If you want to see dropships run away more, making all tiers fire the same number of missiles is a great way to do it. It also adds a very large imbalance into the engagement. The swarm player can see my vehicle type just by looking. He can see my HP with a target lock. He knows exactly what he is engaging.

I on the other hand have no idea at all Until after I am hit. Which is stupid. Infantry can see the color of a suit and a gun and gauge, before combat begins, the nature of the combat. As a pilot I fly at an empty roof that then shoots swarms at me. The shooter then renders and is a little dot. After he hits me I know what sort of weapon he is using. My ability to engage is reduced.

Ill put up some charts for you later to show the charlie changes over the Bravo. In summary though Its a decent buff to the swarm player as a class.

I have a question for those saying it is a buff or a nerf. If a python, the best build you can imagine, was sat landed with no pilot. How many militia swarm vollys would it take to kill it? how about proto swarms? assume bothe swarmers have no swarm kills, just the weapon damage?

For example how many militia swarm hits in Bravo how many in Charlie?

Engaging another enemy does tell you what weapon he has. Blue flashes means rail rifle, sharp bursts means combat rifle, one long smoke trail means sniper, and long yellow stream means scrambler and a long line is laser. Its very easy to tell what weapon you enemy is using and its generaly very easy to differentiate between the races, as well as the classes i.e the logis scouts assaults and the heavies. All the weapons are clearly distinguishable by thier own sounds and bullet trail. Easy to distguish asault variants from tactical variants and so on. Also infantry has cover to hide behind and when you aim directly at someone you can read his suit stats (race, class and wither std basic or proto) if you cant already identify by the colors of the suit.

The difference is that on the ground, infantry render at the same rate. I see you and you see me. The closest example for infantry as to what pilots go through is the cloaked scout debate. People were pissed at being shot by an invisble scout. So CCP changed it so scouts supposedly cannot shoot while cloaked because it was an unfair advantage. With dropships your first warning that there is even a swarm launcher on the field firing at you is either getting hit, or watching missiles flying through the air one their way to hit you. (we engage between 50 - 80m max swarms still chase us for 400M). The swarmer themself is impossible to identify unless you watch him firing missiles at you, because infantry render for dropships at a much smaller range than dropships render for infantry. The only way to defend yourself is to run away or kill him. The only way to gauge how dangerous he is (as things stand now about half a million isk vs at best a 200 K proto suit) is by number of missiles. wyrokamis eat my dropship alive. Heck it tricky fighting just one ADV swarm launcher, 2 and i am out the area pronto. Since all forge guns are deadly i steer clear whenever i see a blue flash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxwLQAFLbJM&list=UUy11xToip47aIW0M9TSOKrQ

Swarms from the ADS point of veiw, explains much better than i can.

Its so hard for infantry only players to comprehend, because you dont have to fight autolocking sniper rounds and your only option is to sprint 400 meters away without cover.

The most common thing i hear on comms with other pilots or said on comms when i'm flying : GTFO.