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Things Needed to Keep Dropships in Check

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DUST Fiend 16876	Posted - 2015.05.07 18:33:00 - [1] - Quote So, with the possibility of ADV and PRO dropships on their way soon TM, we need to sit down and have a little discussion, which will very likely devolve into the typical mudslinging of V vs AV, but I digress Right now, while extremely frustrating to fly sometimes, dropships (ADS) can hold their own alright. Pythons are a bit weak right now thanks to the inherent weakness of shields vs armor, but that seems to be being looked at right now, so I won't factor that in much. Here is just a brief breakdown of some things that I feel will be important to keep us from ruling the battlefield once we have access to our higher tier options (as well as things to help keep them from being trivialized in relation to their cost) - Swarm launchers with tapering projectile speed. What I mean by this is that when a swarm launcher is fired, for the first X meters of its flight, it travels extremely fast, then slows down over the next Y meters, then slows again over the next Z meters, so on and so forth until the missiles hit their flight duration and explode. I'm not sure if this is even technically possible, but I see this as being good for both AV and pilots. For AV, the bonus is that any dropship who's getting near the ground will almost always be hit by your first and possibly second salvo, assuming he immediately ABs away. It also means faster damage application on HAVs and LAVs. For pilots, it means that if you're running full speed away, swarm launchers aren't going to magically catch up to you after 350 meters. You now have a reliable option to evade them in running, where as right now running full speed away still often means you're getting hit if you make even the slightest adjustment to your trajectory. So, higher chance to kill a dropship that's close and attacking your team, but a lower chance of killing fleeing or far away dropships. - AA HAV Large Turret. I'm thinking of re-purposing the Large Missile Launcher for this. Higher max range, higher projectile speed, better accuracy, better turret rotation, lower damage, longer reload, and can look up about 80 degrees but can't look lower than 30 degrees. This is just a real rough, toss it out there concept, so please feel free to brainstorm better AA turrets or concepts. - HAV top small turret elevation buffed by an additional 10-15 degrees, in order to provide protection for HAVs that bring a gunner or two with them, outside of just carrying AV with them. - Small buff to forge gun damage across the board. I've always felt that forge guns were the most balanced AV weapon of them all, but honestly they just don't hit hard enough right now. Introducing even stronger hulls will likely exacerbate this problem, and push even more people to swarm launchers. I feel that just going with a straight damage buff at first may be all that's needed, so starting there seems best. - Normalize impact damage for shields and armor. If two ships collide, they should either both die, or neither die, assuming full HP. I personally prefer that neither dies but takes hefty damage along with strong knockback, to make suicide dropshiping take a bit of skill, and to help ease the pain of accidentally bumping each other in a dogfight. This would allow skilled pilots to readjust after a collision and possibly pick up a kill, or at the very least, survive. This should also have the added benefit of making pythons safer to land, and give them the small chance to survive grazing against buildings like armor dropships currently enjoy - Fix the damn side turret bug that makes the turret reset when pointing towards the nose of the ship. I imagine this is the exact same issue that still causes small missile gunners to be able to shoot themselves out of the ship. This is a 2+ year old bug and would be really nice if it could be addressed - Proper first person camera for ADS. This means allowing the first person mode to swivel along the same axis as the turret, allowing you to see exactly what you're shooting at, but meaning you lose out on your situational awareness while doing so. - additional 2% per level efficiency vs vehicles added to the ADS skill. Without something like this, I guarantee that dogfights will never end vs two PRO ships unless one crashes or is taken out by someone else as the two fight. Even right now it's difficult to win dog fights. In addition to this, I feel that small railguns could use a 10% reduction to efficiency vs Shields. Right now they're a bit too strong, but against PRO dropships and LAVs the damage should be alright. The total of an additional 10% damage will allow dedicated pilots to remain a threat to shield vehicles as well as armor. - Split small missiles. I personally suggest a very low direct damage, higher ROF, and higher splash with lower splash damage (higher or the same as direct), as well as a slightly larger clip. This will allow an AI ship to "bathe" the area in damage, allowing attentive players to flee for cover before dying to the splash damage. On the flip side, there should be an anti vehicle missile launcher that more or less mimics the small railgun. Very high direct damage, faster travel time, with virtually no splash radius or damage. I'm thinking something along the lines of 600-650 direct damage for proto, vs the current 455, though something needs to address infantry sniping (similar HD to small rail?). Currently missile launchers are the only small turrets that enjoy reliable use vs both vehicles and infantry at the same time. Small Rail guns may need a slight increase to dispersion to help further punish long range infantry sniping, but that takes noticeably more effort to be good at than infantry sniping with missiles. Splitting the turret in two would help keep newly buffed Pythons from being gods of the sky again, while still allowing a ship with side guns to perform multiple roles at once without splitting up turret types. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16876	Posted - 2015.05.07 18:34:00 - [2] - Quote Reserved Please keep in mind that all of the above is merely brainstorming off the top of my head. Instead of bashing ideas, please provide reasons as to why they're terrible, or why your alternative is favorable. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16877	Posted - 2015.05.07 18:49:00 - [3] - Quote Vesta Opalus wrote: DUST Fiend wrote: Reserved Please keep in mind that all of the above is merely brainstorming off the top of my head. Instead of bashing ideas, please provide reasons as to why they're terrible, or why your alternative is favorable. I'd hold off on doing anything to AV, when tanks were revamped and proto/adv hulls were added, AV can still largely compete with the exception of the madruger hardener/rep fit. Dropships may end up the same. Which is why for AV I only mentioned minor buffs, since I know that even just 2 AV working together can wreck just about everything except the dual hardener rep maddy during its hardener cycle. The Swarm Launcher change was just something I tossed together because they're in this really weird place of being borderline OP yet also being somewhat ineffective against well flown dropships. It was just me grasping at a potential middle ground. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16878	Posted - 2015.05.07 20:54:00 - [4] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: I've said it at least a hundred times before, and I'll say it another trillion: all the large turrets needs to be able to reasonably engage a attacking ADS within their own respective optimal's. That ** is broken still for pretty much everything but dual rep fits (which can sadly enough rep through that ). Making a single large turret the only thing that can take on a ADS or forcing teamwork to actually deal with them doesn't do much of ** but force teamwork or force someone to use a specific thing against them. It isn't a damn gunship. . And as I've said in response at least a hundred times before, large turrets DESTROY dropships. If you could look up at us all the time we would be an absolute NON factor. I'm one of the worst tankers in DUST and I've yet to lose to any ADS, period. A little bit of juking and sticking anywhere near cover will ensure you escape. The AA turret is simply to give an option to pure tankers who really hate dropships, and the small turret elevation buff is to allow any and all tankers to have an option for engaging an attacking dropship by either bringing a gunner along, or hopping into the turret themselves. I understand that with no squad lock on vehicles a blueberry could hop in, but that's the fault of no squad lock, and will have to be considered accordingly. Under no circumstances what so ever should large turrets be able to easily engage dropships, as they would utterly destroy them in every single engagement, without exception. If I were to agree to ANY turret having a higher elevation, it would be the large blaster, but they already have great elevation so it would only need a little buff. Oh, and the ship with 3 guns on it...yea, probably a gun ship Transport based bonuses would be nice but I don't think it will change much since there is still extremely little incentive to run transport DS just in terms of what's actually needed. An LAV or even an HAV make for better transportation in most cases since it's much safer. Perhaps if basic dropships wind up tanky enough without being even slower (please Ratatti, do not make them slower), then maybe we could focus on getting some more transport points in. For now though, it seems like a mostly wasted effort since there is no actual reason to run transport dropships. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16878	Posted - 2015.05.07 20:59:00 - [5] - Quote Sir Dukey wrote: I am not paying 700k isk for a proto ADS. Proto ADS should be like 200k max. Ew, no way. If it has the survivability, 750K should be a good baseline for a fully fitted PRO ADS As it is right now, a well fit STD ADS costs right around 300k, so about 500K for ADV, and 750k for PRO seems about right. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16878	Posted - 2015.05.07 21:16:00 - [6] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: Quote: Small buff to forge gun damage across the board. I've always felt that forge guns were the most balanced AV weapon of them all, but honestly they just don't hit hard enough right now. Introducing even stronger hulls will likely exacerbate this problem, and push even more people to swarm launchers. I feel that just going with a straight damage buff at first may be all that's needed, so starting there seems best. I really do hope you're not pushing to make ADS take the same level of damage as an HAV given how hard it is to hit more than twice with anything except swarms. But I'm of the opinion that Rate of Fire, not Alpha is the answer. Spike alpha too high and things just get idiotic. Also, let's not get too enamored of CCP's cost multiplier pricing method. If it's 4x as hard to kill as a sentinel suit, it should only cost 4x what a sentinel does. I don't want too much of a buff to ADS HP, which is why I generally offered up no buffs to AV damage except for forge because I feel that forges don't hit hard enough. I feel like ROF boost would end up being a significantly stronger buff and vastly reward people who can aim (not necessarily a bad thing) by making the window of escape for a DS significantly smaller. It also makes the forger that less vulnerable, and that much better at surprise attacks. All these things are almost fine right now, it just feels like each individual shot just doesn't deal quite enough damage. Breach FG would have to be carefully looked at when buffing base damage, but otherwise I think a bit more damage would be a good thing. The knockback of faster hitting FG rounds would get a bit absurd and tower forge gunners would be significantly harder to engage or even escape from. Right now the time it takes between a FGs shots is just barely enough to readjust and launch another shot, assuming you're foolish enough to engage them in the first place. I really feel that RoF is perfect right now, and any buff to it coupled with RoF reduction skills would quickly get very out of hand. As for pricing, I don't see the problem in making ADV and PRO more expensive, just like with tanks. I think there needs to be a base concept that all vehicles follow for price, and since HAVs are currently the only vehicles with all 3 tiers, we should be looking at them. If they're too expensive, then they should be lowered and all vehicles should reflect that accordingly. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16878	Posted - 2015.05.07 21:26:00 - [7] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: DUST Fiend wrote: Breach FG would have to be carefully looked at when buffing base damage, but otherwise I think a bit more damage would be a good thing. Please trust me when I say buffing Alpha is a BAD IDEA Gäó The breach forge maxed out does just shy of 3000 damage a hit to armor. there's a REASON I advocate the way I do. I've actually done all of the AV gun impact math and it's not nice. But an RoF buff would make IAFG a nightmare to engage anywhere near its optimal because you can tag a DS at very long range already (granted that's very hard). Making all 4 rounds hit that much quicker would reduce your ability to evade quite significantly, and would generally equate to higher practical DPS for the forge, thus making them significantly more deadly. They're still far from a non factor, as good forgers are still one of the most threatening things, it's just that I actually have the chance to evade them unlike swarms. The only way I think I would be ok with a RoF boost would be if they went down to a 3 round magazine, or had a significantly longer reload. The reload doesn't seem like it would help the issue of not being able to evade or escape in time though. Also, the RoF buff is almost worthless on the other two FGs because the majority of people hold the charge a bit longer than needed anyways, so it would generally not be felt, where as a damage buff would definitely be felt. If Breach does so much damage, then perhaps it only needs a tiny damage buff, or perhaps it needs no buffs at all. I'm well aware how terrifying that thing is. I wasn't aware of a 20% nerf to RoF as I haven't forged in quite some time now, if that's true then perhaps reverting that at least 10% would be alright. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16880	Posted - 2015.05.07 21:42:00 - [8] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: 4 rounds hitting would be one more round than it currently takes, evening out the loss of time, but unless gangups happen the odds of getting a killshot are slim. That's exactly the thing though, gangups very often DO happen. Not even necessarily as you're engaging, but usually as you're fleeing you still pick up a few AVers on your way out. Right now a good forger will almost always land his first shot, where as the second really depends on the skill of the pilot if he opts to immediately flee as he should, with subsequent shots being very difficult to land. A ROF buff changes that to almost guaranteed first two shots, with a good chance to land the third. That's a lot of damage that hits quickly, unlike swarms which while they'll follow you forever, do take some time to actually apply their damage, allowing reps to mitigate some of their extreme damage. This of course assumes the ship flees at top speed up and away from the FG, effectively removing him from the fight until he reps up and comes back around, which will usually be 15-30 seconds for most practical fits, longer for those that rely on hardeners. Also, an ROF buff is a direct buff to the FGs anti infantry capabilities, which really shouldn't be promoted, where as a direct damage buff changes literally nothing vs infantry. I'd say a better zoom and slightly faster projectile speed could help a lot, but that would also make them that much better at infantry sniping again. If only there was a way to make it so the FG had slight dispersion when aimed at infantry, and none when aimed at a vehicle. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16888	Posted - 2015.05.07 22:52:00 - [9] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: a Rail can, if the ADS is untanked, and doesn't move. a blaster or Rocket fitted HAV won't hit them enough to kill them with even a decent pilot. Damage modded missiles actually can completely **** a DS in less than a full clip, and it has the added benefit of causing the DS to sort of "freeze" in midair as it's getting hit. The only reason they aren't laughably OP vs DSs is specifically because they can't look up at us all the time. Blasters are also nasty but only if you stay in their optimal, which makes them the least useful vs good pilots. That said, a single damage mod and waiting till you're close to engage can kill or severely wound a pilot who's focused on something else. With a rail gun in your top small turret slot, you'd be amazed how much safer you become vs dropships. If my slight elevation buff went through, tanks with a top gunner would actually be very difficult to engage solo, which I feel is fair. It would even out more if the DS was also running a side gunner, allowing him to maintain more distance and get better angles. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16888	Posted - 2015.05.07 23:05:00 - [10] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: trying to balance AV versus two very different vehicles after the fact is going to result in idiocy. That's how all of the balancing had been done in the past. I'm not advocating leaving dropships to hang, I am advocating systematic and reasoned fixes to this so we can move the hell along to other things that need dev attention. I may be reading this wrong, but I feel that if we're ever to find balance between V and AV, we first need all the vehicles in the game (preferably min and amarr placeholders too, but all tiers of current vehicles at least). Only then can we tell just how everything will play out, otherwise we're just balancing against fictional numbers. A weapon is made to destroy a target, so in order to balance said weapon, we must first make its target. God **** I wish we had custom games, it would make it SO much easier to test things. If a RoF nerf did indeed happen, then perhaps we can just start by reverting that once ADV and PRO LAVs and DSs are introduced. Let that go for a week or two, see how it feels, and then go from there. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF

DUST Fiend 16888	Posted - 2015.05.07 23:17:00 - [11] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: DUST Fiend wrote: Breakin Stuff wrote: trying to balance AV versus two very different vehicles after the fact is going to result in idiocy. That's how all of the balancing had been done in the past. I'm not advocating leaving dropships to hang, I am advocating systematic and reasoned fixes to this so we can move the hell along to other things that need dev attention. God **** I wish we had custom games, it would make it SO much easier to test things. If a RoF nerf did indeed happen, then perhaps we can just start by reverting that once ADV and PRO LAVs and DSs are introduced. Let that go for a week or two, see how it feels, and then go from there. LAVs are a nonfactor. Period. end. stop. Get them out of your head. It's a damn jeep. It doesn't need to be eating heavy sustained fire from an antitank gun. One, maybe two shots then boom. dead. They made them as tough as tanks before and the result was idiocy. Let's not re-hash that crap. Dropships? Different story. If it weren't for the fact that rattati has a very limited crew I have some ideas I stole from various people to make dropships more resilient, revolving around the idea that hits in the crew compartment areas are not as catastrophic as hits to an engine. But since we don't have the resources in place, I doubt rattati's going to make these new behaviors a priority. We can't look at new behaviors, period. We can only look at tweaking what's already there. LAVs absolutely should be a factor, if you're shelling out the cash to field a proto LAV you want it to be balanced vs AV. It shouldn't stand up to sustained fire no, but it too has to be balanced against AV, otherwise, what's the point? LAVs are already really freaking useful for AV players, Rail LAVs with AV in them are one of the things I fear the MOST as an ADS pilot. If a vehicle is in the game, it's a factor, no matter how small. Period. Which actually reminds me, they could also use the same 10-15% elevation buff that I proposed for the top turret on HAVs. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16893	Posted - 2015.05.07 23:32:00 - [12] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: LAVs never should have been made immune to small arms fire, and they should have been no more expensive than an advanced dropsuit. The fact that you cannot kill one without an antitank gun has done more to remove AV as a specialist role and made it mandatory than anything in DUST. I'm not saying rifles should do 100%, but immunity to a squad pouring bullets in was never a good balance choice. Just like having to have a forge gun, swarm or plasma cannon on the field in case of LAV 100% of the time rather than as an escalation to deal with a Assault dropship or HAV is damaging to the overall meta. an LAV ahould absolutely take a hit or two, with proper fittings. But past that? No. LAVs are actually the EASIEST vehicle to balance against AV because it's a simple math equation. You can hammer the stats to match the intent more easily. I'm down with letting them take some small arms fire if they reduce the cost drastically, but you have to remember that all occupants exposed, so that is certainly a factor. Unless you run a heavy, you're extremely exposed, and even if you do, a few well placed shots or a well placed grenade will clear you right out. That is certainly a factor to remember. Also keep in mind that the explosive damage from AV is often enough to kill the pilot while leaving the LAV intact. As for LAVs and needing AV, AV grenades do wonders and don't require a dedicated AV fit, as do REs, and any other vehicle. Unlike HAVs and DSs, LAVs are more of a supplementary role, and more often than not you won't see someone running to a supply depot to take out an LAV. They'll just leave it be and keep defending the point, since they can shoot out all occupants should the driver decide to stop anywhere nearby. I think the new LAV buffs should be plenty for them, but we have to see what happens if and when ADV / PRO LAVs get into the mix, which I personally think they absolutely should. If they do though, the new changes should only be applied to ADV LAVs, with PRO gaining a bit more fitting capacity on top of what they currently have. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16893	Posted - 2015.05.07 23:41:00 - [13] - Quote The idea of cost is to make it so that vehicles aren't just paper that die the instant they're seen. If cost weren't a factor, then it would have to be a 1v1 equation, except it can never be that because unlike a dropsuit that just respawns, a vehicle has to go through a much lengthier process to get onto the field. And, during that process, both the pilot AND the vehicle are fully exposed, often even deep in your own redline. Cost is extremely important, and you probably aren't going to two shot a PRO ADS anytime soon with any weapon because you can't do it even against a standard one (unless you sync two breaches). Cost should entirely be a factor. If not, then just remove ISK from the game, make everything kill with the exact same amount of effort and be done with it. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16896	Posted - 2015.05.08 00:15:00 - [14] - Quote Pvt Numnutz wrote: I've always thought the missile tank should be the more AA oriented large turret. Higher tracking speed and firing arc then we have anti tank, anti infantry(ish) and anti air. It seems to me that one of the big problems with swarms is target acquisition, pilots have a hard time fighting something they can't see a good portion of the time. The swarm change you proposed is interesting, I'll have to think on it, tho I think the underlying problem is that there are never any fights between pilots and swarmers like there are with FG or PLC. I like the idea of swarms being dumb fire and then locking in a radius mid air, but then we have dumb fire swarms and unforseen consequences. Personally I'd like to have an early warning system, but that's a long shot. I'd love to see pythons shields stand up to slight impacts like armor dropships, and for dropship collisions to be equalized. If dropships with gunners are to work, they need to stop blowing up, not sure what caused it but it really must be fixed Appreciate your input as always o7 It seems Ratatti really wants large missiles to be the go to answer for armored HAVs, so I think the only way it could see AA applications is to receive its own variant. I would love dumb fire swarms that required the player to track the target in order to get the kill, but not only does that open things up to exploits, it's also not likely to be something they can easily add. Same goes for the swarm launcher alert. You'd think it would be easy but we've been requesting that for years now and it just hasn't even been eluded at, which leads me to believe there's something in the code making it difficult / impossible. I don't even know if my suggestion is possible with what they have, but I've been trying to keep all my ideas strictly tied to what's already in game in order to increase their likelihood of being considered. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16897	Posted - 2015.05.08 01:07:00 - [15] - Quote My initial idea for swarms was to have them have much shorter range, significantly faster projectile speed, with very little curve. That way you would have to really focus on where you fire them from if you didn't want them to overshoot, and a good pilot could potentially juke the swarmer into wasting a shot. I don't think it's possible though just because as I'm sure you've seen with swarms, once they get really close to you they will do all sorts of crazy **** in order to hit you. I think I'm gonna upload a quick clip I have laying around showing how persistent swarms can be. It's not the supreme example, but I'm sure you'll be forced to admit you've seen your fair share of it. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16897	Posted - 2015.05.08 01:14:00 - [16] - Quote Here it is What I feel this video most illustrates is how swarms don't track you from their point of origin, or else they would have collided with the wall LONG before I turned around. Instead, they continuously update behind you, allowing them to follow rather aggressive curves. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16920	Posted - 2015.05.08 05:26:00 - [17] - Quote Bumping this since the other ADS thread got locked while we were having a perfectly level headed conversation. Im heading off to bed but hopefully we can keep the discussion rolling. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF
DUST Fiend 16934	Posted - 2015.05.08 13:55:00 - [18] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: DUST Fiend wrote: Here it is What I feel this video most illustrates is how swarms don't track you from their point of origin, or else they would have collided with the wall LONG before I turned around. Instead, they continuously update behind you, allowing them to follow rather aggressive curves. The follow-the-leader aspect is actually 99% of my problems with swarms. If they constantly re-oriented for most direct path to target they could be reliably spoofed and evaded via cover This is probably the single change that would help pilots the most. If swarms continuously updated their curve from their point of origin rather than some invisible point behind their target, they could be much more reliably evaded. "When in doubt, dropship out" If you see me, bring AV to collect ISK DUST STUFF

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