Complete guide to The Swarm - Thargoid Combat Tutorial
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- In this video we will look at the Thargon Swarm deployed by Thargoid interceptors during combat. their capabilities, formations and behavior as well as methods of countering them.
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Music Courtesy of Epidemic sound - เกม
THIS is exactly what I need. Great thanks. (still struggling to kill Basilisk dut to lagging control of orbiting and hard time dealing with swarm while spent too much time shooting hearts)
Protip: The Swarm's Missiles vary wildly in damage depending on the size of the ship you're flying. An Eagle takes less than 20 damage per missile, while the largest ship, the T10, takes over 100 damage per missile. The Chieftain takes in between the two, at about 50 damage.
Excellent and very informative video - quite a lot I didn't know about swarms.
I've watched many of your videos and those of other pilots on the ACE Leader Board. The one word that is repeated many times is 'practice'. There is no substitute for it. So I'll keep at it. Many thanks CMDR ō7
This is what I needed. I never understood how and when the swarm decides to missile attack until this video.
Very nice and educative video! A lot of points of interest very well explained! Today my biggest issue is with the two first hearts of the Hydra...those are the most painful ones to me, after that, is a matter of patience and cold blood to take down the big goid. Did you have any tip for that, the start of hydra fights ?
You've got this down to a science. Very nice. I suck at hitting these things. I can knock the hearts off of a ceptor all day long, but the swarm? May as well get me a baseball bat because I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I always wait to till the remote flak has all three rings illumined, along with the beep confirmation, but they just don't get hit!
Same for me.
You do choose pretty good music for your videos, Katie. Nice vid as always!
In modern AXCZ environments, expecially those around stations, I find the swarms too unpredictable to deal with. Doesn't help that my favored build is flakless. Even when I do carry flak, shooting the swarm feels very pointless. Far too likely to switch targets to reverski. If I kill it, there will just be another swarm to replace it, either from same interceptor or another. If I sensibly just whittle it down, someone else, usually an NPC, flies through it and gets it agitated and causes it to turn itself into missiles completely, then get replaced by fresh swarm. Also there is that lovely bug of no indicator for Flak when using trailing sights. I mostly ignore swarms and hope they go for someone else and have been practicing de-agitation techniques (this video helps), but even that is kind of frustrating when they can get re-agitated by NPCs.
Seems like most people share these feelings because they vastly prefer terrestial port AXCZs where there are no swarms. I have been saying that there needs to be a new anti-swarm gadget less methodical than flak. People have had all sorts of ideas for this, but my favorites are AX point defence and giving shards some limited ability to hit swarms. Of course, there are the people who respond to these with "you want to make the game too easy".
I've got contradictory information regarding the use of point defense against missile thargons... does it work?
It kinda works but not well enough to justify wasting a utility slot on it
In short it's absolutely useless
This is exactly what I need/wanted to know. Thank you.
When a swarm goes 'suicide', how long does that phase last? Does the swarm flip wen the Thargoid becomes enraged?
The swarm becomes 'agitated' by making contact with your ship - so if they fly over you or vice versa they enter the agitated state, they stay so until dead or until making contact with your ship again. after 30 seconds ish they go into missile mode and will generally stay in that mode until approximately 10 percent of their number have been fired off as missiles (or, if the goid is enraged they will all fire off)
basically, if the swarm is agitated they will stay so until reset - and their missile formation will generally remain until they have fired off enough missiles
@@Citizen_Kate Thank you so much for your reply. That's clarified everything in a very easy to follow explanation that I havent seen or heard anywhere else
Super helpful to see what the flak looks like when it "locks in"
Great info!
does the swarm stop attacking once the targoid is destroyed?
Yes
Still one more question: what are the ranges of the missile state Thargon swarm? Or in other words, from the time of hearing "incoming missiles", for how long will these swarms be chasing me? Will this number varies for different sizes of swarm? (The word "range" might be hard to estimate during FA-off and situations of moving combat scenario, so I would like to estimate it using "time" instead of "distance") In case you need a reference of the ship's speed, I usually fly shieldless repair build chieftain and shielded FDL.
The swarm will missile you when it gets within 3km. Their range is fairly short, if you're reverski at max speed, the missiles will explode after a short while, I'm not certain how long, but I'd estimate it's within 10 seconds.
@@vengefire got it
I'm now dipping my toe into AX. The swarm gets me every time, I struggle to hit them. To progress on to the attack run.
So far for almost 50Mil in rebuys, I have one cyclops solo kill. And that was through luck and brut force, ignoring the swarm and bullying the goid in my shieldless Chieftan ending with just 7% hull.
I'm comfortable soloing cyclops + swarms, but recently I was in a full wing and found the swarms of a medusa much more difficult to hit. This is mostly because the swarm wasn't always targeting me which usually means it also wasn't heading towards me. I use the targeting indicator as a guide (as usual) for the medusa swarms, but I'm not finding a flight pattern that I can reliably predict. This was only my first time fighting a medusa w/swarm, so maybe it will become more apparent with experience. Any suggestions?
No mention of using point defence against swarm missiles - are they effective?
lol no mention - that's gotta be a clue right?
@@Citizen_Kate Yeah, but it's always nice to get confirmation. So they're absolutely useless against swarm missiles?
Hand-written captions for any and all.
A word encased in ~~ or `` is not the same as the auto-generated captions. ~~ being guaranteed incorrect (Auto-generated wise).`` when I'm unsure what I'm hearing and using best assumption and grammar to find out the correct word.
Time stamps will be put before the captions themselves for easy tracking
[Low volume music with mixed in thargon swarm flying]
(0:00 - 0:04) ~A Thargon~, by itself, is a weak and vulnerable entity,
(0:05 - 0:13) but when ~massed~ into the swarm that accompanies the ~Thargoid~ interceptor, the ~Thargon~ is perhaps the most threatening aspect of #anti-xeno# combat.
(0:13 - 0:25) In this video, we will look at the capabilities of the ~Thargon~ swarm, how they vary between interceptor types, and the ~counter~ measures we can employ as AX pilots to defeat them.
(0:26 - 0:39) The ~Thargon~ swarm is deployed by a ~Thargoid~ interceptor at the start of any combat engagement, and will deploy a new swarm for each heart ~lost~ assuming the previous swarm has been eliminated.
(0:37)[Noise effect: Barely audible aggresive interceptor flying]
(0:39 - 0:48) The interceptor will also deploy a new swarm immediately upon the destruction of the existing swarm if it has entered its enraged state.
(0:49 - 0:57) While active, the swarm has three modes of behavior: pursuit, projectile attack, and missile attack.
(0:57 - 1:02) The missile attack being a special and extremely destructive threat.
(1:03 - 1:07)[Noise effect: 5 Caustic missiles exploding with delays between each]
(1:07 - 1:14) When outside, of around 3.5 kilometer range, the swarm is in pursuit mode.
(1:14 - 1:19) It will fly in a straight line towards you in one of its normal formations.
(1:19 - 1:20)[Noise effect: Audible Interceptor flying]
(1:20 - 1:31) When entering within 3.5 kilometers, the swarm will enter into projectile attack mode and begin to maneuver more erratically, but not yet begin to ~caustic~ projectile attack.
(1:33-1:53)[Noise effect: Slight sound of Thargons firing, barely audible followed by Thargon flying for a short while after]
(1:33 - 1:42) Between 2 kilometers and 1.5 kilometers away, the swarm will begin to fire ~caustic~ projectiles at their target.
(1:42 - 1:54) These slow-moving projectiles offer almost no threat to all shieldless builds, but if your ship has a shield, then caustic phasing damage will be received through your shield.
(1:57 - 1:58)[Noise effect: Sound of a Thargon swarm passing by followed by interceptor flying nearby]
(1:55 - 2:01) If the swarm passes over your ship at any point, they are toggled into their missile attack state.
(2:02 - 2:04) In this state, `the` swarm is at its most dangerous.
(2:04 - 2:11) The swarm formation will change from its normal configuration to a missile configuration every 30 seconds.
(2:11 - 2:20) During this time, if your ship is within 3 kilometers of the swarm, individual ~Thargons~ will transform into fast-moving suicide missiles.
(2:20)[Noise effect: Aggressive Thargon suicide missile rushing]
(2:20 - 2:26) These missiles travel at 600 meters a second and `are` devastating `to` to ~shieldless builds~.
(2:26 - 2:30) Being able to quickly destroy external modules, like weapons, if struck.
(2:28 - 2:31)[Noise effect: 4 Thargon Suicide missiles exploding]
(2:31 - 2:41) ~Shielded builds~ can withstand an attack ~if 4~ pips are placed in systems, but it is a very good idea not to allow the swarm to pass over you during an engagement.
(2:36)[Noise effect: Ice Crystalizing on the canopy]
(2:42 - 2:47) Swarm size is determined by the interceptor type that created it.
(2:47 - 2:49) Cyclops has 32 ~Thargons~.
(2:49 - 2:53) Here, we can see them in the normal ball like formation...
(2:53 - 2:58)[Noise effect: Thargon swarm flying, unknown similar noise comparison]
(2:59 - 3:26) Interceptor flying
(2:58 - 3:01) ...and here, we see their missile formation.
(3:01 - 3:05) A small spiral that spins energetically.
(3:07 - 3:10) Basilisk ~have~ 64 ~Thargons~ in swarm.
(3:11 - 3:14) Here we see them in normal cone formation...
(3:18 - 3:22) ...and here we see them in this spiral, missile formation.
(3:25 - 3:33) Medusa have a swarm of 96 ~Thargons~ and display a number of normal formations, the most common is this ring.
(3:28 - 3:36)[Noise Effect: Quieter Thargon swarm Flying]
(3:36 - 3:43) Their missile formation can be either a spiral, or a much larger and thinner ring known as "The ring of death."
(3:41 - 3:48)[Noise effect: Thargon swarm flying]
(3:48 - 3:58) And finally the Hyrda have a swarm 128 ~Thargons~; again they have several normal formations, but like Medusa, a ring is very common.
(3:58 - 4:04) With a larger and thinner ring being one of their most recognizable missile formations too.
(3:59 - 4:02)[Noise effect: Barely audible Thargon swarm flying]
(4:02 - 4:08)[Noise effect: Interceptor flying nearby]
(4:08 - 4:16) The only weapon available to human commanders that is effect to destroying the ~Thargon~ swarm is the remote release flak launcher.
(4:17)[Noise effect: Flak launcher fired along with warning sound to signify something is close to it]
(4:16 - 4:31) This explosive weapon requires the trigger to be held down when firing until a visual and audible range indicator ~has~ confirmed to the correct range, at this point the trigger is released and the munition explodes shredding nearby ~Thargons~ with flak.
(4:20 - 4:29)[Noise effect: Flak warning proximity charging up and alerting good time for release]
(4:29 - 4:32)[Noise effect: Boosting of a Asp Explorer]
(4:31 - 4:39) If you are only facing one ~Thargoid~ interceptor, it is extremely advisable to destroy the swarm outright before an attacking run.
(4:38 - 4:40)[Noise effect: Boosting of a Asp Explorer]
(4:39 - 4:54) The most common strategy is to boost up to top speed away from the interceptor with flight assist turned off. Then when at a safe range, flip the ship over so you are reversing at full speed and engage the swarm with your remote ~flak~ launcher.
(4:44 - 5:18)[Noise effect: Firing of a remote release flak launcher and Proximity charging and proximity alert x11]
(4:55 - 5:02) With flight assist turned off, you will continue moving in the same direction even when your ship is backwards.
(5:02 - 5:06) If the swarm gets too close, simply flip back around and boost away again.
(5:06 - 5:12) Or if you're fighting a ~Basilisk~ and it is catching up to you, boost past the interceptor with silent running or heatsink cover...
(5:13 - 5:16) ...and when it's a safe distance flip into reverse again.
(5:16 - 5:20) With practice, you can become very fast at eliminating the swarm.
(5:21 - 5:35)[Noise effect: Firing of a remote release flak launcher, proximity charging and proximity alert x3]
(5:21 - 5:30) In large, ~mutli-goid~ fights where, most of the interceptors will be enraged for the entire fight, you should not destroy the swarms completely as this will simply cause new swarms to be created...
(5:31 - 5:41) ...instead, use flak to thin swarms down to just a few ~Thargons~. Your idea being reducing them to a number you could survive in the event of a full barrage of suicide missiles.
(5:36 - 5:39)[Noise effect: Boosting of a Asp Explorer]
(5:40)[Noise effect: Failed boost due to insufficient engine power]
(5:41 - 5:43)[Noise effect: Boost of a Asp Explorer]
(5:42 - 5:46) The same applies if the interceptor is enraged in a one-on-one fight.
(5:46 - 5:50) If the swarm flies through your ship, it will enter the missile state.
(5:47)[Noise effect: The start of a boost of an Asp Explorer quickly fading out and overlapped by the firing of a Guardian Gauss cannon]
(5:48)[Noise effect: Failed boost due to insufficient power]
(5:48)[Noise effect: Ice Crystallizing on the Canopy]
(5:48 - 5:52)[Noise effect: Aggressive Thargon swarm flying by]
(5:50 - 5:56) This can be seen visually, or indicated by the sounds ~the swarm~ make as they make their pass ~over your ship~.
(5:56)[Noise effect: Thargon Swarm flying by]
(5:57)[Noise effect: Sound of a Interceptor nearby]
(5:57)[Noise effect: Ice Crystallizing on canopy]
(5:57 - 6:01) If this happens, you have a few options to return the swarm to its normal state.
(6:00 - 6:02)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(6:01 - 6:07) First is to simply destroy the ~swarm~. A new swarm will be created but it will be in normal state.
(6:02 - 6:08)[Noise effect: Remote Release Flak launcher Proximity Alert x3]
(6:07 - 6:17) The second option is to bait the swarm to fire off missiles and then fly through them to deliberately reset them. This is the favored approach in flakless builds.
(6:13 - 6:16)[Noise effect: Sound of an Asp Explorer slowing down]
(6:17 - 6:24) To accomplish this, boost into ~reverski~ if you were going to engage the swarm normally, then edge back into 3 kilometer range.
(6:23)[Noise effect: Missile warning sound, indicated by 3 beeps]
(6:23 - 6:26)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(6:24 - 6:28) Once the missiles are inbound, increase your reverse speed or boost away.
(6:29 - 6:32)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(6:33 - 6:41) After the missiles have finished, boost up through the swarm using silent running or heatsinks to avoid fire from the interceptor
(6:42 - 6:44)[Noise effect: Thargon swarm flying by]
(6:47 - 6:54) When enraged, the entire swarm will become suicide missiles and so you won't need to manually reset them yourself after baiting them.
(6:49 - 6:52)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(6:52)[Noise effect: Missile warning, indicated by 3 beeps]
(6:54 - 6:57)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(7:01)[Noise effect: Fire of a Remote release Flak launcher]
(7:02 - 7:08)[Noise effect: Charging and firing of a Guarding Gauss Cannon]
(7:08)[Noise effect: Ice crystallizing on canopy]
(7:04 - 7:12) If you see a missile during an attacking ~run~, you still may be able to avoid taking hits by boosting immediately away from the swarm.
(7:13)[Noise effect: Ice crystallizing on the canopy of the ship]
(7:13 - 7:14)[Noise effect: Aggressive Thargon swarm flying nearby]
(7:16 - 7:19)[Noise effect: Boosting of an Asp Explorer]
(7:18 - 7:21)[Noise effect: 3x Stalled Charges followed by the fire of a Guardian Gauss cannon]
(7:22 - 7:23)[Noise effect: Charging and firing of a Guardian Gauss cannon x1]
(7:22 - 7:25)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(7:23 - 7:29)[Noise effect: 2x Stalled charges followed by the fire of a Guardian Gauss cannon]
(7:26 - 7:27)[Noise effect: Charging and firing of a Guardian gauss cannon x2]
(7:29)[Noise effect: Missile warning sound]
(7:29 - 7:39) This depends alot on `the` speed of your ship and the distance to the ~swarm~, but with conditioning you can react quickly and often avoid taking substantial damage this way
(7:31 - 7:34)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(7:38)[Noise effect: End of the boosting of an Asp Explorer]
(7:39 - 7:45) Its a good idea to keep track on the radar of the approximate position of the swarm as the fight goes on.
(7:42 - 7:45)[Noise effect: Boost of an Asp Explorer]
(7:47 - 7:55) I hope the information in this video has been helpful, and I wish you every success in dealing with the ~Thargon~ swarms yourself in the fight against the ~Thargoids.~
(7:55 - 7:57) Fly safe commanders.
wow this is very thorough and accurate thank you :) I will look to get these added to the actual video as an option - I've never messed around with captioning before so not sure how much work is involved but for all the effort you have put in it is the least i could do! :)
Thanks, and you don't have to. I was just looking for something to do while I waited.
And thank you for creating a tutorial on this, I want to thank you for creating it, along with having accurate information as well.
Flak cannon and the swarm?
Why do i aim so bad during fa off? is there a way to aim better?
Turn on relative mouse control, remove dead zone increase speed of centering
Really great and informative video. Thanks :)
Amazing Video! now to apply it in game
This video tells me how to manage them
But the tone of your voice tells me you still hate them as much as I do xD
Be and buddy soooooo close to our first Interceptor kill, just keeps roasting us so we’re gonna grind guardian blueprints etc for guass.
It’s “possible” with missiles and multi cannons but…it’s rough and really need to have someone on swarm duty and someone focussing on hearts.
Figured out how to scan them tho, nice they’re not aggro right away so can actually target their hearts or else be more of a nightmare(in a good way, we’re loving this despite the challenge )
Awesome info, thank you 🙏
"Fly safe commanders, this is how you engage in the most unsafe activity known to humankind" 😅
this is what i was afraid of, being forced to farm reloads to even attempt this fight. just because some complete clown at fdev said oh let's make that weapon mandatory and give it no ammo just to hassle the player and validate our dog shit mat grinding. another day another chunk of content in the shitcan.
You can rearm the flak cannon at the station same as anything else. You don't have to farm reloads.
@@chrisdunford2346 32 ammo stock. For each interceptor you have 1 swarm at the start and for each heart so for Cyclops 5... for Hydra 9. Also each higher level interceptor has more of them at once so likely you need more shots per swarm to clear it. You can calculate it yourself, you have 6 shots avg for Cyclops, 3 shots for Hydra. So while clearing a single Cyclops swarm in 6 shots is doable, no way in hell you will do it for that large Hydra swarm in 3 shots avg. Fortunately basic synth uses common raw mats, Nickel, Carbon, Sulphur.
You also can play flakless and ognore the swarm
...k
i just cant be bothered - its nothing like this live - they dont ever fly in straight line - i have a life