Thargoid Scout Slaughter

[rhiz]

I’ve always been a morally upright and xeno-neutral commander, but my combat progression toward triple Elite has been so soul destroying that I’m willing to slaughter thousands of the little blighters if it means a few extra % in my progression rate.

What will I need? I have quite a few ships of various sizes fully A-rated and engineered to G5. Will stock AX variants be more effective than engineered standard weapons? Corvette, Anaconda (I’m pretty agile with these with FA off), or a medium sized ship? I’ve no interest in fighting larger Thargoids and I’m looking to kill little things that I have no ill-will towards as efficiently as possible.

Many thanks,

The Shadow Of CMDR RHIZ78.

 

[Bigmaec]

I’ve always been a morally upright and xeno-neutral commander, but my combat progression toward triple Elite has been so soul destroying that I’m willing to slaughter thousands of the little blighters if it means a few extra % in my progression rate.

What will I need? I have quite a few ships of various sizes fully A-rated and engineered to G5. Will stock AX variants be more effective than engineered standard weapons? Corvette, Anaconda (I’m pretty agile with these with FA off), or a medium sized ship? I’ve no interest in fighting larger Thargoids and I’m looking to kill little things that I have no ill-will towards as efficiently as possible.

Many thanks,

The Shadow Of CMDR RHIZ78.

I murdered lots of them with an all gimbal (scouts have no chaff) pulse FdL.
Every weapon works against them. AX multis are very effective, but not needed.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I found a Krait with 4 AX MC turrets (and 1 regular one... darn 4 AX weapon limitation) a lot of fun.

Not as much fun as solo'ing Cyclopses with my Challenger though

I actually stopped grinding for Elite combat rank since I achieved Deadly rank, as the progress is soooooooo sloooooow now. I'd burn out before so decided to hire a crew with the goal of training it towards Elite rank at least. I know it'll make my own progression slower but fun is more important than some status bar at this stage (apart from the triple Elite decal, that's pretty neat).

 

[Zoltah-Talion]

One thing you will find is that you will very frequently get corrosive gunk spattered on your ship's hull which immediately begins to eat away at it. You can super-heat your ship to cook it off (not for me!) or you can take decontamination limpets (that stops the corrosion) and repair limpets (these will fix your hull.) So not sure if the FDL would have enough slots for those really. You'll need a cargo bay of course for the limpets! I used a Cutter to destroy several hundred of them to get triple E.

And frankly the AX weapons are what you really want. If you've unlocked any of the heavy duty Guardian weapons even better.

 

[Moriarte]

Hm, and there I was thinking that only anti-xeno work against them. Judging from the OP, you're all set, rhiz. Time to pull your weight and exterminate some xenomorphs.

I used beefy Conda in faoff, 4 guardian gauss cannons and two flaks against cyclops. Fun thing to do for a while, even solo. But that was an overkill (including the faoff), you'll be fine with lesser build, it's all in the tactics!

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Also if you don't mind the grind (it really isn't that bad) get the Guardian HRP (and MRP if you can, I didn't bother unlocking that yet).

While they require some power, they provide 5% corrosion resistance (stacks) and don't need to be engineered. Does make quite a difference.

 

[rhiz]

I murdered lots of them with an all gimbal (scouts have no chaff) pulse FdL.
Every weapon works against them. AX multis are very effective, but not needed.

Thanks Bigmac - my question really is whether something like G5 overcharged multis will be less or more effective than the stock AX versions (which can't be engineered as I understand).

I'll need a decontamination limpit controller, is chaff any use against their weapons? I have virtually zero experience with anything Thargoid related.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Hm, and there I was thinking that only anti-xeno work against them. Judging from the OP, you're all set, rhiz. Time to pull your weight and exterminate some xenomorphs.

I used beefy Conda in faoff, 4 guardian gauss cannons and two flaks against cyclops. Fun thing to do for a while, even solo. But that was an overkill (including the faoff), you'll be fine with lesser build, it's all in the tactics!

I'm using a Challenger with 3 small Guardian Gauss, 1 large AX MC turret and 3 flaks. Very satisfying once you get the hang of it, especially popping the swarms.

 

[rhiz]

One thing you will find is that you will very frequently get corrosive gunk spattered on your ship's hull which immediately begins to eat away at it. You can super-heat your ship to cook it off (not for me!) or you can take decontamination limpets (that stops the corrosion) and repair limpets (these will fix your hull.) So not sure if the FDL would have enough slots for those really. You'll need a cargo bay of course for the limpets!

And frankly the AX weapons are what you really want. If you've unlocked any of the heavy duty Guardian weapons even better.

Thanks cmdr - yes, I've already picked up a decontamination limpit controller.

I've unlocked the Guardian FSD booster and didn't mind the process at all, so Guardian weapons are probably the way to go.

 

[rhiz]

Also if you don't mind the grind (it really isn't that bad) get the Guardian HRP (and MRP if you can, I didn't bother unlocking that yet).

While they require some power, they provide 5% corrosion resistance (stacks) and don't need to be engineered. Does make quite a difference.

Yeah, I actually quite enjoyed unlocking the FSD booster, but that was the only module that I really saw a use for at the time.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Yeah, I actually quite enjoyed unlocking the FSD booster, but that was the only module that I really saw a use for at the time.

Other modules I can recommend are the Guardian Gauss, the Power Plant and the Power distributor (which gives you 4% extra power). Use them in most of my ships.

 

[rhiz]

Hm, and there I was thinking that only anti-xeno work against them. Judging from the OP, you're all set, rhiz. Time to pull your weight and exterminate some xenomorphs.

I used beefy Conda in faoff, 4 guardian gauss cannons and two flaks against cyclops. Fun thing to do for a while, even solo. But that was an overkill (including the faoff), you'll be fine with lesser build, it's all in the tactics!

It's with a heavy heart and driven purely by an obsessive compulsion to acquire a virtual sticker for the side of my virtual ships. I'm not sure what's become of me... space fever.

 

[rhiz]

Other modules I can recommend are the Guardian Gauss, the Power Plant and the Power distributor (which gives you 4% extra power). Use them in most of my ships.

Thanks ObiW, I'll need to look into how they compare to my engineered modules - most of my distributors are G5 Charge Enhanced (with Power Supplies enhanced only as much as they need to be).

 

[dm06]

Thanks ObiW, I'll need to look into how they compare to my engineered modules - most of my distributors are G5 Charge Enhanced (with Power Supplies enhanced only as much as they need to be).

Well... I have no intention to spoil but I should admit that wep energy is likely not a problem when fighting with thargoids... So guardian distributor is quite OK.

 

[rhiz]

I found a Krait with 4 AX MC turrets (and 1 regular one... darn 4 AX weapon limitation) a lot of fun.

Not as much fun as solo'ing Cyclopses with my Challenger though

I actually stopped grinding for Elite combat rank since I achieved Deadly rank, as the progress is soooooooo sloooooow now. I'd burn out before so decided to hire a crew with the goal of training it towards Elite rank at least. I know it'll make my own progression slower but fun is more important than some status bar at this stage (apart from the triple Elite decal, that's pretty neat).

I probably shouldn’t admit this publicly, but the defining moment for me was when I remembered that there was another rank between Dangerous and Elite. I've not been a combat oriented player for most of my game and for some reason I was convinced that it was Deadly - Dangerous - Elite. I’m currently 60% Dangerous and was wondering what all the fuss was about [haha]. That was a dark night of the soul.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Thanks ObiW, I'll need to look into how they compare to my engineered modules - most of my distributors are G5 Charge Enhanced (with Power Supplies enhanced only as much as they need to be).

I should qualify, I use some of those modules on most but not all of my ships

There are ofc trade offs, but especially the PD helps in case of power problems (made the Vulture very viable with dual PA's for example).

 

[JetsonRING]

I was in the same position as you, no real position on the Thargoids either way but wanting to build my combat rank and finding that all scouts were ranked ELITE. I do not know what your budget is or your ability level but this is what I did:

I first joined the AXI Discord: https://discord.gg/gZbAWCF who provide a lot of tips for ship builds as well as posting a report of where the little buggers can be found in large numbers on a weekly basis.

Then I built a Krait Mk. II Thargoid Scout-killer: https://s.orbis.zone/22ur

I created this build from memory so a couple of details might be different but: Thargoid Scout weapons ignore shield resistances so, a 6C bi-weave shield, enhanced low-power and fast recharge along with two shield boosters, heavy duty and super conduits since bi-weave recharge times are not affected by the addition of shield boosters. No fuel scoop since I was returning to stations frequently to cash in, repair and re-arm so I could easily buy fuel. Three size 3 turret AX-MC on top chop up scouts pretty well and two size 2 beam lasers (long range, thermal vent) underneath. The beams do not cause a lot of damage but are handy for keeping the ship cooler (thermal vent) and then, with no target selected quickly heating the ship when it gets contaminated. They are also good for tickling the scouts and getting their attention at longer ranges. Tickle a scout with a beam laser, they drop whatever they are doing and come after you. The two heat-sink launchers are modified for extra ammo, I used them a lot since I was being hit with corrosive damage a lot which required heating the ship to cook off the contamination. I tried the decontamination limpets, etc. and found I would rather have additional HRP since cooking off the contamination was relatively quick and easy. Once I got familiar with their tactics and learned which non-human signal sources were preferable (threat level 3 and 4 contain scouts ONLY) I was taking down anywhere between 25-40 scouts per sortie, often more and returning to stations for repairs only when modules started failing from accumulated damage.

Using this setup and the system data from the AXI Discord I finished out my combat rank and got my triple Elite "relatively" quickly:

 

[JetsonRING]

I actually stopped grinding for Elite combat rank since I achieved Deadly rank, as the progress is soooooooo sloooooow now.

About 1650 scouts to go from Deadly to Elite if I remember correctly. o7

 

[Sylow]

I actually stopped grinding for Elite combat rank since I achieved Deadly rank, as the progress is soooooooo sloooooow now.

I never started grinding for it. Yet i can't stop my combat rank from crawling up all the time, slowly getting me to be elite. It's really nothing worth bothering about, combat rank comes by itself in the run of time.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I never started grinding for it. Yet i can't stop my combat rank from crawling up all the time, slowly getting me to be elite. It's really nothing worth bothering about, combat rank comes by itself in the run of time.

It was a short lived grind to be fair, I was at 80% Dangerous and just wanted to get to the next level. Figured I'd try the scout route, but finding them and dropping into the relevant NHSS's made me grow tired of it pretty quickly.

As for the number of scouts needed to level up to Elite... soul thoroughly crushed now

But yeah while I do fancy the triple Elite decal (it looks quite fashionable) it will come eventually so just forgot about rank for now.