PS. As I have mostly used Wiyrkomi SL with Minmatar Commando, I seem to notice slower lock-on on CBR-7 SL when using it. Which is weird because I thought that my LVL 5 skill should account for the lock on regardless of the meta level of SL used.

I'm fine with Swarm changes. They need to be able to catch up to the extremely agile ADS in their current format.

Afterburner stuff :

A duration bonus doesn't particularly help here. You mentioned it yourself, the ADS with an Afterburner can get out of dodge extremely quickly and that fact isn't going to change regardless of whether or not the Afterburner has a duration of 10 seconds or 20 seconds. They'll be far removed from Swarm range in the first 5 in most cases and they'll need to slow down in order to effectively take on infantry in a different location.

Fuel Injector :

I'm not sure what the motivation for changing this module is. The reasoning for the Afterburner stuff is clear, the ADS is an extremely mobile weapons platform that becomes even more so when afterburners are added to the mix. The cooldown for the Afterburner is such that one never really has to worry about "wasting" its use because, with a 10 second cooldown, you're almost always ready to boost again at a moment's notice. The fuel injector though? Its cooldown is already triple that of the Afterburners at 30 seconds and, unlike the Afterburners, one isn't avoiding guided AV with the fuel injectors activated, they can still be targeted and hit fairly easily. And again, I feel like a duration bonus isn't all that helpful for the situations in which one will actually activate these modules. More likely you'll find that people will turn them on, get away from whomever is firing on them, and then immediately turn them off to start the cooldown timer again.

Afterburner/Fuel Injector Tiers :

The same issue I brought up in my Vehicle Scanner thread is present with the Afterburner and Fuel Injector modules. Namely that there's still very little incentive in going out and using the higher tiered variants of these modules due to a combination of prohibitive fitting costs and a lack of substantial gain for what they pay in having a weaker fit or a more expensive vehicle. I hope that this is addressed in future hotfixes.

Some ideas for addressing this off the top of my head include ...
Fuel Injectors or Afterburners giving a noticeably more substantial boosting effect across tiers ... that's all I got.

NDS eHP :

No complaints from me. They needed something.

Also, any word on buffing CPU/PG on the STD DSs? The hp buff is fine but it's still hard to fit them with decent turrets and a viable tank.

Also, will the +1000 hp be to the vehicle's specific tank or spread to both shield and armor?

Change #1 would put things into a position where since the AB can still allow ADSs to out-run Swarms, any Pilot who's caught by surprise will still be able to evade, despite his failure to be aware of the situation.

In short, that wouldn't solve anything.

Cooldown numbers seem fair. Are there still plans to make it so that each tier gives more of a speed boost? Because I'll reiterate what I said before hand, a cooldown reduction (especially of only 10 seconds between STD and PRO) alone won't justify the increased cost both in ISK and in the hit you'll take on your fitting. There needs to be a more tangible difference in the tiers of these modules (... and Vehicle Active Scanners) or else the fitting requirements for these modules need to be rebalanced.

In any case the price looks good. This combined with the small turret price reduction will easily cut my ADS fits in half and will undoubtedly incentivize my use of PRO small turrets in LAVs as well.

When those swarm changes go trough then the ADS will become just a flying coffin and a nonfactor in every aspect. All it needs is a cloaked scout with a swarm launcher and there goes the dropship up in flames. They wont be aible to take damage and aswell not be capable to avoid it.

Allright lets start this then. Lets assume we got a scout with a proto swarm launcher, 2DMG mods and proficency 5 into it. Base damage from swarms will be then at 1572HP. Times 3 is 4716HP damage which you cannot avoid oh and thats omni damage without damage boost vs armor or damage penalty vs shields (+/- 20%). So lets see how much damage it would cause vs a incubus (armor tank) and a python (shield tank).

Armor damage: 5659 HP damage with 3 volleys
shield damage: 3772 HP damage with 3 volleys

So lets put this in perspective with how much HP you can squeeze out of both dropships:
Incubus fit
Python

The Incubus got a max HP of about 5197ehp
The python has a max HP of 3955ehp

The incubus will die allready due to the high damage output alone and the little bit of shields wont save it. You might would think that going for the python would be a better idea but as soon the shields are breaking the damage gets a boost vs armor and its going to crash with its nose into the ground. Oh and please ignore the warning that PG is not sufficent on the right. The site is bugged so that PG upgrades dont add to the PG of the fit.

So whats going to happend is that a ADS wont be capable to avoid beeing blowed up without a chance to escape the swarms. Most of the time pilots hit the AB when they have beeing hit with the 1st volley but with the changes that will be too late cause 2 more are incoming and are granted to hit.

Ive though swarms where supposed to get a speed buff so that they are capable to catch AB dropships? Or did that concept got scrapped and i didnt noticed it? In your OP youve stated that swarms max speed will be faster then a ADS and the acceleration will aswell be buffed.

Some math.

Currently, swarms go 50m/s. ADS top speed (both Python and Incubus) is 200km/h according to the game stats info when I hit triangle in the market. So let's change that number into m/s so we can effectively compare.

Easiest part is changing kilometers to meters. 200 x 1000 meters to the kilometer nets us 200,000 meters per hour. Now, there are 3600 seconds in an hour (60 minutes in an hour times 60 seconds in a minute) so by dividing 200,000 by 3600 we get 55.556 m/s (rounded to the nearest thousandths place) top speed for dropships. Afterburners do not increase top speed; they simply increase acceleration greatly, meaning we can hit this top speed much easier. Video of how afterburner does not increase top speed. Also to Atiim, here is undeniable proof of the invisible swarms. Changing swarms to 60m/s will mean dropships can never outrun them; there top speed, afterburner or not, is 55.556 m/s.

We need that speed to escape the killing blow. We can point out how the most tanked Python or Incubus can take this many hits, but should those be the only viable fits? And notice how none of them have gunners, which means less teamwork and more people being solo, which is part of the complaints as well. Also notice how they cannot even make there single turret proto, meaning that they are gimped in PC where everyone is running proto modules, and especially so against anything that isn't a scout. Also note how they assume one swarmer. One swarmer against the maximum possible tanked ADS can almost down it solo as is. Now, anything not the fits listed will go down to that 3rd swarm.

The nerf to afterburner cooldown is justified. I can return to the fight far more quickly than I should be able to. But as the video shows, swarms pop in and out of rendering, as do the swarm users themselves. Hiding behind structures is mentioned as a means to avoid the new swarms, but not all maps have structures we can reach in time before that third volley hits. The afterburner is our only means of surviving. Invisible swarms, invisible swarmers and forgers, lack of things to hide behind, our only way to save our dropships is to outrange the AV and come back at a better angle or have infantry push them off for us. We need that speed. I ask you to change the afterburner cooldown, as that is completely justified. But I also ask you wait on the swarm speed changes until you see how the afterburner nerf pans out. Small, incremental changes like you said.

Except in Delta, the Swarms will catch you. That's kinda my point. Unless the tracking nerf is sufficient to make evading a real possibility, we're just going to get hosed whenever a Swarmer pos up.

Watch the video that Tesfa and I linked to in the above posts: that video will demonstrate how and why Swarms aren't actually outrun by ADS, rather that ADSs reach their top speed quicker. The only thing to be said for Swarm/ADS speed is that the ADS can scale lock-on range quickly, but this has very little to do with the Afterburner anyway: most engagements take place at a range of about 60-80m, meaning the dropship only has to travel 100m or so to escape lock-on range. That distance is covered very quickly, usually regardless of vehicle (HAVs and LAVs both also run this distance in a very short time), which means that an ADS that runs is usually facing only the volleys launched before it runs, which is almost always two but mstill fairly often three.

Essentially, ADSs don't outrun Swarms, they outrange them (ie, get ahead of them and stay ahead until they run out of fuel) which is a key difference. With the proposed changes to swarm speed/acceleration, an ADS will almost never escape a swarm volley, because Afterburners do not increase top speed, meaning that they will get hit by two volleys and almost certainly by three.



If price shouldn't be an issue, then a much greater price drop should not be an issue. 200-300k for a fully fitted (solo) ADS is still expensive, but it would mean that pilots are not getting shafted for several battles by losing a single ship. Price not being factor cuts both ways: if price doesn't make something better, then why is it more expensive? Plain and simple, why is that question so difficult for some people to answer?

Now, tell me what can a pilot do against a lock-on, auto-tracking weapon that they cannot outrun? We have speed as an advantage, which we are losing from the proposal; we have resilience, which is essentially sufficient to survive the first two hits and give us the opportunity to react, but then we still have to absorb more damage before we even acquire our enemy and we have very little to no cover depending on the map/how well the Swarmer has positioned.

What can a pilot do if: there's nowhere to hide and we cannot escape using speed?



Tell me, what manoeuvres will help? The Swarms will still track you, they fly faster than you and then you still have an enemy to deal with who has exactly the same advantage next time (assuming you survive somehow) if you try and engage.

I am incredibly shaky on this kind of maths, so I'll accept this since Judge has his charts made up so clearly. From what I understand, it's the low acceleration of Swarms that give ADSs (with Afterburner) the advantage: so why increase the top speed? If the Swarms get an acceleration increase, surely that is the solution to get more hits with a Swarm Launcher?

But bear in mind that Swarms have the first mover advantage, which in this situation is meaning that the first volley hits, with no reaction from the ADS and the second will have travel to time/acceleration behind it already. Though honestly, if Swarms had a 5ms initial velocity then a 25ms/s acceleration, would that not mean that an ADS with Afterburner will definitely get hit twice and have a great likelihood of getting hit the third time? Wouldn't increasing acceleration be a much better move?

ADSs need a little reining in, but little is the operative word.



Both changes are targeting the issue: that ADSs are too effective, one by increasing the out-of-combat window (reasonable) and the other by increasing the effectiveness of the most common and most simple to use weapon in the game.

Again Rattati, have you piloted an ADS? Actually, have you piloted a NDS? I implore you to try it: hell, if you're online at any time today, I'll happily drop in ADSs for you, fit however you like, so you can try flying one. I'll happily spend all of my (measly) ISK and stockpiled dropships so you can see this how we (ADS pilots) do. I don't say this because Swarm speed increases will null and void dropships like the old 400m lock-on ones did, but with the proposed changes we're looking at ADSs that will have to be twitchier than ever (ie, run at the first sign of trouble or die) and any ADS that comes under fire will be forced to retreat for around 3x or more the length they used to, essentially marginalising the presence of any ADS if one or two people have a Swarm Launcher on them.



No offence, but that shows some serious naivety.
Anecdotally, a Swarm user will have fired one volley certainly; have likely fired the second; and there's a good likelihood of the Swarmer locking-on with the third by the time the ADS pilot can react to the threat.

With Operation 5, locking-on three times takes 3.15s (1.4 base x 0.75 + any user delay): so it takes around 4s to have locked and fired three volleys (except the first lock-on timer is irrelevant since we do not know there is a Swarmer until launch/hit - so we're looking at 2.1 lock-on time, so probably about 2.5s to launch all three volleys once the first has established lock-on), in which time an ADS is supposed to comprehend the threat (human reaction time, so roughly .25s), know where the AV is positioned (which, as established, has many problems thanks to rendering) from this first hit, then move behind the appropriate building/obstruction, assuming that there is one.

Then there is the factor of the AV player's skill: how did they position? Are they on a building that negates the available cover? How hard are they hitting? All of this together is pretty much why ADSs immediately run when under fire: you have a hard time seeing the threat, you have a hard time reacting appropriately to the threat and you have a limited window in which to react before you die, so just GTFO and see if another pass will yield better information to work with.

Sorry that's so anecdotal, but numbers cannot tell you whether the Swarms/Swarmer rendered, or whether the impact of the first volley tipped you on your nose/knocked you into the building that you want to take cover behind.