In case you don't know what this maneuver is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S6RNWE0WKQ

I've heard the forge rounds knock the dropships around is this true?

You can make controlled landings without damaging the craft, but not quickly.

When you are descending, keep your lateral momentum manageable. At about 5 meters just let off the throttle and let it glide in. Only use slight movements with the stick to correct - no throttle. When you touch down you can go reverse to keep the craft grounded.

I wanted to practice "combat landings" but then the server reset and I'm broke. I won't be trying again until Swarms have their lock-on range nerfed.


I prefer my passengers to stay in the Dropship until I say "bail", but without automatic voice comms inside the craft its hard to coordinate. With an armor rep I recover from hairy situations with the warning klaxons going a little too often.

DO A BARREL ROLL

Done.

Yeah, it is a pain, but you can recover. Also if the dropships beeping, all passengers please disembark or die.
Sorry to the three who didn't make it, I almost recovered but the armor repair didn't recharge fast enough...
I just don't know what went wrong... We did manage to distract the entire enemy team for the entire match...

After finally bringing up a couple of drop ships I found they were not as hard to fly this build as i had read they were still hard but I could keep them level , hard part seem to be slowing them down to land or circle firefights on ground also seem very easy to knock out of the air. seem to need to be some place inbetween last build and this one

After the patch I was totally unable to flight straight. After the over9000 Gamescom battles and some puking passenger, I was able to achieve simple flying and few loops and barrel roll without closing them with a faceplant.
I feel that new controls are more rewarding when mastered...even if I still feel like that http://tinyurl.com/dropshipzz

I assume we have some new toys coming soon from the pilot suit and propulsion modules?

Assuming seems a legit option ;) I hope for the Dropship equivalent of Bicycle Training Wheels

Also, I'm looking to get some gunning practice in, so feel free to send a squad invite if you're online in approximately 8 hours. (Stupid kitten freelance work.)

Hey Asimov you should check us out at Betamax site

Also, look at "Betamax Recruits" ingame.

Always looking for good dropship pilots

I'm the type of pilot that flies fast and hard, if you're ever in my ship, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...

People that pilot their dropships as slowly and carefully as old people drive their cars won't make it far as a pilot in this game...

Huh. So that's how you avoid swarms. I need to get into a DS more often so I can get some practice. Lousy homework...

You can make controlled landings without damaging the craft, but not quickly.

When you are descending, keep your lateral momentum manageable. At about 5 meters just let off the throttle and let it glide in. Only use slight movements with the stick to correct - no throttle. When you touch down you can go reverse to keep the craft grounded.

I wanted to practice "combat landings" but then the server reset and I'm broke. I won't be trying again until Swarms have their lock-on range nerfed.


I prefer my passengers to stay in the Dropship until I say "bail", but without automatic voice comms inside the craft its hard to coordinate. With an armor rep I recover from hairy situations with the warning klaxons going a little too often.

I'm curious what the average life expectancy of a dropship is now, after the 10 mile swarm launcher launch range + supersonic speed boost.

As a guy who killed tons of Sagaris, Surya, Eryx and Promethius with the Swarm Launcher in E3 build.. they did not need this massive massive buff. The new characteristics are annoying too.

/soapbox

There's a time for both IMO depending on the situation.. No gunner is going to stay with if you're flying all over the place every moment and you will get no vehicle assists for their kills because they're not getting any.

The moment you slow down for a gunner is the moment that every anti-vehicle weapon is looking at you. Until auto-cannons are added your best bet to survive is to fly fast and hard while doing strafing runs on large groups of enemies using missile turrets. Better yet, if you have an on-board CRU (Clone Reactivation Unit) you can stay way up in the air and provide a safe spawn for your team. Just jump out and learn why it's called a "dropsuit."

After the patch I was totally unable to flight straight. After the over9000 Gamescom battles and some puking passenger, I was able to achieve simple flying and few loops and barrel roll without closing them with a faceplant.
I feel that new controls are more rewarding when mastered...even if I still feel like that http://tinyurl.com/dropshipzz

The controls are just fine the problem is no matter how good a pilot you are if you get hit you get flung so hard upside down its impossible to recover from.

I masochistically like that as well. Acting "like a bus" after a swarm launcher it's kinda unnatural :p

After the patch I was totally unable to flight straight. After the over9000 Gamescom battles and some puking passenger, I was able to achieve simple flying and few loops and barrel roll without closing them with a faceplant.
I feel that new controls are more rewarding when mastered...even if I still feel like that http://tinyurl.com/dropshipzz

Wait so your saying i can dodge them?

I shall have my butler fit nanofibers to the next one.

I am having an extremely hard time justifying the cost of the dropship vs its performance against LAVs to my evaluator.

How many swarm launches can you take in your dropship? I usually die when a second full volley of rockets hits me, so I can survive one. Then again I'm only using the militia stuff all round. Any advice on which dropship to aim for and which modules to go for would be appreciated. I kinda just want to be able to stay alive for longer and take more damage. Thanks

about 6 but my shield HP is about 3470

How many swarm launches can you take in your dropship? I usually die when a second full volley of rockets hits me, so I can survive one. Then again I'm only using the militia stuff all round. Any advice on which dropship to aim for and which modules to go for would be appreciated. I kinda just want to be able to stay alive for longer and take more damage. Thanks

Thank you guys for the help, I think I'm gunna start pouring skills into dropships then now I know they can take abit of damage and are worth while

yea the militia dropship is trash.. you can fly it for about a minute and gunners get maybe 3-4 kills on average, the myron shrugs off all but the most advanced SL and gunners sometimes go double digits..

Thank you guys for the help, I think I'm gunna start pouring skills into dropships then now I know they can take abit of damage and are worth while

you'll just to put up with a bunch of smacktalk from morons who think their high kill counts on leader boards mean something special.. you'll find a consistent squad very easy tho if you fly well..

Actually one more question what's better to have more shield or more armour is one more resistant than the other?

that wasn't pointing out it was special just that normally me and my gunners work well enough togather that win or lose we still showed them hell while having fun

i wasn't refering to you

nither really they both suck you want a good build I can give you one in-game as I don't want these other guys to copy me :P but shields are better because they can regen over time while armor can't

Haha fair enough, probably just go for shield then

These new dropship physics are awesome. With the exception of landing, even a gentle landing will cause massive damage.
Never-mind that **** though, I can ******* pull an Immelmann turn over missiles! Good times are ahead, if I can find a good gunner.

Just read through this entire thread, giggling my socks off as I went. Despite the horror stories and fail-tales, I'm STILL training to be a fly-boy :D

Does anyone have a good DS fit they'd be able to share?

MB

lol if they had one wouldn't they have shared it already while bragging ................... besides me even though I didn't share mine :P right now I don't see many or even any who use a dropship let alone can fly one hell yesterday me and my buddy who was in the gunner seat watched this one poor sap try to fly a viper we almost didn't want to shoot him and see if he would crash it was kinda sad to watch so most can't fly let alone spec right to even make it good but I'm more than happy to share in game as it would be nice to see MORE PLAYERS USING THEM kinda boring being the only guy in the air who can survive let alone fly it

oh my bad :P

good dropship/pilot and good gunners cause the enemies rage meter to rise and go off the charts, making a bunch of enemy infantry go AV which weakens their offensive power on the ground vs other friendly infantry,

then they get so raged that they go out and try to kill the survivors of the crash.. best to fly your burning ship out to BFE/middle of no where causing them to the leave the ground fight to try to kill the crash survivors,

we 3 killed like 4 out 6 of them and their LAV before they killed us 3 crash survivors.. cheers and laughter ensued on our mic..

a wiser man from another MMO once said:
"a pilot without an attitude is just some guy..."

I wasn't even referring to that, though I'm sure we gave them much more of a fight than they were expecting.

I'm referring to the DS pilots who claim they can "easily" avoid swarms. I have yet to find such a technique. Perhaps...more altitude? I have noticed that the DS seems to go faster when you're higher up. BTW, CCP, we need an altimeter and spedometer in our dropships!

Also, someone earlier mentioned shield rechargers. I'm going to tinker with my fits later and see if I can get a more effective fit by using rechargers rather than boosters.

I'm trying dropships again. If I lose the kitten thing while learning the controls I'm going on a rampage with my militia scout....I'm gonna miss being at the top of the charts lol >_<

ok then you guys want the best fit I have come up with so FAR I'll give each and everyone of you the fit but it will only work with your own skill added on

I got a myron with 3 shield amps on which each take off 25% dmg but what ever penalty their is and 1 shield extender plus with my shield management skill at around lvl 2-3 I got around 2600 hp on shield and got a armor booster plus with skill puts it at around 1900 armor you don't need this but you can have it to help and a merc piece of **** 10% amp on that and I use the At1 rockets so gunners hurt like a ************ when they hit something or someone now if you want more speed add instead of the armor and armor amp put the chassie upgrade which lowers armor for more speed the rest depends on you and your piloting skills now me I can at last and outrun swarms all day long as long as I don't make a mistake or use bad judgement but there are a rare few who happen to get me and I will say this with this setup even the ******* railgun instalation needs at least 3-5 shots to get you to armor so tanks are not to big a threat unless you let them get to where they can hit you :P enjoy guys I hope to see more in the air to **** around with but I will say this I am working on other possible builds so if you keep in touch with me I might give you a better one and I can come up with builds for more than just a dropship so just ask and I may be nice like this :P



BYE NOW :P :P :P

Better to be on top of the battlefield than on top of the short sighted KDR leader board.

Kittens me!
These dropships are a blast. Kitten to fly, but extremely enjoyable eventhough I have crashed 2 out of 2 that I have flown. Flight controls need to get used to, but love the fluidity of flight and feeling of actually flying something.

Oh man, first time I even got to take of and flew around in one of the smaller maps which takes place in that complex building. In my exitement started to experiment with diving from high and when closer to surface pull up. All went well until that red-line went past me... Ooo kittens!

Second time ended allso ditching my DS for trying to make a loop.

By the way is there any way to position the camera more downwards, so that I can see where I'm landing? Was able to land on one of those towers, but took a sweet time.


Now I have to note that I have only been in beta for few days so I don't know last builds flight mechanics. So in that front I don't have past experience to compare to, but if they were more *arcade* like then I think I'll like this current system more.

My Skill Point and ISK gains beg to differ....

Pull back on the R stick and the external camera will rotate up over the ship ( yeah, that feels backward ).

I believe a good part of new pilots control problems come from confusing the camera view shift for pitching the ship.

With the penalties one of those resist mods is only doing about 14.25% resist. If you can use the high quality DCUs they have a 14% resist bonus to shields AND armor while costing WAY less CPU.

Is there going to be training 'sim' mode where you are just in a massive box with an items, with targets and you can just test them out. I would allow me to train in a drop ship without having to be in real world battles. Big ask.. I guess. But soldiers/pilots normally don't test out their weapons in battle, they spend hours in training.

but if you look at it you say it is doing 14.25% while the DCU is doing 14% it is still a .25 differnce and besides they have a really hard time getting me down to my armor and with the fire bullshit half the time it won't matter even if they manage to do that but I get what your saying and that idear with a armor resist is nice too as it adds more but like I said in that last post I am STILL working on builds for the dropship I try out so many different kinds

That's normally my perspective, but since you opted for armor hardeners in your lows rather than nanos or PDSes I figured you wanted to dual tank.