First off, not to sound rude, but who are you to tell me what kind of requests I can make of the DEV's?

Secondly, the ADS is being taken away. Permanently.

Nextly, I honestly think the dropships are fine the way they are. It really depends on the map, and the way you use them.

In most of the newer maps, I have no problems surviving the entire match in my Eryx. With 2 active shield he drmodules, I am usually able to survive any initial swarm or turret encounter and get away to recharge. The new maps are actually great for Dropships, plenty of cover, and city-scape to hover over and limit your profile.

Alot of the old maps however, I don't even bother. They are very open, leaving you to the mercy of Forge's.

Dropships are meant to be an in-and-out vehicle. When people are ripping around up in the sky in open maps, that's when they get shot down.

no

Yes, I know several different threads have suggestions on how to improve drop ships, but all the suggestions seem to indicate "fixing" things perceived to be broken. I think we all need to acknowledge that drastic changes are coming, whether we want them or not. We can bemoan the "breaking" of our drop ships, or try to guide the Devs with our suggestions on what should be included in the re-introduction. I would ask that your suggestions are:
1) Coherent, i.e. succinct, proper english.
2) Discretely separated from the surrounding text.
3) If you agree with another poster's suggestion, or wish to expand upon it, please quote what you agree with.
4) PLEASE STICK TO SUGGESTIONS ONLY! if the Devs can see a simple list of our DS requests, and the number of supporters, they may pay attention LOL.

My suggestions:
1) Transport DS should have 7 seats including 2 turrets, and be heavier into armor than shields, and the turrets should be limited to anti-personnel. Based on the direction CCP has stated they want to go with modules this makes sense, they need to be able to stand and deliver in an LZ for the duration of a drop off or pick up without being excellent offensive weapons.

2) Assault DS should have 3 seats including 2 turrets as well as the main gun, and be heavier into shields than armor and slightly more maneuverable than transports. This also makes sense given the new direction of modules, quick in and out attacks with long cool down on shield modules.

3) DS and infantry need better comms to coordinate attacks or deployment, thanks to Judge Rhadamanthus for some suggestions on accomplishing this. I would add a Fire-Support Request as well, for marking targets to be assaulted by an ADS.

4) Work on reducing deployment times for all vehicles as well as the common glitches of dropping vehicles from a great height when near structures, and deploying on rooftops next to you when you're on flat ground.

[quote=
I don't even fly but this sounds well thought out. You guys and girls have the HARDEST job in the game. Guess I'm a slacker ????

I'm not sure there is such a thing as "the HARDEST" job in the game; DS piloting is difficult to master but enjoyable as ****, just like Logi or Tanking, or even doing infantry well. I hope we don't all come off as "my job's harder than yours", in a DS I sure as **** can't hack an objective. Thanks for the support though

I can't say I know for sure how to keep the LDS relevant as most people only seem to use it for it's tank; needless to say, I've got a few suggestions though.

1) Probably the one that will engender the most discontent, do not allow turrets to be fitted. The LDS to my mind is better suited to support and e-war than a shooting war.

2) Introduce a jamming module for swarms/dispersal field for FG. The damage should be mitigated, not eliminated by this module, and it should cost significant enough pg and cpu that other ships can't afford to fit it as well as a normal load-out.

3) Better range on scanners are needed for drop ships, the best should cost enough to fit that the best use would be on the LDS.

4) Pg and cpu should be sufficient to fit the equipment for support and e-war.

I can't say I know for sure how to keep the LDS relevant as most people only seem to use it for it's tank; needless to say, I've got a few suggestions though.

1) Probably the one that will engender the most discontent, do not allow turrets to be fitted. The LDS to my mind is better suited to support and e-war than a shooting war.

2) Introduce a jamming module for swarms/dispersal field for FG. The damage should be mitigated, not eliminated by this module, and it should cost significant enough pg and cpu that other ships can't afford to fit it as well as a normal load-out.

3) Better range on scanners are needed for drop ships, the best should cost enough to fit that the best use would be on the LDS.

4) Pg and cpu should be sufficient to fit the equipment for support and e-war.

[quote=Lanius Pulvis]I can't say I know for sure how to keep the LDS relevant as most people only seem to use it for it's tank; needless to say, I've got a few suggestions though.

1) Probably the one that will engender the most discontent, do not allow turrets to be fitted. The LDS to my mind is better suited to support and e-war than a shooting war.

2) Introduce a jamming module for swarms/dispersal field for FG. The damage should be mitigated, not eliminated by this module, and it should cost significant enough pg and cpu that other ships can't afford to fit it as well as a normal load-out.

3) Better range on scanners are needed for drop ships, the best should cost enough to fit that the best use would be on the LDS.

4) Pg and cpu should be sufficient to fit the equipment for support and e-war.

My suggestions:
1) Transport DS should have 7 seats including 2 turrets, and be heavier into armor than shields, and the turrets should be limited to anti-personnel. Based on the direction CCP has stated they want to go with modules this makes sense, they need to be able to stand and deliver in an LZ for the duration of a drop off or pick up without being excellent offensive weapons.

It seems to me that most of your ideas for keeping the LDS relevant rely on hamstringing the ADS and limiting customization.

2)Just a thought, but you might want to read my suggestion more carefully, I suggest not being able to fit it with a "NORMAL LOAD-OUT" i.e. you're armor tanked and able to defeat a percentage of swarms, that would be OP.

3)Once again, see comment above. And thank you for countering your own argument, you just said "fielding it on a LDS would come at the expense of fielding modules that actually support the team" so you don't want the option to make a fitting how you deem appropriate...or you do?!?! And once again, see above comment on PG and CPU.

Yes, I know several different threads have suggestions on how to improve drop ships, but all the suggestions seem to indicate "fixing" things perceived to be broken. I think we all need to acknowledge that drastic changes are coming, whether we want them or not. We can bemoan the "breaking" of our drop ships, or try to guide the Devs with our suggestions on what should be included in the re-introduction. I would ask that your suggestions are:
1) Coherent, i.e. succinct, proper english.
2) Discretely separated from the surrounding text.
3) If you agree with another poster's suggestion, or wish to expand upon it, please quote what you agree with.
4) PLEASE STICK TO SUGGESTIONS ONLY! if the Devs can see a simple list of our DS requests, and the number of supporters, they may pay attention LOL.

My suggestions:
1) Transport DS should have 7 seats including 2 turrets, and be heavier into armor than shields, and the turrets should be limited to anti-personnel. Based on the direction CCP has stated they want to go with modules this makes sense, they need to be able to stand and deliver in an LZ for the duration of a drop off or pick up without being excellent offensive weapons.

2) Assault DS should have 3 seats including 2 turrets as well as the main gun, and be heavier into shields than armor and slightly more maneuverable than transports. This also makes sense given the new direction of modules, quick in and out attacks with long cool down on shield modules. After consulting with some more experienced colleagues it could be a good idea to limit the field of fire for all turrets of an ADS to overlapping 40-50 degree arcs in front of the ship.

3) DS and infantry need better comms to coordinate attacks or deployment, thanks to Judge Rhadamanthus for some suggestions on accomplishing this. I would add a Fire-Support Request as well, for marking targets to be assaulted by an ADS.

4) Work on reducing deployment times for all vehicles as well as the common glitches of dropping vehicles from a great height when near structures, and deploying on rooftops next to you when you're on flat ground.

1: Armor and shields are dependent on the racial preferences, not the vehicle itself.

2: It's called Logi DS, not transport.

3: Assuming you counted the pilot seat as a seat, I agree with the suit changes

4: Look in the Dropship section of this. It's basically what you're going for, but gives the tech 2 DS's and other tech 2 things to make them useful.

We keep calling a new Assault ship a "Dropship". What would be it's main function? Transport? Assault or a mix? I think we should leave transporting to dropships and assaulting to assault craft. We could have a more heavily armed dropship, but i think it should be armed to defend the people it is transporting rather than armed to attack a target.

So three tiers of Thrust craft :

1) Yellow and Blue : Transport Dropships - The best transport craft in the game. Seats and ways to support the troops it is delivering to a neutral or friendly location for defence or in preparation for an advance.

2) Red : Hot Zone Dropships - Less capacity but more ways to clear a hostile zone. Design to drop into an already Red Objective

3) Assualt - Straight up attack craft. Not fixed wing. Designed to soften not control a zone.

These are outlines but we need to make sure we are designing a craft that solves problems that exist.

I would like to see a revamped UI that would include the following two additions:

1) Vehicle opacity controls for the pilot. I imagine it as very similar to the HUD opacity controls currently available. Not something you adjusted on the fly in match, but tweaked in the MQ. This would be like the augmented reality systems being developed for modern fighter pilots. I consider this essential if the current camera scheme is to be kept.

2) An altitude, airspeed, and level flight indicator. All three gauges could be combined in the current HUD by integrating them into the bottom right element used as a turret overheat indicator/infantry ammo counter. The following is a quick and dirty edit showing what I have in mind.

http://i.imgur.com/FyP63hy.png

make them easier to land?

Please look at this OP, I am not joking=
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=115185