.... I've had SO much fun reading these threads during these first 2014 days, but I have to curb myself and get back to my dropships, so this may be my last post for a long while.

Seriously, I sympathize with your posts here. I DO. But.... honestly I've seen SO MANY RDV mishaps (from others and from myself), since the May release. And I call them "mishaps" because that's the term the US Navy uses when, among other things, they have to assess an incident as human-director's error, or mechanical error.

Almost ALL (including my own, LOL) have really been director's error, and not a design error that warrants CCP fixing the mechanics of the RDV beyond it's obvious game-design limitations.

Okay, I just said a mouthful of stuff in the last sentence, that sounds like I belong in JAG with Catherine Bell (GOD, I wish my lips were like hers--I was SO jealous of her looks!). Let me explain:

The RDV (at least the Caldari one we're all using) is a PIG of a oversized carrier--it can't shoulder down between buildings-n-hillslopes (so it tends to stop at the height of the higher obstacle and UNCOUPLE from there)...it can't possibly swing its fat self AROUND towers and lightposts (so it TENDS to approach over the lowest of the obstacles and flies a pretty-straight line during the stages when it's visible).... and (players successfully requested REMOVAL of the ETA-queing order that we had at the May release, so now) when simultaneously called, two RDV deliveries will obediently collide and compete over the same drop site and cause more losses than the Shiigeru)...
...none of these design constraints are a problem of course, unless we erroneously call them down RIGHT INTO these constraint windows.

And... that's what I see players mostly do! Not to be harsh, but,..Ohh... we are the directors and it's our error. It's like when you can SWEAR to yourself that you're not dropping your posture in a Yoga position, but your instructor is THERE and he sees that you ARE, and you actually aren't aware of it.

I've listened to a few vehicle vets who tracked how they were causing their own RDV mishaps, and I saw them reduce their losses to practically zero just by doing a "clean" drop-call (that means no calls under MCCs, on cutsie landing pads, or near active mercs, or near vertical stuff closer than the full length of a Caldari RDV). When I copied what they do, I had ZERO losses over 7 months (that's 130 RDV drops a month my habit)--if I deliberately stray from a clean drop-call, I make sure I'm only calling a dent-friendly LAV, because I expect a foul delivery--and sure enough the RDV gets constrained, has to uncouple my LAV from 20+ feet, and I expected it.

I'm sorry to sound like I'm protecting the RDV script. It's not really broken, it comes with gameplay limits. In a rough game like this, it adds fun challenge if I get punished for screwing up under my own pressure and eagerness. JUST SO LONG AS IT'S A GAME, LOL!


ONE time I DID call a DS delivery down between building-n-hillslope: easy gap for me to hotdog a RDV craft down into if I were controlling it--but an RDV is not a hotdog, it's an automated PIG. So it dangled my vehicle at 30 feet for 30 seconds and didn't uncouple until a happy railgunner hosed it to death...and I deserved that for placing my order there.