First Interceptor Kill
03 Mar 2024Cetacean1
Having gotten certified during the Thargoid war, much of my time and effort during the war has been spent on building the fleet, gathering guardian technology, and playing nice with the corrupt politicians... "supporting our lovely leaders in the Federation and Empire" in order to gain access to ships and star systems. While guardian weapons and systems were equipped on some ships, they were still largely ineffective against large Thargoid vessels such as interceptors or titans.In a recent AX conflict in a star system near the remains of titan Taranis in HIP 25679 I got my first Thargoid interceptor kill in the Renfield (Chieftain Class). The scanner kept going offline and would not identify the ship, but I will assume it was a Cyclops. Without the scan locking onto hearts was impossible. With only partial engineering, and just basic shard cannons, the Renfield was still better suited to killing Thargoid scouts than an interceptor. Having been making blind passes with the shard cannons to help weaken the interceptor, and switching to kill escorting scouts while ships with AX multi-cannons attacked hearts earlier. My hull was down to 1/3, and the canopy was looking close to failure so I started to power up the FSD to head back to Njorog, but switched it off and took the chance that my shard cannons would hit the last heart enough to help kill it, which had healed a couple times earlier. At first it seemed like I had made a mistake, but in the crackling HUD from the lightning strike I made out the interceptor's hull dropping as I kept unloading shard cannon clips as the last heart flashed. As it drifted and emitted a loud signal I boosted away as it went up- I was not sure how much more the now fragile hull would withstand even with a caustic sink installed. With that making the 101st Thargoid kill, I quickly switched power to the FSD before the approaching scouts could finish off the Renfield, and returned to Njorog.
With one titan down, and the end of the war seeming to be in sight, it is likely not many ships in my fleet other than the Renfield will be fitted for Thargoid combat. If the war ends when the last titan falls, there will be little point in outfitting more. Exploration will likely be the next focus, with a mission to Colonia being the first step. New politics will surely create a conflict in the bubble once the common enemy is gone.
(INARA seems to be having an issue with linking to the images in the CMDR's gallery, so Renfield After First Interceptor Kill is the image)