Elite Dangerous - solo orthus hunting at spire site in Krait mk 2.

A couple of orthus kills in a Krait Mk2 with Sirius AX missle racks (pre-engineered with high capacity) at a Thargoid spire site. Solo orthus hunting at spires isn't too hard with the right build despite orthus's now attempting to flee to hyperspace after being engaged (thanks to a recent patch). Here are the basic steps I use: 1) Supercruise, glide, then sit about 10 km away from the largest spire on the outside of the site. This blocks much of the banshee shutdown field ground fire. 2) Wait for an orthus to emerge from the closest spire port (both the kills in the video) or an orthus warping in that's close enough for the large spire to still block most banshee ground fire. 3) Engage and destroy orthus while using a shutdown field nuetralizer to avoid being shutdown. 4) Supercruise out and use limpets to decontaminate caustic damage and repair, if necessary. 5) Repeat.
If you're using AX missiles, orthus killing is partially about balancing pips between systems and weapons so you have enough charge both for your shutdown field neutralizer and your weapons (ie: enough dps so you can kill the orthus before it hyperspaces out). Once you get the hang of avoiding the shutdown fields fired by the orthus's things get easier. Your field neutralizer module needs sufficient capacitor to let you hold down your fire button so that the field neutralizer doesn't run out before the shutdown field detonates. Most orthus's usually fire their shutdown fields a few seconds after the "Alert: energy surge detected" message on your HUD. Note however, that the occasional orthus gets tricky with their timing. If you're further away from your orthus target, you can try and wait for the field to fire before holding down the field neutralizer button but you're usually too close to fire missiles with any kind of accuracy to wait for that. Anticipating the shutdown gets easier with practice but occasionally you'll get shutdown if you miss time. More pips in systems help here. For some reason banshee rounds are difficult to neutralize but they don't seem to shut you down for as long as the orthus shutdown fields. You can see a couple of banshee rounds shoot past in the video which don't appear to detonate close enough to be a problem.
Regarding DPS, the more you have, the more likely you'll be able to destroy your target before it warps out. This video is just after I'm upgraded to pre-engineered Sirius AX missile racks which have twice the ammo in each 'magazine'. I think killing orthus at spires solo would also be doable with this build using enhanced AX missiles (which I think are lower DPS) if you get nearly all your missiles on target and have enough pips in weapons.
I'm sure other people have better strategies and builds for killing orthus's at spire sites but this works pretty well if you have half an hour or more to spare and want to make some hundreds of millions. I'm hoping this money maker will contribute significant amounts to my fleet carrier savings fund. One day I might even be able to afford to buy one! This run had an inexplicable death (at least to me) at the end. Music is Extra Terra by Nocebo.

[@waremtaethalin6388]

Yes, there is a jump in at 10k roughly in front of the large spire. I start at 12k in case it opens. It will throw your ship into the ground.
Thanks for the video, it has been very helpful. The PyMk2 is a beast for this.

[@stanleymorse3260]

The ending made me laugh hahaha, I believe a thargoid wormhole must've opened right on you (as it happened right as it said anomaly detected) and must've been pretty close to force you away that fast
You basically got telefragged!

[@kessilrun6754]

Bwahaha! The portal must have opened up directly above you of all places it could have possibly happened. Wrong place, wrong time lol Otherwise, nice sesh!

[@Osmiumm_]

Nice kills! Very much appreciate the fact that you used the spire as cover from banshee missiles, really smart.
Always nice to see a fellow Krait missile boat user o7

[@randomnachomuchacho7168]

banshee missile?

[@lumina_edltzz]

Question:Why didn’t you wait for the orthus shield to slowly disappear over time before attacking? Or is it that the Shields of the orthus don’t degrade over time

[@Matty_B0y]

Orthorus shield does take a while to degrade, and he’s using AX missiles which are a lot slower than other AX/Gardian weapons. Ie: Shoot early to maximise time on target for that sweet sweet cash. Otherwise the Ortho will escape

[@lumina_edltzz]

@@Matty_B0y oh okay thx

[@Gofioman]

​@@Matty_B0yIn the practice, the Orthus kill window is 1 minute. You shot at shield for his download most faster.

[@beamedbyguy]

I'm running that same build but when I try to put the last 2D missile rack on it says that I have exceeded the amount of experimental weapons on my ship. Can you help?

[@KaosMaximo]

you need the experimental weapon stabilizer in the optional internal o7

[@beamedbyguy]

@@KaosMaximo thanks but I've deleted the game since then🤣

[@matthewc171]

nice kills !

[@largepiece]

Thanks! I've spent the last few weeks outfitting CMDR Mechan's crytoscrambler conda build but I still think this enhanced AX missle krait will be better for soloing. You can't get the orthus's shields down quickly enough with fully upgraded beam lasers. I'll see soon whether the cryptoscramblers are fast enough.

[@mk8ez364]

Thanks Commander! o7

[@FrogVoid1]

Dont have license 👎

[@tomasbancak8752]

Wdym

[@cmdrgabrieljay]

@@tomasbancak8752 A couple years ago, there were some commanders that required that you have a license to attack any Thargoid. You had to negotiate with those commanders to get the license (usually just bring some beer to them or their carrier).
If you didn't have a license, they would destroy you. If you did get the license, they would leave you alone. lol good times.