Orthrus Hunting 101

The recent Galnet article pretty much prodded the community with a stick, asking why we haven't been killing more Orthruses lately.

A lot of players were a bit offended at this, since they've already been TRYING to kill them, they're just so rare it's basically impossible to kill them regularly.

I'm not gonna deny it; on average, you'll only find maybe 2-3 per hour, if that. But there are still ways to help your odds, and I do think that alerts are probably a good way to help fight back, especially for newer players. Use these tips and you can improve your progress and make a difference! And also make some hefty credits along the way!

First, a quick overview of the Orthrus.

The Orthrus is a interceptor-class Thargoid scouting vessel, which appears in Alert systems.

It's believed they are used to determine the viability of systems for invasion, and according to the recent Galnet article, they are a good way to progress the bar in those systems. They pay 40m per kill(though the alert only says 25m at the moment), and they spawn in on Threat 4 Non-Human Signal Sources with a salvage icon, in Alert systems.

When attacked, they will employ a variety of defensive techniques as they attempt to flee, and you need significant damage output to kill them before they can escape. I've found you can't QUITE do it with just 4 enhanced AX missile racks; you need a bit of extra oopmh, whether from ramming them to start, or by adding another weapon to help with the shield.

They have no weapons of their own, but they do have three very potent defensive techniques.

• An enhanced shutdown pulse that destroys guardian tech. This will fry any guardian weapons, likely before they are dead, as well as the standard effects of shutting your ship down for 30 seconds if you don't have a Shutdown Field Neutralizer. Needless to say, this makes this module mandatory. Also, because they wreck guardian modules, you'll want to carry the human AX weapons, most likely Enhanced AX Missile Racks, since they do the most damage and Orthruses don't have hearts like other interceptors!

• A trail of caustic clouds that deal heavy damage if you follow them too closely. With enough armor it can be temporarily ignored, but if you just avoid following directly behind them, you can avoid it.

• Summoning three wings of scouts to defend them. They should be ignored at first, until the Orthrus is dead, then killed for extra value in the war! Or just ignored, they're not that valuable.

That's all you really need to know to hunt them!

Now, how can you make the Orthrus hunt more fun and effective?

1: Wing Up

This is probably the absolute best way to hunt Orthruses. There are two important factors at play here. Firstly, it seems like kill values(for the war) are multiplied by the number of players in a wing. IE, if a wing of 4 kills a thargoid, it's worth 4 kills. So just by having a wing, you're increasing the value of the kill.

The second factor is signal source spawn rates. All players have their own independent set of signal sources, which only they can see. This means that a wing of four will find signal sources four times as fast as a single player.

Together, a wing of four will get 16x the effectiveness of a solo player! If you find a signal source, consider sharing it in system chat and seeing if anyone else wants to drop in for a free 40m. Also consider multicrew! Just by having another player sit in your cockpit, you can increase your war effectiveness!

2: Multitask

This is the second trick. Signal sources generally last for about 20 minutes, and spawn in whether or not you are in the system. This means that you have about 20 minutes to do other things before needing to check in! So the most effective way is not to just sit in the system waiting, but rather to help out in other ways, such as supply missions, evac missions, or search and rescue. This is the build I use, that does all of these things just fine: https://edsy.org/s/vBelcgn

It hauls passengers, it carries escape pods, and it can kill an orthrus all on its own. When I jump in and jump out, I check the signal sources and go kill them if I see them. I admit, it'd be a lot better with some better armor or a better weapon than the cannon, but I show this to show you absolutely don't need the best gear or anything, I just threw this together from what I had.

3: Relax!

Most importantly, relax! This isn't advanced AX combat, it's basically just hauling with occasional speedruns to kill an interceptor before it runs away. So really focus on the zen hauling aspect! Put on some chill music, have inara open in the background, and enjoy! I find them to be a fun diversion from the hauling grind, well worth a quick stop for a 40m credit bonus.

Now get out there and kill some orthruses!