Also bear in mind that there are many of us and very few developers. We have a hell of a lot more time collectively to talk and think about this stuff and each group can focus on its own project, this is not quite as true for Rattati and company. I mean take it from me, I try to be as involved in as many projects as possible but I'm often exhausted and have to back off of what I would like to work on simply because I don't have enough hours in the day. And the thing is Rattati for certain puts in more hours than I do and has his hands in even more projects. That being said, I don't know how the guy doesn't die from sleep deprivation.

I'm not defending his choice of prioritization, god knows I'm about at my wits end that Logistics have been ignored for so long despite there being extensive discussion and proposals regarding Logistics. However, it's abundantly clear to me by my own personal experience that there are simply not enough hours in the day to address everything at once, hell there's not enough time to really touch on everything in a given week, much less to do meaningful work.

However what you should take away from this is that even if you feel that his priorities are wrong (and lets be honest, everyone want's to be first, that's human nature) the fact the remains that its impossible to put everyone first in line. I mean if you have an issue with the prioritization, that's totally legit, but being aggressive or accusatory will not net you the desired result. Keep in mind Rattati doesn't sleep much, so ticking him off is going to get you the finger. God knows when I'm tired everyone who fucks with me can go **** themselves instead.

---

Now for the topic of the dropships, I don't fly them, so I can't really comment much. I can tell you however that HAVs were messed up, REALLY messed up, and they're in a lot better place right now. While you can't design in a vaccum, its also impossible to fix the entire system and everything at the same time. So like, he felt that resource cost of the shield hardener needed to be ramped up, but trust me when I say that further tweaking is going to be needed to get Armor/Shield hardeners working properly for HAVs. If Dropships need a little extra resources to temporary compensate for the Shield hardener cost? Totally legit thing to ask for, so ask for that. However since they will most likely be tweaked more once we have some more data, I don't think it would be wise to really start messing with dropships in any significant manner until we get those hardeners in a better place. If dropships need some temporary measures to cope with the changes? Sounds fine to me.




To be fair, that spreadsheet is hardly ready for Rattati digestion and I haven't really posted it up as finalized idea. While I really want LAVs to be viable and working properly, and I would love to see them working properly (they're really not working, not in Delta and certainly not in Echo) let's finish the HAVs best we can, tackle whatever rammifications the HAV rework had on Dropships, and then focus on LAVs.

I think that if he wants to do a tentative increase to LAV slot layout to make fit LAVs more survivable for the time being, that's fine as long as the understanding is that it needs to have a proper pass once the HAVs and Dropships are working properly. Sadly I can't really do **** for Dropships so I'll keep working on HAVs and LAVs for the time being.

I personally would be glad to fly around a proto ADS hull which I need to make considerable sacrifices to offensive capabilities to be a tankie scanner lighting up the map for my team mates to find the enemy and make quick pick ups and quick extractions in hot zones without being 'too' worried of being two hit killed by basically anything. (please not i said considerable sacrifices to offensive combat which equals to no turrets but pure defense and extraction).

Have you considered flying a Grimsnes?
~7.5 kehp against both rails and Swarms, AB, an enhanced scanner and two adv turrets for self defense and supporting fire. Downgrade turrets to upgrade scanner. Or run a rep-fit at 310 hp/s with an AT-1 launcher, AB and a pro scanner.

Point taken to post at least once, I read every single one of these.

Rat man, dude.... chill out. You work to much as it is anyways, you stress after every single "hotfix" on a forum that always toxic. Here is some free advice that you have not asked for, beer cures most things in life for everything else there is bacon.

Things start becoming clearer after 6 or 7 pints.


o7

Rat man, dude.... chill out. You work to much as it is anyways, you stress after every single "hotfix" on a forum that always toxic. Here is some free advice that you have not asked for, beer cures most things in life for everything else there is bacon.

Things start becoming clearer after 6 or 7 pints.


o7

Rat man, dude.... chill out. Things become clearer after 6 or 7 pints.


o7
.

the effectiveness of anti armour av or armour modules will have to be adjusted to create balance.

It's the nature of not willing to give on anything is why people usually don't like DS pilots, generally. They say a lot of unreasonable things, and when told so, or asking for a compromise, they do a sparky and just say, "No, you're simply wrong.". That's how it has been since day one pretty much.

Things start becoming clearer after 6 or 7 pints.


o7

Drinking beer for that is terrible advice. I've done some stupid things while drunk. You say some really stupid s***.

Why don't you instead of complain that you are the bottom of the barrel (which is untrue) just propose numbers. This dropships +X, this Dropship +Y, swam launcher range - X. 2 pages of feeling sorry for yourselves is not going to help at all.

For example:

This Shield Hardener cost really messed up my fittings as I rely on them to tank 3 shots with X. Is it possible to increas PG by 10 because the nerf was meant for triple hardened Gunnlogis.

Thanks,
Smart player

Yeah, but you do a lot of stupid stuff when you are drunk, so you've hardly set the bar high for yourself as an example.

Unless you're drunk far more often than I'd imagine.

Point taken to post at least once, I read every single one of these.

Compromise, meaning "pilots give up X, Y and Z while AV gains A and B." That's not compromise. There is no compromise with AV, it's all take take take.

Breaking down points and pointing out why they're wrong and bad is not "no you're simply wrong." I explain why they're wrong, sometimes providing examples with my own experiences when needed. Then Pokey comes up with his favorite word, "anecdotal evidence," while he doesn't have any because he's never used vehicles.

He asked me the greatest question ever a little while ago. "Why were tanks better in Chromosome?"

That told me everything I needed to know about his "experience with vehicles." He doesn't have any.

He's a spreadsheet warrior. His compromise is "I want to take away X, Y and Z from you because reasons."

By the way, are you losing your own tanks to tanks with damage mods? Do you think that's fair?

Drinking beer for that is terrible advice. I've done some stupid things while drunk. You say some really stupid s***.

I think the real issue is none of us really know how to balance Dropships.

Numbers, yeah, we could probably establish that. But with the issues every pilot has with Swarms, I highly doubt it would work. I think we need to modify Swarms so that they make us pilots rage less but are still effective. Then, potential balance changes.

IDK man, some AV guys are pretty ignorant just like some ADS guys. Thankfully with respec's the ignorance per ADS is getting lower per se... but I'm not sure about the other side.

But what about the reasonable? They still aren't listened to.
I think it's that we feel unheard, that no one else wants us to live. It drove some into respec or simply being mad because somethings aren't resolved/fixed.

Now, i can't apologize for the ignorant ones sadly... They should. But, the reasonable deserve a chance.
like you've said before, "when people fight for what they love, blood, tears, or even bullets are exchanged to protect it"

^ not exact quote

And simply some of us on the ADS side feel we fought so long, but are still losing.


I don't know where I went with this... But it feels like I'm understanding the whole hate between the two better.

I can't even imagine what that would sound like coming from you...

Are you drunk when you post on the forums? I need a point of reference here.

The recent changes to AV, tanks and how the game performs in a fight have all drastically affected the usage and effectiveness of dropships in combat. This thread has been created to help CCP understand the current situation and facilitate them in making the right decisions in dropship changes for the future.


A brief overview: With tanks becoming a lot stronger recently it is currently difficult to combat a tank using a dropship, add to this the prolific increase in av usage to deal with tank spam this leaves dropships in a vulnerable position. The major problem I foresee is an increase in av effectiveness or changes to vehicle balance that affect the dropship without being intended.

For example, since madrugar are once again the tank of choice the effectiveness of anti armour av or armour modules will have to be adjusted to create balance. However, no changes were made to the incubus (no slots, ehp etc) to put it on par as a competitor in the vehicle field. This means that if people can take out highly ranked madrugars, they will have no problem taking out incubi. The shield tanks were also recently nerfed, this included an increase to shield hardener fitting cost. This has impacted the Python and has made Python fits weaker as no fitting increase was given to the Python.

Right now dropships are being largely ignored, and having spoken to many ads pilots there is a widespread consensus that since dropship pilots are a minority in the game their views are being ignored. This is also perhaps because Judge Rhadamanthus has brought little change to the effectiveness of dropships, despite being a perfectly vocal advocate for the dropship community.

I have considered many options and really, it comes down to two.

1. Dropship tiers

Just as the hav has tiering, the dropship should be given basic, advanced and proto variants.
The Python should have a 4/2 like the gunnlogi and the incubus a 3/4 like the madrugar.
This would add a lot more variety to dropship fitting styles and especially allow the usage of subsystem modules such as scanners, heat sinks and dispersion reduction modules without the need to create a fit that has no survivability, or indeed, viability.


2. Skill increase

In order to compensate for the jump in HAV effectiveness I propose the dropships be given increased bonuses.

In my opinion the Python should have an overall 30% fire rate increase skill, doubling the effectiveness of the current skill and allowing it to be worth investing in.

The incubus cannot be given a fire rate bonus due to the rapid fire nature of railguns, therefore I propose the creation of two separate incubus skills: one with 50% dispersion reduction and another with 30% heat reduction.

these bonuses would definitely bring the small blaster and rails back into the field without definitively making them overpowered.



On the note of turret balance:

From numerous attempts I have gathered experience which points to three conclusions:

1. Armour tanks cannot be destroyed by pythons as they can outrep and out harden them indefinitely.
2. Shield tanks cannot be destroyed by incubi because they have enough hardening and shield hp to combat.
3. Small blaster turrets are completely useless.


Solutions:

1. We really need the anti HAV missile which should have little splash damage but greatly increased direct damage.
This will create balance as tank users won't be invincible to dropships as they currently are.

2. The damage of small rails vs HAVs specifically needs to be tweaked, this could be done through the heat reduction skill

3. Small blasters require greater bullet magnetism and much reduced dispersion, any sort of dispersion change needs to be carefully considered. The recent inverse dispersion change is not effective as the gunner/pilot constantly needs to burst fire to adjust for target position, I propose the opposite, the blaster becomes like a mini gun, almost like the assault HMG but with greater effectiveness towards infantry. The assault hmg was really what a mini blaster turret should be like. I therefore propose the assault HMGs firing style with a 150 m range, significantly reduced dispersion and the current fire rate.


All these ideas are obviously debatable but I would remind you to keep the discussion civil and topic focused.
Regards.

I am always drunk when I post on these forums, yes.

It helps ...

The recent changes to AV,

Why don't you instead of complain that you are the bottom of the barrel (which is untrue) just propose numbers. This dropships +X, this Dropship +Y, swam launcher range - X. 2 pages of feeling sorry for yourselves is not going to help at all.

For example:

This Shield Hardener cost really messed up my fittings as I rely on them to tank 3 shots with X. Is it possible to increas PG by 10 because the nerf was meant for triple hardened Gunnlogis.

Thanks,
Smart player

The bacon is important too.

The shield hardener cost really messed up a lot of dropship fittings. Can dropship resources please be adjusted to allow pilots to utilize their standard fittings please?

just going to throw this out there...

WHAT Changes to AV have affected dropships?

The only thing that has changed is the AV nade count.

Not trolling when I say if that has seriously affected the utility of dropships, there's a pilot error problem.

Because there has been no other change to AV. So your thesis statement confuses me.