Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

Dolphins are cool. Literally and figuratively!

I'm going to go test my mettle against those invasive noxious space donkeys this evening. I was gonna last evening but end up taking it down to Laksak for some shield upgrades. Then I killed a couple of (only modestly harmful) pirates with it. Those Aegis weapons are kinda like rubber bullets on the humans. But what the heck, got a feel for maneuvering it. Which is fairly familiar coming from the Cobra and Phantom. TO WAR! Then to the rebuy screen. Then TO WAR! I guess I got about 180 1-ups to become sustainable as an anti-xenologist, or take another stab at xeno tours. TO WAR!

4qtdRr3.jpg


They just gave everyone elite V in biology, maybe you guys can make a new utube video on it, a new road to riches video, scanning in the bubble, no need to go in the black. At least I know I did it the old fashioned way (what a kick in the teeth).
What I don't understand is why did they screw everything else up? Gomez said they totally trashed (nerfed) mining, they reworked exploration, I've found 5 ELW's in the last 10,000 Ly when it was 10-12 and even less Ammonia worlds and commanders are complaining about ranking in combat too. It would seem they take away from everything else and give it to one group, why not a CG offering high pay and highly engineered AX weapons. I just don't like their implementation.

Take pride 0threeeleven - any hiring manager knows to check the date on the ranks. Oh yeah look at 0threeeleven, the stone cold explorer. All legit, like. Gots the chops.

You didn't just get some flower pickin fever come over you on the day trouble came to town!

Feel oddly deflated.
Logged into Horizons 3.8 and set the fleet carrier to jump to what has been Quain's home system in the game for more than a year.
Then I hit the decommission button. Don't know why, just felt like that ghost of the past needed lying to rest, and its better a defunct fleet carrier does not stay in the old game for however long some 2.8 billion credits would have kept it going.

Yeah! Snip that tether, ship the bronze orca home then take it back to Colonia!
 
Does anyone have good input on which ship should be able to run coldest? DBX, DBS, Dolphin...? Thanks in advance.
I recon the Dolphin is a good fit. Great jump range, runs cold AND its fast for when you need a quick escape - boosts to 591m/s.
DBS looks the part as a scout and actually comes up similar to the Dolphin, but not quite as resilient or able to carry collector limpets for some of the new Thargoid materials that are collectable without some compromises to defence.

I think I'd go with the Dolphin for the extra space and faster fuel scooping while travelling.

I love the DBX, but I'd want more speed.
 
Yeah! Snip that tether, ship the bronze orca home then take it back to Colonia!
The Fleet Carrier remains operational in Odyssey. But Quain will leave it in the bubble for some future expeditions where my alt account can make use of it.
Another visit to Colonia is for in the new year. I will head out to the far western system of the galaxy from there. I might go for the most southerly before this year is over.
 
Yes, I tried dialing an Apex, but any destination was greyed out. I didn't find the "Reset to Orbit" command before suffocating, but the rebuy on the Eagle was dirt cheap.

I wanted to go and study the Thargoid Bubble, so I took my racing Eagle, being able to outrun them. That didn't work once I had landed, but otherwise worked just fine. Next up will be trying a cold running ship. I read somewhere that running silent doesn't work well, but I'll give that a go as well. I know how to build a cold ship, but the coldest one I have is an exploration Mamba.

Does anyone have good input on which ship should be able to run coldest? DBX, DBS, Dolphin...? Thanks in advance.

I've heard the Dolphin runs very cool, but I haven't investigated it.
Built right the DBX and Krait Phantom can run very cold, the Dolphin is a little odd it isn’t that it runs cool so much as it is very reluctant to gain heat.
 
Looked at the galaxy map. Thargoids are surprisingly close to this lovely pink world I wanted to make my home.

Went to Shin Dez. Outfitted my Python, the Argent One, for passenger capacity. I don't know for sure that it's useful, but I have a hunch that being able to take ~80 people at a time is going to be handy. I'll find out in a day or two.

I'm just not a combat pilot, I actually have access to guardian weapons but there is no point in me equipping them. Also where's the darn gimballed option? 😹
 
Looked at the galaxy map. Thargoids are surprisingly close to this lovely pink world I wanted to make my home.

Went to Shin Dez. Outfitted my Python, the Argent One, for passenger capacity. I don't know for sure that it's useful, but I have a hunch that being able to take ~80 people at a time is going to be handy. I'll find out in a day or two.

I'm just not a combat pilot, I actually have access to guardian weapons but there is no point in me equipping them. Also where's the darn gimballed option? 😹
With burning stations about and needing evacuation 80 passengers is a good number, large enough to be useful but small enough that the messages from the first ones aboard to leave immediately and abandon the rest won’t get too annoying.

If you don’t fit a cargo hold and collector limpets for the escape pods and salvage inside the station you should be OK with 3 or 4 heat sink launchers.
 
With burning stations about and needing evacuation 80 passengers is a good number, large enough to be useful but small enough that the messages from the first ones aboard to leave immediately and abandon the rest won’t get too annoying.

If you don’t fit a cargo hold and collector limpets for the escape pods and salvage inside the station you should be OK with 3 or 4 heat sink launchers.

I'm packing 2, I guess we'll see how it goes. Used to be able to do it with just 2 heatsinks jettisoned, but literal years have passed and now I rely on the autopilot pretty hard 😹 I want to try for escape pods, but this does mean going to manual...

I may outfit my cutter for the job, but I haven't actually visited any of the affected systems so I don't know what stations are available to land at. A medium ship seems wise for the first trip or two.
 
I had resigned myself to never seeing this on my right panel. But...there it is.

Screenshot 2022-11-30 165132.jpg


We went from soul-crushingly slow progress, to "Whee!!!" in a single day.

What I don't understand is why did they screw everything else up?
Don't believe that. People attribute everything to "nerfing" when it can be explained by RNG and/or system states. When FD nerfs something, they almost always say so (like when they killed the Void Opals and LTDs prices). Same when they buff things (like Exobiology now, and combat a bit ago).

For example, I went to my well-known mining spot recently, where I have a map of all the high-paying asteroids. They are all still exactly in the same places. Nothing has changed. Hotspots are not nerfed (there may be bugs, though...there are always bugs).

Prices go up and down a lot, all the time, based on system states in particular. You need a certain combination of states to get the highest prices. Looking on Inara or EDDB does NOT show all the available prices, just the ones that have been submitted by players using EDMC or etc. If you know the states, and the other criteria (such as economy type, etc) you can find the high prices yourself, with some effort.

Most folks who do that do NOT submit their data to the 3rd party sites, because they don't want people to know.

Stuff in the game can fluctuate a lot without any intervention from the devs, trust me.
 
Don't believe that. People attribute everything to "nerfing" when it can be explained by RNG and/or system states. When FD nerfs something, they almost always say so (like when they killed the Void Opals and LTDs prices). Same when they buff things (like Exobiology now, and combat a bit ago).

For example, I went to my well-known mining spot recently, where I have a map of all the high-paying asteroids. They are all still exactly in the same places. Nothing has changed. Hotspots are not nerfed (there may be bugs, though...there are always bugs).

Prices go up and down a lot, all the time, based on system states in particular. You need a certain combination of states to get the highest prices. Looking on Inara or EDDB does NOT show all the available prices, just the ones that have been submitted by players using EDMC or etc. If you know the states, and the other criteria (such as economy type, etc) you can find the high prices yourself, with some effort.

Most folks who do that do NOT submit their data to the 3rd party sites, because they don't want people to know.

Stuff in the game can fluctuate a lot without any intervention from the devs, trust me.
That does make sense, I noticed when the stargoids showed up every 5th jump was an extra long conduit/tunnel and it seemed like it was resetting the RNG's. Right after my extra whinny, snively post I found two ELW's and a moon with four biosigns, I'm still looking for the fourth, fungus, it's proving very elusive.
CT-988698.jpg

I stopped posting these a while back thinking everybody got the idea and had enough of my shenanigans.
CT-988699.jpg

Now I'm confused and a little embarrassed.
 
Well I shot an alien. I went into the embattled system and got my hyperspace conduit plucked .. hmm .. they didn't shoot me for a few seconds. Long enough to think I had my bearings, though a minute later, I was in the wrong fire group. Darn new ships (as if i would have better luck in an old ship, PEBCAK). Right. Thanks to my Xeno scanner I was able to identify an interceptor and a swarm of little guys. They all liked shooting me pretty well; but, we played toro a few times and I exited stage left with half my hull (versus interceptor's 94%! a tough little pinwheel). Compared to my expectation, that went fairly well!!

Now I think I'll buy something stupid with ARX like a new flightsuit, fiddle with the hardpoints, go again! Weee
8AA00l5.jpg


Second trip, entered a combat zone [low], blew some scouts to bits, in conjunction with system authority.. they weren't much trouble but an interceptor came in too. Due to impending death and server downtime, departed with 23% hull and 5M to server down. Landed with 3% hull and a few seconds to spare for a complimentary causticity soothing bath at port
HhdOxcJl.jpg
FudP85ql.jpg

pXWTWYuh.jpg

KBEnWK8h.jpg
 
Last edited:
I may outfit my cutter for the job, but I haven't actually visited any of the affected systems so I don't know what stations are available to land at. A medium ship seems wise for the first trip or two.
I'd suggest you check out the attacked systems first, you may be surprised.

When I did it yesterday, I got two small stations under attack, and one large ground base (which I didn't check out). And "under attack" means active shooting going on...

I used my cold Dolphin (slightly redone racing loadout) with 30 economy seats.
 
Woke up obnoxiously early so... let's go get some folks out of those invaded systems!

Step 1: outfit my python, Argent One, for passenger duty. Two heatsinks because I remember previous rescue runs. Collector limpets, because escape pods. She's already a well engineered ship for range and speed - I don't intend to take on the xenos so there's no point touching the weapons loadout.

(I will spoiler the rest because it contains information about what you'll run into if you go on rescue missions in invaded systems.)

Step 2: get hyperdicted and nearly die.

20221201 hyperdicted.jpg


Well that was fast. On jumping to the invaded system I was yanked out of hyperspace and immediately set upon. They are not messing around sniffing at us any more, they are in full attack mode. My advice; boost and run. I got out of this with 94% hull. They did not hyperdict a second time.

What I have learned from this is do not plot any jumps that require going through one invaded system to get to another.

Step 3: Upon arrival at the system, I found only one "working" station. All planetary bases were already shut down - no idea if they managed to evacuate or are just gone. The one remaining port was an outpost, so good job I brought a medium ship. It wasn't in a good way. I didn't take time to inspect the damage because the scanner was warning of frameshift wake anomalies.

There are no heat issues here, nor did I see any escape pods. Automatic docking did not work and I had to come in manually.

20221201 sitrep not good.jpg


Step 4: fill up on refugees. Numerous groups of up to 80 are all offering up to 11 mil credits or 9 mil plus some grade 5 mats. Those 80 passenger cabins look like a smart move!

Step 5: get shot on leaving. Now I know what those anomalies were. Little buggers started firing before I had left the pad. Multiple missiles and idk what else as I was trying to boost away and get out of mass lock range. The shields went down fast, and I got out of there with 54% hull remaining.

Step 6: deliver the refugees to a rescue ship, then back to Shin Dez.

I don't think my lightweight hull armour is going to cut it, and I can probably lose the heatsinks, cargo rack, and collector limpets. Google says neither point defence nor chaff works, so I guess it's time for 4x shield boosters. Might consider a bigger shield generator, possibly a cell bank. I still have no intention to engage the thargoids, but if they are determined to engage me, I'm going to need to rig for durability.

Edit: oh, I was already running military composite armour. I guess anything less would have been... bad :eek:
 
Last edited:
@Nekozji I was going to say this in response to your earlier post but it seems you have already found out.

Docking Computer support is unavailable on damaged stations and those under repair or construction.

I seem to remember that Thargoid weaponry is not affected much by shields and that running cold is effective against them, so keeping the heatsinks might be a good idea. Hopefully someone with better more up to date information will point out my errors.
 
What I have learned from this is do not plot any jumps that require going through one invaded system to get to another.
Didn't help in my case.

I was using a cold Dolphin (thinking about setting up a Phantom). Dropped a heatsink and boosted off after the hyperdiction, looked like Thargy didn't even try to follow me. Instead had been attacked on my previous (first) attempt in the station instance, made it to dock with 60% hull or so. Since that was essentially my racing Dolphin, I'm only carrying lightweight/heavy duty armour. Was not attacked on take-off in either case - fast and cold seems to help.
 
Sometimes not all stations are under attack. I'm currently in Obamumbo which has only just been invaded today, I believe.

1669887097119.png


All the planetary ports have shut down. One of three space ports is showing as currently under attack; two are not. These two appear to be safe - for now. They are not on fire, no bugs zoned in on me at arrival, but they are on alert status and offering refugee missions already. Party sizes of 18-80 so even small ships can be a part of this. In fact, since the main station here is operational, I could go fetch my cutter and really save some souls.

I was not hyperdicted, nor attacked this time. Perhaps the freshly invaded systems have less thargoid presence - or maybe they're just very focussed on the attack sites. The first system I went do didn't have any red skull markers. I will try a couple of other places and see what it averages out like.

I have refitted the Argent One for a 6A shield instead of bi-weave because I don't plan to be around long enough to recharge either. I've also dumped the cargo and limpets in favour of hull reinforcements, adding nearly 1000 more integrity. -

On a non-spoilery note, these refugees are better behaved than I remember. Last time I was doing this, they were nagging me to get moving, get there in 2 minutes for a bonus, etc. Now they just seem happy to be alive and are sitting in quiet contemplation.

Also, did the docking computer always have such an... aggressive approach profile?

20221201 questionable docking.jpg
 
Back
Top Bottom