CCP, should we worry about Drifters near Gates and Stations?
I saw those Autothysians many times at different places but Drifters at Unidentified Wormhole beacon only, before I checked the UniWiki 
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Did I missed a patch note?
What are those ships doing at all? What they scanning?
Itâs a repetition of Driftersâ Gate Camp? Which should be kind of hilarious 
You did not miss a patch note. CCP told us a while back that they will not inform us about changes to their AI, leaving us to discover the changes in game.
They have been known to actively hunt players , even following you when you warp cloaked. They have killed POS that farmed them , and i been told ( though have not seen it myself ) that they have killed a citadel on sisi .
CRIKEY!
Wonder if this means that CCP needs to add them to our standings page to keep track of our standings with them? I think I know what would lower my standings with them, but it would be useful information to know if certain actions I do would increase the chance of an unplanned interaction with them.
I saw these as well, yesterday. Couple of named Drifter pilots, Apollo Tyrannos and Artemis Tyrannos, both in battleships right by a gate I was jumping through. Very spooky. Are they aliens? Their character portraits donât look very human anyway.
The Drifters emerge from their hole and hunt for Jovian Obervitories. Once one is located they will entosis it to get Antikithera elements and return home.
At least that is my understanding.
As far as who the Drifters are, thatâs a bit more complicated
Sounds as a good idea. Sleeper hunters should drop their standing towards Drifters. So, jumping through gates can result in an unexpected Drifter gate camp - overall, a nice ISK sink for âblueâ loot farmers 
Without this kind of standings mechanic they can take aggro using Doomsday, Smartbomb, Autotargeting and maybe by using aggressive tuned drones/fighters (maybe).
It should be very funny to grant them the ability to jump through gates. Just want to see Smartbomb Gate Campers after that :D.
No, they are revived humanoids - cyborgs (as @Ashterothi posted). Looks like these species arenât aggressive, but those from WH are Super Deadly - can be destroyed by a cap strong Dreadnought or 4-5 Rattlesnakes under Logistic support during 8-10 mins (as I know only).
THX
If it bleeds, we can kill it -.-
Point me at the death machine.
(serious note, what kind of offensive capabilities can we expect?)
Another video relevant to this discussion.
In the Emergent Threats trailer, you can see Drifters removing Sleepers from shattered conclaves. This is similar to what we see in the Drifter wormholes.
I really hope itâs not actually AI and is really CCP actively piloting the ships, just having fun messing with us.
HmmmâŚ
I miss those days where the Devs did come out to mess with you.; really miss those live events!
Anyone know if the BS will kill spider tanked Nestors?
A 750,000 hit point deathbeam / doomsday kills pretty much any sub capital (and some unaware capitals).
Yes thatâs 187,000 hit point of each damage type. You should really youtube Drifter bs fights or check zkillboard for some of their kills, its hilarious.
Depends on the Difter BS type, the K spaces ones have the Doomsday mentioned above but the WH space ones donât. They do have a very powerful nuet though but not enough DPS to kill RR Nestors (1500 ish DPS).
â â â â that would put my vindi to half armor 
I used a slaved X-type fit damnation a while back when hunting drifters in high sec. I am sure the AI is different now though.
Drifters are IMO one of the worst PVE experiments CCP ever did. I donât know a single PVE buddy that says âman, I gotta log in to EVE and get me some Drifter actionâ. EVERYONE avoids them like the plague unless they are dealing with the neutered Drifters of Wormhole space.
CCP could delete Drifters from TQ tommorow and almost no one would notice. NPCs that you canât kill (without an actual act of congress) but that always kill you (after annoyingly chasing you down) is just the dumbest thing Iâve experienced in a game like this. I still donât know what the point of Drifters is.
Drifters are CCPâs kill switch for Eve. When they finally want to close the servers they will re-introduce Drifter Incursions.
These things will spread to all areas (including null and w-space) if not beaten and attack structures (including npc stations) slowly but surely wiping us out.
Then when everyone quits CCP can throw the off switch.
MaybeâŚ
Youâre pretty close actually i think. I always assumed drifters are a fail safe system to keep citadels / upwell stuff in check. If necessary it would be a small adjustment to have them start grinding any structure that isnât manned and defended, without having to mess about with the lore too much (ie : canât just delete the citadels, a game event needs to happen to bring about change while keeping immersion). Drifters are a âpotential threatâ to just about anything anywhere, and i think thatâs a big reason CCP designed them the way they did.
