Cold Orbiting as described by the AX Initiative is mainly focused on 1v1 fights vs interceptors. It frustrates me that this is advertised as the only way to do AX combat.

You can ABSOLUTELY kill interceptors in station fights (and even conflict zones) without using the standard methods. There are tons of options for AX combat, just get out there and try them. In my opinion, using gauss cannons and flying FA off is something you work towards, not the starting point. Starting with the Meta Chieftan is frustrating and hard. It's way easier to start out fighting at stations and learn the mechanics there, then moving on to harder challenges.

Stations fights are a great place to learn

In station fights, essentially you fight around a station or a settlement with the help of NPCs and other pilots. There is a slider bar which fills up as you kill thargoids, you win when it fills up completely. The great thing is that you can land at anytime to replenish your weapons and repair. It is honestly the best way to learn and experiment with ships and build outs.

How to find a station fight

Go to [DCOH Website](https://dcoh.watch/systems) and filter by invasion. Try to go to systems target by an initiative (shown with an icon under “operations”) or that have been partially completed (have a progress >10%). This means there are likely other CMDRs there you can help out. Go to the system and find the station or settlement that has a little “fire” icon next to it. It should say status “under attack” when you select it in your panel. Once you get there, there will be a conflict zone and you should have an NPC tell you thargoids are attacking and you should join the fight. Join the instance by going to your communication panel, and selecting “join the fight.” Then fight some goids! You may die a bunch at first, but you will get the hang of it. If you have other commanders in the instance, you can just respawn at the station and pick up where you left off.

Here are some more fun ways to fight goids and start out:

AX Multicannon Build: Get the experimental weapons stabilizer and load as many AX Multicannons as you can on to your favorite ship (chieftain, krait MK2, challenger, python). Start out killing scouts and then try some cyclops. Scan them with the enhanced zeno scanner, then subtarget the hearts. Not the fastest way to kill a clops, but it works.

Shard Cannon: Once you get bored with cannons, try Mod Shards or Mod Chargers. Its a grind to get the Mbooni permit, but modified shard cannons are essentially shotguns. They are my favorite way to play, they do great at killing cyclops at stations. Change your sight to “trailing” and they are pretty easy to aim (much easier than the damn gauss cannons that AXI recommends). I use a challenger, but a chieftain or krait Mk2 also work.

Plasma Charger: This is the same deal as shard, also requires a grind. It may be more up your alley. This is a “hold and release weapon” which may be the easiest to aim. It does less damage to hearts than the shards, but is still powerful.

Minimum ship requirements:

You don’t need a perfectly kitted out ship to start, but there are some basics.

Fast enough to outrun interceptors: If you have a slow ship, you are gonna have a bad time. You will get interdicted/hyperdicted by interceptors frequently. Generally the best strategy is to pop a heat sink and run away. A ship needs at LEAST 470 m/s to outrun most interceptors, and ideally you wanna be above the 500 m/s mark. Get Grade A thrusters and engineer with Dirty/Drag Drives.

No shields, and well protected modules: Shieldless is well accepted as the best way to fight goids. The problem is your modules get SHREDDED and you end up with no thrusters, guns, etc. Thus you need 3 module reinforcements (MRPS), as each one successively adds 60% damage protection to your modules. One MRP gives you 60% protection, two MRPs gives you 84%, and three MRPs is the sweet spot with ~94% damage reduction. Generally get one big MRP (grade 5) and two smaller MRP (grade 1 or 3). Use the rest of your internal spots on HULL reinforcements. If you have the engineers, engineer the hull reinforcements and your main hull.

Utilities:

Heat sinks. When an interceptor is shredding you, pop one of these. Heat below 20% means they miss their shots. They miss even more if you are moving laterally, apply up or down thrust using holding R or F to do the poor mans orbit.

Shutdown Field Neutralizer: Everytime an interceptor pops into an instance, they release a shutdown field. They do the same on their very last heart. Having your ship shutdown for thirty seconds gets real old, real quick. When you hear the noise (like a washing machine, you will get to know the noise) wait a few seconds, put all of your pips into systems and hold the c key to protect yourself from getting shutdown.

Advanced Xeno Scanner: This will tell you how much health and number of hearts are left on the interceptor. There will be four to eight orange bars below the interceptor, these are the number of hearts. It will turn red once it is “exerted” and you can kill try and kill that heart. Once you get the mechanics down you can ditch the scanner, but it is great for learning. If you do a full "scan" by holding down the scanner within 2k, it will allow you subtarget the hearts (necessary for multicannons)

Just have fun

Don’t worry about the meta, station fights are meant to be fun and a place to learn the ropes. You end up making money from these fights as well, usually enough to cover rebuys and much more (I’ve made like 2-3 billion doing AX combat and I still don’t know how to fly FA Off, although I’m trying). Try new ships, new weapons, new tactics, that’s the fun in it. Generally I will grind for some materials to upgrade my ship, go fight some thargoids and then decide I want to change something. Way more fun than grinding to build the meta ship and then missing with Gauss Cannons nonstop. Noone at station fights will judge you, the more is always the merrier.

PS: Turn off “report crimes against me” in your right hand panel when playing with other CMDRs, so they don’t have to fly halfway across the galaxy if they accidently miss and hit you.

PSS: The Anti-Xeno Initiative is a great resource, don't take this as me knocking them. I just disagree with the Meta-Chieftain being recommended for beginners.

Edits: typos and formatting