CELESTA AUNGM
Kang Lo Directorate
Gallente Federation
410
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Posted - 2015.02.11 21:21:00 -
[1] - Quote
I guess I haven't contributed to the endorsement of Dropships in a long time, so I'll do so once, here.
All of the posts I've read here ARE valid, but only because I think they come mostly from the type of matches and maps we are populating every day: Pub matches and FW sessions.
It was always necessary to have these kinds of matches in the gameGǪ but some of the players realized a few years ago that the MAPS in these matches are not the size maps that require vehicles as potent as the far-shooting HAV, the Auto-controlled Gun Installation, and the unlimited-travel Dropship.
Because of the small SIZE of the maps you are playing most of Dust on, adjustments had to be made like removing the brain from all Gun-Installations (GǪthey used to be SO darn good at targeting anything that moved, that no one COULD move around the map--it was humans vs the robot Installations!),GǪ and whole new version of vehicles were introduced, like the ADS version of what was meant to be simply a "huey" style squad-insertion and fire-support Dropship.
We can argue about "what CCP intended these vehicles to be used for", but we couldn't argue that SOME of the vehicles and entities just CAN'T be effectively used in goldfish-size maps (and by now are easily substituted by mini-items like uplinks, etc.).
These vehicles and Installation-types can only shine in a full-size map, a PC map, and through PC fights, you realize what a Dropship is needed for.
The immediate problems a full-size PC map presents for a 16-person team trying to hack and hold Null points, and the STRATEGIES that knowledgeable PC commanders rely on (that almost never get used in tiny Pub or FW matches because they just aren't needed), make a Dropship the ONLY gadget of value in distributing squads or key specialists where and very-quickly WHEN the fight starts changing up on you.
PC is heavily about detecting, assessing what part of the map is experiencing "what", and "solving" by having to quickly pick-up specialists who are not where they need to be, babysitting possible objectives in order to gamble on where the enemy seems to be likely to try fooling you, and then redistributing when the fight "changes up on you" again.
It is really NOT like Pub matches at all, from a commander's decision-making POV. Uplinks and similar gear cannot give his squad the fluid "swap this, change of plans, get half my squad over to Alpha to insert from 3 points simultaneously" solutions.
And believe it or not, I'm only talking THIRD-hand from things that were explained to me when a few PC players tried to educate me on how most PC squaders would (NO-JOKE) kill to have good, disciplined, DS drivers (please) be a guest in their matches (cocky barnstorming and ADS work that many DS "pilots" brag and display are not what PC folks are interested in at all).
Only a handful of the vehicles made for Dust are TOO BIG-FUNCTIONED to be bouncing around in a Pub-sized map, and can't do their real stuff without a real Dust landscape. Dropships are in that group. 
Universe of good wishes for the 49, especially CCP Eterne...
No story can have life without writers and publishers.
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