Sure, I've heard the stories. Everyone does, as a kid. Stories of strange aliens attacking human civilization from out in the dark. However, I've been around a bit and I've seen a lot of very real threats, and they all come from other humans, whether they're motivated by political agendas, motivated by greed, or simply psychotic, their mind having been addled by their time in space or, perhaps, too many jumps too close to stars. Even when I saw that there were strange structures found on certain far-flung planets, I figured they were a hoax, built by some unregistered human colony - or simply artifacts of something, alien or not, that was long dead. I didn't ever expect to have an encounter with a Thargoid, myself...

However, I had some time off and needed to head back to Maia on some long overdue personal business, so I found myself knee-deep in the Pleiades Nebula, when I picked up an emission that was "Non-human." Well, my curiosity got the best of me, so I stopped to check it out...

When I popped out of Supercruise, I found myself at the scene of the aftermath of a battle. What looked like a Federation ship had been obliterated and was floating listlessly in a strange, alien green fog. There was a Thargoid facing the wreckage when I arrived, but I didn't see any weapon fire. Soon after I arrived, the Thargoid ship turned toward me and came close to scan me with its strange, green tentacle-looking scanning ray-thingie, which ended in a horrible sounding honk, which, come to think of it, sounded a bit like a system scanner. It then turned to look at the scene some more and then headed toward the star to jump out, leaving a strange wake behind. So. They're real.

I later encountered more of these Thargoids, in similar scenarios. However, I never observed the Thargoid firing upon the Federation ship; it was already wreckage when I arrived. Secondly, I have experienced the Thargoid ship turning red (a warning, perhaps?) and sending out a swarm of small drone-like craft or missiles that circle around it, when I accidentally got too close for their comfort, but I have never actually been attacked by a Thargoid. Given that they supposedly have the ability to simply shut down our ships - and have done so, only to scan and then leave without destroying the ship - I, personally, am of the opinion that they are not simply here to destroy humankind. They seem curious about us, as we are of them, but they don't seem to be openly hostile. I plead that pilots use caution when encountering Thargoids, but don't treat them with open aggression... at least until there are substantiated reports of Thargoids firing first. Furthermore, if the Thargoids I keep seeing at these wreckage locations aren't responsible for the attack, who - or what - is? We could be dealing with very different sects of Thargoids (as different as Federals and Imperials, perhaps) or even some other alien race that hasn't revealed itself to us as of yet. If that turns out to be the case, I'd much rather have the Thargoids as allies than as enemies on a second front.

So, um, yeah... A word of warning: Be careful on the newly updated Ship Rebuy screen. I'm not a fighter, I'm generally a very safe pilot - staying out of fights as much as possible and avoiding terminal intimacy with stars and planet surfaces. As a result, it's been quite some time since I got blown up and actually had to use the Ship Rebuy screen. It looks like the appearance of the Rebuy screen has been changed, as of late, to give pilots more flexibility, but it's different and you have to make sure you don't mess things up. Specifically, there is a list of modules on the right side of the screen that detail your loadout. You can deselect certain modules, should you decide you'd rather do without them and pay a cheaper rebuy price. HOWEVER, there is also a button beneath the list that says "Rebuy All." I wanted to rebuy all of my modules, so I clicked the button. When that didn't take me to my ship, I searched the page and found a button in the bottom left to Purchase Ship, so I clicked that. Unfortunately for me, the "Rebuy All" button is a TOGGLE button, so when I had clicked it, I had DESELECTED all of the modules that I wanted. When I clicked on Purchase Ship, I had completed that action and solidified my mistake. There was no "going back" from there. After blowing myself up a couple times to even figure out what had just happened, I swapped into a Sidewinder back in the bubble and had to work to rebuild the Corellian Faulcon. Not fun, but she's better now than she was. Still, I wouldn't want to do that over again.

Additionally, if you find yourself unable to pay to rebuy your ship, but you have other ships parked around the galaxy that you could sell off, you have that ability now. On the bottom left, next to the "Purchase Ship" button is a "Owned Ships" button. Clicking this button will allow you to see your other ships and to sell them off to scrape together the funds to afford your current rebuy. Without any real explanation as to why, no you can't select one and jump in that ship from the rebuy. You can only sell them remotely.