The last I heard, there was an unknown object of Thargoid origin heading towards the bubble at high speed. I was among the people watching and tracking it, but never heard what happened, or if anything ever did.
Um. Wow. A lot happened. I’ll try to summarise. Some of this is probably out of order.
- Eight of them arrived, set up shop and started pumping out new kinds of interceptors. We call them Titans.
- Shit hit the fan real fast, humanity lost control of hundreds of star systems.
- Palin, AEGIS, Sirius and Azimuth developed some new tech and guns.
- AX forces fought them to a standstill then slowly pushed them back.
- We found out Thargoids have been stealing humans in escape pods for unknown purposes.
- Titans are still there, but their influence is severely limited.
- New ground-based skimmer-type thargoids started showing up at settlements in invaded systems.
- Barnacle matrix sites popped up on a few planets.
- Those stolen humans are being stored in the Titans for some reason.
- Matrix sites matured into spire sites, guarded by even more new ground-based units.
- New weapons are developed to rescue captive humans from Titans.
- New weapons are developed to sabotage spire sites but they have to be delivered on foot.
- Rescued humans kept in quarantine for the moment, nobody really trusts them.
There are three new interceptors; Orthrus, Scythe and Glaive. Orthrus are mostly harmless but Scythe and Glaive are really nasty. Hyperdictions are much more common in invaded systems, and they’ll pull you out of supercruise now too. Titans live in a cloud of caustic goop full of mines and intercepors, they’re very hard to reach. Spire sites are creepy as hell and guarded by Banshees, which are ground units but have shutdown missiles that can really wreck your ship because there’s a LOT of them.
As someone who stopped playing between the enhanced FSD events and the new xeno stuff, thank you!
Oh wow! Thank you for such a comprehensive summary.
I’m sure it’s been at least 18 months since I last played, but it seemed like the story was rolling out so slowly that I hadn’t really expected that much development.
I was about 2-3 billion into saving for a FC and got bored with the grind. I had done a fair amount of engineering and a little exploring outside the bubble but ran out of steam.
I have a half-built AX Krait somewhere that I gave up on after getting creamed repeatedly 1v1 against Scouts. I’m really bad at AX combat.
Pirates, on the other hand, are my bitches.
You don’t -have- to engage with AX, all the other stuff is still there, but you do have to pay a bit more attention to the galmap because crossing Thargoid space will get you hyperdicted.
The AX meta has changed a bit, the new human gear and guns are actually pretty good, we have enhanced AX missiles and multis that are faster and hit harder than the old ones. It kinda lowers the bar for entry a little bit; the new multis will pop a scout in like 30 seconds. Human gear is necessary for some sites because Spires, Titans and Orthrus put out anti-guardian fields. We also have a couple of AX stabilisers that allow mounting more than four experimental weapons, and caustic sinks that work like heatsinks but get rid of caustic. We have a new AX scanner that works at longer ranges and allows subtargeting hearts with multis and missiles. Orthrus are actually pretty easy to kill since they don’t have hearts or offensive weapons, just a shutdown field and caustic trail. They’re also worth a cold 40mil each. Scythes and Glaives will absolutely wreck your shit. They have less health than interceptors but they’re fast, maneuverable and hit hard.
AXI run regular events on a Friday, lately they’ve been focussing on spire sites because they’re loaded with Orthrus and easy money. I think I made a couple billion in the last couple weeks just by tagging Orthrus before they pop.
It kinda lowers the bar for entry a little bit; the new multis will pop a scout in like 30 seconds.
That’s perfect. I could use the handicap lol
Fantastic write-up, thank you!
