Hello again,

we are proposing the following changes to reduce the high efficiency of the ADS and promote Normal Dropship viability as well.

In short, the ADS can function as a fast attack vehicle, with rapid redeployment and the NDS can function as a slower troop transport, able to withstand heavier fire while laying down supportive fire with missiles and blasters.

Currently the ADS is able to outrun swarms using afterburners, and return to the same spot within a few moments, fully repaired and fighting capable. We want to give swarms a better fighting chance against them, so proposing the following small changes.

1) A change so that Swarms actually outrun normal ADS speed, right now the speeds are equal, so the ADS just needs to boost away and the swarm will never catch it.

Swarm speed from 50m/s to 60m/s

2) Another change in that vein, is to increase Swarm accelaration from 10 m/s^2 to 12m/s^2, again to catch up with the ADS Afterburner.

3) To keep things balanced, we will also reduce the turn radius of a swarm missile, so it can't bend around 90 degree corners. This will allow skilled pilots to deftly avoid missiles by taking cover behind buildings and terrain.

4) We will not be changing the lock on timer nor the lock on range at this stage, and see how it goes.

5) We are also increasing the cooldown of Afterburners and Fuel injectors, so that Vehicles that choose to boost out of harms way can either wait out the cooldown period and fly to another engagement on the map, or return back to the prior enagement before it's fully restored and then at a higher risk to itself.

6) To keep things balanced, we are also proposing an increase to the duration of Afterburners and Fuel Injectors.

7) Finally, a healthy buff to NDS eHP, somewhere close to a full proto swarm dmg (1000 eHP) and an improvement to Small Blasters dmg output detailed here, including a PG/CPU reduction to them.

Let's really try to keep this constructive

Actually, I forgot to write the ISK reduction, we are thinking 250k ISK?

At that kind of altitude an ADS is shooting at dots. For a solo pilot, it's pretty hard to maintain that height whilst firing vaguely effectively. Even with a side gunner they are aiming at specks. While they are out of range of Swarms they are not entirely safe: Forge Guns, Railguns, Missiles can all reach that dropship which is most likely holding pretty damn still to have any chance of landing useful shots.

However, I do agree with your notion of altering the Swarm variants. Personally, the current Swarms are fine, if there's an alternative option that allows a different mode of engagement. There's still a slight issue and that's the knock back: DSs of all stripes get buffeted about by every kind of AV weapon,and when one cannot be dodged (Swarms) it gets incredibly difficult to land shots of target if even one AV player is in the area. If that AV player is a Swarmer, you have to back off to regain control of your craft, let alone the damage it's doing.

I still think a longer ranged,lower damage Assault variant would help in the balance though.




Yes, because ADSs, even at 250k ISK would be sooooo spammable. Its not like pilots currently go ISK negative if they lose a single ship and 80k would make a huge difference. Going from ridiculously expensive to slightly less ridiculously expensive is still ridiculously expensive...

If the hull came down to 120-150k ISK, the most cheaply fitted ships could lose 1 before going negative. A second ship down would definitely be negative, even at that price point.

I'll ask again: is ISK a balancing factor or not?
If it is, then ADSs should either remain expensive and remain powerful, or be brought down in power in line with an equal ISK reduction.
If ISK is not a balancing factor, then why does price matter to you?

When vehicles can be soloed my butt! 47k isk skill less swarm launcher should require a lot of effort to take down a 500k isk asset worth almost 5x the sp.

Firstly, you really shouldn't be using absolute full proto in pub matches, my swarmer costs 47k and does the job pretty nicely. My forger costs 30.5k and does the job very nicely. Secondly this forum is absolutely nothing to do with tanks. Against ads which costs up to 800k and up to 47 Mill sp (haven't checked that but it's what people are saying, I know 800k is right though) if you are a min commando we don't have a chance of getting near u and given we can't see the swarms, if we are near your max range you can have six sets of invisible seams in the air before the first one impacts. It only takes three to four to kill us.