Thargoids are too hard

[THE Headhunter]

Explain to me what I'm doing wrong because I'm bashing my head against the wall here.
I built an AX cutter with gauss cannons and AX multicannons but now the interceptors auto attack so the scanner is useless (they move around too much for me to scan). I have no precision targeting on the hearts without the scanner and the cutter is too sluggish to aim a fixed gun.

I was told the Cutter was a good AX ship but I can't take down ONE! And now I'm getting frustrated.
So explain to me exactly where I'm doing things wrong because from what I can tell, it's impossible.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

What class of Interceptor were you fighting? Most people judge their experience based on the lowly Cyclops class, which can basically be face-tanked with enough hull and shields, while you gauss it at point blank.

Every other variant (Basilisk, Medusa and Hydra) are all significantly harder and require you to either overwhelm it with a wing using best-in-class weaponry, or master the Cold Orbit technique, expending tons of resources to solo the Interceptor.

These are not easy fights, don't let the showoffs convince you otherwise, yes it's possible t kill a Hydra in a Sidwinder, it takes like 2 hours and an entire hold's worth of Premium Gauss, and virtually flawless evasion, but it's possible.

The only thing I can really help you with is shooting the Hearts, you can't rely on precision targeting to find the heart for you, you need to look at which "Petal" of the Thargoid is flashing red, and shoot it. As far as I can tell, the entire "Heart" is the entire Petal, so you don't need to be super precise.

[THE Headhunter]

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

What class of Interceptor were you fighting? Most people judge their experience based on the lowly Cyclops class, which can basically be face-tanked with enough hull and shields, while you gauss it at point blank.

Every other variant (Basilisk, Medusa and Hydra) are all significantly harder and require you to either overwhelm it with a wing using best-in-class weaponry, or master the Cold Orbit technique, expending tons of resources to solo the Interceptor.

These are not easy fights, don't let the showoffs convince you otherwise, yes it's possible t kill a Hydra in a Sidwinder, it takes like 2 hours and an entire hold's worth of Premium Gauss, and virtually flawless evasion, but it's possible.

The only thing I can really help you with is shooting the Hearts, you can't rely on precision targeting to find the heart for you, you need to look at which "Petal" of the Thargoid is flashing red, and shoot it. As far as I can tell, the entire "Heart" is the entire Petal, so you don't need to be super precise.

I can't even kill a Cyclops

[Harriet]

AX Combat is very hard when starting out, yes. I died a lot and it took me a ton of practice to take down my first interceptor solo early last year. Learning their attack/response patterns is a large part of it.

The AX conflict zones do make things a lot easier, because other ships will take some of the heat at times - especially scouts and the swarm.

The Cutter isn't a good AX ship, not to start out with at least. You want the Chieftain or Krait Mk II (the chieftain is far more maneouvreable, the krait has a lot more firepower)

Check the two shieldless beginner builds on this page: https://wiki.antixenoinitiative.com/en/builds

[InsertCoin]

they are supposed to be hard, they coming and its going to be worse

[Insane]

As a seasoned AX player myself, i absolutely agree with players who are new to this. First of all i will adress the AX cutter use. ALL Large ship AX combat is considered as advanced combat. Avoid it until you know what you are doing. It will take some practice. People who said to you that AX Cutter is good, are most likely seasoned AX players who doesn't even remotely understand what it is like to be exposed to this out of nowhere, or people who learned it from Youtube or elsewhere. Cutter is not a ship you will feel comfartable with. Try Krait MKII, Krait Phantom, Chieftain. These 3 will be most comfortable to you.

Speaking of AX scanner - yes, it's FDev's mistake. 500m range was designed for a different type of action and not for a full scale war we have now. You won't be able to use it on cutter effectively, forget it. Which is why i am recommending medium ships i named before. Especially Phantom because it's the ship in which you can always run from Thargoids if things goes south (6A engine dirdy drive grade 5 is extremely important here). I really hope that FD will adress this AX scanner issue in coming future.

You can find builds here https://wiki.antixenoinitiative.com/en/builds

[Minonian]

For what i gather the worst part of em not their overwhelming power because
they are not that powerful when it comes to raw firepower.
The worst part of em, they are just like roaches.

[HughJardon]

Originally posted by THE Headhunter:

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

What class of Interceptor were you fighting? Most people judge their experience based on the lowly Cyclops class, which can basically be face-tanked with enough hull and shields, while you gauss it at point blank.

Every other variant (Basilisk, Medusa and Hydra) are all significantly harder and require you to either overwhelm it with a wing using best-in-class weaponry, or master the Cold Orbit technique, expending tons of resources to solo the Interceptor.

These are not easy fights, don't let the showoffs convince you otherwise, yes it's possible t kill a Hydra in a Sidwinder, it takes like 2 hours and an entire hold's worth of Premium Gauss, and virtually flawless evasion, but it's possible.

The only thing I can really help you with is shooting the Hearts, you can't rely on precision targeting to find the heart for you, you need to look at which "Petal" of the Thargoid is flashing red, and shoot it. As far as I can tell, the entire "Heart" is the entire Petal, so you don't need to be super precise.

I can't even kill a Cyclops

See if this helps. Dunderheads Guide to Killing Thargoids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJHMo_TxNw&t=1679s

If you don't have a Corvette, you can make a similar build with an Anaconda, which also works quite well.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

my experience wrt fighting thargoids with only AX gear

1.) don't try to solo. find a fight with at least NPCs, ideally other CMDR. Clean off Scouts engaging NPCs so that you can have as many NPCs helping as possible against a single interceptor.
2.) the Thargons are a big wrinkle that make things harder, but they don't get launched at low altitude; look for ground ports that are under attack. This means among other things you don't need to mount Remote Flak gun which increases the number of AX multi or AX rockets you can mount.
3.) it will be very hard to target hearts with AX multis in a cutter. you are probably gonna be better off with something more maneuverable so you can scan with xeno scanner and then target hearts with turreted AX multi. It's quite difficult but possible, especially if the interceptor is aggrod on something else. Theoretically fixed AX multi should work without having to scan but I have not tried yet.

[Stelar Seven]

First off, the red petal is not all heart, the heart is in the middle ish, learning to see and hit it is a big part of the game.

I would put the Cutter away and get a Krait or Chief ot Crusader. A krait 2 can outrun most of the Interceptors, chief can't. Also Cuter rebuy is much higher.

Don't use human AX weapons get the Guardian ones. They won't work in maelstrom systems but you don't want to fight there yet.

If you fight at a ground port you can rearm and repair and you get no thargons. That is a great place to learn AX, just don't hit the ground.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Harriet:

You want the Chieftain or Krait Mk II (the chieftain is far more maneouvreable, the krait has a lot more firepower)

Is it "a lot more firepower"? I thought it was only about 10 to 15% (raw dps, not including penalties of small weapons vs large ships, SLF etc)?

[Stelar Seven]

Originally posted by funkynutz:

Originally posted by Harriet:

You want the Chieftain or Krait Mk II (the chieftain is far more maneouvreable, the krait has a lot more firepower)

Is it "a lot more firepower"? I thought it was only about 10 to 15% (raw dps, not including penalties of small weapons vs large ships, SLF etc)?

It's the difference of more small vs medium. The Krait has two mediums and 3 large, but you'll be using all size 2 guns.

Where the Krait 2 shines is the right and left guns line up well for heart popping and the center slot is great for the remote flack.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Stelar Seven:

...but you'll be using all size 2 guns...

Why would I do that? If the hardpoint can hold a size 3 weapon, then it's pretty obvious I'll be putting a size 3 weapon in it. AX, Guardian or regular weapons... I'm not nerfing my hardpoints without a good reason. Full sized weapons for their respective slots, or I don't bother installing a weapon.

[Sighman]

Originally posted by funkynutz:

Originally posted by Stelar Seven:

...but you'll be using all size 2 guns...

Why would I do that? If the hardpoint can hold a size 3 weapon, then it's pretty obvious I'll be putting a size 3 weapon in it. AX, Guardian or regular weapons... I'm not nerfing my hardpoints without a good reason. Full sized weapons for their respective slots, or I don't bother installing a weapon.

You can't get size 3 gauss, so I use 4 x size 2.

Plus one beam laser with thermal vent.

On the Chieftain it's 2 x size 2 and 2 x size 1. That means 3 hits on the heart instead of 1.

Also when the thargoid is on 40% and you pop the heart, two shots from the krait will finish it off. With the Chieftain it usually gets the shields up and you still have to crush another heart.

So, the krait has a lot more firepower, whatever the DPS/size/etc.

[Stelar Seven]

Originally posted by funkynutz:

Originally posted by Stelar Seven:

...but you'll be using all size 2 guns...

Why would I do that? If the hardpoint can hold a size 3 weapon, then it's pretty obvious I'll be putting a size 3 weapon in it. AX, Guardian or regular weapons... I'm not nerfing my hardpoints without a good reason. Full sized weapons for their respective slots, or I don't bother installing a weapon.

AX weapons are very different from regular combat.

The best weapons only come in size 2. You can add a size 3 AX mumticannon or missile rack but human weapons currently dramatically under perform the Guardian and salvation variant guardian weapons.

Guardian Gauss are your basic pinpoint tharg killers. They are easy to get from Guardian sites and a tech broker unlock once gets you unlimited ability to buy more.

Salvation weapons to need to unlock mbooni, and get the mats for every gun you buy but Salvation charging plasma and shard cannons make Muppets out of cyclopses and will ruin the day of any interceptor.

Look at the stats below the class of weapon. Size isn't everything when it comes to goid squishing.

[Pathfinder Serza]

The Cyclops tickles and is made of wet tissue paper.

Consult this page (and the remainder of the Wiki) to see what's wrong
https://wiki.antixenoinitiative.com/en/shipbuildtheory