Now, before you read this know I have had many experiences with Assault Dropships, I have flown them, I have forged them, I have railed them, and I have tried to swarms them. Also know that I have been in way to many PCs against TeamPlayers and Escrow Removal and Acquisition for you to try to argue that they are even remotely underpowered.

First of all, I personally think that assault dropships should be glass cannons, they do good DPS but they can be easily taken out by a maxed skill forge gunner when a single mistake is made on the pilots end. Right now, I do not see this. I am quite possibly one of the most clumsy dropship pilots in the, I can't even tell you how many times I've ran into buildings while trying to escape AV/Rails and even though I ran into the building I still got away. I'm not saying I'm a bad pilot, I'm just a clumsy one, however, I should get punished for being as clumsy as I am.

Second, I have been in many PCs against TeamPlayers and Escrow Removal and Acquisition where they brought in Sir Snugglz (best dropship pilot in the game), now yes, I know Sir Snugglz is maxed out in dropships, but does that mean we can't kill him with our maxed out forge guns, rail tanks, and lolSwarms? By nerfing the railgun range to 300 CCP has indirectly buffed the assault dropship greatly. Now, at any given moment an assault dropship can appear above you and there is absolutely no counter to that, no matter how far you move, how much you try to escape, they will find you, and they will kill you.

Now, here is the part that needs looking at: I got two hits of on one of the assault dropships in a PC (I was in a rail tank, not in the redline). When I hit said dropship pilot with Particle Accelerator twice, he just flew up for 10 seconds, and next thing I know I'm getting pounded by an assault dropship. I activate my hardeners, I try to escape to the redline, but even with my hardeners on I was just getting shredded by this guy. While you may be thinking to yourself, oh, just get the redline and kill him from there, after all it is PC, all that matters is the win. However, this does not work because the railgun range is 300 meters now, and even if we do get a shot on them they just fly up and end up on top of the railtank, absolutely annihilating it.

So you may say get some forgers to take them out, but this also, does not work! Due to assault dropship's great maneuverability and the fact they can take two people in sync shooting two maxed Ishukone Assault Forge gun rounds and still fly away, they now have no good counter! Except for of course you want to try to ram them, which is next to impossible judging on how easily I can avoid dropships ramming me when I'm piloting.

Wow, sorry about that wall of text there. Here you go:

TL;DR: Assault dropships take too much damage while still being able to get away, while they still have very high DPS.