Point: A common complaint is that Dropships boost out of trouble and are hard to kill.
Counterpoint: Dropships have no other viable way of tanking damage, and are very easily killed if not incredibly careful.

We can change the assault swarm launcher to have fast, long range missiles so there is a way to chase dropships away, but pilots have also told us that sometimes infantry isn't rendered properly so they don't even appear to pilots before the missiles are hitting their dropship.

Please discuss, we want both sides to weigh in.

I support assault swarm launchers being changed for long range and high speed targets, as long as there is a tradeoff to DPS. Even without the sped boost module, an assault dropship can easily escape swarms as they currently.

Afterburners should follow the same format as other vehicle modules: high cooldown times at standard and faster cooldown times at higher tiers. Afterburner modules have a crazy low 10s cooldown at standard which can be abused to attack, retreat, and re-attack without much delay. Afterburners at standard need to have a base cooldown of around 45s at standard and no less than 25s at prototype.

For swarms, there's an huge gap in performance between standard and prototype and which makes standard and advanced swarms not very useful.

Another issue is how effective rep tanking incubi are; they can outrep the damage output of swarms easily, fly away with afterburners when there's too much AV, comeback after repping all the damage away in under 10s, and continue attacking.

Here are some stats (will make a spreadsheet with lots more information)

[Incubus A]
ADV AT-1 missile launcher
STD Afterburner
STD Heavy armor repairer
2 PRO Light armor repairer
Armor repair per second: 337.5 HP/s

[Incubus B]
PRO XT-1 missile launcher
STD Afterburner
ADV Heavy armor repairer
2 PRO Light armor repairer
Amor repair per second: 311.5 HP/s

An Ishukone assault forgegun with max out stats can deal a DPS of 515.6 when you factor in reloading and charge time, but because of the high alpha damage it would take around 6.75s with 3 shots to kill a rep tanked incubus if all the shots hit when you take into account its repair rate.

Basically vehicle armor reps are too effective (way better than shield regen also), they need a nerf and or a stacking penalty.

As it turns out, I found a bug that means the Forge Gun and Swarm weren't getting their proficiency skill bonuses against vehicle armour on HAVs and Dropships. I think I'll look at fixing that.

Alright, so here's the plan.

First things first: We're going ahead with the missile number change for the swarm launcher. You can see them at the bottom of this sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dRIiqkQK4S1_NmisVxjvaBgrEtMcX-D8qz0cR4d_fV4/edit#gid=1310924977

Second: We're reducing the cost of ADS to 250,000ISK

Third: We're changing the efficiency of swarm launchers to dropships from a flat 55% on shield and armour to standard resistances (80% for shields, 120%). We're also correcting the efficiency on their thrusters (their weak point) which will now also be changed to standard (100% for shields, 150% for armour)

Fourth: We're looking at lowering the minimum threshold to interrupt shield recharge from 102 to 80.

Fifth: While technically not a design change, we're fixing the proficiency skill for any weapon that is armour bonused not working against vehicles. This includes both swarms and forge guns.

Due to the massive change that number three is bringing, I won't want to make any further changes until I see how it evens out. If dropships start falling from the sky too quickly, we can look at lowering swarm efficiency against dropships again. If it seems to be fine, then we can look at making some swarm variants and further tweaks to the base swarm launcher (EM Swarm Launcher bonused by Amarr Commandos anyone?)

There are not enough likes to give if we get EM missiles xD

Too far Logibro, way way too far.

Yes, I'm aware that this change makes dropships much more vulnerable to swarm launchers. But this resistance issue has been causing a lot of other knock on issues that we can't even look at until it's been resolved.

I will definitely be keeping a very close eye on Dropships after Bravo.

A few things. Ill chart it up tonight. Post tomorrow when I have the numbers. But in a nutshell these changes are based of the numbers, like damage and efficiency. They do not account for how the battle actually is.

Hers iis just one example - impulse. Swarms knock us all over the place. Each missile hits 1 after the other and we cannot aim at the target. We can only shoot between volleys, and by adding more missiles we will likely have a tiny window to fight back.

Considering how I quite literally use every weapon & role in DUST, I'd be hard not to root for the items i have SP in. Should I take this as a compliment?

You may not have to lock onto the infantry, but you are instantly aware of his location the second he fires his swarms at you, allowing you to seek and destroy him, which isn't really hard once you get Caldari Assault Dropships III.



Yeah, nice try.

I've been flying Pythons for nearly 3 weeks now, and I can confidently say that while they do knock you around, they do not flip you completely over. Well unless your fighting multiple Swarm users, but that's a different story...

Exactly. You think we we just AB away now, Soon As i see that first shot I will run. Not fight. YOu will get less battles between swarms and dropships. Swarmers may find they get less kills and more frustrating fights.

Alright, small update. I had a number wrong somewhere that made it seem like less damage. Chew on this instead

Base 75% efficiency for swarms meaning:

60% against shields
90% against armour

75% against thruster shields
112.5% against thruster armour

Note that this only affects swarms when shooting all dropships.

This might not be a permanent move, as I might later decide to increase DS HP: if that happens, they'll move to standard 80/120 levels.

Again, it's your fault for sticking around building s and getting hit, that's a risk YOU were willing to take, and i used it to your loss.

Also, continue to splash kill me with impunity when i DON'T have Av, scrub.

We can do this all day in the Feedback thread, i don't mind being banned.

Touch+¬

However i'm almost always indoors.

Ahh, but you still go indoors, hence your dying to Mlt swarms VIA CRASHING!!!

Ha.

If by 'avoid' you mean using swarms, then 'i don't alwaus have them'(actually, i do. Because you guys plague every single match, and i get wonderful adrenaline by beating your entitled behinds into the ground, thus raising my payouts.)

If you meant 'dodge him' uhh.. Commando bro?

Also, anything LESS tanky than Comando is 1 shot, and lacks any relevant DPS or anti-air support weapons, so don't say 'bring other suits'

Curious observation ...

Bumped into the same Nyain San killsquad several times today in Ambush.
One of them was flying an ADS and another driving a Blaster Tank.
Having followed this thread, I was surprised to the former favoring Python over Incubus.

Nyain San is not known for running inferior gear.
Why would they opt to fly an inferior Bird?

Yay, because Forge Guns don't already make **** soup of Incubus @_@

WTB armor hardeners that aren't 100% worthless