why?

I reply with. Why not? The OP of this thread is saying, make dropships blow up the same way LAVs and HAVs blow up. But, dropships and ground vehicles are different. I'm flipping it around and saying, why not let LAVs and HAVs blow up similar to how dropships do?

Why should vehicles blow up instantly? thats a hollywood crazy idea that's gotten into games. A vehicle will be wrecked and unable to move long before it blows up, if it even does blow up.

That depends. If a round penetrates the armour of a tank depending on what kind of shell it is and what parts of the tank it damages the thing will likely very much so instantly explode.

And no the latter comment is wholly untrue. Again depending on the round, its pay load, how and where it penetrates the armour, etc will determine how a vehicle like a tank is destroyed.

I reply with. Why not? The OP of this thread is saying, make dropships blow up the same way LAVs and HAVs blow up. But, dropships and ground vehicles are different. I'm flipping it around and saying, why not let LAVs and HAVs blow up similar to how dropships do?

Why should vehicles blow up instantly? thats a hollywood crazy idea that's gotten into games. A vehicle will be wrecked and unable to move long before it blows up, if it even does blow up.

I am a full time tanker, up until 1.10 I didn't use or have a dropsuit higher than min logi level 1 just to use my blueprint suit to drive. All of my points up until this point were into tanks my guns operate better. I can fit better mods with full 3 proto guns having fitting opt 5 for all turrets. As soon as there was the ability to respect I did, I eliminated the turrets that I didn't favor and used the leftover points to outfit dropsuits. I only respected to be able to avoid the tank spam when the enemy team sees my name and pulls 4 tanks to come after me or the cheesy loaded dropships. I spend the rest of the match back at the redline with my blueprint covenant sniper rifle and wait out the match.

One thing to fix the vehicle death action is to put pilot suits into play for closed in driver seats. HAV and DS of all types excluding LAV as your exposed.

I have several items to go over for this implementation.

Comparing dropsuits they are all of different sizes and speeds with different size weapons.

How much space is there really in a drivers seat?

How does a heavy that I can out run by 2X get out of a vehicle just as fast as I do?

Now how does the heavy fit in the drivers seat with a huge weapon at the ready. I seem to run faster depending on which weapon I have in my hands (not a lot of proto dropsuits to use to test with yet). how does this not play into a delay in the exit/entrance of a vehicle.

If you can't operate a 1/2 million isk tank (cheaping out is your self imposed handicap or lack of skills into vehicle upgrades or fitting optimization) Why should you get a 2nd chance in another large investment. why not let heavys have an eject button for when they hit close to death they can bust out of their almost dead heavy suit into a scout suit just because it fits inside? seems pretty stupid right.

My tank has never had 5-10 seconds of safety time for me to bail at a wall of obstacle, DS pilots had the switch seat option now just pull up before death to survive the fall as your now on top of the ship and can aim away from it. does not work if the ships too weak and I 2 shot it before the driver can respond. This tanks name is "The Dropship Special" not saying whats in it but it offers no quarter to dropships for escape, only 2 ships so far have survived from 2 direct hits from this tank, I received mail afterwards asking me what I use. Now these people target me at the beginning of the match with multiple vehicles or massive AV teams.

In my tank if I decide that I am going to ride it out and not bail I die if it hits 0HP Everyone in the DS is taking the same risk passengers included, passengers see the health of the DS and can decide when to bail on their own if not TRAPPED AND DEAD with the ship.

Here is an example of DS not working properly match starts I move in and a DS trys to sneak up behind me. I let him get so far as he/she is going to approach soon to get range on their turrets. I spin asap and nail the DS into 0 HP, The pilot and passengers use the guns on me until they fail to respond at this point they know to bail and lock on with swarms or charge the forge they have. As the pilot approaches he/she uses the bank left then right technique to empty one turret and spin to empty the other passengers turret, this sideways flying allows the pilot to survive the drop as the ship is no longer plowing into him/her. The chance of survival is even higher if I don't time the shots to not hit the front of the ship to push it up. I feel in this situation they stayed in the ship until it was no longer useful then took advantage of the 0HP action to destroy me after I fairly destroyed their ride with them in it.

Pilot suits could have 1 high, 1 low, 1 equipment and a side arm only. I have yet to see a helicopter pilot or jet pilot have more than a side arm on their person unless its in a side compartment, which they don't have when they eject unless the return back to salvage it from their wreckage. Having 1 equipment slot allows access for the driver to still assist infantry with links ammo or carry proxy remotes to set up a "follow me trap" for blaster tanks. With the limitation of slots and weapons the pilot suit could use the level of your dropsuit upgrades to make it more effective/survivable. This allowing unlimited CPU and PG on the suit to fit 1 of what you have maxed out for each slot instead of needing to include a proto pilot suit or any type of extra skills. Aside of hav/ds skills that would allow the purchase of the basic pilot suit for a minimum isk cost. Another way to put the pilot suit into users dropsuit fitting is to have it as one of the blueprint starter suits that only unlocks only once you've spent points into hav or DS skills. Including a bandwidth of 16 would allow enough room for enough remotes to either seriously injure if not destroy another tank, or enough equipment to assist not support infantry more than the realm of the tanks main job. This suit would not need a fast run speed or a low profile as it should be only mainly used with vehicles, on the other side the suits weakness should allow a low precision to see almost any suit not dampened. These stats would make the suit nothing more than a suit to run away in, killing someone would not be easy but avoiding them would be. people trying to take advantage of the low precision are reduced to less to than a glass cannon holding by onto a side arm.

I have more info on this topic which I may add later.

Yes I feel overpowered in my tank but I deserve to be with no dropsuits and level 5 skills in vehicles and turret operations.

To be honest, if Pilot suits were implemented and mandatory for closed cockpit vehicles we wouldn't need to have this discussion because it wouldn't matter wether you survived or not, a pilot suit out of his vehicle would be a dead man walking.

Since they are not, I suppose weighing in on this won't hurt, I believe the Pilot should die at 0/0, end of story, I tire of destroying tanks, dropships or LAV's where when the vehicle is clearly doomed/dead they jump out (often in a heavy suit, tanked to the nines) to blap you while you holding your AV weapon.

However Dropship passengers are a different story, passengers do not contribute to the dropship forcestrength (minus gunner posistions) and so should not be penalised by the pilots mistakes.

Dropships have a higher hull value (and hence why the guy plinking away at you with an AR gets the kill and not the swarms) than other vehicles/Dropsuits

That depends. If a round penetrates the armour of a tank depending on what kind of shell it is and what parts of the tank it damages the thing will likely very much so instantly explode.

And no the latter comment is wholly untrue. Again depending on the round, its pay load, how and where it penetrates the armour, etc will determine how a vehicle like a tank is destroyed.

To be honest, if Pilot suits were implemented and mandatory for closed cockpit vehicles we wouldn't need to have this discussion because it wouldn't matter wether you survived or not, a pilot suit out of his vehicle would be a dead man walking.

Since they are not, I suppose weighing in on this won't hurt, I believe the Pilot should die at 0/0, end of story, I tire of destroying tanks, dropships or LAV's where when the vehicle is clearly doomed/dead they jump out (often in a heavy suit, tanked to the nines) to blap you while you holding your AV weapon.

However Dropship passengers are a different story, passengers do not contribute to the dropship forcestrength (minus gunner posistions) and so should not be penalised by the pilots mistakes.

I share this opinion as well.

Also, pilot suits are a horrible, horrible idea, and will yet again elevate piloting far above all other roles in terms of SP and ISK required to not be a total waste of SP and ISK

So, you are saying that numbers cannot be adjusted to fix this upon their implementation?

I share this opinion as well.

Speaking as a turret-operator (NOT as a DS driver), I can't agree with the opinions that players' able to leap out of their Dropship before being scored as a "VEHICLE DESTRUCTION + KILL 50" (GǪface it, that IS what the underlying drooling issue is, isn't it)GǪ should be an issue at all. Leave the condition as it is right now---just leave it alone.

If the aim of Dust 514 is about players working to "hack/defend objectives", "team-help your side", and "win matches", then getting caught up in the addiction of "blowing up that player when she's AT the vehicle", instead of just valuing the elimination of the vehicle from the opposing sideGǪ. is a DEPARTURE from the purpose of the game.

If you destroy a vehicle or installation that a player is operating for her team, then you did RIGHT. THAT'S IMPORTANT towards helping your side win a match.
The event where the player stays at the installation and dies, or steps out quickly enough to save herself, should remain a risky dice that she rolls and can screw up in a handful of ways---- but is ALMOST never an important influence in helping her side win the match.
If she steps away from the blast and is able to kill you with a wrench that she threw from the driver's window, that should be the dice that you roll for not expecting an opponent to try to fight for survival---but it is ALMOST NEVER important towards helping her side win the match.
In both encounters, only the use and destruction of the vehicle/installation is pivotal to winning a match or holding a hacked objective. The other stuff is just personal vanity.
When I'm able to use a nearby Rail-Installation to destroy an enemy DS, and I see 1 x 50+ Kill appear after the DS destruction, I DON'T CARE. I want the DS cleared away so it can't prey on my teammates' heads while they are hacking a Null---if my team can't deal with one surviving "pilot" who escaped from the falling ship, then my team doesn't deserve the win a match. The removal of the VEHICLE is what I've been told is the Dust-play goal,GǪ craving the driver's death is just CoD withdrawal syndrome. (And I've seen too many players LOSING the match for their team, either because they DELAY finishing off the Installation until they can be sure the operator is still standing at it, or because they spent 4 extra minutes chasing after the survivor's scalp while their team needed their help elsewhere).

In the well-meaning attempt to "respond to players' needs of improvement", be careful not to pander to narcissisms, like the ability to stick a RE on someone's behind as they pass by", or "automatically-lock the player in his burning car when I railgun the car", or paint my new Quafe-purple suit with froo-froo French green emeralds (GǪI'm sorry, but those are the words I felt I needed to use).

No offense meant to the author or to the dev who felt it worth taking a side, but please, when a subject like this pops in your head, just resist it. If it accidentally catches interest with CCP, and they chose to relent to it, it will be as unhelpful to the claimed objective of Dust as Quafe-colored doorknobs on the new Caldari garage depot mapGǪ. put it LAST on your list of player-experience items.

ALL of this can easily be solved by leaving mechanics in place, as they are, and adding a pilot exit timer that applies to leaving the pilot seat. (be it to change seats in the vehicle OR to leave the vehicle completely).

Murder taxis can still be a thing if the heavy has a driver.

Dropship pilots will go down with the ship, without ruining hot drops. It would even prevent stupid suicide crashes, onto strategic points, from single players with uplinks. They'll have to actually land properly to deploy their links (This tactic has always annoyed the hell out of me). Alternatively they could gamble and try to hold the button in advance, while abandoning control of their ship and hope their timing is correct.

Tankers cannot pop out with their forge guns or HMGs to deal with issues as they come up, their passengers/gunners, however, can.

Add a hacking wheel that fills by holding the triangle or circle button to perform the corresponding action for the pilot only. All problems solved, with interest.

Stuff redacted so save on text

Fair enough - but in accordance to your own written opinion, conditions for winning are most important. Therefore you must concede Clone Count to be important.


The thing that a few people were able to stay on topic about was how DS's have a whole separate rule for destruction than other vehicles -- and not just vehicles -- clones as well.

One thing you will want is parity in death and destruction seeing as this is an FPS.

Originally it was to be the pilot suit that allowed that difference. Since it isn't in the game yet (or maybe ever)
So, really we should change how DS's work as far as pilot bailout -- OR give Lavs and Havs the same couple of seconds.


I suggested earlier (somewhat snarkily) ...damage past 0 affects passengers and/or pilots..but that would have to be toned down due to the amount of damage AV does. (Other wise it is instant kill anyways.)

Although, I feel for DS pilots and invisible Swarm issues. Seems to me if the pilot (and the passengers) got a beeping once swarms were incoming that would help solve the practical issue with invisible swarms (use another sense) and would allow players to make their own decision (in the midst of battle no less) on whether to stay in the DS or bail out. Apply it to Lavs, Havs, and have stuff blow up at the same time relative to death.

This is all assuming exit timer is not put in place.

I smell a Pilot suit mechanic here...bail out time for Pilots and Gunners (hold that hack button!) of a few seconds. Implement a turret/pilot cooldown for using turrets/flying when entering a vehicle.

Pilot suits reduce the time required by level of suit worn. Minus 10% per level up to 50% at proto suit (must wear suit to get bonus.)

Lets people still run normal suits and do vehicles -- but penalizes them in the form of higher chance of death with vehicles. Pilot suits interface faster and can 'connect' and 'disconnect' faster. For dedicated pilots and gunners. Fixed?