Learn to fly better.

Very skilled and experienced pilot here:

In my opinion the biggest problem is that a completely decked out dropship(assualt logistics or standard) with all the modules and skills seems to be balanced ONLY when flown against militia/standard AV. Against AV at this level you will be denied your effectiveness around them yet still have an opportunity to do your job(troop transport, gunship, scout) for a few seconds before having to retreat. However, against proto AV you immediately have to retreat or your ship quickly becomes a burning wreck. Dropships NEED a big buff to shields/armor.

And lets not forget the people who call in a railgun tank, sit 100 meters behind the redline on a hill, and take potshots at us the entire time we are in the air. This also applys to the railgun/missle turrets that sit behind the redline where we cannot reach them.

Yeah I laughed at missile turrets last build, now they're one of my biggest nightmares, they don't kill me but since they are almost always far back in the redline they can block such huge amounts of the map. And rail guns are even worse for it, and boasters are just bitches because they can aim so far.

Bump

The controls aren't the issue, as dust fiend said, we can adapt to them pretty quickly, took me two games to get used to the new handling, but now my flying is better than ever. The issue is the lack of war points, the lack of ISK we get fulfilling our role, and the fact that advanced and proto AV is balanced against tanks, meaning we regularly get OHK or THK by AV before we even get a chance to react. The only reason I still fly, is because I like flying and enjoy the challenge it provides, because it sure as hell isn't the rewards that attract me. There's a reason the piloting community is so small, that's because anyone with any love of not being bankrupt stays away from dropships.

Well, I give them a bit of poetic license. They also show RDV's hot dropping a column of tanks to heavy music when the reality would be one guy looking up as an RDV slams his toy into a building and plays keep-away to the tune of the Sugar Plum Faires.

It just doesn't make you want to rush to play in the same way.

Arguably more important yet, is that the gameplay between the two isn't particularly enjoyable or engaging. As a dropship pilot it rarely feels as if you're going down because you were outplayed, you generally feel somewhat helpless and ineffectual. On the other side, forge gun feels so powerful it's boring to use. You just wait for the pilot to slow down and try to actually do something and then you blindside them out of the sky.

Hi guys, let me provide you guys with provide some feedback on this topic.

1. We are looking at doing re-balancing of our AV weapons. One of the topics, which also seems to be showing through on this thread is to keep a decently long enough range on the forge gun, but also look at the damage decay variable over time on it, optimal ranges, etc. Because agreed, that it is a very potent anti-vehicle weapon and it's not exactly something that is easily countered with countermeasures (see next point). We also don't want the forge gun to be nerfed to the point of feeling ineffective, so a direct reduction of damage output across the board is not going to be the simple answer there.

2. We are also want to get countermeasures in soon, as well as a lock-on warning system for players piloting vehicles that have been locked on to. The lock-on indication will be a graduated indicator so that you will have a decent idea of how imminent your time to impact is and can choose to act accordingly. Furthermore, we're also working on porting lock-on to a certain subset of turrets. This will come in helpful for dropship pilots who are engaged in dogfights, or supporting assaults against ground units.

3. As one of our immediate tasks, we want to look at how we can provide dropship pilots with more chances to earn WP. We have lots of ideas in mind, however we need to tread carefully on this one so that we're not opening up too many opportunities for exploit. Some of the ideas that are bouncing around are providing WP for players spawned into your craft, WP for use of active scanners (possibly more specialized ones), and finding a way to re-introduce WP for remote repairs without exploit.

4. We will be reducing the ISK cost of dropships so that players can get into them more easily, while also looking at the overall skill cost of this class of vehicle.

5. Lastly, we're aware of turret issues that have come up. Many of the improvements needed will require code support to fix lingering bugs as well as further flesh out existing systems. We are currently working on this as our next set of code fixes.

Our dropship pilot makes money in pub matches, of course he always makes sure he has 2 gunners. That and he makes sure to fly intelligently and not only watch his shield/armor but the shield/armor of his gunners. Yes forge guns and swarm launchers hit hard but as long as you pay attention you will do great.

A response? I like it where this is going. keep them coming.