|
|
| Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 1 post(s) |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
590
   |
Posted - 2014.06.16 20:21:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hey,
soooo, STD dropships. Have you seen one being used in a useful manner lately (after the first 60 seconds of a match, that is)?
I sure haven't.
At one point their inertia was increased to ludicrous levels and then everyone decided to forget about them completely. Not a good thing, if you ask me.
So, suggestion time!
Scenario A: The non-combat ADS
- Copy thrust and inertia from the ADS
- Keep the current CPU/PG
--> The std DS now moves swift enough to quickly pick people up and get out of trouble.
Scenario B: The flying freight train:
- Keep the current thrust and inertia.
- Increase CPU/PG by ~15 percent.
--> The std DS moves like flying snail but tanks a fair amount of damage before going down.
(The STD dropship can now also be a bit of a slow moving gunship if it sacrifices it's tank for offensive capabilities. Awesome!)
(For reference: My currently tankiest Myron fitting has 6600 ehp with two running enhanced hardeners. Things shouldn't get much tankier than that.)
Personally, I'd love to see scenario B happen. There'd be a slow moving flying tortoise that's being hunted by an hostile ADS while limping back into range of a friendly HAV, with the ADS being able to fly circles around the STD DS to avoid the fire from the gunners.
However, for a hotfix I guess scenario A is much more suitable. It's guaranteed to improve gameplay while being extremely easy to implement while having no real downsides that I can imagine.
|
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
590
|
Posted - 2014.06.17 14:48:00 -
[2] - Quote
MINA Longstrike wrote:Scenario A just leads to dropship ramming. That's a valid point. However I'm not talking about MLT dropships.
Though I still have to see a reason as to why an ADS hull costs over 7 times more than a STD DS...
A useful STD DS should definitely become more expensive. Around the 100k mark for the hull, I think.
Vitharr Foebane wrote:I say up the WP for transport assists to a noticable level and give WP for MCRU spawn as its pretty much a built in uplink and it should reward you like one Those are sound suggestions and I support them both, but personally I'd just continue to use an ADS with a mCRU instead of a standard DS. Any suggestion towards improving the utility of STD dropships?
Bojo The Mighty wrote:CCP had dropships frickin down in chromosome. I shed a tear every time I think back of the handling back then...  At least I knew where the thrusters were pointing without looking at them...
Bojo The Mighty wrote:A better armed DS and a better handling DS could go the distance. Is that a suggestion towards a specific change? In that case, please elaborate. Should the handling be equal to an ADS? Or noticeably worse? Should their defensive or offensive powers be boosted? |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
602
|
Posted - 2014.06.20 23:26:00 -
[3] - Quote
Here's my current verdict:
Standard dropships are actually viable under the current stats, with some annoyances keeping them from being popular. So I'll redact my statements from before and conclude that no direct buff is necessary at all. Changes are required though, so please read on.
First, concerning tanking here's the fitting I used most of the time on my Myron:
- 1x Basic Afterburner
- 1x Enhanced Heavy Shield Extender
- 2x Complex Shield Hardener
- 2x Complex Powergrid
- No turrets
In fair weather conditions the hardeners can by cycled. That's 5600 ehp for 60 seconds and 15 seconds cool down.
When AV is present activate both hardeners whenever picking up people. That's 8000 ehp for 30 seconds at a 45 second cool down.
This means that, concerning ehp, this fit can easily stand up to a full clip from a IAFG or 4 shots from a particle cannon without going down. On the other hand this fitting has no offensive capabilities at all. Seems balanced.
If you want to add a protoype missile launcher to the above fitting you have to downgrade to a basic Heavy Shield Extender. This puts the fitting at 4700 ehp with cycled hardeners or 6700 ehp with both active. This will still stand up to 4 shots from a standard railgun or advanced forgegun, but the operation time is severely limited (30 seconds for descend, attack and disengagement). Consider that using an afterburner to get out of range takes the full 10 seconds of boost that the basic one applies. Standard dropships really are that slow.
My verdict is that these numbers make standard (shield) dropships very viable, if you only look at the effective hitpoints that can be achieved.
Now as to why I wouldn't suggest anyone to actually use a standard DS: Knockback
The fitting without turrets has so far not been destroyed once on the basis of damage applied, but countless times due to being flipped over. Swarms and railguns can both be very difficult to handle when you're close to the ground, such as it happens when you try to pick up people. A barrage from a missile HAV once turned my dropship right on its back when I was looking to see how well my fitting would stand up to an attack from a missile HAV. Turned out I crashed into the ground at ~80% shields intact.
Right now I'd say picking up people isn't viable until knockback is reduced drastically.
There are countless other gripes I have about standard dropships, but I don't want to take away from what I think is the main problem right now. I'm now firmly in the "increase transport assist ratio"-camp though. |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
621
|
Posted - 2014.06.25 17:07:00 -
[4] - Quote
Kurai-Ronin wrote:All dropships weren't really made to actually attack they were made for transport. Read the dropship description. If there was less knockback and a better transport assist ratio we'd actually have a chance of seeing dropships being used for transportation. |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
720
|
Posted - 2014.09.09 16:14:00 -
[5] - Quote
I've finally specced into the Grimsnes and given that a try. So here are my thoughts on it's relation to the Myron:
The thing is much more useful in a public setting than a Myron. It can fit a good passive tank (5600 hp) while having an afterburner, a CRU and two turrets. With STD level armament the package comes in at just shy of 120k, so in terms of DS that's cheap as chips.
Downside is that I didn't fit a repper. The train of thought was: If there's AV I need all the buffer tank I can get. If there's no AV I don't need a repper. This is because with a slow boat like the Grimsnes you will always eat a minimum of 3 FG shells once somebody starts to shoot at you. Since with NDSs the gun operator is separate from the pilot you will also need to hover comparatively slowly. There is thus quite simply no evasion going to happen in that flying brick. I just fit a repairer on my pilot suit and stop by the safest supply depot once in a while.
If Rattati's hp-buff goes through I will likely fit a repper while keeping total hp about the same as it is right now.
The fact that the tank is passive is very valuable. As long as no AV is present I can linger all I want. While I linger people can spawn at my CRU and exit to cap points or use the turrets to apply covering fire (a favorite among people in MLT suits due to the comparative safety of the DS hull).
The Myron in comparison is much better at straight up delivery-missions (at 8800 ehp for 30 seconds without armament), but can't linger like the Grimsnes can. Also it's extremely difficult to fit a CRU to a Myron due to the fact that CRUs are high-slot items. Thus for me the Grimsnes is much better at transporting people and being a gunboat in pubs. Against competitive AV I would choose the Myron though. Especially after the likely hp buff a ~8k ehp platform for an XT missile launcher is going to be very useful. An IAFG will not protect you. An Incubus will, though. 
The transport assist WP rewards are still very poor. How come you earn 70% of the WP for a vehicle kill assist but only 15% for a transport assist? I'd still suggest raising the quota to 25%. Bring it back down if NDSs become too popular, though I don't see that happening. |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
723
|
Posted - 2014.09.10 13:34:00 -
[6] - Quote
CCP Rattati wrote:We are already cutting mCRU down, and increasing PG/CPU by 10%, eHP around 1000. I feel very strongly about this: Don't overbuff NDSs.
I remember a time where NDSs were straight up invinceable to the point where a full team of AV (16 people with swarms and FGs) would be driven to their redline by a single Myron. I don't want to repeat that.
Right now I think NDSs are underappreciated for what they can actually do. If you buff their hp a proficient squad will be able to use them to devastating effect. If you proceed to buff them even more they may dominate pubs.
I'm particularly opposed to buffing CPU/PG or reducing small turret fitting requirements. Right now an NDS has to choose carefully between armament and tank. If you grant free raw hp and PG on top we will see ~8k hp platforms with PRO turrets. A PRO missile launcher one-shots MLT suits from 150 meters away with splash only. A FGer can tank 3 damage modded small railgun shots, that's 1.5 seconds after the gunner has put his sights on the heavy. All that on a platform that takes about 15 seconds to kill with an IAFG. Save the CPU/PG buff for later. There will always be a next hotfix, I hope.
(The numbers are estimates for what might happen based on my experience and numbers from protofits.com - I'm not being conservative though to show the possibilities.)
I specifically agreed to the raw hp buff because I prefer it over the CPU/PG buff. Don't do both.
CCP Rattati wrote:I see from the data that the Myrons is unpopular and worse performing than the Python. Anything simple and smart to boost it a little? The Myron in a nutshell:
- Can't fit a CRU because of highslot.
- Fares very badly during "fair weather" conditions because it has to preemptively cycle hardeners and retreat when hardeners are down, even if no AV is present.
- Fares very well during "bad weather" conditions because it basically laughs at AV while hardeners are up.
This is very fair, if you ask me. However it isn't a very useful set of traits for pubs. Reevaluate after the hp buff. With 1000 hp more in the shields a Myron may cycle hardeners and be able to stay in the field for much longer.
Apart from that the Myron would over-proportionally benefit from a buff to agility (not straight line speed). With shield tanks you want to evade as much as possible so you can regenerate quickly. This sounds like a good avenue to buff the Myron without buffing it's offensive capabilities, if proven necessary.
CCP Rattati wrote:We also want to buff the transport WP. Thumbs up from me. 25% is my suggestion and also upper limit.
[Edit] I realize that these days my position on how to proceed with NDSs is directly opposed to what I thought 3 months ago. I think you can see in my posts though that this change of opinion is based on actual experience. Sorry for the confusion to anyone who decided to only read the first post. |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
726
|
Posted - 2014.09.10 16:26:00 -
[7] - Quote
Soraya Xel wrote:I'm not sure the standard DS needs any downsides added to compensate for a buff. I feel it's underpowered. I'd love to see the DS tankier than it is now, transport WPs way up, and ideally, a bigger incentive for MCRU use. Standard DSes need to be more appealing than they are now.
I think the standard DS is more balanced in design than the HAV or the ADS: It's more powerful than infantry, but it requires teamwork (a second player) if you want to shoot things with it. I am 100% comfortable with DS buffs.
Also, bear in mind, part of the HP buff is to compensate for buffing swarms as well. I got around to adding up the numbers:
With the 1k hp buff alone my Myron will have ~9200 ehp while hardened with a PRO missile turret and an afterburner equipped. Remember that an IAFG only has 6000 damage in a clip (before damage mods and skills). Even with the hardeners cycled that's not enough to kill it (well, barely  ). Add 10% CPU/PG and I'll add a railgun too so that we can fend off an incoming Incubus.
I'm not saying that there's no counter to that. I am saying however that after those changes a NDS will be very far from underpowered. I'd prefer to get there in two steps rather than one big leap. So I stand by my assertion that only one thing should be buffed at a time, preferably the raw hp since those are guaranteed not to have negative side-effects like triple-hardeners repping through damage (remember when that was possible on HAVs? Lots of fun...). |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
726
|
Posted - 2014.09.10 18:37:00 -
[8] - Quote
A quick additional feature request:
Enhanced and complex mCRUs with reduced spawn timers please. Look at drop uplinks for stats. |
Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
750
|
Posted - 2014.09.24 19:31:00 -
[9] - Quote
Hey,
so I gave the changes of hotfix delta a quick go:
- I can construct an armed Myron that tops out at ~11k ehp for 30 seconds. Even an IAFG takes an estimated 25 seconds to chew through that. I wonder if anyone can recruit a squad to utilize these.
- I will be using the Grimsnes a lot more. mCRU, two guns, cpx AB, cpx reps, 6500 hp passive. Takes a dmg-modded max-skilled IAFG to kill in one clip.
BTW, next random feature request:
Make the Kaalakiota Recon Dropship a Myron instead of a Viper. I don't think many people want to buy a MLT dropship at 220 AUR. Even if it looks absolutely stunning.
Better yet, sell an unfitted version of it for ~120 AUR. People will want to fit it themselves anyway.
(BTW, at that price the conversion rate of AUR to ISK would be about the same as for unfitted 'Neo' proto suits.)
A similarly awesome looking Grimsnes would be welcome as well. |
|
|
| |
|