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

The real kicker here is that dropships actually have less relative survivability than a dropsuit. Can you imagine how much complaining there would be if half the STD anti-infantry weapons could drop prototype suits as quickly and effortlessly as forge guns take out dropships?

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

well, OP, you died cause you didnt use your single advantage. Mobility. if you stay where you are and try and find the AV guy, your dumb. you call out over comms that there is swarm launcher, as you bug the hell out. once your infantry find the guy you come in, and kill it.

and yes, proto suits do die to militia weapons if they dont move. seriously, im not sure the cycle time on a CRB-7 swarm off the top of my head, but i bet a Militia AR or SMG can dump its entire magazine in the time it took the first to swarms to lock on and hit you, and that will kill the crap outta even a super tanked logi/heavy if he is not moving.

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.

I am a dedicated Forge Gunner, I run Ishukone Assualt and DAU-2 Assualt. When I see a Dropship I usually dont sweat it cause it either takes 1 or 2 shots to destroy, UNLESS its an expensive dropship. High tier and even standard Dropships.with good modules give me a run, I need at least 3 to 4 shots for these ships. After the first shot hits they can usually get away if the map allows them. What im trying to say is that Dropships need ALOT of buffs, to shield/armor and to acceleration and the miltia/standard could use an SP and Isk price reduction. You guys need to ask for that. But the way your all talking CCP will nerf the Forge Gun and not only do we not need anymore nerfs, the Forge Gun especially does not need nerfs.

Oh, yeah, totally. Because I just got through sharing how EPIC I am at flying a DS..... No, tactics are tactics, and if you are dumb enough to fly into AV when you know it's there, who do you blame? THE AV! Of coooooourse! It's the AV's fault for capitalizing on your bad judgement! Ah, I should have grasped it long ago....

The dropship is a medium vehicle, yet it is an order of magnitude weaker than the LAV.

I exercise reasonable caution but have no fear when driving for roadkill.

I play tag with SL users and can usually bump them off. If not i know I can drive away to cover after a few hits to come back and try again. I see only an occasional FG, and when I do it's often before he takes his first shot. If he's in the road his first thought is usually to run rather than stand and shoot. If by chance he is inaccessible I can use my speed and manuverability to get to cover before he can wreck my ride. Even if I lose one due to getting it stuck I don't fret. They are cheap enough that I still make money with the occasional loss.

Contrast that with the dropship.

When I am in the air I have 10% of the cover I have on the ground. In the dropship I am exposed to fire from a huge portion of the map so I'm spotted first and may not have an idea of the AV users location even after he fires. I have weak acceleration and my flight path is completely predictable to anyone who knows how vector thrust craft fly. I can't "jink" or "weave" to throw off his aim. Add to that the fact that the AV user doesn't fear my weapons. The best small turret is still pretty weak, especially fired from a moving platform, and its range is usually shorter than the AV. If I lose a ship I'm out a pretty big chunk of change.

Putting aside the lack of any viable mission, this would make the MAV dropship useless.

The upshot is that LAV driving is extreme fun and dropship piloting is just a frustrating pain.
Ending a match driving with 14-0 is heart pounding fun. Ending a match 0-1 shot down or 0-0 cowering in my dropship is not.

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.

Hell, I would accept a big nerf to small turret damage if they would buff the dropship's hp or damage resistance.

I avoid losing my dropships to RDVs by respecing to infantry

Dropships can be a pain in the ass to shoot down with swarms and if it is equipped with afterburners they are invincible. Using a proto swarm I could only put a little dent into a python and usually by the time my second swarm is in the air he is already gone.

Just don't expect to hover in 1 place and let your gunner mow down everybody in the area with immunity and you will be fine.

As of late I have been an avid forge gunner. Recently learned to fly a dropship, and having flown choppers in BF3 I always like to fly in these types of games. I understand the plight of the dropship pilots, but I read alot about "forge gun OP this, railgun OP that"...

Lets put this into perspective...

I am running about the battlefield in my 200k isk Proto Heavy Suit looking for trouble.... I decide to cross the field to the other objective, but a sniper picks me off with an advanced tactical sniper rifle, 3 shots, dead (probably a headshot or two, not hard for a seasoned sniper to pull off on a heavy). Ladies and gentlmen, I just met the scissor to my paper. A measly 4-5k isk sniper rifle just took out my 200,000 suit.

Now lets transfer that over to dropship...

I am flying about the battlefield in my 600k isk Dropship looking for trouble... I decide to fly into the combat zone to blow up some red dots, but a Forge Gun sniper picks me off with an advanced forge gun, 2 shots, dead, not hard for a seasoned forge gun sniper to pull off on a slow moving dropship). Ladies and gentlemen, I just met the scissor to my paper. A measly 10-20k forge gun just took out my 600,000 dropship.


These two scenarios are very similar, so why arent people calling for a BUFF MY SUIT SO NO LOLSNIPERS CAN KILL ME SO FAST GARRGG!

What is the solution.... start communicating with your team. If you dont have a team, form one.. otherwise there will be no rock to crush that scissor.

Got a forge gun up on a roof somewhere? Get your sniper buddy to take him out. Have your dropship out of his line of sight, have your buddy let you know when he is down, head over in your DS and take out his uplink, keep it moving. Railgun Tank on the field, have your buddies take out the tank. They will both come back, be prepared, do it again. If I get sniped in my heavy suit.. am I going to keep charging accross the field towards the sniper so he can keep killing me? No I am going to switch tactics and go take him out .. and if I cant do it, I will ask my squad for help.

Oh whats that? You are a lone wolf dropship pilot who wants to fly around Pub matches pwning face by yourself all day from the safety of your dropship.... awww, BF3 is that way ------------->

NOt saying Dropships dont need attention... but come on guys use your brains out there. If you expect CCP to buff dropships to the point where they have no counter you are daydreaming.

Yup, I am one of those dropship > elevated position > uplink > respawn proto forge type of guys. Dont even need a teammate to help, i can setup my own nest. Its profitable and somewhat enjoyable, helps the team win, and I dont have to worry about bunny hopping scout shotguners, mod controlled tac AR's, or murder taxi's on the ground anymore. Its my lazy way of playing Pub matches, and my last corp wanted me doing it in PC so yeah thats it. but, now that I have a taste for Dropships.. I will respec 100% to assault DS... and fly around until The Last of Us comes out next week. Hope I get my respec in time.

300m is usually enough to cover the combat area around close letters... but its not as far as one would think. Its not that easy to hit a moving dropship at that distance, but with enough practice I am sure someone can become godly with it. Dropships do need a lock on warning of some kind. Countermeasures would be nice, but it doesnt seem like Swarms are your biggest problem. Assault dropship shoud carry 2 gunners only, have more health, cloaking ability, and should be able to take out a tank with enough focused fire... not just an annoyance like a bumble bee.

Some of the maps with high buildings have few locations that a sniper can counter... and when coordinated with a hiding dropship, it is feasable to get infantry on the uplink to destroy it before the forge gunner can respawn after being killed by a good sniper. Not the best solution, but something.

I was flying around in a decent aerial pack transport DS the other day, got shot twice by a railgun, on fire, no shield/health and falling to the ground.. but I activated armor repairer and the DS came back to life and I flew away to recover. Is that normal operating procedure for you DS pilots? Again I am a newb, so forgive me if this is common practice. Seemed like a good idea to save the armor repairers until you are on fire then activate and fly away. I myself as a forge gunner usually ignore a DS that has zero health and is on fire.. maybe others will do the same and you can escape?

Redline tanks, yeah nothing to say to counter your point there. Between that an invisible RDVs destroying your DS I can see where the frustration comes from.