Picture this: You're flying along in your 1.2 Million ISK Assault Dropship from your base over to your squad mates, in hopes of aiding them from the sky. Finally, after a long and dangerous flight of blowing up installations in fear of an enemy using one to shoot you down, you reach your squad members and start raining fire from above. You balance your ship above your squad mates and shoot down three hostile targets with the front-mounted missile turret. You're about to get a fourth kill when suddenly, an enemy trooper with a CBR7 Swarm Launcher takes out 1/4 of your shield. You get the hint, they don't want you there. You pan your ship left and right, desperately in search of the swarmer. Bang. Shields at 50%. You react by activating your Shield Booster, hopefully in time to boost your reps by the time you find him. A third volley slams into your hull but you have no idea where the swarm came, they're too faint or almost invisible to see. You make the wise decision to abandon your squad mates and gain some altitude. You evade the pestering swarm launchers fourth volley and get out of his range. Your squad starts coming into some heavy enemy fire. You've had enough time repping your shields off-grid, you want to get back into the fight. You decide to head back into the battlefield with around 75% shields. You've just returned to your squadrons position and open fire upon the troops below, but before you get that evasive scout, your armour is at 50%. You have no idea what has happened. In despair, you attempt to activate your shield repair but you know it's already too late. You try to accelerate away, only to find your ship in flames and heading for the ground. You bail while your ship explodes in a fiery ball of death, rewarding you -90 WP's for 'Python Destruction' and as you try to gauge your situation, a 9K330 forge gun round hits your position, sending you into the next dimension.

Storytime over. How can a 6,585 ISK Swarm Launcher that only takes less than a million SP pin down a 1.2 million ISK ship worth over a 3million SP that easily? Or the fast firing forge gun that does 1.5k damage (base) with a 3.5 second charge time? That's barely any time for the pilot to accelerate away and try rep their shields.

Not to mention that the infantry have the advantage of being 1) smaller targets, 2) able to use most cover to their advatange 3)
are very hard to see from most distance, including their tags only showing up from a pitiful few yards.

Give the Dropships a buff like every other vehicle did, because they're the vehicles that needed it the most, yet as matter of fact, today they got 'nerfed' as pointed out in various other threads (source: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=76984&find=unread and https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=76963&find=unread)

On the other hand, I do greatly appreciate the new handling / speed increases, but there is still more work to be done on them, including the WP's for mobile CRU spawns (which can be exploit-proof easily with certain limitations).

No i'm telling you that I do not like being taken out by something that is designed to take me out THAT EASILY.

Is a derpship supposed to provide overhead protection or just deploy a squad then bug out?

To me a DROPship, drops off troops and leaves, not tries to tank overhead. IMHO

You're not a very smart man.

game balance =/= real life. Try again. Let's be realistic! All the technology is dust is made up/impossible. Now we have to remove it all and play CoD

that is true, i am not going to even attempt to say the Dropship is in a good place role wise right now. just that AV is at a decent balance with them. if you slap the burners and move swarms will not likely kill you. now proto triple complex damaged modded forge gun wielding heavy, yes, he will layout the smacking, but he has also invested largely into dedicated AV, he should be able to seriously hurt the weakest of vehicles. again, if the pilot is moving, and the forge gunner can hit him, that is damn good shot.

just for emphasis, i agree the role and WP mechanic of DS's needs to be looked at.

OMG... AV too good? Really? Do you realize that the players who go AV are sacrificing their ability to effectively deal with infantry engagements. And the FG lost a lot of range when heavy weapon sharp shooter got removed. I've heard that the standard FG is locked at 300 meters now but I can't verify that.

Where's the infantry support for you pilots? While I'm running my FG, I'm hell on vehicles but have to rely on my SMG for infantry encounters. Yep. That's right, an SMG. Don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of forge sniping but that takes distance and elevation to be consistent and it still takes a lot of luck with the increased dispersion. It's very difficult up close and personal. Otherwise, my squad supplies over watch and tactical intel to help me keep my fat slow butt alive and fighting.

There are many times when I've hit pilots with my 9K330. I manage to rap out two or three shots before they've out ranged me and come back repped. Meanwhile I have to run around dodging enemy infantry. Does this bug me? Hell no. I expect it. However, if I start pounding you with my 9K330 and you just sit there, or fly straight at me like a few have done, don't expect any sympathy as I turn your ds into burning slag.

One last thing, I can rarely take out a DS or HAV that's well supported by infantry unless I'm in a really advantageous position, and those are hard to get into.

Actually your right, if you fly into AV you basically deserve to get shot down. Problem is forge guns killing you before you even know that they're there.