And a hulk can be killed by a cheaply fitted destroyer. Pro tip, don't fly what you can't afford to lose.

You know what. CCP still hasn't even implemented heavy drop ships. So you all need to just chill the hell out on your rants about FG and I am reporting this thread for ranting and trolling because that is basically all these nerf this weapon threads are. Ranting and trolling.

OP has a point in that balancing AV made for tanks with its use against dropships is tricky.

This thread is a poor expression of this difficulty, however.

If it were up to me, which it clearly isn't, I would make forge guns do 30% less damage to dropships than to ground vehicles, but considerable more knockback damage. The idea being basically that since the vehicle is in flight, some of the forge gun damage is lost to knockback, in essence the dropships "gives" more under a direct hit than a ground vehicle would.

This would make forge guns and swarm launchers particularly useful when used together, since the forge could kill the momentum and mess of the pilots approach/escape and thus giving the swarm launcher more time to lock on and score a hit.

Good forge gunners could even set up in waiting and knock unsuspecting pilots into walls and make them take extra damage that way as well.

As is, that first forge gun shot is basically a freebie, and the second one will finish off all but the most tanked out dropships. It's like if a scrambler pistol could drop a prototype assault suit in two body shots.

This guy pulled it off, though

Problem is a 1.5 million DS with all proto modules speced for defense still can't survive the second hit.

edit: from even some militia forge...

Schalac 17 is right. With enough SP and ISK in the last build we had drop ships comfortably tanking fire, retreating, repping, coming back. Meanwhile the AV ammo count goes down while the Dropship comes back 100 percent strong.

In this current build with a tier four assault Forge Gun (FG Prof 3, no damage mods) I have never killed a healthy proto Dropship with two shots. Once the vehicle skills are finally fix we'll see the flying super tanked dropship again.

There have only been two times in this game when my kills on a Dropship were not the pilots fault. One incident while my side was redlined I snuck to their line and caught a newbie DS pilot off guard during his practice flying. The other a pilot was flying right in a very straight line almost right at me. Every other kill was from people who called their dropships from outside their red-zone, they linger in an area like a blimp, or my favorite instead of being a transport they decided to fly right into a hotspot like the hero in some Hollywood action movie.


It really is stomach turning with how much people like to complain and then something is nerfed beyond use. Forge Guns already have been balanced to the point of a nerf. They need a nerf like these forums need another rant post.

Dear CCP, please do not do to Forge Guns that you did to HMGs at the start of this build.


As the thread author suggests we probably should get rid of the Forge Gun for the pilots. We can also get rid of the HAVs and Dropships for us infantry. Why not toss out the Swarms and all other specialty weapons too. Let's just have Assault Rifles and LAVs while arguing if Flux Grenades are OP.

As is, that first forge gun shot is basically a freebie, and the second one will finish off all but the most tanked out dropships. It's like if a scrambler pistol could drop a prototype assault suit in two body shots.

What vehicle skills fixed? They decided to keep the ninja nerf of PG down by 25%.