People need to stop screaming about Swarms needing a buff because of Dropships. What we actually need is faster missiles but heavier and stronger Dropships, My shields get taken off in about three swarm attacks, two people targetting me does me in, A forge gun? Takes me down in 2-3 shots total. When these two are combined,.

We need to provide a good balance for the two at once, because if anyone hasn't noticed, CCP seems to forget dropships all the time and decides to **** pilots over ALL THE TIME.

I think we're going about this the wrong way. Instead of asking "How can we make it possible to kill a dropship while it's doing the only thing that could be considered 'evasive actions' allowed by its flight physics?" we should be asking "How can we make it so 'swarm dodging flight' and 'warfighting flight' aren't the same thing?" In other words, let's make it so that flying around at top speed isn't the way for dropships to earn warpoints.

1) Range penalties on the turrets. The turrets need to be there, because that's how a dropship provides support and cover to troops it drops off, but it should lose effectiveness past 15m or so. Reduced damage, reduced accuracy, something.

2) Transport assist points. CCP has mentioned before that they're planning this, or something similar. For those of you not familiar with the idea, they'll have pilots get a portion of warpoints earned by anyone they recently dropped off.

3) Remove the swarm starter suit. As it is now every time a dropship or HAV appears on the field every d-bag grabs his swarm starter suit and goes to town. This is why you rarely see HAVs anymore and dropships are forced to behave the way they do.

What does this change?
You still won't be able to kill a dropship that is moving at max speed around the map. Not with swarms, anyway. But that pilot won't be able to make any money that way anymore. Instead, he or she will be taking position over cap points and supporting troops with rapid transport and acting as a mobile spawn point that shoots missiles. Maybe even fitting a remote rep, who knows? The point is that its role is being changed from "doofy looking AC-130" to "ground support aircraft" like it's supposed to be.
And while it's doing that ground support it's not flying at max speed, and a vigilant AV troop has an opportunity to do damage. Thus avoiding swarms becomes about situational awareness and reflexes, not holding the joystick forward and slightly to the left.

I believe that these three things (one of which CCP has all but stated is coming) are the best way to get the gameplay to where we want.

Right now the speed is the only thing thats keeping dropships alive. Buff up the HP on the ships, make turrets on the ships less effective when flying at high speeds, make a velocity skill that increases swarm speed to a point where you can't easily outrun a swarm and I think everyone will be much happier but I don't think the noob swarms should be that effective against half mill dropships.

It is a realistic request, there is a huge difference between the purpose that a Stinger Missile serves in combat (Anti-Air role), and a Javelin. Likewise though you need to find some balance. I guess as a tank driver I wouldn't be opposed to a soldier having a one hit vertical launch 5000 damage Javelin missile that specialized in taking out tanks. You could still hide under cover if you were a tank driver, but in most scenarios would lose, and if you were an upper level tank you could take one shot from one of these super weapons, but would lose to 2, or if you were weakened.

The real key is these weapon systems are specialized, which is the point. I guess my perspective is multi-purpose weapons need a nerf, and specialized weapons should be ****, but from an armor perspective, still defensible by the top tier tanks or dropships. Of course, I sort of like the balance now. As a tank driver, I feel the Tank nerf was significant enough to deter people from using them just enough to deter people from specializing AT. As a consequence I still have to be careful, due to the fact that there are a few good AT people in the game, but no one can complain about tanks being OP, and yet to most people they still feel boss, and as a tank driver you also feel boss, unless you happen to meet your match in a legitimate AT opponent.

Then you do what any good tank driver should do, you retreat. I'll tell you one thing Marines in Afganistan didn't do was drive their tanks into the middle of an uncleared city block where they knew enemies were holed up with large quantities of AT weapons. You have to be smart, that's knowing when to use your weapons and when not to. If a couple guys on the enemy team are specialized AT, you don't run a tank, and you take advantage of their weakened anti-personnel strength by pushing an infantry assault.

I could go on about this forever. The mix of tanks and infantry is perfect right now. Its realistic cost benefit and reward balance, and I like it. Now what we DO need to see more of is dropships, I think a dropship in at least every other match should be normal, and the fact that we don't see that means there's something wrong with the balance there. I'm not here to say what exactly, even though I have my opinions, but I will say it needs to be resolved.

That being said I've seen dropship pilots and their gunners go on ridiculous streaks like 50-0, so I guess it depends... Maybe people just aren't comfortable with the controls, and they got the cost reward balance right, but everyone's still looking for the OP solution and not willing to take the risk.

ONE HUGE THING. Turret emplacements need a buff, I've got a standard Large Missile Launcher on my Sica, and its one of the fragment versions, so its not even top damage. I like that the Damage Modifiers feel like they actually work, but with 2 of the top tier damage modifiers on this otherwise sub-par tank I destroy a Turret Emplacement in one hit. And all my missiles don't even need to make contact, 3 suffice. Granted with this build I've also taken out Madrugars, and even a Surya. Even the one time I lost my tank to another tank that tank was still so crippled that a Swarm Launcher on my team finished him off shortly after the engagement. But the point is I'm highly slot limited in this tank, once you see proto tanks running around like a fully specced Marauder with 3 damage modifiers instead of my measly 2, and his skills maxed out, with the top tier Accelerated Missile Launcher equipped, your looking at a tank that can 1 shot any lower leveled tank, or even knock a Bolas out of the sky with a single salvo. Matter of fact, even with reduced splash damage, I'm sure the damage on any one of those missiles will be enough to kill just about any infantry it comes into contact with, and with a solid fast salvo that makes that tank the perfect anti-infantry and anti-armor weapon.

I'm not saying nerf tanks before its too late, this is what a Marauder should be, particularly a fully specced one, it should shred through any defenses. All I'm saying is that Turret emplacements better be available in a better quality variety in the future otherwise they lose all viability... Might I also suggest CCP look at Armored Core V's system for emplacements and some of the stuff they included, it uses a pretty similar emplacement system, but they've got a lot more variety, and I strongly suggest looking at their system as it would greatly benefit the developers of this game in coming up with new ideas, and someday benefit our commanders who will need access to this sort of suite of tools to make reliable strategic defenses and honestly defend against some of the behemoths that will develop from this skill system.