I avoid it by cutting my flight time to near nil.

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.

Small turrets are crap enough already, and we already received a nerf to them when they reduced the skill bonus and removed the turret proficiency skills.

Swarms aren't the problem, they're actually balanced quite well against dropships, against most vehicles actually. Forge and railguns and RDV's are the problem.

Swarms aren't the problem, they're actually balanced quite well against dropships, against most vehicles actually. Forge and railguns and RDV's are the problem.

Played 3 matches last night, lost 2 Logi Dropships to RDVs.

"RARE" _-

"RARE" -_-

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.

The counter to your argument is this, as a heavy you have a chance to actually tank to some degree, so does a dropship, so we're equal in that scenario. Where we differ however is that you get a chance to save your suit if a friendly medic is nearby, dropships don't, but that's one of the benefits of being infantry.

Another of the benefits of being infantry is that if your running for cover and get hit by a round traveling in excess of 7000m/s you hardly even flinch, whereas in a dropship we get thrown in an often fatal half spin.

And do you want to know the most common situation I run into these days, redline tanks, they park on an incline and they can literally shoot from almost redline to redline on some maps, they can also hit targets all the way up to the flight ceiling. And seeing how a forge gun has a 300m range, and the flight ceiling is only 500m high, a forge gunner on any elevated position can hit a dropship almost anywhere it tries to go.

And here's something, often when a forge gunner gets on a high position like a tower, a teammate will put drop uplinks down, you see this a lot in PC battles, and these uplinks are often placed somewhere the sniper can't see, so a dropship has to be used to either kill the uplink or get the sniper into a position where he can.

The current forge/railgun/dropship balance is so ludicrous right now it's at the stage where it isn't even a case of Rock Paper Scissors anymore, things are so bad that paper has said "to hell with it" and decided not to even exist anymore.

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.

Might have missed it but I think the -90 WP is ridiculous as well.

Swarms are fine tbh, forge guns on the other hand are way too effective. Their charge up time especially the assault forge guns is murderous. The assault forge charges up in what? 2-3 seconds once you invest sp into it, the afterburner module takes around 2 seconds to activate and around another half a second to fully move it from its previous location.

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).

More importantly dropships do not have a role that validifies their existance. This is a major problem with the heart of Dust, the game modes are awful at promoting diverse strategies, gambits and playstyles. They are unfocused, all feature shared objectives, do not encourage defence.

Forge Gunner here, can attest to them being too deadly against dropships. Usually kills outright, sometimes they get away, either way you deny them access to a good portion of the map in a rough 600m circle around where they estimate you to be.

Travel time is really quite fast. Never had a ship survive 2 hits of an Ishukone Assault running two complex dams. Charge time at Op V is 1.875 seconds with an Assault. Any smithy worth his salt will be using these, better DPS by some margin, more reactive and forces you to improve your aiming as it doesn't allow you to dither. You can also feather it to kinda mimic a held charge, constantly charging then releasing about 2/3rds through.

Dropships not making evasive maneuvres are easy to track. After the first hit they have about a second and a half to react, not much considering they have to also account for and correct the knockback.

About that knockback, for the one shooting the DS it's predictable and can be factored into the next shot. That the DS has to specifically assess and correct it is a variable that hampers their evasive reaction further.

More importantly dropships do not have a role that validifies their existance. This is a major problem with the heart of Dust, the game modes are awful at promoting diverse strategies, gambits and playstyles. They are unfocused, all feature shared objectives, do not encourage defence.

In a scenario where you have an attacker and a defender, one side tasked with seizing the objective their opposite number is defending, then we might start seeing more strategies and roles become viable. HAVs become important for their ability to push forward, making the enemy infantry hunker down and letting their own advance. Dropships can bypass the frontline, airdropping in a squad behind it to either attack the frontline from a second angle or make an attempt at the objective by themselves. Dedicated AV impede the capacity for a vehicular push. Snipers deny infantry free use of the best vantage points, are among the best disposed for killing infantry AV as they fire on friendly vehicles.

A focused objective is sorely needed. The moment we have an objective of great enough strategic importance to be worth dropping on is when we'll start seeing dropships get proper use. That it'll form a tangible frontline around it will also make a whole host of other playstyles more important based on their ability to push, to hold, to threaten, to deny. Will also naturally lead to a wider team dynamic, having the whole of each side all working together to maintain the defence or to break it.

I couldn't agree more. The prime role for a dropship to be used as troop transport is practically non-existant. Even in strategically planned battles as such found in Planetary Conquest, Dropships are rarely used. Apart from maybe the start of the match where a squad may use the dropship at the start of the match to get to a high position or to a point first, only to ditch the dropship for the remainder of the game. The dropship is not useful other than a means of getting to a higher elevation. I'd like to see a fortress style map that would make it logistically viable for a dropship to constantly be ferrying troops, or maybe a bridge map,s over hazardous terrain below with each team based on either side of the bridge and primarily fighting in the middle. Dropships would be a huge tactical advantage from moving past the 'hotzone' area or maybe even evaccing players out of said area.
This is all well and good brainstorming, but this would only be possible if dropships got a HUGE HP buff.

Try a proto fragmented missile with skills at level 5 and a damage mod. It tears through most everything, suits and vehicles.

We fought against a betamax ADS today, he was very well built and skilled dropship. We had a hard time brining him down and he was def a factor on the battlefield. So clearly they can be built and that can have high survivability. My Officer forge gun and our tank had to be on constant lookout for him and he defiantly was a major threat.

So i disagree after seeing that assault dropship. I used to think they where no factors but after that battle I would say they can have a major impact if used and built right.

Another thing: you try actually playing transport in the godawful thing, but the enemy team (for no good reason) perceives your militia dropship as a threat and calls an orbital on you. 0 WPs gained overall, but you lost a bunch because it blew up.

Here's your problem. You stayed STILL while the swarm launcher was firing at you. Infantry needs something to fire at us or we would be god mode. Learn that when AV starts firing at you, you bug out, ESPECIALLY Caldari Dropships.

I run Gallente, and swarms really don't bug me. You may be asking yourself, "But Mary, you are Gallente, slower and weaker to explosive." Oh ho ho oh vaunted poster, there you are dead wrong. I can easily fit an afterburner to my Gallente and sacrifice NONE of my armor tank and the speed allows me to run circles while the missiles miss. My passive and active damage resistances allow me to eat the ones that hit and my mobility grants me the ability to get out of the way.

Would I like a buff? Yes. Do I think the AV should be nerfed? No. Its a delicate balance between being god-mode in the sky and easily eaten.

To the forge gunners on this post, yes, you eat Caldari dropships easily because of their lower mobility and resistance to your shots. Armor tanked Incubi can survive many hits from the lower tier, and my top-tier build can survive 2-3 hits from an Ishikone Forge Gun. Buff me much more and we'll have forge gunner threads talking about how they need to be buffed to kill those damnable dropships.

I recommend going Gallente if you choose Dropships. The armor allows you greater survivability against the true threats against your ship: Rail Gun Tanks, Rail Gun Installations, and Forge Gunners. Swarm Launchers are dreadfully inadequate against an experienced aerial targets, even with the bonus to armor damage.

Good flying, pilots.

To your post's point of stating that Dropships have no "role", I strongly disagree. I use mine effectively in many ways. Let me list the ways:

1) Ground Suppression - When enemies are moving in mass, there is nothing more fun than thinning their numbers with my side gunner running my XT Accelerated Missile Launcher strikes. To STD suits, they one shot, and 2-3 shot PRO/ADV suits. Sure, a forge gunner may take a swing at me, but I can shrug it off, pop my speed booster (which throws off my predictability), pop my repair tool and re-engage, thinning the ground.

2) Fast transportation to Targets - Not an important role on smaller maps, on larger maps dropping a full load on a target is QUITE effective -=AND=- afterwards I can drop into a Ground Suppression role.

3) Tank Suppression/Destruction - Foolish is the tank that wanders out of his redline when I am in the sky. Sure, Redline Rail Tanks of sufficient power will force me to recall (and only rarely destroy me), but when they wander out, I will destroy them. Even if I fail to destroy them, which is rare, I have effectively kept the tank out of combat as he hauls ass for his safe zone.

There are so many other things to justify their existence. Unfortunately there are not many competent pilots out there, and Caldari is truly weak due to the fact that the strongest AV against us is especially effective vs. their shields.