Oolite Bulletins

Having just tried my hand at some reserve duty...this was a major Thargoid confrontation. Holy moly, that was some furball! Dozens of Targoids, probably hundreds of robot fighters, laser trails and molten hull plumes everywhere...framerate plunged....what a bonanza! It was quite intense sitting there with the fleet watching the cloud of shiny dots approaching closer and closer. Kind of like a Minas Tirith soldier must have felt . Very fun. But it seems the estimate of the naval reserve officer was a bit low (when he said 80% of the reservists do not return from duty). My fellow reservists and naval pilots do not seem to grok the fine art of Thargoid destruction and taking out a Thargoid invader all at once rather than just poking at them and making them mad, which of course makes things much worse.

Are such battles survive-able (by some means other than simply running away or just avoiding the service altogether?) Should one stay back off the front line? Outflank and take up the rear? I'll experiment...

One another note, how do you know when the duty is finished? I had a much smaller Naval/Thargoid encounter (which was also very intense ... both shields down, robots in hot pursuit, death imminent...and all of a sudden they all turned white...what a relief!) where all the Thargoids were destroyed, and then fellow reservists and I mopped up the robot fighters, then the reservists and the navy jumped out of the system. But the game didn't indicate that the service was complete, does one have to return to Seccom to finalize a reserve run?

Bogatyr wrote:

But it seems the estimate of the naval reserve officer was a bit low (when he said 80% of the reservists do not return from duty).

Well, no matter how true, saying "It'll be a frikkin' miracle if I ever see any of you again" would be a bit of a dampener for morale, wouldn't it?

Seriously though, I've never joined the Naval Reserve, so I couldn't really comment about tactics. However, I'm sure it won't be long until someone with some actual experience turns up to share their knowledge.

Going by things I've read in the Tales from the spacelanes and Darwin Awards threads, I can at least offer the tip that carrying a weapon of mass destruction into battle is a Bad Idea(tm).

Believe it or not these actually get very 'samey' and boring after a while.
When I used to do them my preferred tactic was to hold back and let the 'grunts' pile into the thick of things, where they act as a wonderful distraction. From a safe distance I would then target a mothership and sytematically kill it, then move onto the next one and so on. The robots are only viable when there is a mothership present, so as soon as the motherships are all dead the robots go dead as well.
I also made sure my hold was empty for these encounters (150TC in my Boa Clipper), and I'd then spend forever gathering up all the dead robots and then take them back to the SecCom station where they pay a very generous price for them.

Prioritise the warships that are attacking the frigates and behemoths. The turrets on the big naval ships are capable of tracking and destroying several targets at once, but they need time to get into turret range, and once there they're very vulnerable to return fire from drone swarms.

Fit military lasers to all four weapon mounts if you don't have them yet, and use all of them. Thargoid warships are big targets, so you should be able to hit them even with an unfavoured weapon, and the military laser's long range will keep you clear of return fire. You need all four: if you only use one or two they'll be overheated soon once the fight is underway.

Either focus on the battleships first so that the Thargoids lose the significant extra firepower their plasma turrets provide, or pick off all the basic warships first so that they lose most of their control capability for their drone fighters. Leave the cruisers for last, either way: they're tough, but they won't do that much damage.

If you're brave, shoot up a few of the bigger ships a lot until they start coming for you, then flee with a mix of injectors and normal flight to drag them away from the main fight. That improves the odds for everyone else.

It Can Be Done!

cim wrote:

Prioritise the warships that are attacking the frigates and behemoths. The turrets on the big naval ships are capable of tracking and destroying several targets at once, but they need time to get into turret range, and once there they're very vulnerable to return fire from drone swarms.

Fit military lasers to all four weapon mounts if you don't have them yet, and use all of them. Thargoid warships are big targets, so you should be able to hit them even with an unfavoured weapon, and the military laser's long range will keep you clear of return fire. You need all four: if you only use one or two they'll be overheated soon once the fight is underway.

Either focus on the battleships first so that the Thargoids lose the significant extra firepower their plasma turrets provide, or pick off all the basic warships first so that they lose most of their control capability for their drone fighters. Leave the cruisers for last, either way: they're tough, but they won't do that much damage.

If you're brave, shoot up a few of the bigger ships a lot until they start coming for you, then flee with a mix of injectors and normal flight to drag them away from the main fight. That improves the odds for everyone else.

Thanks for the hints! I'll fit military's onto port and aft and practice dogfighting with those. I'm pretty good ("dangerous"...approaching 700 kills) with front, not bad with rear (distance is pretty good but dogfighting is bad, I can't reverse the pitch without constantly thinking about it), and totally unpracticed with port/starboard other than the occasional asteroid mining trip. I use the mouse with pitch/yaw so I suppose I'll have to practice mousing the side lasers using pitch/roll.

Sounds like the suggestion is to hang back and pick 'em off at a distance. I'll try that out.

And I have a "Leroooooooooooooooooooy Genkins!" idea I want to try as well....

You can never have too much fuel - it's priceless in serious firefights!

Hi Bogatyr, one trick I've used twice for these encounters is use my injectors and speed into the Thargoid mass and drop a Q bomb right in the middle of them and thenblast away and watch the fire works. On this note though I have to add, make sure you're a safe distance away from your Navy fiends otherwise they'll get caught up in it too and then there's no one left!

By the way anyone else encountering the Targoid controllers (small little dice objects that like to shoot you) and having a hard time shooting them? I've taken to going full throttle and on injectors and ramming them, seems to work for me anyway!

Rogue7414 wrote:

Hi Bogatyr, one trick I've used twice for these encounters is use my injectors and speed into the Thargoid mass and drop a Q bomb right in the middle of them and thenblast away and watch the fire works. On this note though I have to add, make sure you're a safe distance away from your Navy fiends otherwise they'll get caught up in it too and then there's no one left!

By the way anyone else encountering the Targoid controllers (small little dice objects that like to shoot you) and having a hard time shooting them? I've taken to going full throttle and on injectors and ramming them, seems to work for me anyway!

That was my "Leeroy Jenkins" idea ! I'll have to try that...

Rogue7414 wrote:

By the way anyone else encountering the Targoid controllers (small little dice objects that like to shoot you) and having a hard time shooting them? I've taken to going full throttle and on injectors and ramming them, seems to work for me anyway!

All by design

The controllers are from TCAT by the way, for anyone who may wonder

Bogatyr wrote:

Rogue7414 wrote:

Hi Bogatyr, one trick I've used twice for these encounters is use my injectors and speed into the Thargoid mass and drop a Q bomb right in the middle of them and thenblast away and watch the fire works. On this note though I have to add, make sure you're a safe distance away from your Navy fiends otherwise they'll get caught up in it too and then there's no one left!

By the way anyone else encountering the Targoid controllers (small little dice objects that like to shoot you) and having a hard time shooting them? I've taken to going full throttle and on injectors and ramming them, seems to work for me anyway!

That was my "Leeroy Jenkins" idea ! I'll have to try that...

Well, that was very impressive (looking in the rear view mirror!) ! I ran out of fuel during the escape but it was *just* enough to avoid the conflagration.

Naval command: Fleet, form up!
(CmdrLuke: "All right, time's up, ready guys? Let's do this! Leeroooooy Jenkins!")
(Naval Command: "Oh my god he just ran in")
...20 seconds later...
Naval command: Fleet, OK to disperse!

Next time.. screenshots, please! (shift-8 )

Lots of good advise here. I recommend an iron assed cobra, maybe a boa cruiser, with any and all military upgrades you can get. Don't be afraid to run or eject. Bring a energy bomb. Once most of the bigger ships are down and stop using ECM you can use non-hardheads to deal with the robot fighters.

You can get good practice by inducing a mis-jump (do loop-the-loops until the countdown finishes). You should get a pile of thargoids and navy, but not on the same scale as reserve duty. Then dock with a behemoth, fuel, and repeat. Just make sure you have enough fuel in case no one is there!

Hans Olo wrote:

Lots of good advise here. I recommend an iron assed cobra, maybe a boa cruiser, with any and all military upgrades you can get. Don't be afraid to run or eject. Bring a energy bomb. Once most of the bigger ships are down and stop using ECM you can use non-hardheads to deal with the robot fighters.

You can get good practice by inducing a mis-jump (do loop-the-loops until the countdown finishes). You should get a pile of thargoids and navy, but not on the same scale as reserve duty. Then dock with a behemoth, fuel, and repeat. Just make sure you have enough fuel in case no one is there!

Good idea! I'll find some super close systems and zip back and forth between them fightin' dem bugs.

Bogatyr wrote:

...inducing a mis-jump (do loop-the-loops until the countdown finishes). .

In fact all you need to do is pitch hard up or down for the last second or so of the countdown. Some joysticks won't do this, so use the up/down arrow keys.