I need dropship pilots who are familiar with both Chromosome build dropships and with the current ones.

One of the proposals on the table for vehicles is a reversion to chromosome vehicles and AV.

I remember that Dropships were basically target practice, and they weren't really viable except as a one-way trip.

I need people who are familiar with the weaknesses of the chrome dropships to look at the stats posted here and provide feedback on how to make the chrome ships less squishy, and keep a similar TTK to today.

All possible solutions are on the table from tweaking base resistances, to increasing fitting and/or slots.

I would like to be able to provide a FULL proposal that includes having dropship pilots being more than incidental victims. If you have input, post it here

I believe tweaking swarms further one way or another doesn't resolve what pilots want in general.
Rockets are supposed to fly fast, and far. That is their job.

"If you want to limit them why have them at all?
There are flying ships in Dust514, infantry cannot fly.
If there were no rockets to take them down, they could fly all they want without worries of being taken down."

First did you not forget that vehicles interact with each other as well? Flying high opens most dropships, fitted to take out infantry and ground vehicles, in high altitudes makes them prey for A/V dropships to wipe them out of the sky easily. Limiting the swarms turning radius further is needed. The intentions for swarm balance and pilots is for pilots to have a chance in loosing swarms if the pilot knows what they are doing. I will not dwell very deep into this as this has been stated in numerous other post by many pilots prior to the swarm and afterburner changes. The geometry equation for loosing swarms as it stands does not exist. In simple terms the goal I am referring to only apply to how swarms will react to extreme sharp turns when missing the dropship. Currently causing swarms to miss is not there. If CCP does not want to add things such as flight instruments, this is a great fix. Though the turning radius of swarms at there current speed of velocity does not work quite yet to CCP's goal.

"Pilots hate that there is a counter to flying ships.
But that is balance. If you want to limit the time a swarm rocket can fly, do we do the same for ships?
Limit how long they can fly? If you apply real world physics to rockets such as only having so much fuel,
does not the same apply to the flying ships themselves?"

This is a personal opinion and not facts, I am dealing with facts on balancing 1 vehicle vs 1 infantry scenario. My personal opinion, for however much it is worth, I welcome interaction with A/V but it is no fun if I can not engage infantry when being shot at.

"What pilots want is a counter to 3 or more different swarms coming their way.
A more sane approach to all this would be to add anti-missile chaff defenses.
An option like adding a scanner, for example, taking up a slot.
Chaff could have charges like an explosive has.
When swarms are coming your way, they could be deployed to absorb some or all of them.
Having a finite amount would be balanced, as it could help stave off 2 or 3 swarms, but if the pilot
hangs around anymore it would be dangerous."

implementing a chaff or flare system has been spoken before. Most systems that have this are very limited as to how many times you can do this. Implementing this in the games current state would require an serious over-haul for how swarms work now more than what I have proposed. I wouldn't want infinite anti measures. Where is the fun and challenge from that?

"Before 1.7, ads pilots could hit afterburners and fly straight up, faster than the swarms chasing them.
It was a broken system where swarms could not do their job, a turtle chasing a rabbit.
This was why the swarms speed was increased, it was a fix."

The only time dropships had an extreme acceleration was around 2 implementations directly after Uprising was released. There was some swarm changes along with how the afterburners operated as well. Other than that Afterburners were not touched other than the extended cool down they now have and the bug to where militia and basic afterburners had the wrong stats than they should have had.

This pretty much sums up why I want dropship info for my proposal.

Unfortunately, in order to DO anything, I need ideas for hard numbers. There's this thing, called math. I'm actually pretty good at it. I would like to utilize it in your favor, because I'd like to not return to casually destroying dropships because they're unfortunate enough to be seen.

I'd much rather it be because they're a threat, strategically or tactically.

If I recall from chrome one of the biggest gripes for dropships was fitting. I'm remembering the CPU/PG enhancement mods being pretty much mandatory which cut into survivability.

Am I misremembering?

My goal is to find fitting numbers for the Python and Incubus that will allow them to field a sufficient tank to not get instapopped by every jackass with an AV gun and and opportunity automatically. My proposal uses chrome vehicles with today's swarm launchers, because Damn.

And I figured out how to convert over the PG/CPU which I was stuck on, given that the chrome module resource costs were cheaper. Might be a little overgenerous with the fittings (my proposal re-introduces bonused vehicle skills), but better that than easy meat. Incubus should be able to put on a 120 MM plate and some support fittings, the Python should be able to get decent shield tank in.

My goal is not to fix the swarms, my goal is to make dropships not die when hit by an IAFG (chromosome base stats, so hitting well over 2k with skills/mods)in any less than 3 shots (4 for the flying brick transports). I'm also going to recommend an acceleration buff for dropships to try to get up to speed to dodge fire.

Oddly enough I'm taking things like that into account. I'm well aware of the limitations of hardeners. I was trying to make sure that I wasn't going to gimp the python or Incubus' ability to load a sufficient tank to survive a reasonable level of attack from a single, skilled Av gunner. If a rail tank gets a bead on you, all bets are off.

I'm actually proposing 30% increase to fitting for STD dropships. 15% to militia.