Update 15 Thargoid Scout damage.
- Thread starter Paradigm Fusion
- Start date
Because:
1) + Changes in behavior to prioritize aerial targets;
2) + Increased damage;
3) + Increased accuracy;
4) + Module sniping;
5) + Dropping in to instance with permanent Inciter + Berserker + Regenerator buffs;
6) + Increased number of scouts in groups.
It would be fine to have a couple of these changes, like 1) + 3), or 1) + 6), but NEVER all 6 at the same time, like it has been reported by many CMDRs !!!
Has anyone else had Hunter/Glaive ships spawn in ground installation protect instances?
I've had this happen once so far, the target screen listed them (2) as Hunter class Thargoid ships, the HUD started breaking up and Guardian weapons and modules started taking damage even when docked.
I had a go at killing one but the combination of scouts and Hunters plus inoperable Guardian tech led to my sad demise (more like angry demise TBH
).
Rather than improved weapons and modules how about a dedicated medium anti Thargoid combat ship? say with caustic resistance integrated into hull armour, higher speed boost to 650 m/s, six medium weapon HP and utility HPs essentially a super Krait mk2.
I've had this happen once so far, the target screen listed them (2) as Hunter class Thargoid ships, the HUD started breaking up and Guardian weapons and modules started taking damage even when docked.
I had a go at killing one but the combination of scouts and Hunters plus inoperable Guardian tech led to my sad demise (more like angry demise TBH
).Rather than improved weapons and modules how about a dedicated medium anti Thargoid combat ship? say with caustic resistance integrated into hull armour, higher speed boost to 650 m/s, six medium weapon HP and utility HPs essentially a super Krait mk2.
Yes, you are not alone! And yes they do knock out guardian kit when docked. It seems to an ax combat amateur like myself that you need to have a few people in an instance to negate the cumulative effect of all the changes since the update. It's almost like they have taken the ability to do solo away.
Since that incident I put together a human tech based build based on a Krait mk2 https://edsy.org/s/vpenijP with the low emissions PP it makes landing at the besieged port a lot easier as the ship idles below 20% heat.
Soloing Cyclops is straightforward as long as you eliminate the scouts first, with gimballed AXMC you need a scan to target the hearts but with the ships low heat output that's not that hard. It takes a little longer to exert the heart with MCs but once you target them the MCs destroy them pretty quick, once they go pop a heat sink and boost away then rinse and repeat, if scouts start to spawn take them out before continuing.
I did. They do have chance to spawn, and in my case, had 3 of them at once and that as also my first time seening them. They even had own music theme, when they are in range of sensors.
They do employ similar field to that of Orthus (its need be triggered - possibly they have sound indicator when they active it), but its seems much more weaker and it have limited range and it does not being active at all times as well (do not know exacly how big radius of that field is - fought them only once so far). It didnt saved them from myself though.
In fact, I found laughable how easy and fast I was able to kill them on my own, with just 3 salvo each, from my 5x plasma charger krait, my latest bulid variant made for dealing with U15 AX "changes". It went exacly as I predicted, how it would went in other thread.
Scouts and especially hunters, during planetary settlement AX defence, should be prioritized. Like when you see hunters coming in, you focus right away at them, and its best kill them before they hang out too long, killing guardian tech from thier fields wich is what makes them most dangerous. But since they can be killed with few salvos, I was able to kill 3 of them, while being alone, and losed only about 20-30% intergrity from my guardian tech modules, from dealing 3 of them at once, for first time, EZ 4,5m per pop.I had a go at killing one but the combination of scouts and Hunters plus inoperable Guardian tech led to my sad demise (more like angry demise TBH
I dont think something overpowered like that would be ever given to us cmdrs from Fdev.
Like a Fer-de-Lance but with a class 7 Distributor, another weapon, Military module slots, and more speed while armed and armoured than is possible with an unarmed lightweight Mamba (642)?
For the moment, I think it should be enough to point out that Scouts now have two independent weapons:
- The old three-shot weapon.
- A new four-shot weapon with faster rate, shot speed, reload, and very likely has more Piercing and probably breach chance/damage as well.
Didn't have that luck, even when staying in for a few minutes watching from far above. Likely their spawn is neither timed nor random and something triggers it. Or maybe my attention was not drawn to it. We can find out... when the Terminascouts are fixed back to "scouts".
More stuff, AX dedicated ships, etc. I don't think so. IMO the current ship build model is perfectly flexible and astonishingly well balanced after all the bumps it's gone through.
On the ship side, >80% of ships have their use(s) with the right build(s), even the Sidewinder. Only a few "poor boys" could use a little fixing on one point or another like the Cobra, Viper MkIV or Crusader, but nothing to prioritize right now.
Same opinion about equipment : I spend a lot of time designing builds in EDSY and trying them in-game and all except weapons is just flawless. A very little and wise balance tweaking would be welcome in order to make some well-thought but underpowered weapons useable, but unfortunately nowadays I can better expect FD to crash the whole gameplay than be able to do this little and wise. Aside from that : it's no OP or do-it-all solution, all pros and cons, compromises and different behaviours, all depending on how you're intending to play the ship and do with it.
On the Thargoid side however... well, reusing things for years stops working sometime. Isn't a "scout" supposed to... scout and not swarm, an "interceptor" to intercept and not besiege ? They were before the war, in what places is it still the case ? Is filling up CZs with endless spawns of out-of-place things a solution ? Nah. Does buffing them when players get used and organized to slaughter them make them more fun ? Nah.
Sorry FD, you'll have to not make Thargoids stronger, but give them new things for new roles. The Hunter looks like nice addition all by itself, but it just comes on top of a cake that the "scouts thing" made suddenly outdated...
Is the four-shot weapon the same as the Glaive uses? I've only seen Glaives next to the Titan, so didn't want to get into a fight with them right next to their Mothership.
I just wondered if that is what happened to the Scouts, i.e. they share some code with the Glaives and the unintended consequence is that they have both sets of weapons at the moment.
I do not think so; the Glaive weapon makes a different sound, and while often it shoots four, it can also shoot up to ten in a row after a slight pause.
They do regularly, and always in formation of 3. Had them in every instance I was this afternoon. They also literally fly into the instance in formation, which looks very cool.
While I still think the scouts are possibly erroneosly hitting much harder (different from tactics, I approve of the not fixating on the ground to be ignored), This does bring to mind that one can be dedicated to fighting both the scouts and hunters. The hunters aren't super tough, they can and are taken apart with human ax weapons. Fighting two at a time alone might be rough as they do tend to shut things off on a regular basis and two of them might just stun lock you.
Had not tried with guardian weapons as the time I dealt with them was in the maelstrom. If they don't nearly insta kill your guardian weapons this is even better.
It might be just that, which would amount to a big blunder on the part of FDev. But nothing we are not used to by now...
I wouldn't call that a big blunder - when deriving new objects from the code of existing objects, an oversight in object inheritence is literally just missing a tiny detail. The result may be big and noticable, but the blunder that led to it is tiny and easy to make. But what do I know - I'm just a programmer ¯\(ツ)/¯It might be just that, which would amount to a big blunder on the part of FDev. But nothing we are not used to by now...
Point taken.
A small distraction, hard to spot, results in a new powerful cannon being added to the existing less powerful one...
Still a blunder, since we are talking about a professional multimillion dollar studio and not a high-school programmer doing homework to show its teacher...
FDev is no better or worse than any other large development studio - while I would certainly prefer to hold all of them to a higher standard, I'm not going to be more critical of one over the other (and if I was, I wouldn't want to be unfair to the one that makes a product I like - quite the opposite, I'd rather dump all over RSI, lol)
You do know that even a big company like Microsoft have a history of completely insane bugs?
It's a complex project, though QA or even the devs themselves ought to have caught this one. I don't think the change was intentional.
Oh, yes!! I do know that very well from my won experience installing, configuring and updating Windows systems !!
Microsoft are generally the biggest offenders in regard to serious bugs. So, they are a giant with feet of clay.
But some of those bugs are a consequence of all the hardware and software compatibility that they have to abide to, while others from the humongous amount of code they have to swim through.
You have just hit the right answer: QA !!
That is the problem in common with both MS and FDev.
I would guess the bigger the project and company, the bigger and better the QA department. Seems that my impressions in that regard are erroneous...
Edit: So still a blunder by FDev...
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