Titan Cocijo bombing mission - 15 Dec 3310
15 Dec 2024Mira Tigerheart
Today, I finally stopped running from the Thargoid war and joined in, if only to do a little bit to help. Following some helpful guides on the net, I bought a new Krait Mk2 and refitted it as a Titan bomber, ran around the bubble to get the best modules and engineer them as best as I could.I was originally going to name my new ship the "Murder Hornet" after the Asian giant hornet, but did a little research for something associated but more exotic-sounding. Mastoparan and Mandaratoxin (chemicals in said hornet's venom) were considered too, but ultimately I settled on the "Vespa Soror", the scientific name of the Southern giant hornet, a close cousin. It rolled off the tongue easier.
When I had engineered as much as I could, I stopped at Rescue Ship Hutner for the final pieces of the build: anti-xeno weapons & utility modules. I made sure I was signed up for the community goal, stocked up on limpets & ammo, took a bathroom break... and studied the technique a few more times while I tried to calm my nerves enough to make my first attempt. Thargoids have always been ludicrously overpowered in my scant few encounters with them in my explorations before the war started, so I was in the habit of fleeing whenever one showed up. Now I was planning to actually go attack them at the heart of one of their strongholds. I must be crazy. Eventually, I worked up the nerve to launch on my solo mission to poke a giant fleshy pinwheel.
Saw my first hyperdiction on my way to Sol, and fled as fast I could with a faster Thargoid chasing me down, but I got away just as it began to open fire. There was barely time to breathe a sigh of relief, as I was interdicted just seconds after arriving in Sol. I submitted & fled to keep as much distance from them & me as possible, and jumped back into supercruise as soon as I could. They weren't done with me yet, not by a long shot: they interdicted me again, and again, and again. Six times in total, sometimes with multiple ships. I had no choice but to submit & flee each time. I knew I'd be no match for them in a dogfight.
After running that gauntlet of death flowers, I finally slipped into the nasty cloud surrounding Cocijo, with only 6 caustic sinks to my name and no way to manufacture more in the field. They required some strange components I have never seen before, so what Hutner gave me was all I had to work with. The caustic cloud is a nightmare, made all the more terrifying when you're running a stealthy build without a shield. I had never encountered this horrible substance before, and had no idea what to expect from it, but I pressed on.
Consulting my notes one last time, I put all power to the engines and kept the boosters pushing to get through this mess as fast as possible. I timed it right and survived the pulse wave shaken & toasty but not deterred. Soon, the strange starfish loomed out of the darkness like Cthulhu himself.
I was looking at the ventral side of the Titan. A couple of brave (or foolish?) rescue ships were battling four angry murder-flowers between me and the Titan, so I had to sneak around them and get in close to hide above the dorsal side. I waited a long time for the thermal vents, but they finally opened and I rushed out to lock on & fire my new nanite torpedoes into them. One hit, two hits, then something roared and grabbed my ship in a tractor beam, dropping my speed to just 50m/s. I jinked and boosted repeatedly, and broke free after what felt like an eternity. Torpedoed a third vent, and finally got the notification I was looking for. I boosted and raced around to the ventral side, and rippled-fired my AX missiles into that big glowing pinecone. When it retracted, I fled as fast as my ship could take me, straight down and away from the Titan. There was a blue torus of death all around the Titan; I can only hope those rescue ships I passed earlier had the good sense to flee too, if they even survived their duel with the doom-flowers.
By now, the caustic damage was adding up fast, and I was all out of caustic sinks and only had a single heat sink left. My repair limpets didn't seem to do anything in this acid swamp... so I made the choice to flee to the rescue ship for repairs. I boosted out of the cloud as fast as possible, but had no idea the Titan would hit me with another pulse on the way out too, and took a pounding as it shoved my ship away. My hull was down to about 15%, so I got clear of the cloud and punched it for the rescue ship.
Luckily, I wasn't hyperdicted on the way out... but the acidic residue continued to burn through my hull the whole way back, and I had no more caustic sinks and no way to get rid of the stuff. Worse, my cockpit was sparking & the glass was cracking. I raced for the rescue ship, and dropped from supercruise with just a few percentage points left in the hull. I screamed for an emergency docking, and they said they'd be ready for me. I raced in as fast as I dared, using all my skill to hit the brakes just in time to avoid a collision, knowing my tortured hull could never survive the slightest bump. The cockpit gave out and burst as my landing gear were lowering. My gears locked to the pad, and the rescue ship instantly washed the acid off what was left of my paper-thin hull... leaving me with a whole 1% remaining. Too close for comfort! That's officially the lowest I've ever seen it go without getting ejected.
I did my part, got a small combat bond of about 450k to cash in, and earned 308 credits for the community goal. I am definitely not suited for this kind of thing... but somehow, I actually managed to successfully bomb the Titan on my very first attempt, and lived to tell the tale.
A huge thank-you goes out to CMDR Furor_DEI for their video guide explaining what was needed for someone with no xeno combat experience to make a tiny bit of difference in this fight. This is Mira, signing off and going to bed. o7