view of invested time.
Effective for whom? If you take people, even after the meltdown starts, they give time for rescue ...
For example I'm doing right now Titan rescues with 64T capacity, it takes me about 40min back to back. That's very comparable to the amount of time I would spend for example doing a solo completion in a LI AXCZ, no Hydra. So I guess I'm asking which one should I do now, to get the most progress towards system completion.
Probably around now, actually! M. Indra has just now lost the 11th of its 22 Counterstrike systems, leaving the other 11, where 7 is the amount where one Titan rescue equals one Research sample. I suppose based on 40 minutes for 64 items, that is perhaps four times slower per-item than Research, so in that sense it could be considered ~28 Counterstrike for rescues—perhaps less efficient than Research since the start of the week, although perhaps more efficient than dropping in open space and destroying anything which arrives.
In practice the rescues also help Spire sites, in turn helping many other systems; the 11 of 22 is still a halving though, because one of the completed and one of the remaining are Spire sites (with one other non-Counterstrike site present).
Interesting.
Although I'm assured that bounty and influence on the war are unrelated things, but since I'm just doing LI AXCZ without Hydra, can I ask how much you get for it ?
I just noticed.
On the Galaxy map, if you select War with Thargoids, there is an item on the left side of the menu (under Titans):
Best Systems:
I'm not quite sure what the best means, if many of them are far from Indra, because it is clearly written, where there are fewer systems under control there is more effective to wage war.
I don't get it
P.S. Just in case, I'll fly down to AXCZ to the HIP 21912 system, only 15 years from my FC.
On the Galaxy map, if you select War with Thargoids, there is an item on the left side of the menu (under Titans):
Best Systems:
- Thargoid Presence (yellow) 2 systems.
- Under Thargoid control (green) 5 systems.
I'm not quite sure what the best means, if many of them are far from Indra, because it is clearly written, where there are fewer systems under control there is more effective to wage war.
I don't get it
P.S. Just in case, I'll fly down to AXCZ to the HIP 21912 system, only 15 years from my FC.
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The Thargoid War Information panel does not understand which system belongs to which Titan—it shows which systems have the highest progress percentage, regardless of where they are or whether the corresponding Titan is even still alive.
There are some Commanders clearing away the remaining systems from exploded Titans, as we saw from Titans Leigong and Taranis last week, although I am not listing any of those systems here unless any become completed.
It's practically the sum of rewards for each interceptor plus some chump change for the scouts and the stage rewards. So anywhere between 60 - 100 mil for some Cyclopes and 1-2 Basilisks, sometimes you might even get a Medusa.
I wasn't asking about the zone.
There has been numbers gathered which suggest ~1% progress per low intensity AX CZ in an unpopulated control system, and ~0.6% in a populated, without the Hydra, at… what was it? Something closer to a Titan, around the 10ly mark. The difficulty curve is not extremely steep so the figures don’t change a lot even further away from it.
Not fully sure; they were never investigated much originally, mostly because they had no apparent effect on the system when they were first introduced. I think even Frameshift Live #24 did not cover that specifically; all we have ever been told about how the choices work has been the update 18.06 changes. For the Titan with the fewest systems:
By numbers that ought to guarantee 10–11 Counterstrikes, depending on whether the farthest Spire also lies within the farthest ten. Aside from those, it refers to the "existing Counterstrike system"; this appears to be some proportion of the remaining populated systems, probably also with a minimum. I think that minimum and proportion has been increased though; I remember previous Maelstroms having far fewer than M. Indra has had for the last few weeks, minus the new guaranteed 10–11 of course.
That update information contains another clue about the past—"regardless of direction"—implying that direction mattered before and presumably still matters in the context of the existing system remaining in place. If so, this could contribute a lot to Counterstrikes at M. Indra specifically, for many, many populated systems lie within a dense group on our side of the Titan!
To a large extent all Maelstroms have more populated systems on our side of the corresponding Titan merely due to the Titan locations being deliberately around the fringes of Human space, although notably M. Thor has our favourite test systems Leunii and Gluschen on the opposite side.
I do remember (possibly incorrectly) that "Counterstrike" originally was exclusively Bubble-facing, though I might be confusing it with the addition of AX conflict zones to Controls back when the war first started off. The rules around both definitely have not always - if ever - been too clear...
(If Ixbaksha clears this week - seems though it probably will, after the few cycles 'wasted' on it - I might turn my attention to the peripheral controls of Raijin even if those are all unpopulated.)
It's not really about quantity. I asked above about the table on the map with the best systems, I was told that it's for all Titans regardless of weakness.
I mean, I think that before counterattacks went to all Titans, but now counterattacks appear only at the weakest.
Given that in patch notes: wrote that you should plan your attacks wisely and choose the Titan with the least number of systems, this menu has been forgotten and should be redesigned to show the best systems to attack only the weakest Titan.
It's designed very simply to show the five of each type with the highest percentage progress. It's up to players to make sure that those are the five they want everyone not paying attention to group plans to attack by making sure they're in the top five.
That said, it's decent advice anyway
- Alert clearance doesn't benefit at all from counterstrikes, Alert clearance is generally done by different people to Control clearance, there's an obvious benefit to not letting the others grab even more systems while Indra is being cleared (and at the start of the week, Indra's Alerts were quite near the top until they were all finished)
- nine of the ten highest-progress Controls are at Indra anyway, while the one exception is at 83% complete and there's an obvious reason to finish it off by the end of the week rather than let it reinforce, so "the five highest" is still highlighting reasonable courses of action
That is only very recently true, though! Col 285 Sector US-Z b14-4 completed only today, after being in the top few for a long time while also being for a Titan which has exploded prior and in no danger of reinforcement.
Indeed. Finally attaching some value to Salvage and Orthrus kills means that once again all Alerts can be cleared to stop any Titan from gaining new systems while the AX people take out the Controls, now that some decent value has finally been attached to fighting in them.
When ourselves and Ida realised our job at the currently attacked Titan would last 2-3 days we agreed to do all the Alerts in Indra first, at the start of the week, then clear the rest around the other Titans if we could. Using Rescues and Deliveries to clear the populated Alerts, with Salvage and Orthrus kills to clear the unpopulated Alerts and supplement Rescues and Deliveries in Populated ones.
And as we have seen this is doable, with all the Alerts around all the Titans gone by the end of the weekend or just after.
In unpop Alerts, Orthrus kills are the best but hard to get a lot of signals for in a reasonable length of time unless you can get a wing together to increase the odds. Salvage makes a slower but still very steady contribution and can be done solo. As a ballpark example 100 items salvaged from signal sources in a system at 25 ly, when handed in to any rescue ship, give around 5% progress in a populated Alert and 10% in an unpopulated Alert.
Salvage can also be used to complement rescues when the ports are far away and are a bit of a pain even with SCO. Example, the last Alert to be cleared, HIP 37520, with one outpost 312k out, got a bit of everything. Rescues and deliveries you have to travel to the port each time even with SCO speeding it up, whereas with Salvage you can make steady, continuous progress by flying once to the outpost each time and then farming signal sources around it until you're full, then hand in.
Salvage may also be an alternative for people in Controls who cannot take on CZs or Interceptors. A relatively tanky ship with some multicannons can kill Glaives, Scythes and Scouts while collecting any Salvage from signal sources, and make progress without having to be a hardcore AX pilot.
Now that we have passed Raidal, I think M. Indra should become now the very easy total of zero Alerts! That was the second purge threshold at which no more inner systems would be able to attack if cleared all together, where well over a double-periphery weekly has done so quickly enough.
We are giving Arietis Sector KR-V b2-1 a bit of a push, but either way I imagine it will end up with around one more periphery to clear next week before reaching the Titan. I would suggest a relaxed approach, but I know Commanders have an innate ability to do prolific amounts of destruction when it would contradict a prediction...
Additional: Either Arietis Sector KR-V b2-1 at 9.92 Ly is not nearly as quick to progress as was Hyades Sector DX-H a11-1 at 24.16 Ly, or Spire strength changed last Friday. Spire progress is now either slowing due to distance from the Titan, or has been made much slower recently!
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