Seems like a good opportunity to discuss this idea. How would you feel about dropships filled with swarm launchers or mass drivers for example?

Given how fast dropships can be taken down, and what it's like to just hit something from the gunner's perch? yeah, it's fair. 4 guys raining down bombs, and then BOOM, 50x5 + 75 = 325 WP for that forge gunner/rail turret/rail tank/AV unit that moves in and whales on it. And if the pilot's good, you are out of range so fast it's a moot point.

I never use my dropship as transport. It's hard enough to hit things for just me, much less pilot for whichever half of the ship that wants the shots now. And they always want the shot. Just try to get a blueberry out of your DS....




TL;DR= Make it happen! I think it would be great!

I flipped my dropship upside down on purpose to roll it over while i was on the ground...blueberry stayed in for 15 minutes...i was just wishig i could equip ejection seats for them the entire time...honestly this should be a thing. Bring up wheel, click it like you do for squad commands. click passenger seats and have an eject all passengers button.

It would actually be helpful for getting people on target for base assaults and rid of annoyances.

At this point dropships are... a giant WP pinata and that might change how people feel about it.

LOL

and that there's balance. Well, make the swarm launchers a bit better again. It was overnerfed last time.

Taken out context but yes, good job editing lol.

Haven't used swarms that much at all and they are easy enough to evade, seems like all AV has been nerfed to area/idiot denial tool. Yes it was equal parts AV being powerful and cheap as well as vehicles being flimsy and expensive that caused the change but at some point they gotta realize that there's a problem when AV masters are having trouble taking down BASIC vehicles...remember these are basic, there is no advanced or proto vehicles lol.

Interesting, though this being related to EVE I imagine at some point these types of variants will come out and then I hope there's rebalancing involved that day lol.

As for the tank killing...you'll have to share your secrets because I was standing beside and assisting someone with a proto breach forge gun trying to take out several different types of tanks with barely any progress.

Although I'd like to have passengers shooting out,
It's a little bit hard to create a balanced system.


Possible solutions, none of these are clear winners but maybe someone can refine the idea further... :
Sidearm only?
No reload while in?
+500% reload time?
Very limited fields of vision?
Make it very shaky to fire (doesn't balance swarms though) ?
No zoom?
New attribute to each weapon: 'Allow passenger use' ?


Maybe the 'sidearm only' could be could be the best so far, even though we would miss many nice balanced light arms.

Or if CCP is willing to add new attribute for weapon data, the allow/deny passenger seat use per each weapon.

Taken out context but yes, good job editing lol.

Haven't used swarms that much at all and they are easy enough to evade, seems like all AV has been nerfed to area/idiot denial tool. Yes it was equal parts AV being powerful and cheap as well as vehicles being flimsy and expensive that caused the change but at some point they gotta realize that there's a problem when AV masters are having trouble taking down BASIC vehicles...remember these are basic, there is no advanced or proto vehicles lol.

I was able to get close to an Incubus today - the pilot must have been distracted - with my Advanced Swarm Launcher (with one Enhance Damage Mod). I got off one whole clip (three volleys, 15 missiles, 3,465 damage) before he even moved. Might have cleared half his shields (with zero armour damage). Before my 3 second reload plus 1.4 second target-lock cycle completed, he got off three (3) cannon shots. My bunny hopping avoided the first two but the third hit with enough damage to kill me twice over. I caught a quick local spawn and found the Incubus in the same place - he had already returned to full shield.

War Points are not (currently) awarded for damage. So unless an AVer gets lucky enough to actually down a derpship and get those 75 WPs (and rarely any kills because most passengers simply abandon ship), they get nothing for their attempts at trying to protect their squad and/or strategic position (as useless as that effort now is). So no, there are no pinatas today.

At this point dropships are great for fighting infantry, I'm only using militia dropships with a gunner and we can deny people areas.

I would say they need a boost fighting tanks but honestly that's because tanks are kinda ridiculous at this point, a dropship can hold it's own, especially in a fight with someone who has AV. My militia forge gun can't take down an assault dropship anymore, and that isn't necessarily a problem, but imagine a dropship with 2 assault rifles and a missile launcher on one side, it changes the game a bit.

Something is making the vehicles so powerful to the point where when the hardeners are on nothing short of several AV infantry or 1 or 2 tank killing tanks can actually stand a chance, and I suppose that's a good thing too, but before we make dropships even more powerful by adding these passenger gunners (which I fully support) vehicles as a whole need to be toned down a bit, that or add something to make that dropship a bigger target.

For example, I rarely get kills when I take down a dropship, just the points from the dropship kill, why? Everyone jumps out, what if we were to instead kill some of the people in the dropship when the HP hit 0, the pilot, the gunners, the passengers, someone. Allowing passengers to fire will change the dropship from an annoyance to a really formidable threat, some may argue over powered, but turn the thing into a giant WP pinata and that might change how people feel about it.

Good point. I think we could resolve this by making them a bit less well-protected. Not so much that they get destroyed a lot, but enough that they'll have to run away a bit more often.

Maybe tweak their PG/CPU so they have a harder time mounting hardeners and what not?

Seems like a good opportunity to discuss this idea. How would you feel about dropships filled with swarm launchers or mass drivers for example?

just make it so that you can only use sidearms... you know since, youre in a confined space in all you dont have much room for using bulky light and heavy weapons

War Points are not (currently) awarded for damage.

Seems like a good opportunity to discuss this idea. How would you feel about dropships filled with swarm launchers or mass drivers for example?

but if you could fire those swarms from a derpship and follow him down, you could take him out.

Good point. I think we could resolve this by making them a bit less well-protected. Not so much that they get destroyed a lot, but enough that they'll have to run away a bit more often.

Maybe tweak their PG/CPU so they have a harder time mounting hardeners and what not?

I think if a change was implemented to award points for damage, it would be a game changer. It would unite infantry in a way that would get people coordinated. I have a proto swarmer and can take out all shields and half their armor in one 6 swarm hit but their speed usually gets them safe before I can finish it. If I were with a buddy (that's my fault) the kill would have been mine.

I think DS at least has an advantage over guys riding along in tanks because they're at least exposed. I've seen many a game where the gunners were shot out of a DS whereas the tanker buddies are completely encapsulated. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, if you're in the DS when it dies in the sky do you not also die with it? Or does it immediately eject you? I thought it was the same as a crash, where if you're in the DS, you die.

I would expect a limited field of fire from a dropship. The mercs are strapped in, so their downward and upward angles would be limited. Since 1 person on each side would be on the turret you would only be adding 2 light weapons per side.

To give the passengers a decent shot the Dropship pilot would have to tilt the dropship to the right or left, so the passengers on the other side would be looking skyward.

The only time you would be able to bring both turrets and 4 light weapons to bare on the enemy is if you were flying low between two structures.

That all being said, there are still potential problems here. I just wanted to make clear that we are really talking about 2 light weapons in most cases, rather than 4 or 6.

...everyone would have bailed before the ship hit the ground. Note that DSs do not explode in the air - they drop from the sky when they die and explode on the ground, giving passengers plenty of time to jettison (if they were paying attention).

I disagree. Have you looked around the inside of a dropship while you were in one? There's loads of room for whatever you want.

well then for balance reasons it depends on the effectiveness of splash damage weapons. mainly the mass driver.

however, a dropship holds 7 people. 75 wps for the dropship + 50 wps for each clone lost inside = 475 wps for railguning one dropship.

add a defend order to the tanker it goes up to 420 wps for just the 7 clones. idk how much for the dropship. maybe 90? so 510 wps total right there.

THEN add two gunners to the tank... 25 (or 30 because of the defend order) wps each for vehicle assist = 175 (or 210 with the defend order) wps each for a total of 350 (or 420 with a defend order) wps.

so 510 wps for the tanker and (ill go with 420 here) 420 wps from the gunners = 930 wps for one target lol

and if everyone in the tank is in the same squad... you'd be a 3rd of your way to an orbital.

so does anyone here want to be solely responsible for the orbital that gets dropped because they wanted to sit in a dropship and spam mass drivers all day?

i think CCP should do this. if you guys honestly think itll help you and your team in the long run, go right ahead lol

to be fair most likely the gunners on the side hit will be killed instantly, and then the pilot and other passengers will escape, unless they get squished by the dropship falling down. so, on average you'll get the dropship destruction + the 2 passengers. Their team will possibly lose 3-4 clones.

so the wp gain will fall somewhere between 500 and 400. still, the risk vs reward for the tanker for is minimal. 2 shots that give you 400-500 wps for your squad (if your tank has passengers) is a lot of reward, for minimal risk (red line tanking).

I was able to get close to an Incubus today - the pilot must have been distracted - with my Advanced Swarm Launcher (with one Enhance Damage Mod). I got off one whole clip (three volleys, 15 missiles, 3,465 damage) before he even moved. Might have cleared half his shields (with zero armour damage). Before my 3 second reload plus 1.4 second target-lock cycle completed, he got off three (3) cannon shots. My bunny hopping avoided the first two but the third hit with enough damage to kill me twice over. I caught a quick local spawn and found the Incubus in the same place - he had already returned to full shield.

War Points are not (currently) awarded for damage. So unless an AVer gets lucky enough to actually down a derpship and get those 75 WPs (and rarely any kills because most passengers simply abandon ship), they get nothing for their attempts at trying to protect their squad and/or strategic position (as useless as that effort now is). So no, there are no pinatas today.