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.

Ironwolf, you're the man, but this post shows that you don't understand or appreciate the position that pilots are in right now.

Waproints IS a dropship problem, because we cannot, I repeat CANNOT make anywhere near enough ISK to fund our vehicles. Nevermind that we have the longest crawl to get any kind of SP gains, so it takes us that much longer and costs us that much more to get into our ships that can even remotely help us out.

Us pilots CONSTANTLY adapt to new controls. Every freaking build. We ***** for a bit, then we adapt, and we do our job as best we can. Having CCP and now CPM show us that they don't understand or care about our positions as a serious role on the battlefield is just a little more than disheartening, and shows a very clear disconnect with this small but none the less important part of the community.

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.

If you want to see the problem clearly here's the clear cut perfect evidence:

Cheapest possible HAV (using ISK) = 138,040 ISK
-likely ISK earned during a round using that HAV exclusively 200,000+ ISK

Cheapest possible Dropship (using ISK) = 151,840 ISK
-likely ISK earned during a round using that dropship exclusively <80,000 ISK



Last build I was using militia HAVs to earn money to pay for my militia Dropships.

I saw this thread before. Another guy complains that it's unfair that his shiny toy can be wiped out in 4-5 hits from a single hit weapon with a long refire delay, demand to lead a highly mobile target, having limited ammo, small clip, having to give up a primary anti-infantry weapon and all of that is against a highly mobile target that can make it to the other side of the map in the time it takes the FG to fire 2-3 times back to back. It's not fair and unbalanced? REALLY?

I would agree that dropships currently lack a role. No one takes them seriously as a personnel transport vehicle cuz they are not just that good at it. Their fire capacity is garbage too and if it were any better they would be OP against infantry. I do believe that dropship mechanics need to be redesigned and they have to have some interesting objectives given to them. I disagree that we need to Nerf FG to make DS pilots feel safe and cozy and thus encourage their lazyness.