Update 15 Thargoid Scout damage.

[Andi-C]

Dropping in to hear the latest.

1) Have the scout targeting, damage, and damage resistances been moderated, or are they still OP?
2) Do Glaives pop into surface AX CZs and wipe out Guardian Modules?

I've only done one hit on a AX CZ and
Scouts aren't as bad but they are a little more powerful than before the bug. They're numbers didn't seem bad and NCP's were still in the CZ at the end.
The Glaives are a great money maker for me, I've fitted two Gimbeled enhanced MC & two Guardian enhanced PC. They make easy work of them. The worst things of the Glaives is the lighting charge and they're speed.
If you have a large shard cannon ship or a fixed weapon the Glaives maybe more harder to hit but the 4.5m pay when you see 5 of them is yummy.

To be fair, I've taken them on in Open so my results may vary in solo.

 

[Dash]

Played last night in Open at a planet, no other cmdr turned up which was disappointing.

Scouts, no problem, they're not all lined up at the station now, so you occasionally have to clear them out, but they're not tearing through your hull any more. It didn't take long for the interceptors to break up the NPC crowd and the scouts followed them, so now the panic dive to the surface on 5% hull is no longer dangerous, providing you leave your interceptor behind!

Glaives (which seem to come up as Hunters in game) still show up, I encountered two at one point - didn't really notice them until my hud started to glitch. I took one out but messed up my aim on the other and lost my shards before I could finish the other off. Landed and repaired, but the modules started decaying immediately before take off. I went to repair again before I launched but it seemed the effect had passed, while the ship was still there - so it doesn't seem like a permanent thing - dive for cover in dock, wait for the effect to end, take off and blat it.

Things that are still causing me problems are, rearm doesn't seem to work very well from the station menu. I often find myself having to go into advanced maintenance and rearm each hardpoint and utility one by one.

I didn't have long to play, but I took out a few Cyclops, one Basilisk, and three hunters on my own, while giving scouts some focus between interceptors instead of just rushing off to get the interceptor. I think if there were other commanders in the arena the scouts would have just naturally get popped here and there and not be an issue. The Basilisk was the

Hexshard Conda

 

[Jimmy Joe]

Thanks @Dash

 

[Wisho]

We'll see the DCoH stats on Thargsday but I expect a sensible drop

Well, Thargsday has come and I feel like i'm missing something.

All along the "week" I looked in DCoH at individual systems and saw alerts/invasions repelled one by one almost as usual, up to maybe like 7/5 on Wednesday morning.

Today I was eager at seeing DCoH weekly stats, and what a surprise : only 5 systems repelled with a >80% drop in total contributions. Consistency failure anybody knows what really happened ? Did anything go wrong in collecting contributions or calculating stats ? Thanks !

 

[Kira Goto]

anybody knows what really happened ?

First week after the update, people focused on checking out the new stuff and poking the Titans a little before returning to sampling shooting Thargoids up in the invaded/alert systems.

Give it more time to judge whether any drop in activity has or will occur.

 

[Wisho]

Hmm yes sure.
However my question was more regarding DCoH stats : the 5-systems total in the 2023-05-18 recap is far less than what I saw filtering the Systems list during the week. Unfortunately as Thargsday has passed last "week" 's numbers, repelled systems and so on are gone.
Was wondering if anyone had noticed the same and/or kept a list of last week's progress/systems to cross-check it with the weekly stats.

Edit : just rolled back last week's targets in AXI Discord and unless I'm wrong, all these were cleared :
Hez Ur
Hyades Sector AV-O b6-5
HIP 26688
Isla
Holvandalla
Wolf 121
Laumas
Asletae
not counting the many cleared without being designated as target by AXI.

That just doesn't add up to only 5. See what I mean ?
Maybe this deserves another topic...

 

[Kira Goto]

Hmm yes sure.
However my question was more regarding DCoH stats : the 5-systems total in the 2023-05-18 recap is far less than what I saw filtering the Systems list during the week. Unfortunately as Thargsday has passed last "week" 's numbers, repelled systems and so on are gone.
Was wondering if anyone had noticed the same and/or kept a list of last week's progress/systems to cross-check it with the weekly stats.

Edit : just rolled back last week's targets in AXI Discord and unless I'm wrong, all these were cleared :
Hez Ur
Hyades Sector AV-O b6-5
HIP 26688
Isla
Holvandalla
Wolf 121
Laumas
Asletae
not counting the many cleared without being designated as target by AXI.

That just doesn't add up to only 5. See what I mean ?
Maybe this deserves another topic...

Yeah, that’s probably deserving of another topic. Or you could ask on their discord server if you’re on there/use the app.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

However my question was more regarding DCoH stats : the 5-systems total in the 2023-05-18 recap is far less than what I saw filtering the Systems list during the week. Unfortunately as Thargsday has passed last "week" 's numbers, repelled systems and so on are gone.
Was wondering if anyone had noticed the same and/or kept a list of last week's progress/systems to cross-check it with the weekly stats.

I could not speculate about what DCOH might be doing, but this is from my Week 24 post as things stood moments before the cycle ended, from a full independent scan of every single war-involved system:

Week 24, 11th May 3309​

Report
Eleven Alerts repelled at Cephei Sector CQ-Y b3, Juipedun, Luggerates, HIPs 20019, 21991 and 20492, Aowicha, Baudani, Cao Tzu, Khondo Po, Arietis Sector GG-Y d63.
Eight Invasions defended at Hyades Sector AV-O b6-5, Hez Ur, HIP 26688, Holvandalla, Wolf 121, Isla, Laumas, Asletae.
Nine Control evictions at Bagalya, Col 285 Sectors GQ-O c6-19, LB-O c6-1, OB-D b13-4 and OB-D b13-5, 65 Kappa Tauri, Cephei Sector ZE-A c12, HIP 118207, Desurinbin.
In addition to the defended Invasions, three recaptured systems starting Recovery are Bagalya, 65 Kappa Tauri, Desurinbin.

 

[DarkSession]

Hmm yes sure.
However my question was more regarding DCoH stats : the 5-systems total in the 2023-05-18 recap is far less than what I saw filtering the Systems list during the week. Unfortunately as Thargsday has passed last "week" 's numbers, repelled systems and so on are gone.
Was wondering if anyone had noticed the same and/or kept a list of last week's progress/systems to cross-check it with the weekly stats.

Edit : just rolled back last week's targets in AXI Discord and unless I'm wrong, all these were cleared :
Hez Ur
Hyades Sector AV-O b6-5
HIP 26688
Isla
Holvandalla
Wolf 121
Laumas
Asletae
not counting the many cleared without being designated as target by AXI.

That just doesn't add up to only 5. See what I mean ?
Maybe this deserves another topic...

Seems you are looking at the numbers from the current week. The date on the bottom of the charts is the start date of the cycle, i.e. 2023-05-18 refers to the cycle from 18 - 25 May 2023.

 

[Wisho]

Oh my, how could I miss that - I never realized these were updated in real-time. Thank you all and sorry for the inconvenience !

So last week's stats are finally not that bad at all, even against my guess, with a visible increase in all contributions. Looks like this "scout thing" was not a thing for so many of us.

 

[Aleks Zuno]

So last week's stats are finally not that bad at all, even against my guess, with a visible increase in all contributions. Looks like this "scout thing" was not a thing for so many of us.

Yes and no; cycle 24 started slowly then gained momentum later, so I will speculate quite confidently that a large cause was many Commanders enjoying a visit inside those newly-available Maelstrom nuclei. That said, Scouts were still causing a lot of problems and it was still slower generally.

For a quick idea of what we have been capable, since around the rise of Research harvesting to complement the classic port defence and evacuations:

Date	Cycle	Alerts	Invasions	Controls	Total	Notes
23rd March 3309	17th	15	13	4	32
30th March 3309	18th	17	16	7	40	Good peak capacity example
6th April 3309	19th	14	9	7	30	Most new Invasions prevented
13th April 3309	20th	20	6	9	35	Invasion drought
20th April 3309	21st	13	4	11	28
27th April 3309	22nd	16	4	13	33
4th May 3309	23rd	11	7	18	36	7-day Community Goal
11th May 3309	24th	11	8	9	28	Update 15

Those cases with four Invasions are because there were so few available, due to the Alert capacity shutting them all out, hence I have been quite vocal in suggesting that harvesting operations move some attention to Control systems and leave some Invasions to work at capacity. Conversely, cycle 24 had many more Invasions available and ended with a lot of them losing their progress; I am relatively sure it would have been more like 12–13 without the Scout problem.

Incidentally, I can speak much less speculatively about Control there, having run most of those evictions myself! The Scouts had almost no effect, and those nine systems in cycle 24 (compared to 18 previously) were more due to recapturing a few populated Control systems rather than a large cloud of empty systems, and also spending some time testing and revising how to run an open-space harvest after a few unrelated update 15 changes.

 

[Spaceman-FXL5]

Those cases with four Invasions are because there were so few available, due to the Alert capacity shutting them all out, hence I have been quite vocal in suggesting that harvesting operations move some attention to Control systems and leave some Invasions to work at capacity.

Thanks for this guys.
Now back to the war after 3 weeks since U5 "Super-Scouts".
I'm back in Taranis now due to 4 Invasion Systems with space CZ and Planetary ports. I either do solo Scout Hunting or Open Scout Support, whilst others do in the Interceptors.

3 points I have noticed, though:
1. Message in INFO Window was '...Thargoids in the AR' now corrected to 'Thargoids in the Area' - small +ve.
2. No message when Interceptors use the EMP SDFN pulse, only clue is the sound it makes. Big -ve.
3. AXCZ phase ends quicker and less payout (about 600,000 instead of 1.2M) before Interceptors appear. Small -ve.

Point 2. I run in any case, so after the 'Interceptors Coming In Hot' message, I know I can boost 3 times before EMP and am far enough away for it not to disable me (>15km?). I can then either repair or go to SC to exit instance and return to start phase again.
I have tested this 10 times in 2 different space AXCZ's in Imeut near Levi-Strauss Hub.

Point 3. Scouts are back to almost pre U15 with one small difference - They or the NPC's are more aggressive as the Scout phase is cleared much faster, leaving me chasing them whilst they are being destroyed by NPC's. One instance ended after I killed only 2 scouts!
I suspect the Scouts are more aggressively chasing all Cmdrs and NPC's and thus the NPC's are reacting more and fighting better(?).