I Went Thargoid Hunting With Pre-Built AX Combat Ship

[@Wyvernaut]

Fights at surface settlements in Invasion systems are a good place to practice some of the tricks to fighting interceptors (like hitting the shutdown field neutralizer when that energy surge warning goes off!). The interceptors don't deploy their swarms in planetary combat zones, so there's one less thing to deal with while learning the rest of the fight. Plus you can repair and rearm at the port that's being attacked, and pick up thargoid-hunting missions to increase the monetary rewards while you're at it. The Materials rewards for these can be pretty nice!

[@lootandgrind]

That sounds perfect for me. Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out

[@andrewmiller4753]

Yeah - that is a good tip -ty

[@KaitoSLF]

You just don't go to a Medium intensity AXCZ with a prebuilt ship and attack the second most powerful interceptor in the game as your first experience in AX combat.

[@lootandgrind]

I just did lol

[@KaitoSLF]

@@lootandgrind Good luck commander. AX can be fun once mastered

[@Billkwando]

_"One does not simply walk into Mordor"_

[@Mr__Anon-E-Mouse]

Yeah I found this out today how can I kill this fucking things I'm new to this and really wanna have fun but these bastards are impossible

[@sennemaa59769]

I was Oo when you attack a medusa as your first...😮

[@rmoody8591]

I was laughing so hard,evil laughs.

[@williamvorkosigan5151]

Yup. The big flowers are in at the deep end.

[@zanderwright]

Thank you for this video as I’ve bought one of these ships and would love to give this a try. It great that you got a few kills.

[@cmdrreggit]

Bring some Thermal Vent beam lasers... ...And finding a group to fight with, always makes things a little more manageable! o7

[@lootandgrind]

Give it test ride I'm sure you'll do better than I did. Good news is there's no rebuy

[@AltairNoken]

i have exsperiance with the AXI fights and i got that ship just to see how bad it was, and it's a death ship for any one new to AXI combat, i made a few millions with it but lost the ship a fair bit getting them, bonus was there was no rebuy cost, well i changed that switched out a lot removed the guardian nanite torpedo which is odd being there as this is not a titan bomber, removed the shields reinforced the hull putting in new hull and moduel reinforcments then engineered the entire thing and its now a cold thargoid killing chieftain with a 1.5m Cr rebuy and i now use it almost as much as my krait mk2 (also a hull tank no shields) the long range T,V mod on the laser is also a must. thearmal spread on the power plant, thrusters and FSD are also key. but once you do all that its sound but by that point you might as well have just bought the alliance chieftain to start with as the only savings by that point is Cr and thats easy to get with a spire site getting you 2b Cr per hour.

[@Josephkerr101]

Hmm I just used it as my first ax experience to defend jameson. Ditched the shields and nanotorp. Worked just fine so long as I followed best practices.

[@Josephkerr101]

A little follow up. Tonight I just destroyed (and admittedly crashed into) the core of the last heart on the last titan with the mk5 as a bomber. Defending earth. This has been the best time to play elite dangerous!

[@wstavis3135]

Oof, a Medusa as first try? AX combat is unforgiving. I stuck to scouts at first. Killing them in an inexpensive, unengineered ship is pretty easy. I recommend a build called the DBX Sawtooth on KZbin for a good starter. I built a fully engineered version that i put on EDSY calle the AX Dragonfly.

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah big mistake on my part lol

[@jestmichelle]

Beam lasers with thermal vents will help

[@MegaDeano1963]

Best thing about prebuilt is the insurance rebuy cost is zero

[@moonshadegaming1778]

I've done a bit of Thargoid combat, and while by no means proficient (the videos of my solo fights are proof enough), even I cringed when I first looked at the prebuilt Chief's loadout. I wish you the best of luck on your endeavors to learn AX combat, and I'll even throw my hat in the ring to join you should you ever feel inclined to hunt the angry flowers with a wingmate. o7 CMDR

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah the prebuilts are nowhere near perfect. I just wanted to test it out. o7

[@TheTubejunky]

You: 47% health Death Flower: 97% health I knew right there it was over.😢

[@void-1632]

Ive heard this ship is questionable in combat against the goids but in my experience ive managed to get some kills on proper interceptors with it

[@ottolehikoinen6193]

I still bail out if a Medusa comes in when alone or only with npcs. It's a three man workout if they somewhat know what they do. For those new in ax, this might be helpful: Cyclops - one cmdr Basilisk - two cmdrs Medusa - three cmdrs Hydra - four cmdrs. But soloing a Basilisk is possible, I know for sure..

[@ottolehikoinen6193]

Tried to (again) Solo a Medusa with only npc help, this time got to the second heart but it's clear now, I need some heavy hitting weaponry (Guardian Gauss) to do this alone. 38 scouts and 1 Cyclops met their end, though.

[@ottolehikoinen6193]

Checked my records on thargoid interceptors, I've been to maybe 12 team fights. Cyclops ~40 solo/69 total Basilisk 3 solo/8 total Medusa 0 solo/3 total Hydra 0 solo/16 total Station battles usually end with 2 hydras but I leave unless there are very trustworthy experienced players present. Been shot down by every interceptor. Even a Glaive. Scythes and scouts never.

[@rmoody8591]

Yea definitely need a guide on inters, stay cold always.

[@swarthos]

I was barely rated as competent when I purchased the AX Chieftain so basically I'm not very experienced at combat. I went into Thargoid territory and had great success, never got destroyed once and took down 100s of goids. That was my experience using the ship, of course others may differ.

[@andrewmiller4753]

You can do Titan stuff too - once you get close enough (just got to submit to interdictions and permaboost away) - you can hide in the asteroids around the Titan, then go in when the core is exposed by other (better) players and shoot it with the AX Multicannons and/or AX Missles.

[@MegaDeano1963]

I know some of you guys will be killing it , but in the prebuilt I'm doing about a million damage then occasional second run . Which I'm please with given the zero risk . Great fun , my first titan

[@douglasmorris8364]

I did some Goid killing a while back. Took out a few on my own and with other players. I even built an Alliance Chieftain with no engineering, just bought heavy armour and ax guns and did fine however I got bored as it got to easy and repetitive, Earned some big chedder though. Keep practising and it will become quite easy.

[@lootandgrind]

Will do o7

[@Youda00008]

Bro, you purposely flew through that caustic explosion cloud 💀

[@lootandgrind]

That's how I roll lol

[@Youda00008]

@@lootandgrind If you didn't have the caustic sink, you would be dead right there.

[@lunarhighwind4430]

The pre-built ship has all the right mods, but it requires a bit of tweaking to be good. Also a Medusa as your first interceptor is just bad luck.

[@lootandgrind]

Yep lol

[@CMDR-Rule-Three]

As a pretty proficient AX pilot, I can say that the pre-built chieftain has several flaws. First one: it has a research limpet controller - but no caustic resistant cargo rack so it cannot transport thargoid samples. 2: It is shielded. You never ever go shielded on a chieftain because the shields are going to get blown out immediately + it requires pips in systems to regen. 3: it has a beam laser which is unengineered - it will not cool you down while firing which makes cold orbiting basically impossible. 4: the 1a repair limpet is too small for a non-necro-chieftain (aka a ship which can repair with one limpet). 5: It has only one MRP which is not enough for serious ax. In conclusion, the AX chieftain works for everything but is good for nothing - do not buy unless you know what you are doing.

[@EchoF0xtrot]

"i want to see how it feels, and now i know. but i must admit, it felt incredible." so was it good or bad?

[@lootandgrind]

Both lol

[@jl3114]

They just need to let you buy materials with in-game credits. Then we can play the game the way we like to earn our engineered components! Problem solved, no need to make people pay real money to skip the grind

[@christopherjohnston6343]

Yeah I just stick to rescue missions. Than can still be pretty challenging too. Even on Rescue ships I usually need to be running almost a combat build with their durability

[@VikingGuard]

Yea I was able to try Thargoid huntin with this pre built ship, but that is not enough, one needs skill and practice, but I was able to try at least.

[@battlevortex]

A Medusa is a bit much for that ship. Stick to Spire sites or Invasions with station support. Those only release Cyclops which that ship can handle.

[@battlevortex]

Ps. Try to avoid flying through the caustic clouds. Hope you try again in the future.

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah I made a lot of mistakes in the first run. Slowly getting better. Going to try again soon

[@battlevortex]

@@lootandgrind Just FYI. I watch a lot of your videos, and I make videos exclusively for AX content and the Thargoid war if you are interested. I do live streams and regular videos, and I have several live streams (with chapters) and videos about the AX Jumpstart ship. Actually, after seeing what you went through, I am going to make one about the pitfalls or things to watch out for as a new AX pilot. Thanks for making this video tho. I had not thought about people going to places like Combat Zones and running into Medusa on Day one... What a shock! At least it wasn't a Hyrda tho to be honest. o7 Commander!

[@lootandgrind]

Thank you. I've subscribed to your channel and I'll look forward to that beginner guide.

[@markbooth3066]

As Cmdr Mechan says, this is a pay-to-lose ship. The only benefits of this pre-build are a small amount of suboptimal engineering and a zero rebuy cost, and as you replace hardpoints and modules with better options, the rebuy starts costing you. Worse though is that to make the ship effective, you need to do a whole load of engineering, and that means you need to unlock engineers and grind engineering materials, just like you would have to do to build your own ship. In many ways, for fighting scouts, you would be better off building the AXI's unengineered Anti-Scout Vulture. If you ignore the Guardian Shield Reinforcement Package module, anyone can buy everything else needed to build this ship at i Solar Prospect in the Brestla system (albeit for a 20% higher cost and rebuy) if you don't have Jameson memorial access (for that 10% discount).

[@lootandgrind]

I agree. There's no great advantage of this ship. But I think that might be intentional to avoid that nasty pay to win tag

[@markbooth3066]

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I think this ship was designed with very little knowledge of what makes a good AX ship. If they'd have asked the community to design a jump start ship for them, they would have ended up with a much better ship, a much more effective introduction to Thargoid combat, and would have avoided accusations of P2W as it would have been what the community wanted.

[@artorix085]

Medusa at start... yeah, that could not go well. It took me 6 month to make my chieftain. Very small tip: if you manage to make beam laser even with g1 with thermal vent it will increase your chance to survive longer(cooling ship), downgrade is you need keep tight orbit. I had my chift make it very similar configuration, with practice it can takedown up to basilisk(solo, I'm still fill like beginner). above that, not enough firepower. GL HF Cmdr O7

[@lootandgrind]

Thanks for the tip. I've been watching a few guides. Next time I'll go prepared. o7

[@wardellharless2515]

I do NOT think it was the ship's fault lololololol

[@reactionmonkeys]

So, not only are these pre-built ships a literal scam, not even a p2w or "pay to skip", they're an open and direct message from Fdev to the p(l)ayers that says "go f*ck yourself", since that beam laser isn't engineered whatsoever, when it should be a thermal vent laser. God damn.

[@CMDR_MetalMadness]

ayo "the grind" is now alot less grindy.. i think you should really try to invest some time in it.. with my shardconda i can oneshot cyclops and easely take down a basillisk.

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah I'm slowly getting into it

[@cmdrreggit]

For Humanity! o7

[@redheat0]

Yeah, you had a bit of bad luck and you didn't read enough about fighting thargoids. Your fight was kinda like my first fight, including the explosion at the end, though you survived longer than i did 🙂 Try reading a little or watch a youtube video from Citizen Kate or cmdr Mechan about fighting thargoids. Then seek out a cyclops (threat 5). What you did here was buying a Ford Cougar with a little bit better engine and race against a formula 1 car. But i promise you: When you kill your first thargoid interceptor you will feel extremely proud of yourself. I killed hundreds of them and i still remember my first kill. It was glorious!

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah exactly. I went in blind lol

[@selfactualizer2099]

nowhere does any of the prebuilts claim to be anywhere past midgame quality.

[@deltahavoc1224]

was this video meant to be a trigger? it seems like you just did everything wrong on first

[@kingcelaya1]

If you have no ax combat experience, how is this a valid test. You likely woulda had the same results in a fully engineered P2.

[@Billkwando]

People with no ax combat experience is what it was created for. "Alliance Chieftain AX Combat Jumpstart" is what they called it.

[@phoenixx5092]

ye intercepters are still complete B******t your targeting computer locks on to the main ship body.. but you cant damage it unless you destroy all the petals, which dont target in any intuitive way, or at all without ax scanners AND it regenerates, on top of those stupid healing scouts, so in effect, for the first time it was added to the game, nobody would have been able to kill it even with a fully engineered squadron of a dozen ships the first time one was encountered in game. In addition 'hackers' gave themselves one of these to see what its capabilities are - near unlimited ship scanner range, super op engines, op power plant, and wierd guns. Thankfully the ai logic 'ignores' you outside a certain range, but it still knows you are there. It wasn't until people figured out the stupid petal logic that they started being destroyed - and even then only if they had guardian or ax pew pews in the game by then. which probably didn't take too long, but for those first few commanders that found themselves fighting one, sucked to be them. An unbeatable enemy that pulls you out of jump, and goes faster than you? gah.

[@alexzk3]

AXI guys made a video 1-2 days before P2W ships. They said, this one is good way to waste the money and never return to the thagoids hunting :D

[@lootandgrind]

They may be right lol

[@papadragon_i3908]

As an AX Pilot myself, I have to say to all please don´t buy this pre engeneert ship it´s garbage... I can see your point of not doing AX content due to the amount of preparation it needs. But let me tell you that since the Thargoid war it has been reduced a lot with the introduction of many module and weapons. And if you only want so see how AX goes the best thing to do is to use the enhanced AX multicannons but more important find some friends as it makes everything so much easier. Also some advise don´t try a Medusa (2 hardest Interceptor) in space when your new to AX it won´t end well, especially if you fly a ship over 20% heat. o7 cmdrs

[@mathiasalison8803]

pew pew :D let me know if you wanna wing up, we can practice together ^^