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.

I like how in the video cites as evidence against these changes Judge then goes on to recommend a boost to Swarm acceleration and speed while reducing turn radius (at ~23:40).

Personally I endorse the changes both from an NDS and (my slightly limited) ADS perspective. I want Swarms to be able to slowly creep up on my python as I attempt to speed away while hitting the shield booster to gain more shields while I'm eeking out any additional speed I can get.

On this point, are you considering adding ADS to the loyalty store? That might change the dynamic here a little.

Why are they guaranteed to get hit by 3 swarms? Where is the math to prove that, i.e. difference before and after Delta? The AB keeps the same boost and should effectively evade as he does now, granted, the ADS cannot afford the same hovering as it can now, and can not return fully healed with restored AB's until after a longer time than currently.

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.

I would know it if AB would increase top speed. Sadly they dont cause many times when i was flying my incubus the swarm volley where just merely like 5 meters away from my dropship and i only outran them because after a certain distance they simply explode. The 50% additional boost is for acceleration only. And that is the reason why ive sayd that with those swarm changes as soon 3 volleys from a proto swarmer are in the air your dropship is allready doomed to death. Cause they will fly faster and aswell get to their top speed of 60m/s sooner.

Try to fly an ADS in a domination and kill someone. After the first kill I guarantee that you will be instaganked either by a ramming gorgon or 3-12 AVers depending on if you are loosing or winning, more AVers if they are loosing (because they tend to blame you for it)

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.

Not before you get out of swarm max range.

The afterburner nerf has "nothing" to do with the swarm speed buff. They target two completely different things. One is purely lowering engagement (the AB) so they do not affect K/D at all. The other is making it possible to actually kill ADS's.

Second, noone has demonstrated that the ADS will get hit by 3 swarms, mathematically. Just anecdotal theories.

I am working on a few charts to demonstrate why 1) the current situation is completely unacceptable, and 2) the proposal is the minimum acceptable change.

I also see that the most common complaint is that because of speed, there is no escape. Everyone knows that the best way to avoid the third swarm is to put terrain and buildings between you and the Swarm Launcher to avoid the lock, not to actually twist and turn to "fool" the missiles themselves, Top Gun style. Second of all, the lock on time and acceleration, coupled with AB is a nonlinear problem. It is not enough to say 60 is bigger than 55, thus 3 swarms hit.

Manoeuver out of sight so the third lock doesn't happen.

The afterburner nerf has "nothing" to do with the swarm speed buff. They target two completely different things. One is purely lowering engagement (the AB) so they do not affect K/D at all. The other is making it possible to actually kill ADS's.

Second, noone has demonstrated that the ADS will get hit by 3 swarms, mathematically. Just anecdotal theories.

I am working on a few charts to demonstrate why 1) the current situation is completely unacceptable, and 2) the proposal is the minimum acceptable change.

I also see that the most common complaint is that because of speed, there is no escape. Everyone knows that the best way to avoid the third swarm is to put terrain and buildings between you and the Swarm Launcher to avoid the lock, not to actually twist and turn to "fool" the missiles themselves, Top Gun style. Second of all, the lock on time and acceleration, coupled with AB is a nonlinear problem. It is not enough to say 60 is bigger than 55, thus 3 swarms hit.

Not before you get out of swarm max range.

Manoeuver out of sight so the third lock doesn't happen.

Manoeuver out of sight so the third lock doesn't happen.

The radius thing doesn't seem any good either. TBH, I'm losing your faith in you. You always listen to these swarm scrubs that can't kill my shiled tanked python with their armor damaging weapon that is a skill-less fire and forget cheap weapon.

Oh you reduced the price of ADS? Who the F cares.. Now even militia swarms gonna be able to drop us out of the sky like flies.

Yes it exists ive been hit head on and lost about 2000 hp on my incubus once. They usually do random damage.

You wouldn't see invisible swarms because they are invisible. The swarms are launched as he swoops by the building, connecting right after he pauses. The second swarm renders, but theswarmer himself does not.

Just wait how it's going to work out. The math says it's going to be fine. If that doesn't come true we can always make another change for hotfix echo.

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.

I see dropships dip behind structures all the time to break line of sight. I must be playing another game.

If swarms do not have greater speed, then they cannot catch a dropship, because acceleration does not increase top speed. They just hit their max speed and stay there.

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.

Manoeuver out of sight so the third lock doesn't happen.

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.

This is true, which is how and why vehicles are force multipliers. If one team dedicates 4 players to deal with one then you have managed to skew the odds in your favor, if they don't then you can kill with the advantages the vehicle gives you.

How many times have you seen a team getting beat, pull out an ADS or a tank and turn it completely around? A lot is the answer. How many times have you seen a team pull out a swarmer and turn it around? Only when vehicles are controlling the field. A swarmer is not a force multiplier, its sole function is to prevent the vehicles from dominating.

I have to agree though that it is a very delicate balance and smaller changes are better than large ones, the AB cooldown increase shouldn't be so large. Judge had the graphs I wanted to see, I'm pretty sure these have been looked at and made with the proposed numbers as well.

The afterburner nerf has "nothing" to do with the swarm speed buff. They target two completely different things. One is purely lowering engagement (the AB) so they do not affect K/D at all. The other is making it possible to actually kill ADS's.

Second, noone has demonstrated that the ADS will get hit by 3 swarms, mathematically. Just anecdotal theories.

I am working on a few charts to demonstrate why 1) the current situation is completely unacceptable, and 2) the proposal is the minimum acceptable change.

I also see that the most common complaint is that because of speed, there is no escape. Everyone knows that the best way to avoid the third swarm is to put terrain and buildings between you and the Swarm Launcher to avoid the lock, not to actually twist and turn to "fool" the missiles themselves, Top Gun style. Second of all, the lock on time and acceleration, coupled with AB is a nonlinear problem. It is not enough to say 60 is bigger than 55, thus 3 swarms hit.