I think Ghaz/Dalton were referring to Large Railguns. Ghaz did the maths and showed that a Hardened, Plated Incubus couldn't stand up to three hits from a Railgun at ADV/PRO level, and I believe that is without even factoring in pre-Hotfix Bravo damage mods (30%, no stacking penalties) though maybe he was including them.

Forge Guns certainly are not nearly as capable against a dropship as a Railgun, partly this is due to the Incubus being able to reach ungodly amounts of reps and partly due to agility allowing a good pilot to bob and weave. I believe Hotfix Bravo will alleviate the FG/ADS balance somewhat through two things:
- they are fixing the bug that meant Proficiency did not apply to Swarms/FGs
- Heavy Armour Repairers are losing a good chunk of HP/S

That should go a long way towards balancing ADS/infantry AV balance, and Rattati and Logibro have been pretty awesome on the current round of Hotfixes so far.

I think Ghaz/Dalton were referring to Large Railguns. Ghaz did the maths and showed that a Hardened, Plated Incubus couldn't stand up to three hits from a Railgun at ADV/PRO level, and I believe that is without even factoring in pre-Hotfix Bravo damage mods (30%, no stacking penalties) though maybe he was including them.

Forge Guns certainly are not nearly as capable against a dropship as a Railgun, partly this is due to the Incubus being able to reach ungodly amounts of reps and partly due to agility allowing a good pilot to bob and weave. I believe Hotfix Bravo will alleviate the FG/ADS balance somewhat through two things:
- they are fixing the bug that meant Proficiency did not apply to Swarms/FGs
- Heavy Armour Repairers are losing a good chunk of HP/S

That should go a long way towards balancing ADS/infantry AV balance, and Rattati and Logibro have been pretty awesome on the current round of Hotfixes so far.

You are correct that a well fitted ADS vs a Proto turret equals a "3 shot game" for the most part. In fairness, with a pilot who has any skill getting those shots to hit home in the critical time window is particularly tough. ADS pilots have a lot of tactical advantages that are extremely difficult to overcome.
.

so basically give railguns back their range so you can sit in the redline and 2 shot any vehicle you see without risking a tank, you can have the range back when my dropship is allowed to stay in your redline for longer than 20 seconds.

Why would I bother to read the entire thread, rail tankers are only interested in 2 things, nuking everything and doing it from safety.

You might feel this is true but you also have to understand that dropships are a lot easier to spot. There is a lot less cover in the air than there is for a ground vehicle. We are openly exposed so our ability to evade incoming hits is the balancing aspect. ADS pilots alone don't have the strength to kill a tank as fast as a tank can kill us so most of the time and while we pose a low/moderate threat to tanks as individual pilots, tanks pose an enormous threat to us. Even when difficult to hit an experienced tanker will most likely kill us in third hit. These encounters usually go as follows and usually happen during ADS attacking infantry or unaware: The first hit is the warning shot. This shot, most of the times, lets you know you are the target. The second is always the freebie, it comes in almost always before/when you are reacting and the third is where the tankers true skill comes into play; we have already been warned, we have already reacted and are on our way to safety usually moving at high speed.

Even with the proposed changes a proto rail turret can still kill a proto ads in 3 shots with a basic damage mod and most vanilla builds without one.

The combination of a hardener and afterburner makes DS's a very tough kill if the pilot has any thing on the ball. I will absolutely grant you that it's probably the most skill intensive (real skill not SP) activities in the game and that that skill should be rewarded.

Quick additional note, i noticed the discussion on missile turrets being the optimized anti-air platform. I could get behind that idea and I would also say that if we go with that logic the Swarm missile launcher needs to be noticeably more effective against DS.