Thargoid Testing, Caustic Damage, and Armor Piercing(dunno what to call this lol random tests, maybe interesting to some)

[DemiserofD]

I had long been under the impression that Thargoids did caustic damage with their main cannon. Today, I finally decided to test this out.

First I took out a T10 with 4000 points of armor and 18.5% caustic resistance. I killed the swarm on a cyclops, then lowered my shields and counted the number of strikes. (clarification: when I say shots I mean bursts)

It took 17 shots to lower my hull by 7%. This means the interceptor was dealing 16.5 damage per shot.

I then took out a different T10, with no caustic resistance but 5318 armor.

Following the same procedure, it took 34 shots to lower my hull by 12%. This means the interceptor was dealing approximately 19 damage per shot.

These numbers are relatively imprecise, but it does show a significant enough disparity to demonstrate that the caustic resistance is, in fact, functioning.

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As far as utility goes, this could have some impact on how you build your AX ships. For example, a chieftain with stacked Heavy Duty Hull Reinforcements achieves 4851 caustic hull, https://s.orbis.zone/c5Nt while a build that mixes the two gets 4951 https://s.orbis.zone/c5Nq while saving on some engineering materials. The variant fully using the guardian packages also has more health than the heavy duty variant, but with less total gain than the hybrid; on the flipside, with much lower absolute health, it would be easier to repair. https://s.orbis.zone/c5Nw

EDIT: Whoops, accidentally left out Deep Plating on the third build example. That brings it up to 4999 caustic hull, which is pretty well better overall than the alternatives. Thanks Houligan86 for pointing that out. Corrected version: https://s.orbis.zone/c5Vj

An important fringe benefit of this is the fact that resistances effect damage taken by modules, as well; this means that the above build with 26.5% caustic resistance also gains 26.5% effective health on their modules and module reinforcements. This may also motivate usage of guardian hull reinforcements.

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[Redacted]


Hopefully this is useful to someone!

Cheers

 

[Howardxu23]

a question: is all thargoid attacks(force lighting, thargon swam standard attacks and suicide attacks, etc) all caustic damage based, or absolute?

so in other words is it better to spam nothing but guardian HRPs if you want to fight thargoids(and have the power to do so)?

also is lower hull values better on the repair costs?

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

a question: is all thargoid attacks(force lighting, thargon swam standard attacks and suicide attacks, etc) all caustic damage based, or absolute?

Swarm projectiles are caustic. Lightning and swarm missiles are not, but they are avoidable.

so in other words is it better to spam nothing but guardian HRPs if you want to fight thargoids(and have the power to do so)?

It depends. Ideally you need to consider the power draw together with the increase in resistance versus the absolute increase in hull for human HRPs. If you do change normal HRPs for GHRPs - start from the smaller ones as they still confer 5% caustic resist, have less power draw, and a lower loss of absolute hull.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Have you tested force shell cannons in thargoids? I know they will do 0dps but im curious if they knock the aliens around and whether we can exploit it to throw off their aim.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

This also has me curious.
-have we confirmed the lightning attack is absolute damage?
- so you are telling us the thargoid burst cannon thing deals 100% caustic damage with an AP value ~46? So it is NOT absolute damage?
-If i recall, it has some shield penetrating ability. Is the portion of the damage that breaches the shield also caustic?

 

[Guyperson]

If i recall, it has some shield penetrating ability. Is the portion of the damage that breaches the shield also caustic?

Shield breach damage is absolute. Resist doesn't really come into play until shields are down.

 

[DemiserofD]

This also has me curious.
-have we confirmed the lightning attack is absolute damage?
- so you are telling us the thargoid burst cannon thing deals 100% caustic damage with an AP value ~46? So it is NOT absolute damage?
-If i recall, it has some shield penetrating ability. Is the portion of the damage that breaches the shield also caustic?

We've at least confirmed that lightning is NOT thermal damage. If it IS caustic, it doesn't really matter, as we've got no way to put caustic resistance on our shields anyway, and it doesn't do particularly much damage to hulls either.

What makes me curious is why the main cannon does so much less damage to shields than to hull. Even if it did 20 damage as the spreadsheet claims, that should mean it does 8 damage to a shield with 4 pips. Instead it does 5. Why?

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Maybe the main cannon is explosive damage? Or at least partially?

 

[Zannry]

Great work OP. I need to join a call for work but wanted to drop this resource below for some of the others that had raised questions before I join it. Darn real life responsibilities.

The Anti-Xeno Initiative

The Anti-Xeno Initiative, an Elite:Dangerous player group dedicated to the defense of humanity.

www.antixenoinitiative.com

 

[Bottom Hat]

Is it down to corrosive damage not being powerful enough?


Sorry dude, I'm a sod for remembering annoying jokes...!