Oh boy I can’t wait until I finally get to kill Drifters!
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Port and a good dark chocolate is delightful too
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Hey, wait a minute! What if we give Drifters some chocolate? Maybe this is what they are looking for.
I bet when they eat it, they will burst out in a fiery explosion of ecstasy.
On a more serous note: When fighting the Drifters in Caldari space (while they were shooting back), did they fire their superweapons? There were claims that CONCORD has tested some experimental tech, masked as the timebase experiment, that made Drifters superweapons dysfunctional. If this is true, then probably CONCORD did actually do something to contain them…
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This was my first operation, but my boss briefed me on what to expect with a Drifter encounter. Here are the facts I gathered from my first bout with the Drifters:
They were idle on the Urlern stargate in Sirppala. There are aproximately 51 ships accounted for.
They were mostly passive to onlookers, but they would turn hostile if approached with biomass in the cargo hold (namely capsuleer corpses). Several ships including an Orca were destroyed on their route to Jita by this group of Drifters.
Their attack response were sluggish, and it only become more evident as we thinned their numbers. With each attack wave we delivered, they would spool their Lux Kontos weaponry, pick a target, and fire simultaneously until their target was destroyed, then moving to the next target. This tactic is mechanical and easily exploited. It is to be expected that they adapt their strategy in the future. After their forces were thined down to half, they completely ceased any counter-attack. Our group postulated that they “simply gave up”, others suggested their weapons became deactivated from over usage.
Several DED representatives were present and they remained as passive onlookers during the entire operation. Any rumors of experimental technology should be dismissed as hearsay until official statements are handed out. I frankly doubt CONCORD is even capable on producing any meaningful technology without the aid of the Empires or without the Jove Protectorate backing their efforts.
Anyone saying the Drifters aren’t a threat is an asinine fool. The trading route between the State and the Federation is now safer thanks to ARC and their decisive blow to the Drifters.
At the moment the Drifters are but a nuisance that should be dealt with before they escalate their offensive, and any combat experience gained dealing with them is only beneficial in the eventuality of a full blown conflict.
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These statements don’t really mix. Drifters were apparently less dangerous than just your standard gankers, even seeing that:
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Are you entertaining the notion that just because CONCORD is completely inept at keeping capsuleer criminals in check we should leave a squad of technologically advanced abominations equipped with weapons of mass destruction roam unhindered in High Security space?
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So are they a threat, or a nuisance? Because a nuisance isn’t a threat, and frankly, a few score heavily-damaged ships that don’t shoot first unless you’re doing something known to cause them to shoot at you, and which ‘give up’ after you kill a couple dozen…
Out here, we call those ‘victims’. As in, ‘our victims’.
Are you saying that the entire fleet, simultaneously, fired only their doomsdays, again and again in rapid succession?
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Yeah, that’s a “huh” moment, isn’t it? It happened at Rens, too.
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Priano’s strategy for engaging this group of Drifters was simple. Sheer numbers of disposable ships attacking the Drifter force in waves. In a way, she overestimated the tenacity of the Drifters.
The first wave was quickly dealt by the Drifters. The second, third and fourth wave were dealt with progressively more slowly with each wave. The fifth wave dealt the decisive blow, and some in the fleet even jokingly complained that their weapons were burned out by overheating during the engagement.
Based on my observations, the Drifters only “yellow box” a target mere seconds after preparing their weapon. Just before my ship was targeted by a volley, the majority of the fleet would all simultaneously “yellow box” my ship then proceed to fire.
Powerful Alpha Strikes is their primary strategy, and they disregard the size and defenses of their target. Obviously, only one shot would be necessary to deal the necessary damage to disable my ship, but the Drifters intent was to fire at each target multiple times in quick succession before moving to the next target. If their weapons have a limited number of times that they are able to fire before needing to recharge, this would mean they wasted valuable shots trying to get a single target instead of sparingly using their limited but destructive firepower.
My Boss suggested that this could be explained by the structure which the Drifter Hivemind operates, with the Drifters being incapable of fine and individual control of each of their ships, with all of them functioning in unison in combat by a single minded controller, no different than how we interface with Drone-based weaponry.
And the Drifters are both a threat, by way that we don’t know their intentions, and a nuisance, for we have figured out their basic behavior well enough to exploit it to quickly deal with them as we deem necessary. And we should deal with then no more differently than your own Imperium deals with neutral parties that trespass your sovereign space.
This is the first and only time I’ll humor your word mincing.
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Port…?! What savagery is this…? Have you people no respect for yourselves?
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Considering, that capsuleers themselves are weapons of mass destruction and are left unhindered to roam around everywhere, sort of, yes I am entertaining the thought. As long as they’re not using them on civilian targets, I don’t see why not. Consider the following, that many baseliners also consider us capsuleers as “technologically advanced abominations equipped with weapons of mass destruction.” So far the biggest threat they have proven to be to just capsuleers and those who maintain active presence in Anoikis - again, mainly capsuleers and a few baseliner organizations.
Unless I’ve been grossly misinformed, Lux Kontos is the CONCORD issued name of their primary weapon system, that of the “levitating” turrets around the vessel. And to my knowledge the superweapon has no official designation, just unofficial nicknames.
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The best kind.
I was born in Gallente space.
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Hm. Interesting consideration, Ms. Teinyhr, but … there’s a lot of stuff we’re not allowed to engage-- not “not allowed” like “it’s not legal”; “not allowed” like “our systems in their current state actually cannot do it.”
Like, you know all those planets we’ve doomsdayed? Or, rather, haven’t?
We’re definitely weapons of mass destruction, but we’re not really unhindered. We’re on a leash. It’s maybe a pretty long one, but we’re still not allowed to bite just anybody and everybody.
We have no reason to think the Drifters have similar safeguards.
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not empty quoting.
Any new developments?
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Well, duh.
Again, duh. I wonder how many times do I need to repeat myself, that the Drifters seem to specifically avoid hitting civilian targets, focusing their, might I add, remarkably limited aggression on military objectives and capsuleers. They could unleash unimaginable campaigns of terror, having no safeguards besides empires throwing ship hulls in their way to prevent them from orbital bombardments, but they do not do this.
So I find it strange people keep giving the reason that they’re just defending innocent civilians from Drifter aggression, when, according to all evidence I have, that is not true.
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Nothing since the Drifter task force in Sirppala was dealt with.
There’ve been on-going discussions on the camera drone telemetry that was leaked, but a 2-second fuzzy video isn’t much to go off of. The silhouette in the lower-left is generally assumed to be some sort of structure, but if so it’d be impossibly massive if the sphere were a star, so we’ve come to consensus that it’s almost certainly smaller. Whether it’s some sort of plasma sphere in the vicinity of a Hive or a heretofore unseen structure is a point of discussion.
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So, first, “do not” does not imply “won’t.”
Second, yeah, their restraint is … uh. Kind of scary, actually. I’ve thought for a while that they might basically be treating us as wildlife-- worth going after if it’s got something you want (capsuleer biomass), but not otherwise.
My worry is that what they’re really treating us as is insects, and they’re just mostly just trying to keep us managed in some way while someone finishes mixing up a big drum of pesticide.
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Neither does anything imply so far that they will, as long as you’re not hiding Drifter corpses or their technology in a cupboard.
I don’t really share this concern in the same way, as they seem more than capable of wiping all of us out if they so want to already. While I’m not privy to ARC’s tactics catalogue, what they have publicly released implies they can only deal with a handful drifter battleships at a time, and Drifters in such numbers as they have recently appeared are beyond ARC’s - or even combined navy forces - ability to counter if they are not already severely damaged beforehand.
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That really depends on what you consider a “handful”.
This isn’t technically accurate.
ARC’s ablative tactics would work just fine against un-damaged Drifters as well.
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To my recollection ARC has previously reported being able to defeat 4-5 BS at a time without losses. 4-5 times that number seems to be cause for alarm and headscratching as you can read from Makoto’s reports earlier in this thread.
In fact;
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