Elite Dangerous players have finally found a way to fight the Thargoids

The insectoid aliens known as Thargoids have slowly been gearing up to invade Elite Dangerous for months, and made their full return in the game’s most recent update. Things haven’t been pretty. Appeasing the alien menace with resources has been somewhat effective, but combat? The Thargoid cyclops ships have proven nigh-invulnerable. Until now, that is.

Dig deep into the final frontier with the best space games on PC.

The first kill was claimed by Josh “Harry Potter” Chamberlain and his clan, the Smiling Dog Crew, who picked apart a Thargoid vessel piece by piece to get at the proverbially juicy and literally vulnerable core. SDC first softened the vessel with traditional weapons before following up with special anti-xeno missiles, which proved an effective strategy – or so they thought.

It turns out that was a bit more than necessary, as Chamberlain tells Polygon. The anti-xeno missiles, which were added to Elite Dangerous following a recent in-game event, are the only weapons that work against the Thargoids. “Some forums mods or people in with Frontier claimed it could be damaged with normal weapons and that we were doing something wrong,” says Chamberlain. “It turned out that the new weapons are the only things that can damage them at all. Even with the hearts exposed, normal weapons do nothing. Nothing at all.”

Other players have since followed SDC’s lead in taking out the aliens, but it seems there’s some question as to the morality of all this Thargoid destruction.

But hey, giant nasty aliens. If you want to find a Thargoid vessel yourself, you can find step-by-step instructions on Reddit.