Thargoid War, 3010 Update
25 May 2024Kissamies
A lot has happened since I last wrote, but my focus is still on AX combat, faction running mostly on maintenance mode. We have had full wings more often than usual lately and I've had a chance to test my theory of effective AX wing. I think firstly, the wing should have 1 or 2 "hammers", which exert interceptors. Then there's the "scalpel" to pick off the hearts. The remaining 1 or 2 spots are less restricted. Could be a some sort of specialist, like anti-swarm or anti-scout ship, support ship or jack-of-all trades to pick up the slack from the point men. Good spot to put the newbie in. There can be, of course, more than the minimum amount of hammers and scalpels to fill those spots too.As for weapons, the enhanced Missile and Multi-Cannon are the new weapons since my last log. The missiles have some specialised use around spire sites and titans, but the eAXMC is the big update. The large gimballed variant is a fine weapon, especially the Azimuth version. Good for picking out hearts, kills scouts well and easily, though not as fast as well aimed modplasma shots, and can even exert the weaker interceptors if you pack enough guns. The main Thargoid killers in my book go something like this:
| Weapon | Exert | Vs Hearts | Vs Scouts |
|---|---|---|---|
| ModPlasma | Great | Weak | Good |
| ModShard | Good | Great | Weak |
| eAXMC | Weak | Good | Great |
ModShards can exert very well, but I dislike all the heat and reloading it involves. I much prefer to use my modplasmas. When there's enough of these weapons, gibbing Cyclopes is easy. "4 to 0", we call it. Alone with my glass cannon 5 modplasma Krait I can reliably gib the Cyclops when 1 heart is gone, "3 to 0". 6 modplasma or shard Anaconda can probably 4 to 0 alone, but I don't like flying a slow ship like that. That's why my ideal wing setup from above either has 2 "hammers" with modplasmas, or the "scalpel" has modshards so he can help with the gibbing. AXMC can help a little, but the mod Guardian weapons will have to do most of it.
The Gauss is not my weapon, but even I think it's the best AX weapon for small hardpoints. For modplasmas or shards I might use a small version with mediums for unified battery, but there is no small version of AXMC, so I have Gauss with anti-anti Guardian field engineering on my Chieftain, which currently had 2 Large Azimuth eAXMCs. They do help to exert interceptors faster.
The obvious weapon for the "hammers" in AX wing is the modplasma. The "scalpel" could use modshards, eAXMC or gauss. If shards, the wing can make do with 1 hammer as discussed above. A hybrid might use eAXMC with modplasmas or small gauss. A support is most likely to use eAXMC and they are good weapons to give newbies too.
Titan bombing is a different game. In my opinion, the medium nanite Guardian torpedo pylon has more than enough ammo. Sirius AX missile rack is the best weapon for shooting at the core, but it is the only thing that weapon is good for. Azimuth eAXMC are also very good and can be used to thin out some of the Scouts between the runs. I haven't tried any of the protected Guardian weapons for this.
As for wing roles, there can be 2 or 1 very fast ship that close the vents with torpedoes, while rest of the wing position themselves to shoot at the core with as much firepower as possible as soon as it pops up and the vent bombers will race to join in.