 The escalating thargoid war and the machinations of Caleb the witch witchily otherwise known as salvation have dominated the galnet news headlines in elite dangerous in recent months. The conflict with the mysterious alien threat is seriously heating up and if you've never tried anti-zeno combat or have perhaps been a little intimidated by it before now it could seem like you're about to be left even further behind. In this video we're going to go over why that actually isn't the case and in fact there may never have been a better time to jump in and give bug stomping a try. To make sure you don't miss any of our videos hit like and subscribe and remember to click the little bell icon and select all notifications and if you'd like to help directly support this channel you can also join our patreon via the link in the video description. For nearly two years now the story of Caleb witchily azimuth biochemicals and the growing threat from the thargoids has been building toward a crescendo. For the last month or so Caleb the witch witchily now calling himself salvation has been claiming that his thargoid powered super weapon the Proteus wave will attract vast quantities of thargoids to the system HIP 22460 before administering a fatal blow to the species thereby saving humanity from their caustic cuddles. Whilst the debate around the true effectiveness of both the plan and the weapon itself rage let alone even if the thargoid are really the threat that we perceive them to be what can't be ignored is the effectiveness of gathering huge quantities of guardian cast if you want to attract shed tons of thargoids. Whatever else happens as I speak these words there are swarms of the pleiades party poopers gathering near the build site of the Proteus device and all signs seem to indicate that the numbers are only going to go up. If you've never indulged in AX combat before it might seem as though the party has started without you and that perhaps the steps are now far too high to climb to get started but in actuality the gathering storm in the pleiades appears to have been designed to make those first steps much easier. Whilst it's true that you still need an AX capable ship in order to take on your first Cyclops interceptor along with their many variants the bar to actually achieving the kill against any one of the current variants has in fact been lowered in HIP 22460. As has been widely reported the system currently contains a number of empire, federation and alliance battleships that are armed with experimental AX weapons presumably provided by salvation. The warships are under constant attack from swarms of scout class vessels and larger Cyclops class ships but the weapons they've been outfitted with are extremely effective at killing the scouts, they rarely survive their first pass at one of the capital ships. Not only that however but the ever diligent warships are also extremely effective at exerting the hearts of the Thargoid vessels making them clearly visible and relatively easy to hit with guardian gauss cannons. The Cyclops vessels will still cycle through their special attacks as you take down the hearts so you can expect EMP pulses, caustic missiles and lightning attacks but crucially the swarms of autonomous attack drones known as Thargons deployed by the Cyclops variants are largely passive and just follow their parent vessel. If you're unlucky enough to get in the way of the Thargons they will still fly through you doing shed tons of damage but importantly they're not actively seeking players out during their heavily choreographed fights and therefore present a significantly reduced threat in what can otherwise be a very panic laden encounter for the newer player. Whilst salvation is promising to wipe out the Thargoid threat forever that eventuality does seem an extremely unlikely outcome. We think it much more likely that not only will salvation's efforts to rid the galaxy of sour salad fail, moreover his current course of action is likely to stir up even more of the galactic hornet's nest leaving us with a significant furious freezer problem for some time to come. What isn't unknown is if the current changes in Thargoid behaviour around the warships of HIP 22460 are likely to continue beyond whatever happens after Salad Nation pushes the button on the Thargoids. You've never witnessed this new flavour of Thargoid encounter with a human crude warship in the mix before and have no idea yet if they're a permanent fixture for future encounters so if you're looking to get started then jumping in while they are still around could have some significant value going forward. To get a look at Cyclops level Thargoid encounters I'd highly recommend jumping into the twitch streams of commanders like Brother Sabatius and Sykit. Both are extremely proficient at AX combat and importantly very new player friendly with both having healthy communities of like minded helpful players around them always willing to provide support in chat during their streams. I've linked to both of their channels below. Also if you're looking to build your first AX ship you'll find links below to the Anti-Xeno Initiatives website list of recommended builds and also to the commander's toolbox that offers guides on farming the materials you may need for engineering. Things are even a little easier when it comes to unlocking Guardian technology these days as in Odyssey at the very least the Guardian Sentinels no longer fire missiles that send your SRV flying when they hit and you can take along the altogether tougher and more stable Scorpion combat SRV with its added firepower. It's worth noting that as best as we can determine here the Thargoids away from HIP 22460 are behaving exactly as normal swarms are intact attacking and indeed wailing on commanders the same way they always have. It's just the Thargon Swarms around the battleships in HIP 22460 that are acting more passively. Given that fact it could be that this is just a deliberate NPC pathing fudge to prevent the swarm running into a capital ship and killing itself. Whatever the reason the end result is the same if you're looking to level up your tharg smacking skill set then the swarm in those instances at least isn't a problem. The scouts are liberally hosed by liberally placed experimental AX cannons, lasers and missiles and the hearts of the offending vacuum vegetables are essentially pre-exerted for you. Even here at the Burpit whilst this video was in the planning stages a group of our commanders managed to take down their first Hydra the current top tier Thargoid. Taken in isolation features like the taming of the swarm, the presence of significant capital ship firepower in AX CZs, all the recent CG rewards gifting AX weapons and the toning down of the Guardian Sentinels may not seem like much. When looked at as a whole however through the lens of what many believe to be an impending thargpocalypse they paint a much more colourful picture. As a community it leaves us better equipped to fight Thargoids in the future. It's almost like someone is doing all this deliberately. Have you jumped into the new AX conflict zones and if so how did you fare? Have you perhaps been inspired to now give it a go yourself for the first time? Let us know in the comments below. That's it for now, thanks very much for watching, if you enjoyed this video consider subscribing to the channel and maybe take a look at one of our other videos linked on screen right now.