Clearly you've never encountered an incubus duo in PC. Well, at least pre-Charlie.

A vehicle should be better than a dropsuit in firepower, but require multiple people to man. I honestly feel like vehicles are in this state of being unnecessary, since they do nothing a dropsuit can't do. But they should be as effective as multiple dropsuits, while taking multiple dropsuits to man. Also, this means we can make it take multiple AV to shoot down.

To Grey: I feel like ADS were supposed to be Apache's, but were gone about it wrong. A true attack aerial vehicle would be a light aircraft, basically a LAV in the sky. As it stands, we need a dedicated aerial attack craft. ADS can fill that role, at least until Legion comes out and we can create new content. As far as incubi being the answer to everything in the sky, yeah that's the point. The incubus is the vehicle killer, to include dropships. ADS should be Apache's sacrificing transport for more attack abilities. SDS are Huey's, door guns to support infantry, but mainly focused on getting troops from one place to another quickly. scouting is easily done with refurbished SLAVs. Everything has it's place.

Let's get one thing straight, this is not about me. Period.

I knew, but the community refused to propose ideas or numbers to affect the decision.

1) Fact. The sky did not fall down, the ADS is not being instapopped all over the place, that much is clear. So swarm vs ADS does not need any specific attention. It's scarier for sure for pilots, but not untenable.

2) Small Blaster Turrets are better in Delta, our data shows that clearly

3) Myron is less efficient than the Grimsnes in K/S. (Shield better than Armor)

4) Can a veteran pilot please post indisputably competitive fits for all 4 dropships for us to study internally. Protofits link will do nicely.

5) Yet, people complain that the Python is worse than the Incubus, even after the rail ROF nerf.

6) Destroy enemy HAVs

Please support your ROF/DPS proposals with the fits you are using and also the Madrugar/Gunnlogi you are attacking.

[...]

• include a third shield skill that increases regen of shield by 10% just as the third armor skill was included at a 10% value

Sounds very interesting, indeed. Huge DPS, very small clips, long reload times for tank hunting.

Are you suggesting AV missile variants with no splash. I like it, but there won't be a rail anti infantry version, though, I don't see how that would fit.

This is getting the creative juices flowing.

Sounds very interesting, indeed. Huge DPS, very small clips, long reload times for tank hunting.

Are you suggesting AV missile variants with no splash. I like it, but there won't be a rail anti infantry version, though, I don't see how that would fit.

This is getting the creative juices flowing.

Small rails are less effective than missiles because 1) their damage is considerably less per shot than missiles - they need to land more shots on target than missiles do to do comparable damage, this is very very hard to do and 2) they don't have splash - you must land every shot directly on target to do damage. A small splash range would help rails immensely, the other option is to slow their rate of fire a bit more and increase damage comparably.

Myron underperforms for the exact same reasons that gunnlogi's do - armor vehicles rep constantly no matter what, shield vehicles taking any damage stops their reps for fairly lengthy durations of time... also it's entirely possible to lose *all* of your hp by bouncing up and down on the ground very quickly.

Gunnlogi's underperform because they do not rep constantly - any 'actual' damage shuts off their tank. If it were possible to do in game, I'd suggest making *all* shields rep x value every y seconds inherently (say, 450 shields every 3.5 seconds) with modules that can either increase the x value or reduce the y value - this is in no way true to eve, where shields passively repair constantly and their reps get stronger up until 33% where tank is 'broken' and shield boosters repair decent amounts very quickly but at extreme capacitor costs). The current system just doesn't work - because armor does regenerative tanking better. Armor in eve doesn't have passive repairs, it has to be activated and it has long cycle times (repairing at the end of a cycle) but has reasonably high rep values, most importantly their repairing is extremely capacitor efficient.

Part 2:Assault Dropship Skills

[...]
Assault Dropships Skill
- Assault Dropship role bonus: applies to all racial Assault Dropship skills
+2% to small turret damage per level.
[As the previous Assault Dropship skill provided, but more in line with the current Dropsuit skills.]

\- Gallente Assault Dropships:
-5% to small railgun heat build-up and +20% to small blaster splash radius per level.
[Improves the Incubus's ability to apply damage to targets.]]
[...]
\- Caldari Assault Dropships:
+10% splash radius and missile speed to small missile turrets per level.
[Increases the application of the Python's primary weapon against both aerial and ground targets.]
[...]

To be honest the rate of fire bonus at the moment is just useless. You should change the bonuses completely cause at the moment they are not appealing to spec into.

Caldari ADS:
5% blast radius increase for missiles and 3% direct impact increase

Gallente ADS:
5% increase of direct impact damage and 3% less heat build up per lvl for hybrid weapons (blasters+rails)

Missiles are getting their usefullness increased cause splash damage is easier to apply vs infantry and a bit better damage on direct impact.

Small rails are getting more oomph vs vehicles, blasters gain more damage vs infantry and you can keep firing for longer without overheating. The ammo bonuses are a bit wasted in my opinion cause there is allready a other skill that enhance the capacity for this.

Every weapon should be a killer under the correct circumstances. I may be on the side of bringing up vehicular firepower, but my sympathy only goes so far.

Just like proto gear retains no guarantee of immunity to militia gear, there should be no guarantee of immunity to militia AV for vehicles, even specialist vehicles like the ADS.

Normally I'd agree with that. But the problem I have with that is that most militia forges and swarms have 0 SP sunk into them, I'd be all for militia packing a greater punch, if the people using the militia gear actually sunk a good chunk of SP into the swarms, forge, or PLC.

ADS have a vast SP pool to fill as of now to make themselves deadly, I see no reason that AV shouldn't have to do the same.

Killing someone with MLT or STD swarms or STD/MLT Forge Guns is dumb luck. I can only pull it off if a dropship is already wounded severely or is right next to a building i can bounce them off of. In my testing my STD swarm failed to break through the python and kill it except when I thumped him off of a tower.

The only way an ADS pilot is going to die to a solo MLT swarm is if he's a dumbass. I am not a dumbass, and I spiked my STD swarm to doing 990 shield damage, but i still could not kill the ADS. Same with MLT forge guns. If I take out an ADS with an MLT forge then it's because the pilot was literally a shot away from dead, or I bounced him off the walls. And I'm more or less maxed on forge gun efficacy.

My prototype forge guns? I'll make a dropship pilot **** his pants from shot 1. If I'm using a breach I can properly induce a full on panic attack if I can line up the weakspot.

But dropship pilots dying to STD and MLT swarms are idiots. It means they're sitting still or trying to get creative with a small pack of AV guns. Plus inevitably, the killfeed does not show what ELSE may have hit you. I've seen a ADS go down to a swarm immediately after I hit it with a breach forge. It was rather impressive.

Not bad but missile are multipurpose weapon and without the ROF a python alone can't kill a tank.

shields are still far too resilient to swarms/forges. poor armour tankers crumble whereas shields are far too powerful and our proficiencies are pretty much wasted. a small tweak to the damage profiles would help the final balance. instead +/- 20% bring it to 10% and it'll help increase armor vehicle survivability more and make it a touch easier to take down shield based vehicles.

between chat mates we'll take down 10 armor vehicles over 1 or none shield. only time a shield vehicle seems to go down is via pilot error (flying into a building, reversing into a structure and gettign stuck ect

This is very incorrect. Having a hefty amount of skill points in both the Incubus and Python this thought is misplaced. I think it is more so on the lines that the Incubus takes too much damage from the weapons like swarms and forge guns. I have yet to see anyone successfully shoot at me with a plasma cannon so I will hold out on saying that perhaps it is just as strong. A/V and HAV's need to be balanced with all the other vehicles. Once that happens we will have a much clearer picture of whats going on with damage profiles for the Incubus and Python.

This is very incorrect. Having a hefty amount of skill points in both the Incubus and Python this thought is misplaced. I think it is more so on the lines that the Incubus takes too much damage from the weapons like swarms and forge guns. I have yet to see anyone successfully shoot at me with a plasma cannon so I will hold out on saying that perhaps it is just as strong. A/V and HAV's need to be balanced with all the other vehicles. Once that happens we will have a much clearer picture of whats going on with damage profiles for the Incubus and Python.