I've lost over 400,000,000 ISK to RDV's spawning inside me with no warning. 1 hit ko

That's something to think about first.

Assault, transport or a mix?

Don't fly a drop ship!

Drop ships are for cowards who fear fighting fairly! They just want to hide in a vehicle and kill people who can't fight back! They disgust me!

Get a tank instead~

tanks will be nerfed
put one level into assault dropships and you unlock both
try both
I prefer the python
more nimble

Your probably better off starting armor, you can hit things without exploding. Good for new pilots getting the feel for their craft. Dropshipping is pretty hard, especially with rail tanks. Not sure if I would recommend dipping your toes on it. You may regret the spent sp if your hearts not set on flying. I'd also recommend watching some of judge radamantheus's videos, they will help you learn the controls.

Holy, this is hard. I tried both the MLT shield and armor dropships. The armor was like flying a giant tour bus on ice in the sky. The shield was more manageable, but I had trouble getting it to stop to land it. My first dropship made it 20m off the ground before hitting a hill and popping. My second dropship was, apparently, flown AGAINST my own corporation and popped by a blaster.

Had a match with a few Ancient Exiles in it. I got it to the enemy home point but couldn't land it, so was doing backflips in the sky, ping ponging off the ground and buildings until they popped my ship. I hopped in a tank and captured all the points I could with Code Breakers. We won by a sliver of MCC health 10 clones from being cloned. Tanks are irresistible. I'm an addict.

I was thinking of dumping it into tanks, as usual. Now I'm thinking that tanks are getting stale and are good enough, anyway, without that extra SP. Should I try to use Dropships? If so, would you recommend shield or armor as a beginner?

Greetings Borne, and (along with other warnings posted here) Pvt Numnutz hits the target issue on the nose. Your 1mill SP is nearly NOTHING to feel confident about, if you plan to experiment and taste-train DS operations. Of all the side-roles (side-roles?) in this game, Dropships is the one that actually FEELS like a professionally-vested career.

Countless hours of practice on the controller hand coordination = nearly 1 mill ISK in crashed or shot-down vehicles.

Skillbooks for the modules (whatever DS you settle on is weak as a baby without MODULES to offer it protection), cost more ISK than the vehicles you'll lose during aerial practice.

Neural implant engineering knowledge (whatever modules you purchase only OFFER you protection---they won't unlock or run at the performance levels you need from them without buying high skills in engineering/propulsion/pg-cpu tinkering/shield & amour/ etc), cost more than 1mill SP.
My SP tuition was around 6 - 7 mill SP on dropship alone. IRS laughs at me if I try to submit it as deductible expenses. Not deductible--are you kidding me?!

Goodness knows, in all the TON of dropship drivers in this game, we can STILL use genuinely good players, because it IS rare to be a good one (the lion's share of us who brag the loudest, TEND to fly like rubbish in compared to the few names you never find bragging). So Heaven Bless you if you really want to try it and grind, Borne... hope you become an addition to the best of us.

...But to Yoda, listen you must Padawan. This path you take,...Regret you may...

The militia ships are garbage. They have an automatic stabilizing feature which pretty much kills their agility. I've spent 90 million ISK and 3.5 million SP on ships since 1.7 came out and I now consider myself a competent pilot and can really control my Pythons but still can't properly land a Viper. The best ships by a very large margin to fly are the assaults. They have the agility you need to maneuver with the Incubus being the more stable of the two. The Python has the instability you need for really crazy stuff but its harder to aim.

use throwaway militia vipers, to learn how to fly.
put NOTHING in them.

Note that this requires zero SP investment.

Once you've actually learned how to fly relyably... maybe 50 dropships later :D .. then consider whether you really want to skill into assaults.

Note, that while just flying the thing is difficult.. trying to HIT something from an assault dropship as a pilot, is even more difficult.
Figure you'll blow a couple million more ISK getting that down.
Your worst enemy will not be forge guns. It will not be rail tanks. It will be YOU, as you crash into things attempting to use the pilot gun :D