Galactic Navy Strikes Back

[Fatleaf]

Has anyone had successful navy mission against thargoids yet? In two sorties I have scored tens of kills, yet both have ended to destruction of navy fleet, departure of thargoids and more containers and inactive robot fighters floating around than my Cobra3 has room to pick them up.

In the Ooniverse survival is success. But another way to view it as a victory is to obliterate all active enemy vessels and have a shed load of spoil to add sweetness to the mixture.

[Smivs]

Matti, don't forget to go for the Warships, not the Thargons (robot fighters). If you kill a mother, all her robots become inactive. Also It might be that you only get 'points' for the OXP when you kill a capital ship - check in the readme.
I've done numerous sorties where the Navy won (mostly because I was there ), and consider, the owner of a big ship can make a fortune from all those 'alien items' waiting to be scooped, or at least get 50Cr for shooting them.
Don't the Navy pay top-dollar for Thargons at their Stations?

[Matti]

Matti, don't forget to go for the Warships, not the Thargons (robot fighters). If you kill a mother, all her robots become inactive.

Problem: the little robot fighters can be closer and firing their weapons. Even though I destroyed few of those, battlefield had more inactive fighters than my Cobra3 had room to pick them up.

[Smivs]

Matti, don't forget to go for the Warships, not the Thargons (robot fighters). If you kill a mother, all her robots become inactive.

Problem: the little robot fighters can be closer and firing their weapons. Even though I destroyed few of those, battlefield had more inactive fighters than my Cobra3 had room to pick them up.

They're only firing because their mother is still alive...take out the mother and you effectively kill all six or whatever. If you don't have the hold space to scoop the Thargons, either buy a bigger ship ( ) or shoot them and get the 50Cr bounty on them.

[Thargoid]

Unless you have Second Wave OXP installed. Then some of them may not just roll over and play cargo

[Cmdr Wyvern]

And now, some Bug-busting tactics.

Race ahead of the fleet into the middle of the Tharg swarm. Set off the E-bomb. Race back to the fleet.
The surviving Big Bugs will now be thoroughly pissed off and wanting blood, but damaged enough that they're easy pickings for the fleet.
Also, Hoopy Casinos pay handsomely for alien items.

[tonyhippy]

Has anyone had successful navy mission against thargoids yet? In two sorties I have scored tens of kills, yet both have ended to destruction of navy fleet, departure of thargoids and more containers and inactive robot fighters floating around than my Cobra3 has room to pick them up.

I try to arrive at the rendezvous with as much fuel as possible and hit the injectors to hare off toward the oncoming Thargoid fleet, pile straight through them and drop a Q-mine amongst the rearguard (Unsporting, I know, but there can be zillions of them....)
Now HOPEFULLY, the explosions will spread and take out half (or more) of them BEFORE the Navy engages them. If you're too slow it can get messy, and you COULD end up as a fugitive, But if that doesn't happen I generally turn aroud, cut engines and just snipe from afar for a while, before rejoining the fleet. I try to pick off the Terrorizer Frigates and other smaller ships first, then harry a few of the bigger ones. If I'm taking too much damage I RUN AWAY (bravely!) and turn to snipe again. Most times in my Ooniverse the Navy will win....
As for the inactive fighters, what you can't scoop, shoot for the bounty/kills.
Unsporting? Possibly, but if your ship isn't totally iron-assed (and I've done this in an Eagle Mark II -the version with 2 missile slots- as well as in my Commander Jagger's B-Wing) then the odds are pretty stacked against you anyway, and you'll still have to go toe-to-toe with enough badguys to fry your lasers good. And of course you can't do the Q-mine thing at all if the Navy has already engaged the enemy.

[Matti]

And now, some Bug-busting tactics.

Race ahead of the fleet into the middle of the Tharg swarm. Set off the E-bomb. Race back to the fleet.
The surviving Big Bugs will now be thoroughly pissed off and wanting blood, but damaged enough that they're easy pickings for the fleet.

Excellent! Maybe drop some mines too for good measure. How about I don't turn towards fleet at all, but just fly through the thargoids and draw portion of them after me? Less thargoids against Navy and more kills for me! I LOVE Sniper Scope!

[Wildeblood]

Excellent! Maybe drop some mines too for good measure. How about I don't turn towards fleet at all, but just fly through the thargoids and draw portion of them after me? Less thargoids against Navy and more kills for me! I LOVE Sniper Scope!

You're still using that!? The MilHUD version I hope? Did you see the message from another_commander where he confirmed the bug is real - the stand-alone version risks causing a CTD every time it's used. (Although I'm glad you like it )

[Matti]

Excellent! Maybe drop some mines too for good measure. How about I don't turn towards fleet at all, but just fly through the thargoids and draw portion of them after me? Less thargoids against Navy and more kills for me! I LOVE Sniper Scope!

You're still using that!? The MilHUD version I hope? Did you see the message from another_commander where he confirmed the bug is real - the stand-alone version risks causing a CTD every time it's used. (Although I'm glad you like it )

I use that one which I downloaded from link in first post of related topic, and where I was first to report CTDs. Have you replaced it yet? Do I need download MilHUD to use it?

[Wildeblood]

You're still using that!? The MilHUD version I hope? Did you see the message from another_commander where he confirmed the bug is real - the stand-alone version risks causing a CTD every time it's used. (Although I'm glad you like it )

I use that one which I downloaded from link in first post of related topic, and where I was first to report CTDs. Have you replaced it yet? Do I need download MilHUD to use it?

Well, obviously not, if you're happy. No one else will be downloading it, because I removed it from the Box - there is only the MilHUD version there now. So you've got yourself a unique piece of equipment. Just make sure you save your game every time you dock, please.

[Smivs]

Ha, that reminds me of the half-dozen or so lucky people who could still have the original-release Contractor, before it got made sensible.

[Switeck]

Is Galactic Navy OXP fully compatible with Oolite v1.75.3 beta?

Matti, don't forget to go for the Warships, not the Thargons (robot fighters). If you kill a mother, all her robots become inactive.

Problem: the little robot fighters can be closer and firing their weapons. Even though I destroyed few of those, battlefield had more inactive fighters than my Cobra3 had room to pick them up.

They're only firing because their mother is still alive...take out the mother and you effectively kill all six or whatever. If you don't have the hold space to scoop the Thargons, either buy a bigger ship ( ) or shoot them and get the 50Cr bounty on them.

You also get a kill even if the Thargon is inactive (white lollipop on radar)...so there's really very little reason NOT to kill them as you'll seldom see a system buying them for more than ~65 credits each.

Taking out the Thargon's mothership to make them all go inactive sounds easy, and maybe it is if there's only 1 Thargoid warship to kill. But if there's more than 1 then ANY of them can become the Thargons' new mother after their current one dies. You'll be buying yourself only a few seconds relief (in v1.75!) and only from those Thargons that was using that warship as their mother. Prior to v1.75 (or was it v1.74?), the death of ANY Thargoid anywhere in the system forced ALL Thargons to pause and recheck for mother(ship).

Many Thargons become inactive not because their mother died but because the mother moved too far away from them. They only appear to follow after their mothers because they're attacking the same target/s. After they mercilessly slaughter everything around them, the Thargons stop where they are while their mothers continue to move towards the witchpoint or towards the planet. Worse, when moving towards the planet, the Thargoids spread apart because they pick different points all around the planet. This makes them far less effective over time, as you'll likely encounter smaller groups at once even if HUGE numbers are in-system.
I changed both behaviors of the Thargoids and Thargons in my mod, Switeck's Shipping OXP at:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=8212
...In it, Thargons attempt to chase after their mothers if no targets are around. This ironically serves to make it likely for a lone Thargoid warship to have >5 Thargons swarming around it after some of the easy-to-hit Thargoid warships are killed.
Thargoid Warships first attempt to go to the witchpoint before heading towards the planet. This tends to pull them together, as they're converging on a point (well the small volume around the witchspace beacon spot), so they can better annihilate anything once they get there. If they don't find anything there or if they killed everything, they then run up the space lane to near the planet. Being faster than most ships, they can still often run down whatever is in front of them. Assuming that task is complete, they then patrol back to the witchpoint. Going to the main station to harass it is stupid for them since the main station is invulnerable by game design.

[Fatleaf]

While testing for another WIP I was looking for some information on the Naval Bases in Galactic Navy and I noticed the Wiki says that they are tech level 14 (http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Navy_SecCom_Station) but in the Plist it is 13! Is this a typo in the Plist or Wiki?

I edited my Plist to reflect the Wiki.

[m4r35n357]

While testing for another WIP I was looking for some information on the Naval Bases in Galactic Navy and I noticed the Wiki says that they are tech level 14 (http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Navy_SecCom_Station) but in the Plist it is 13! Is this a typo in the Plist or Wiki?

I edited my Plist to reflect the Wiki.

TL numbering starts at 0, have you taken that into account?