Intergalactic Summit

Pilots;

The Consortium has completed preliminary testing of a combat doctrine for fighting Drifter incursions. Refinements on the basic methodology are required before this is an operational doctrine. However, at present sufficiently dedicated pilots may now push back the Drifters without taking unbearable losses.

In brief, with use of tracking disrupting cruisers, armor logistics, and fast-locking frigates to attempt to catch Drifter superweapon firings, the Consortium has successfully cleared two moderate Drifter influxes.

Interested parties may contact me directly for our initial fits, and recommendations for developments from those initial fits.

Please note that the Consortium will continue operations to refine our methodology. Without additional support, we are not certain the Consortium will be able to defend Amarr sovereignty independently.

Pilots wishing to support us may join the channel Consortium Operations.

In service,
Makoto Priano
Itsukame-Zainou Hyperspatial Inquiries, Ltd.

I must admit, it was very thrilling to see that blast whiz by my portside, a clean miss. Our Crucifier wingmen were great.

Honing the technique, I believe we'll be able to take them on with absolutely no losses. Twice the drifters fired their superweapon at me, and twice they missed. I also witnessed them miss attempts at using the superweapon against some of my fleet mates.

I would be interested to see what you all are doing to defeat the drifter menace, I would like to see the drifter menace that has brought terror to the galaxy be stopped and would be happy to help stop it.

One of the reasons why we'll be doing continued combat testing.

Updated the original post; you or any other pilot wishing to support us may join the channel Consortium Operations.

Despite timezones being against me, I will be readying some ships to jump into the fray with you as and when I can. After seeing a tiny slice of what they can do, I definitely want to step it up for round 2.

Among the sites being attacked include stations.

That would have been the third "Moderate Influx" site we were in for the evening. The first two were far more successful.

I'd been selected to test a new prototype vessel for the fleet, hence the 'random' Maller - but in previous sites, the protoype had done exactly what it was supposed to do: survive long enough for the Drifters to come close to apply their weapons where they were vulnerable to tracking disruption. Armor integrity tended to stabilize from remote nanite streams somewhere between twenty and thirty percent, and then would climb as the Drifters stopped being able to land hits. In this particular case, some lucky shots were made on their approach when tracking disruption wouldn't have helped anyway; after reviewing the bluechip logs from the Hardened Feint, it appears my loss was due to a particularly lucky shot on the Drifters' part, taking the ship from approximately one-third armor integrity to no structure at all in a single volley. All in all, the tests with the prototype Maller served their purpose - it works, generally speaking, barring what some pilots often refer to as "unlucky dicerolls" or "RNGesus."

Based on information passed to me from the very brief AAR that occurred afterward (the fleet, at that point, stood down for the night, the test being over) as well as my own observations, there were a few possibilities for the 'wipe.'

First was that we were light on Exequrors. This I won't dispute, and would personally cite as the primary cause - we did better with four as a minimum, and because I was operating the prototype Maller, I was unable to fly one. We had had four for the first site we tested, but one pilot had to leave and the decision was made to go ahead with three because we were already light on Arbitrator pilots. This did not cause much of a problem in the second site, for what it is worth.

Second was that when my vessel was destroyed, everyone else in my squad in the fleet hierarchy lost their fleet coordination links. This heavily weakened a number of ships. I was in a squad command position because I was intended as 'bait' and it would mean that as the first person into the Influx I would be able to mark the Drifters with tags for the Arbitrators. In the third site, there may have been some confusion in this regard as I believe the IKAME pilot who was in charge of the other squad also may have begun tagging on reflex. In the previous two sites this had not been an issue.

Third would have been the tagging mix-up as mentioned above.

Fourth is that we were low on replacement ships. In the third Influx, we ran out of replacement Exequrors, and then eventually Arbitrators, and it became a race of attrition. I returned to the field in a second Maller, as I had been set up with two in the beginning.

We did manage to clear the Influx of Drifters in the end however, but it was very close; I believe there were only three or four ships still standing (my second Maller included) when the last Drifter fell and we began recovery operations.

Nice AAR! Gives lots on info on your operation. Thank you!

I wouldn't call it an assumption, so much as looking at the public records and asking for clarification.