Intergalactic Summit

As I stated apparently not quite clear enough I had just undocked after running an anomaly that had contained rogue drones that I had destroyed, I had not docked after engaging Cicadian Seekers. That was why I wondered if they had somehow either labeled me hostile for those actions or are remembering who has aggressed them in the past with a shoot on sight protocol.

Until my next encounter with them unfolds I am left with as many questions as you fellow pilot.

If they are in the business of attacking ships in highsec I think it's time a bounty is placed on them. Expending ammo to destroy them is a unprofitable use of isk at the moment, except when to safeguard my ship from their aggression.

They are adapting to highsec so should we and Concord.

Subject, EWF on Seekers: I assigned a Scorpion crew to intercept some of the seekers at a structure. 1/4 EWF modules could gain some ground, which caused the Seekers themselves to be unable to shoot back. The Seekers could break the lockdown and lob a few volleys. 1/3rd of the time they were able to break the lockdown.

Incident report: Engagement of sleeper drones.
Filed: HW CEO Sigma Special Tactics Group
Time 08:12:19
Nuken System
The Forge Region



At approximately 0800 SSTG Darkhound, a Maelstrom battleship, encountered 4 Circadian Seekers at an unidentified structure and engaged them with 4 Hammerhead II medium drones and one Valkryie SW-600 medilum drone. After destroying 2 drones, 4 more sleeper drones appeared for a total of 6 sleeper drones at the height of the engagement.
Initially the engagement went well but the damage the sleepers inflicted on the shielding surpassed the energy capacity required to keep the shields up and the shields were nearly down by approximately 0840.

Responding to a request for aid, SSTG Shewolf, a Gallente Hyperion better equipped to destroy drones met SSTG Darkhound at a warpoff point between the anomaly and the Korsiki gate, unable to warp entirely the distance to the Korsiki gate. The engagement continued there with SSTG Darkhound attempting to regain shielding and SSTG Shewolf engaged the sleepers. 4 sleepers followed SSTG Darkhound to this spot which is where it ended simply from not having enough energy to generate a warp tunnel sufficient to arrive out of warp at the Korsiki gate to meet up with SSTG Shewolf.

SSTG Shewolf engaged 4 sleeper drones with 2x Gecko, 2x Hammerhead II, and 1X Hobgoblin II in an attempt to draw off the attention of the sleeper drones but this did not work. The sleepers continues their attack on SSTG Darkhound. Unable to maintain defenses, SSTG Darkhound warped away to the Korsikii gate. SSTG Shewolf continued to engage the 4 sleeper drones, destroying 2 of them, and shortly after the other 2 warped out of the battle in pursuit of SSTG Darkhound.

During this time, SSTG Darkhound changed course to a station in the Nuken system for repairs. The sleepers did not arrive at the second warp point, but shortly after SSTG Darkhound docked and SSTG Shewolf arrived at the same station for a rendezvous, 2 sleeper drones arrived and began to engage SSTG Shewolf.


After repairs and a recharge SSTG Darkhound was able to return to the battle.


During the engagement, the following behaviors were noted:

- when SSTG Darkhound deployed the SW-600 drone on the sleeper drone, the sleeper drone would take up an orbit of approximately 5 KM
- SSTG Shewolf is equipped with onboard warp scrambler and stasis webifier and when used on a sleeper drone, the sleeper drone took up an orbit of exactly 10 KM, staying out of range of the webifier and warp scrambler.
- Both ships experienced what appeared to be random sporadic target dropoff of the drones of various types such that the drones would "lose memory" and go idle during the confrontation the directive to engage the target had to be reissued. But at times, the reiteration of the engagement directive would cause more drones to go into idling mode.
- at times SSTG Darkhound seemed able to withstand the sleeper drone onslaught but the damage done by the sleeper drones would appear to spike and take considerable buffer from the shielding. Notably SSTG Darkhound defenses consist of a large booster, extra large booster, and 1 boost amplifier. The more refined platform of SSTG Shewolf did not have issues maintaining armor defenses fielding 3X Reinforced steel plating and 2 large armor repair units. Neither ship was equipped with damage type resistance amplification.
- Sleeper "aggro" as the vernacular goes appears to me more advanced and not driven by which ship is inflicting more damage to their hulls. This is unlike the usual rogue drones encountered in the region.
- Once SSTG Darkhound was docked for repairs, the sleepers that followed it to the station engaged SSTG Shewolf.




Advisory:
These are more advanced than rogue drones. Approach as one would sleepers in unknown wormhole systems.
Tactics regarding orbit distance and modification of it per the threat suggests that these sleepers might have "learned" tactics from engaging Raa Thalamus prototype Sansha ships as their maneuvers appear to mimic them at close engangemet although sleepers are much slower in the approach and do not surge speed (lack of MWD is likely the reason).
The sleeper drones appear to be able to observe what kinds of weapons you are using on them and respond to that.

In regards to:


Nice report, especially concerning Circadian Sleeper response to ship-mounted stasis webification.

Also, for the love of Aura, fit some hardeners. It makes a huge difference.

SSTG Darkhound is a test platform.

Those Circadian Seekers are obviously learning from us and uploading whatever they learn to a possibly sophisticated neural network with capabilities far from our imagination. So everytime we attack them, they also learn more from us. Since we have plenty of "trigger happy" capsuleers flying all around, seekers should have learned and uploaded an impressive ammount of information by now.

Why are we teaching them how to destroy us?

A troubling new turn.

My corp mate reported that he and two other corpies attacked a group of Circadian sleepers on a gate while on the way to a mission. They defeated them, then jumped thru the gate to the next system where the mission was. When they arrived at the acceleration gate to the mission...

More Circadian Sleepers were waiting for them.

The Seekers immediately engaged my corp mates which suggests they were tied to the original group that were defeated. My friends defeated the seekers and they then warped into the mission and during the battle with the mission rats MORE seekers warped in and engaged my corp mates.

This shows that they might now be anticipating the movement of capsuleers who attack them and then lie in wait for them. We might want to prepare to be hunted.

(On a side note, I will be immensely pleased if CCP will use these Seekers and more like them to be the mechanic which will force Sov changes in the game. Imagine a day in the very near future when the changes to SOV have been announced and suddenly these Seekers come in and attack all the SOV infrastructure in the game, setting everything back to zero.)

BTW if anybody is interested in the ship logs for statistical analyses I can make them available.

This research may be benefited well if we activate the combat logging in our ships before these encounters and start collecting data for more empirical calculations. Science and all that.

Today some additional encounters. Notably there are more of them around these days and are getting easier to find.


First thing I did was engage some sleepers with a smaller "hit and run" cruiser SSTG Night Terror. The goal is not to kill them, just get them to pursue.

And pursue they did.


Initially in the Obanen system, I hit some of them and then jumped through the Olo gate. after a few minutes, returned to the Obanen system to see if they were at the gate. They were not. I don't know if they went to that gate.

So I waited for a little while and then wondered that if Sleepers can detect the presence of a capsuleer (note they can go to a station you are at without even seeing you warp there) do they look at local? I don't know on what level they deem "presence" of a target.

So using my scientific skills (yes I am a scientist after all), I decided to see if they pay attention to local. I now give you two log excerpts, one from the communications log in Obanen, and the other from the combat events log of SSTG Night Terror.

[06:08:42] Herzog Wolfhammer > I'm right here, sleepers
[06:09:45] Herzog Wolfhammer > (This is just a test to see if sleepers can be smack-talked)
[06:10:08] Herzog Wolfhammer > Hey Sleepers I had sex with a toaster last night and then I realize it was yer mom
[06:10:29] Herzog Wolfhammer > OMG it worked

06:10:28 Combat 295 from Circadian Seeker - Penetrates
06:10:32 Combat 101 from Circadian Seeker - Praedormitan Missile - Hits
06:10:32 Combat Circadian Seeker misses you completely
06:10:33 Combat 162 from Circadian Seeker - Glances Off
06:10:34 Generic Jumping from Obanen to Olo



I'm not sure if we can conclude that sleepers can be smack-talked. It may be coincidence.



Additional notes from these latest encounters:


Their warpoff is very fast and directional, but when they warp onto grid, they are not visibly warping in like a normal space craft. They tend to simply appear at the same range they were engaging at depending on their "experience".

Attacking cloaked structure in front of them does not illicit a response

After leaving one system with sleepers in pursuit, encountering different sleepers in a different system did not result in further fighting. They do not appear to be doing any constellation-wide communications (so far and thankfully).

Hey, since you are shooting them... I have an idea:

Shoot seekers, then dock. Change your ship to Zephyr, undock and see if they continue to fight back.