DUST Search - [Feedback] Dropships codex build

Sees-Too-Much wrote:

No, I've seen how you fly. You have a vaguely AC-130 style doctrine, and I can't argue that it doesn't work since you're raking in the mad kill assists. It makes me miss having a good gunner, but the guy I like to run with is almost never on. Of course, neither am I, lousy school...

My point is by staying so high up every ground-pounder can see you, and because you're high and far away you have a low radial velocity even though your linear speed is quite high. That's why they can hit you, because from where they're sitting you appear slow-moving.

You've got a strategy that makes you fairly invincible to swarms, but vulnerable to forge gunners and rail turrets (either on installations or HAVs), what I've been doing, and it's been fairly successful, is either staying where they can't see me (somewhere below building level), or flying near them at high speed so that radial velocity is MUCH higher.

Where I'd like to end up is having a couple guys with ARs loaded up and when I see a forge gunner I fly over and have them drop out and kill him that way, but I've never been able to get a good enough group together. I need to look into one of these corps.


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Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.02 03:43:00 - [1] - Quote Keep this feedback only. Try not to spam this thread with angry thoughts. If you need to do that use my thread in General Topics area. Give your feed back on things you think that where changed for the worse this build. And things that really helped drop ships out. Anyone who knows me and dropships I am usually able to change the tide of battle. So I make this post on knowledge that I am a decent pilot and would like other big time pilots to post there thoughts. I was a little to angry after flying my first time to make a proper assesment. So expect me to update this alot in the next few days. 1. Right now my number one major concern is the ceiling. It needs to be taken off again. It is a mechanic that hurts dropships more then the AV buff and resists nerfs did. This was one thing that made drop ship piloting fun. effects dropship vs drop ship battles forces drop ships in installation kill zones and forge gun kill zones. 2. The speed booster meant for aerial vehicles seems to have insanly high CPU and PG fittings making it impossible to fit on a dropship. Update 1: 3. Swarms vs Dropships They seem to even have a greater effect then last build when hitting drop ships causing them to insta flip. It is a pain in the rear keeping my viper upside right after hit by swarms making me constantly start moving to escape swarms. 4. Drop ships are missing a skill reward base system where lvling up skills improves features not sure if CCP is working on implementing something that might take extra coding or not. 5. Missing other ways to gain SP besides having gunners kill. Forcing them into a killing boat only which they are just okay at if you fly it right. You need a good gunner and pilot then it can become a decent killing machine. But I would like to see them become a spawn unit and also a troupe transport unit so eryx and Prometheus become more useful 6. Eryx and Prometheus need CPU and PG boost still. They lack in tanking ability big time and are as easy to take down as a viper almost. Testing flight controls currently and figureing out what i like about the change and what I do not. They are very simular to to the other ones of coarse. so most people will not notice much change. Update 2: 7. Well One thing I like that CCP has given drop ships is more side to side wiggle room. What I mean by this is that we are not as restricted by the redzones on the edges as ground units. So this is a bonus here but I feel the ceiling still counter acts this. 8. Forge guns are a negative aspect because there is no natural defense so it is very easy. a well tanked viper does not even close to stand a chance against a forge. Kain sperro is perfect example I had no way to escape him besides going off map sitting there and as soon as I appeared he could hit me anywhere on the map. I was his chew toy. It would not matter how good of flyer I am I am a forced to his bidding. I was going full speed and it was no trouble for him hitting me. Still have not got enough time flying to say what I think of handling. and what is good or bad. More info to come in the next few days. Lets make this productive so CCP can restore dropships to there former glory and beyond that. :) Update 3: 9. I have been hearing from my gunners they have fixed turrets a little so you are able to hit targets easier. So I am glad to hear that. So we got some positive things going here also. 10. The shields/armor seem good enough to tank swarms fine unless alpha. But the problem seems to be that forge guns can apply to much damage to quickly for you to ever escape even if you are moving at full speed. But then again I could see a problem later on that installations can eat up dropships very quickly. 11. Handling so far seems pretty simular to last build maybe a little more sluggish or smooth for other players in certain areas. It is not a down grade really just does make it easier for others so they do not flip or go all crazy. Along with update there I am going to start things I am pushings for kind of a quick summary. Update 4 12. Handling is starting to get to me. CCP you made everything so slow. I loved the ability to turn my ship on its side and quickly be able to change directions . You guys need to restore precursor build on senstivity. Right now things are just slow and anyone who pilots dropships will agree that your trying to make things easy mode in this respect so anyone can fly them. Or at least give the option to choose if you want the old precusor handling or easier handling of this build. It will allow pro pilots the ability to do more with there ship. Use to be if I saw a bolas pop up in front of me. I could insta stop. I was able to whip my ship around in no time now if I see bolas well It probably means I am dead because there is no stoping. I think most pilots will agree precursor is better. Better Swarm/dropship interaction. Forge gun/dropship interaction needs to be worked out so forges are not so deadly. Better way for dropships to gain SP Eryx/Prometheus need cpu and powergrid boost so your able to actually tank them better Dropships need to get a system where skills effect them Ceiling is to low right now I love the expansion on redzone for dropships I love that you have improved accuracy of guns to hit closer to where you are aiming while dropship is moving
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.02 03:43:00 - [2] - Quote Update 5 13.Little more into AV I will continue with saying Forges are to great at anti dropships But Swarms are lacking First off swarms force you keep on the move because the one major problem with them is that they like to flip you our force you into the ground or building very quickly because of how much they throw you around. Second I think there needs to be a anti AIR swarm. It should be about 5% slower then the fastest speeds a armor dropship. It should be a single missile set up. It should do less damage then regular swarms. It should not follow your flight path. But should choose the most direct path to you at all times. This will allow the use of buildings as cover against these swarms. These swarms should lock onto the bottom of the thrusters. and always go for the fastest path to hit the bottom of the thrusters. Why do I want it to direct it self there well Because this would allow dropships who are going in for pick ups to use cover and the missiles will have a higher chance of hitting that cover. This will alllow give support to entice people to use dropships as pick up and drop off services. These swarms should act as thermal/EM damage type doing slightly more damage to shield because shield still has the advantage of speed to use against them. This damage should not succeed regular swarms though It should still be less. There should not be a militant version. This should only be accessible to People who put SP in swarms. Normal Swarms should also probably pick the most direct route also. But keep them with there slow speeds they have now. They would stay as a more Antitank and anti car roll with the ability to bother dropships. 14.Landing gear: I have been thinking about landing gear lately and how drop ships are forced to try to stop at high speeds in hot zones to pick people up while trying to avoid av aka forges/swarms just messing you up before you can pick up. It is very hard to come in hot per say and land in a hotzone. So giving it alot of thought I finally said Why do we not have this function on the quick tab. This will allow dropship pilots to manually control this function. It would allow close to ground maneuvers without having the landing gear effect you. This should be on the lefthand side of the quick tab/weapons wheel so it is out of the way of everything else. And can hold its standard positions Now the big question is what will turning this baby on do. Inertial dampers activated on dropship. Basically this would take you going from full blown speeds and slow you to a crawl and also give you immunity when coming into contact with the ground. This should all happen within 1-2 seconds. Allowing for quick in and out pick ups. I also want to feel and see this. My dropship should shutter when activating this and my controller should go crazy for that second or 2. Also keep the current mechanics of landing gear to so you can land with out making a scene also. But these second manual operated function would add in a ability to go into hotzones quick and get out fast. Oh ya and again please bring back precursor handling for dropships the response of dropships are so slow in this build. I can not fly like I use to. Which was fun and also very great at avoiding AV. It also seperated out the good dropship pilots from people who had no idea what they are doing. I would love to see aircraft as something you have to practice to fly not something that anyone can get into like E3 build. Goals for the future is to go more into turrets and maybe pre deposed damage modifier nerfs on each dropship aka like the logistic lav has a .5 on its set up but first I would like to see the new swarms that I talked about and how they effect dropships. Also my landing gear Idea. Update 6 15. Isk earned after battle Well this kind of goes for all vehicles. Tanks and dropships being effect the most by this of coarse. For dropships we get no kills and just earn our points off from assists currently. That means we make a reduced amount of isk compared to our gunners. And for beginer pilots and also depending on how this swarm buff goes that ccp is putting in it might mean for alot of people if not all dropships are going to be very very hard to fund unless you got some big isk supporter in the background. endgame dropships/fittings cost 800k+ and maybe even more as dust contunies to develop. If your gunners are having very very good games you might break 100K isk in a skirmish map which is not much because it means it will take you 8 games to just replace the dropship. Not talking about affording dropsuits also to allow you to compete on the ground. Tanks are very very expensive and currently there survival rate is not set to a full game. And when you put 1.8m into a tank you would expect to be able to make a okay chunk of that back per game. But it seems currently that it is very hard to do that. Right now the reward system is not that great for this. 16. CCPs swarm buff as stated in there update. Well sounds like ccp is going to buff swarm speed. This A is going to have a very very negative effect on armor dropships making them rare if not extinced. So far there is no other defense against swarms other then speed and if ccp over buffs that like they normally do with everything then we could have a problem of armor dropships disappearing and Shield being the only avenue of flight. And maybe even shield being effected badly because of how much dropships get thrown around by swarms currently and how well swarms track and follow. Personally I would like to see CCP take a Flight path fix instead. 2 quick bullets on what I want ccp to do get inertial dampener that is manually operated and allows dropships to come in for quick pick ups the detail info is above Restore the control sensitivity or at least give a option for more advanced pilots to select the control sensitivity from Precursor build.
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.03 02:23:00 - [3] - Quote Update 1 in.
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.04 01:18:00 - [4] - Quote update 2 in
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.04 04:21:00 - [5] - Quote update 3 is in.
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.04 14:29:00 - [6] - Quote Sees-Too-Much wrote: This is going to sound counterintuitive, but try flying lower. Depending on the map and your location relative to the forge gunner this can put enough obstacles between him and you that he won't be able to get line of sight. Of course if messes with your gunners and their target opportunities, but c'est la vie. See-too-much I am guessing you do not know how I fly. Lets just say that I probably am one of the toughest dropships to hit. I am able to get my gunners tons of kills but I would like to see dropships become more then just something to kill with. Personally in the end I would like to see dropships get a damage reduction on there turrets once the bring in a point system that gives them more warpoints for spawns and troupe transport element. Last night i got my gunner 47-0 Lets just say we where doing some crazy ass flying and had alot of fun. But then the next round kain had a forge and he just could point and kill me with out much trouble.
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.04 15:39:00 - [7] - Quote Sees-Too-Much wrote: No, I've seen how you fly. You have a vaguely AC-130 style doctrine, and I can't argue that it doesn't work since you're raking in the mad kill assists. It makes me miss having a good gunner, but the guy I like to run with is almost never on. Of course, neither am I, lousy school... My point is by staying so high up every ground-pounder can see you, and because you're high and far away you have a low radial velocity even though your linear speed is quite high. That's why they can hit you, because from where they're sitting you appear slow-moving. You've got a strategy that makes you fairly invincible to swarms, but vulnerable to forge gunners and rail turrets (either on installations or HAVs), what I've been doing, and it's been fairly successful, is either staying where they can't see me (somewhere below building level), or flying near them at high speed so that radial velocity is MUCH higher. Where I'd like to end up is having a couple guys with ARs loaded up and when I see a forge gunner I fly over and have them drop out and kill him that way, but I've never been able to get a good enough group together. I need to look into one of these corps. You are correct I AC-130 style it up I am famous for this. But once forges come out I switch my flying style very quickly to using environmental as cover and moving low to the ground when I deem it will keep me out of site. Even if your flying low with assault rifle guys if you fly low around a corner and a forge is there it is probably the end of your drop ship. It takes 5.7 seconds to unload a proto forge clip into a drop ship. usually it only takes the first 3 shots so that is 3.8 seconds from first shot to kill shot. by the time your assault guys drop out and start firing you drop ship will already be destroyed. I find that running my orbit high and soon as I see hint of forge I can drop and gain speeds faster then you can achieve. My style for anti forge is alot different then my anti swarm you have seen my anti swarm more then anti forge because forges are rare at the moment. Yes flying low works. Until you fly low over the location where the forger is and your dead if he has the ability to use it correctly. Also I have knowledge that height and distance is the advantage against a forger. Soon as you get close to a forger even if your moving at insane speeds it is alot easier for them to hit because you present yourself as a bigger target and the forge shots do not very as much when your right up next to it.
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.09 15:40:00 - [8] - Quote Update 5 is in boys It is a big one. First off I would love to hear what people think of my landing gear idea I think it would be fun to have inertial dampers on dropships that are manual operated to allow you to pick up in hot zones easier. And also Idea on New AV that is more aimed towards Anti Air. Less damage so it is not a good pick for anti tank/LAV. Faster speeds making swarms take a direct rout at the thrusters making use of buildings for cover. and when landing in a hotzone making use of obstacles more realistic choice to avoid them. So lets hear back from some people on this on. :)
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.18 14:34:00 - [9] - Quote Just a quick bump and a small update on pricing talk and ccp doing speed booster over flight path fix. Update 6 is in.
Sin3 DeusNomine Doomheim 142	Posted - 2012.10.18 17:20:00 - [10] - Quote Yes they mention a speed chamge to swarms in there weekly update thread. I fear this could be a bad thing if the buff is to strong and could destroy armor dropships and do the same to shield if it is to fast. right now dropships just have speed to save them from swarms. if swarms end up as fast as or faster then dropships there is no form of safety because swarms can dodge around buildings to get you..