I know why we have a red line, or safe zone. I don't know why rail tanks are allowed to fire from it. I made a thread about vehicles not being able to operate their guns in the red which I think would solve this issue. Give that a read if you want my opinion on what should be done.

below are 3 uses of a assault dropship that are not Gunship type roles. These are ones I do use, but only in a squad.

1) I use an Incubus often with a CRU fitted. I dont need many seats as the players pop in and leave when near a good spot. The speed allows me to keep moving, covering the map quickly to deliver the spawned troops. The front gun I use to clear enemy uplinks and nanos so I can also land and replace their uplinks with mine.

I don't go for kills but for equipment. This is where a gun on a ship is useful. I can play the role of putting my team where needed and slowing the enemies supply line of troops and equipment. So not a pure logi role or a full on assault role. It is a build only the ADS can get as dropships are today. The limit in seats gives it a strategic insertion and disruption role.

2) Another build I use is a rail (i have proto) fitted assault dropship. I use this to not kill tanks but to 'Force' them. So when I play with a good tanker, like DELBOY, I chase a tank toward him and use my turret to get the enemy tank to activate his hardeners. By the time he runs into DELBOY his hardeners are on cooldown or have a short run left.

If I can I do this with a forge gunner or 2 in the ship with me .Get a tank to harden up. Chase it till they run down then drop the forge gunners on them.

3) If the enemy is on a roof or holding an outpost I use an assault dropship to take a knifer or remote explosive player or scout behind them. Stefan the almighty is my goto guy for this. I can drop him, often right behind them (like the mushroom roof that has a wall across the middle so the enemy cannot see me drop him) then I go and hover right in-front of them and shoot to get their attention. While they are look at me they get murdered from behind.

The front gun allows me to do these roles. But I am not playing as a mini gunship as these tasks use passengers as part of the tactics. This is the role between Dropship and Gunship the assault varients can fill.

This is probably some of the most comprehensive dialog over dropships and their role on the battlefield I've seen on the forums (and i had a 18+ page topic months ago that Blam replied to), and I feel like many of our ace pilots are getting the point across spot on. Every time i read something a few pages back and want to reply to it, another pilot has already given a 3 paragraph response that's pretty much what i would say haha. CCP better read ALL of this, because if they read from page 1 to the very last pages of this topic they should come away with a pretty daft understanding on what veteran pilots know dropships COULD be, and possibly even what they should do as a fix for this horrible situation we have found ourselves in.

Yeah, I've actually been quite enjoying reading through this thread.

I also just watched a friend of mine lose a Dropship to a railgun tank on his stream this morning. Now, granted he called it in far too close to the enemy redline, but with 3 Shield Extenders it was almost wrecked before the RDV even dropped it, and then he only got about 100 feet before one final shot knocked it out of the sky.

The irritating part about that is that is an exact mirror of what I have had happen to me from 300-400 meters away. Some of them even wait for it to touch the ground and for you to get in before they use a PRO Railgun with Complex Damage Modifiers to turn you into a smoking wreck and get the kill before you can even take off or get your Hardeners on.

I've used the tactics that Judge recommends on his YouTube channels for attempting to make safe takeoffs, and you can still be wrecked easily by the Railgunner just watching where the RDV goes and waiting for you to clear the structure or terrain you're using for cover. In addition, even if you get close enough to them to put their glass-cannon fit vehicle in danger, they can simply hop out and recall it within only a few seconds.


However, to bring a bit of levity to the discussion, I did see the other day a rather hilarious feet by DUST Fiend. I'm sure we're all familiar with how rapidly tanks accelerate now, and how they use that to withdraw deeper into the redline in order to avoid retaliation.

Well, in this case, DUST Fiend flew over one of these railgun tanks and fired down on it, causing the driver to pull back reflexively. However, this resulted in him driving his tank at full speed backwards over a cliff and dying along with his vehicle.

I really wish i was there to see that attack by Dust Fiend, because that sounds like absolute eye candy for dropship pilots. I've actually had a similar case where I was attacking a railgun camper ontop of a skyscraper (before recalls existed) and instead of just taking my missiles to his hull and dealing with it, he decided to go full speed off of the edge and free-fall to his death, which happened upon impact when he met the ground. Needless to say i was laughing for quite a while.

I had a very similar experience, only this rail tank knew its fate and spun its turret around and actually got a shot off at me while he was falling. I give credit to him for actually landing the shot, lucky for me I managed to barley dodge the second before his tank blew up.

Fair enough jason, I don't read peoples tags and apologize for calling you something your not. When I said people like you, I meant people who don't seem to grasp the concept of the assault dropship.
Allow me to expand on that, the assault dropship is still a dropship as it can carry up to 4 mercs with turrets fitted. It is a variant of the dropship that fills a niche role, it requires a very good team of shock troops but they have a dropship that can give some cover. Many pilots do use it as a gunship because indeed it does have a gun, but it clearly is not a gunship.

I never envisioned the dropship to be slow and bulky, mostly because its a medium aeiral vehicle. What you describe is what I envision a heavy aeiral vehicle to be, especially the part about them being as hard to take down as an hav. Maybe we just have different views on this, but the dropship is close to how I envisioned it.

I envision gunships to be slow terrifying beasts that can deliver devastating fire power from the air. They sacrafise speed and some maneuverability for MOR DAKKA and killing power. Of course they would have a better tank than a dropship however the dropship can still out maneuver it and fly away faster. Gunships aren't air superiority, they are air to ground. They shouldn't become fighters. I envision them as heavy aircraft rather than medium as they should cost more. There are two key differences between the assault dropship and this gunship, 1. The gunship has far more firepower than the assault dropship, 2. The gunship has room for only one gunner, the assault dropship has room for 4 mercs. That's how I see the difference and why I will fly assault dropships after gunships come out.

Anyway this is a good discussion and I will make a thread for it, I'm sure judge doesn't want us derailing the very serious issue he has brought up here and I would like that discussion to continue.
PS, come fly with me sometime, I would like to see your skills

Okay how about having vehicles unable to fire within a red-zone and have the red-zone for ground vehicles be larger. This would remove red-line rails and make them closer to the battle.

THE ADS. IT'S A HUEY HELICOPTER. IT MAKES SENSE!

P.S. Pvt. I'll gitchu for ma tank man!

The thing you must remember when saying that pilots escape, or seem to win is that you are not them. You see that one fight. I fly a lot. I know many who do, and I play with many of the best pilots this game has to offer. They die to AV. I die to AV. You may not see it but play 20 dropship matches as if you want to win and you will see deaths from swarms and forges.

That is very true. Like I said before I did spend a lot of time as an ADS pilot when they first came out but I droped them completely as soon as I realised they were a bit of a gimmick.

However I do use AV a lot and I am yet to kill a dropship without using a railgun.

I remember back when I used the ADS forge guns would kill me all the time but like I said its not so easy now.

Judge - What did you think to the suggestion a few pages back where we discussed removing the redline so you guys could venture into it, but at the downside of having player operated turrets onboard the MCC that would be powerful (To discourage spawn farming) ?

You know all of this talk about "Red line rail tanks".
I have to be honest, 90% + of games I am in there are no red line rail tanks. All of the tanks are out fighting and killing.

I can't say for certain however I will test this now, but it seems to me dropships are a LOT harder to kill now they they ever were before UNLESS you are using a railgun tank or railgun installation.

I was trying to swarm a DS the other day, the missiles did jack ****, any damage they did do the DS could easily rep. That was compounded by the fact swarms range is pathetic now.

With my forge gun I found that ok I could do reasonable damage but the DS would be long gone as soon as it took the first hit and again, they could rep the damage I could cause.

No to me it seems railguns are the only viable tactic to kill a DS unless the dropship pilot is a total moron.

I try not to damn certain game tactics or weapons as broken unless it is desperate. But rail gun tanks are just so completely broken it has me wondering if they were properly tested.

They have Huge alpha, Huge Hp, Huge Range, Huge elevation and they can be immune in the redline. Not just in the redline but they can shoot an objective from 300m in the redline. This is monstrously stupid. I cannot move in any map, or any game mode without a rail tank or three that are up to 300 meters into the redline 1 or 2 shotting my dropship. It is absolutely broken. I have even been killed at the maximum flight ceiling. Exactly what is a flying vehicles advantage if a tank can kill it anywhere in the entire sky?

They are not in need of slight balance or tweaking but plain broken to the point that they should not be in the game with the maps that we have.

I am making a video to make my point but at this stage CCP. They need to go. Now. Until they can be made to work with current map size and until you fix the broken and unbalanced redline they have to go. SImply remove the rail turret until we can make a weapon that powerful work within the limits of fair balance,

I only make threads like this if something is game breakingly bad. And I don't like to. But this is a special case. Did you know that at 250m from an objective, from a flat surface a rail tank can shoot a dropship 238 meters up?! Tanks rule the ground and the sky. At 238 meters my dropship is useless. I have to sit, in complete exposure evey single game to these distant, redline tanks. I can't use skill or tactics to avoid them. They see me all the time from complete safety. The tank can cover any area a dropship can operate in from a single spot up to 540m away (proven tested distance)

So here it is CCP. Take out that turret. Now. Until we can balance it. Its unfair and it breaks air/ground balance. CCP, you need to speak to us pilots about this. Not part-timers; but us full on dropship guys. Please engage us. In private, behind NDAs or whatever you feel is best but we really need to talk with you. This stuff needs fixing. ASAP.

You know all of this talk about "Red line rail tanks".
I have to be honest, 90% + of games I am in there are no red line rail tanks. All of the tanks are out fighting and killing.

I can't say for certain however I will test this now, but it seems to me dropships are a LOT harder to kill now they they ever were before UNLESS you are using a railgun tank or railgun installation.

I was trying to swarm a DS the other day, the missiles did jack ****, any damage they did do the DS could easily rep. That was compounded by the fact swarms range is pathetic now.

With my forge gun I found that ok I could do reasonable damage but the DS would be long gone as soon as it took the first hit and again, they could rep the damage I could cause.

No to me it seems railguns are the only viable tactic to kill a DS unless the dropship pilot is a total moron.

I haven't been flying until recently now some of my skills are back up but I agree, Railguns are a big problem, not just for DS's but for fair all players.

The same can be said for snipers.

The problem is simple - The redline. We need it for deployment. We need a staging area. Fine.
Being able to shoot from the redline without any effective counter is fundamentally detrimental to the game. There is no risk - reward system. They are completely untouchable.

We should be able to use skill and tactics to locate distant threats, outmanoeuvre them and then bring them into a situation where we are rewarded for our clever gameplay by turning the tables on our attackers.

We need a mechanic that encourages players to engage fully onto the field. Perhaps a better reward system or a reduced damage from the redline. To get them out of hiding and make them fair game for all players.

Thought I'd chime in, you know me Judge so hit me up in squad about this

Railguns are currently the most effective counter to all vehicles, FACT

They will always be balanced against HAV's primarily, which means they will wreck all other forms of vehicle, so if you want to reduce its effectiveness against DS you're going to need to either have a counter available on them or remove HAV's ability to engage DS with the railgun,

You know I think HAV's are broken(I've told you so), also that I think AV received to high a nerf, herein lies the biggest problem to the current railgun issue, I can't whip out a forge gun easily to engage you anymore(because I'm not a great shot with it), or LoLswarms(range nerf/dmg nerf), heck I can't even fire upon you with small arms because LoLsmallarms, throw AV grenades doubt you'll be that low and my throwing arm isn't great.

However I can call in a 69k tank and blat you with that, from the relative safety of the redline !!!

What I see as the issues are:
1) Current AV is ineffective in most situations
2) HAV's are balanced against HAV's ((at least I think thats what CCP went for)also I don't think they are balanced)
3) Militia railgun tanks to easily accessabile

possible fixes:

1) buff current AV (least likely to work)
2) lower HAV's ability to engage higher objects. e.g. reduce turret elevation for railguns
3) Replace the Militia railgun on the Sica with a Large Militia Missile Launcher (MT-1)

Also redline issue, something needs to be addressed where damage inflicted and received in the redline, everyone dislikes redline snipers of all types, sorry all snipers its true.

Redline tanks are not automatically unstoppable. I've been on both sides of the redline game, and I've killed and been killed by rail tanks. Some guys will just run with a failing strategy and blow through 20 ADS in a match, and others find their inner killer instinct with a suicidal RE-packed LAV. Also, a no SP Sica can spawn camp the redline, but that's not nearly as fun.

Dropships have always annoyed me. They facilitate rooftop snipers (forge and rifles) - tactics I despise, and it's little different from redline camping/hiding. Same attitude. Pilots asked for a chance, they didn't like being threatened by infantry, so now we have to call in tanks to counter their cowardly tactics. I do it because I have to, and if I can discourage future harassment, that's a win-win. If these pilots had their way, I'd need to build a DS covered in REs to have a chance at killing another dropship. That would be silly, but nobody should feel safe anywhere on the battlefield.

If I am flying my ADS and I see a spawn uplink and a infantry near each other on a roof my first target is the uplink. Some times I get lucky and catch people just as they spawn into it, which has to suck for them but I'am not going to let em keep spawning up there.

Dropship pilots pfft - use tactics, hover low and use cover rather than just float around in an empty sky like a huge floating target LOL

Dropship pilots pfft - use tactics, hover low and use cover rather than just float around in an empty sky like a huge floating target LOL

Brah, do you even Dropship?