Turning to face the enemy: What I've learned after starting to skirmish with Thargoids
05 Jan 2023CMDR Knave
HIP 113535 -- The Battle for Bertin SettlementIt's a battle Humans are going to lose. The Raijin Maelstrom will claim another inhabited system.
We're fighting it nonetheless!
As far as my motives go, the goal is not to win so much as to survive each skirmish I make against them there and make a mental record of what works and what doesn't. What is most and least effective. When patience is necessary and when it's to be cast away in favor of the will to risk my life against them.
HIP 113535 is where I train up by lasting longer and longer against the endless numbers of scouts the Bugs keep throwing at it. Learning their patterns and tactics.
This is where my line begins to be drawn, late as the hour now is. After 3 successive days of denting and frustrating their efforts against us, I wish to share my newfound (and admittedly "NEWBIE") experiences
So this entry is for those of you who have not yet turned to face Humanity's nemesis. They can be fought. You can begin to conquer your apprehension and start putting a dent into what they are doing and you can do it with not that much investment.
These are my experiences in shorthand
I've made my starter A/X ship a fast manouverable scout smasher.
The core component of this build is the A/X Multi-Cannon -- turrets were fine, but gimbal mounts made this really sing. (I'd be racking interceptors by now if I had the skill to use fixed mounts...)
I built a Viper III as a good low-risk investment to begin with, but found out that it's not a long term prospect -- It's nimble, fast, and fairly durable but it doesn't have the firepower to actually kill... only being able to mount 2 Type II A/X MCs and it can't manage power or heat well enough to augment with Guardian weapons
-- It is VERY good for getting into a combat zone and testing your endurance against waves of scouts, but you just won't kill many, and you won't do it quickly.
I moved up to a Vulture. This spaceframe works for this purpose.
My build balances armor with straight-line speed. Tough enough to take damage. Fast enough to escape it once it's mounting (and to outrun hyperdictions). Quite simple really.
The build is (non-specifically) a shielded (re-inforced mod) Vulture with reinforced skins and a mix of guardian and human (deep plate) hull/module reinforcements. One small cargo rack and a Decon limpet controller in place of a docking computer, which is unusable at a besieged dock anyway
Armored Power Plant, Engine Charged/Cluster Capacitor Power Dist and Dirty Drive tuned 5A thrusters are all MUSTS. No getting around the internal or hull, bulkhead and reinforcements engineering.... Sorry! Thargoid weapons are simply too destructive against out-of-the-dock A Rated ships
For utilities. Heatsinks and a Shutdown Field Neutralizer
the rest of this is tactics.
While the combat area is just scouts at the initial drop, I'm digging into it and earning my re-buy in bonds -- now!.
Once the rout is on, the scouts will flag in interceptors. Once they've made drop, here is where I activate the shutdown neutralizer, drop a heatsink and scram out of the zone.
At about 11km out, I recharge, decontaminate and fab new limpets and heat sinks (if necessary) and rest -- in fact, it's a good idea to zoom back in and land at this stage so that in the event of losing a hull to an interceptor (whose swarm is really all that can kill me -- and WILL if I don't avoid it),
A simple rebuy gets me back in with a freshened ship and a mulligan on earnings
Thargoid hulls are durable. Between the damage the interceptors can do and the range they can enforce with the Thargon swarms, the combat area will spread out (not to an 11km radius though -- A/X ships will jump out and the interceptors will drop in or start patrolling the inner radius of the zone), but while it's spread out, I can jump back in and restart against scouts, or land for a full repair.
Rinse, repeat as appropriate jumping in and out of the 11-13km radius -- I can kite the zone almost indefinitely.
The rest of the rest of this is a psychology.
The mindset is to only acknowledge interceptors to stay a as far away as possible while still engaging scouts. It's manageable, but not always and probably not forever as the zone will get crowded with interceptors.
I can't be afraid to jump out if the heat goes up too high. Why????
We don't have to win combat zones. RE READ: We have to kill Thargoid ships ***NOT*** win combat zones.
I'll High Wake out and rejoin after a landing/repair /calming down outside the battle area.