Flying dropships at fanfest, what was the handling like compared to the current Chromosome build? And WP? Anything on WP for dropships?

1, I said the caldari need a drop in mass, not that gallente needed more mass so your repsonse doesn't make much sense

2. While this is true currently the gallenete can fit everything they could possibly want on their ships including local armor rep, CRU, and AB without any need for PG mods, Caldari need to fit PG mods to fit CRU and a local rep not even thinking about an AB. This is rediculous that gallenete can get more speed, a better tank, and don't need to sacrafice anything to get it while caldari sacrafice 2 lows they have with no gain.

I was at fanfest and talked to many of the developers, as many of you now know I fly almost exclusivly dropships and after playing both the previous build as well as the uprising build available at fanfest I have a few suggestions to help shield dropships a little.

1st Mass, I understand mass is an important part of the flying mechanics however currently shield and armor dropships fly similarly where as one would expect the armor dropship to be more laggish in response. Armor should sacrifice speed and handling for raw staying power while still realizing they are dropships and shouldn't be really slow. As part of this I believe that even in the build at fanfest shield dropships had a little more lag in them than I would expect a shield vehicle to experiance. So I personally believe a 2-4% drop in mass should help it out ( can't currently look at stats so it might need to be less).

2nd Powergrid, Armor and shield dropsips should be nearly on the same field as far as fitting goes as far as but currently armor dropships have a clear advantage. With armor dropships I am able to fit a local rep, AB, and mobile CRU as well as some plates and damage mods with little trouble. With shield I have trouble fitting a CRU and a Local rep much less a CRU Local Rep and AB as with the armor variant. The limiting factor tends to be the Powergrid on the shield dropships so a boost to their powergrid of 100-150 should bring them in line ( or a slight lowering of the fitting requirements of some modules listed).

I would love to see what other dropship pilots think but currently for me it makes little sense to train shield dropships as a small increase in speed means little when with an AB the armor variant is just as fast and doesn't suffer from being pronounced dead at the site of flames.

Another issue is that we haven't seen how the Minmatar one handles yet. Minmatar and Amarr are both shield tankers for the most part, but Caldari vehicles tend to be slower despite the shield tanking based on their design methodology. If anything, I would say that rather than increase it's speed, buff its damn hitpoints.

Myron:

Turrets

Stabilized Ion Blaster

Stabilized Ion Blaster

High Slots

Clarity Ward Shield Booster

Azeotropic Shield Extender

Azeotropic Shield Extender

Ward Shield Amplifier

Low Slots

Local Power Diagnostic Unit

Complex Small Turret Damage Mod (can't remember the name)

Skills

Shield Control 4

Turret Operation 5

Small Hybrid Turret 5

Small Hybrid Turret Proficiency 4

Whole fit runs ~650K ISK. I'm doing this exclusively from memory, but I'm pretty sure it has ~3680 shield HP and ~4330 shield EHP, and the turrets do ~49 damage per shot * 902 RPM = 735 DPS. If you've never given the stabilized blasters a try, you definitely should. Shelling out ~150 PG per turret kinda hurts at first, but once you try them you'll prolly never leave 'em. You can hover WAY higher than a scattered will let you, which gives you an easier time getting up and going should you start seeing rail or forge blasts come whizzing by. As an added bonus, the shield EHP is 649 higher than the shield HP, so your ship behaves like it has 4330 shield but it only has to rep 3680. Given that shields don't rep in DUST like they do in EVE, this is a perk.

When you say "lag" do you mean torque distribution? The kinetic force that will throw you in the direction that you were previously travelling in if you made a sudden sharp turn?

A dropship with more weight/mass to throw around would have higher speed, but of course be less manouverable.

what? Amarr slap as many armor plates on as possible and hope what their shooting dies first... what in the name of the amarr god are you shield tanking an amarr ship for... you but do you even EVE?

I am talking about that, they tend to not act as quickly when turning as I expect, just not as responsive as I would like for a shield ship however 1-4% less mass should fix it as its not that much of a problem

Problem with your fit is that a Grim can still outmaneuver it with a AB fit, and without a CRU you must land to pick-up mercs to actually get anyone to shoot. Currently there is no advantage that I can see to run a shield fit dropship by any means which is why I am seeking to get it changes. I personally believe they should be focused around being able to 2 out of 3 (Ab,Rep,CRU) on a ship rather than the Grims all 3 and the Myron's 1

Yeah.... I only fly my DS with my corp mates on the turrets because we have comms, work well together, and are organized. My gunners almost always break 1000 WP. I've had one blueberry who did good on my turret, and when I switched to team chat to congratulate him I found out he is from Chile and doesn't speak English... So yeah, point is that I don't want blueberries in my turrets, so CRU is out.

Yesterday I was picking up these corp mates and an OB dropped on me. I was on the ground smack in the middle of it, and I made it away. Sounds like I don't need an AB. By the way, this was at an enemy controlled base we had just finished hacking, and none of them were dead, so a CRU wouldn't have helped me there.

If I do take armor damage, my direct commander sits in my DS as a logibro, so I just land and have him fix me up. By the way, I took armor damage twice in the 6 matches we did last night.

Dropships don't turn, not in the normal sense you are used to in a wheeled or winged vehicle.

They are pure vector thrust machines with nothing to grab onto. They don't have wings to bite into the air with, nor wheels to gain traction on the ground. They are totally at the mercy of inertia.

Think of them as the old lunar lander flying in a vacuum. To change direction you need to cancel your current velocity via thrust, then aim in new direction and thrust. Of course you can combine both operations, but the fact is you must spend just as much time slowing down as you did speeding up. You can't bank and alter your direction and keep your momentum. They will never "turn on a dime" no matter how agile they are. That will only come when we get winged fighters.