Yes, they're totally balanced. If you're flying low enough and SLOW enough for a forge gunner to hit you with a charge shot, well too bad. You hover for a second or less, everyone bails and you burn it out of there and hug the terrain. Just because you want to fly in at 3000 feet, don't mean you should. ;)

They're not exactly easy weapons to line up on the dropship pilot who knows how to jink and weave. Especially the lower meta-level ones.

Don't pick people up in the middle of combat if you can help it, don't land in a contested area. Tell the squad your ship alone costs more than the whole squads fit and you ain't going to risk it. Pick up your squad from right under your MCC if you can and fly in LOW, have them bail BEFORE the target area in a place they can group up and organize, and then burn out of there. Once the ground team has started causing trouble, use them as a distraction and make rapid passes. Don't try and linger over an area like it's pre-Chromosome. You'll just get shot down.

I believe that the forge gun is one of, if not the most balanced, weapon in the game. Low ammo, long charge time, only heavies can carry it, no ADS, the most powerful one has a root, good damage when you hit, and weak against armor. To be perfectly honest I find your crusade against the forge gun ridiculous considering not even all of the weapons and drop ships are in the game yet. Also considering that I have seen very few actual good forge gunners in matches that I have played and now that the Dire suit is gone and lots of people specced out of heavies I don't know why you are complaining so much about them.

That's funny because armor tanks are really hard to kill with just a FG. Sometimes I would put all 4 rounds into it and it would just rep right back up to full armor. Now shield tanks better run away because I eat those for breakfast.

I have 2342 armour, 700 shields. 2x 25% hardeners and was just 1 shoted by a forge in my drop ship. forge guns are so broken it is almost beyond belief that it got into release.

I do support dust. It's Devs but really AV is so obviously broken I do not understand how the Devs can justify it. So I ask you Devs. Tell me, straight up how can you say AV is balanced? 1.2 million ISk vs 72k and the cheap fG can 1 shot me, and not just that, but kill me without warning, from a tiny dot I can not see from a far part of the map. It's bad work Devs, bad work. Shame on you. For shame.

I hope this is'nt another thread cryin about heavies. Just a bunch of people with bratty senses of entitlement who want to rule the field uncontested. Next thing ya know they'll call for forge gun nerfs. If your any bit a good pilot who fits your ship properly YOU R SIMPLY VERY HARD TO TAKE DOWN. Also,,cant help but notice not a single mention of swarm launchers,,HELLOOO,,THEIR MISSLE ROUNDS LOCK ON AND CHASE U. TO ALL THE " REAL PILOTS " OUT THERE,,FORGIVE MY RANT,,,JUST CANT STAND IT WHEN PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT HEAVIES

Being a FG user myself, the problem I can identify is this:

Forge Guns (and railguns) are fairly well balanced against everything else. Especially when higher-level HAVs are rolled out, this will become clear. It will become even more clear when there's a damage decay over 300m range on FG shots, which the devs have talked about. I can only hope that railguns will have the same sort of damage brake put in place otherwise every game consists of taking out every railgun installation before anybody can roll out any Dropships.

Dropships are fairly well balanced against everything else. A skilled pilot in a well-fitted Dropship can do a lot of stuff and get away from Swarms.

But Forge Guns (and railguns) versus Dropships is not balanced at all. I say "buff Dropships for more EHP" but this is only a quickfix which, together with price cuts to Dropships, will only temporarily make them more balanced against these weapons, but unbalance them against everything else. There need to be more balancing factors in place against this type of weaponry to make them more survivable and "worth it" in terms of ISK and SP investments.

Then there's the problem with Dropship pilots not getting enough WP rewards for the stuff they're supposed to be doing, which is another issue, but let's leave that for another discussion...

Protip killing dropships: Aim for the rudders in the rear +50% dmg. You're welcome guys, hope this helps with your inability to oneshot dropships. If all goes well there should be a new thread call "QQ Dropship pilots quit, all AV oneshots all ships"

Protip to dropships: Fly backwards to avoid heavy fire to rudders.

There needs to be a skill that gives +3/5% to damage resistance per level. This way the forge is left alone and it takes sp for someone to have a good dropship.

i checked the market just to see the damage a forge gun can do the prototype does 2700 and you say im wrong about them being overpowered i have 2 prototype shield extenders on my python and a shield hardener and that would still take my dropship out ( without damage amplifiers ) so they may be balanced on everything else but that would 1 shot any other dropship... the problem is you can only squeeze 3400 shield on a python without a armorrepair module

There are so many problems with the dropship that it's difficult to know where to begin.

- They are huge targets
- They have practically no cover as they hang in the air
- They are accessable from just about anywhere on the map so AV doesn't have to be threatened by infantry
- They have the accelleration of a Greyhound bus with a Prius drivetrain
- They have to fly low and slow to do anything useful
- They are tissue paper thin unless you have millions of SP into them and then they are newsprint thin

On top of that they have no real mission.

Everyone says they are transports, but CCP treats them like gunships, going so far as to make an Assault variant. CCP Blam is now talking about a bomber variant. I don't get the feeling that we will see any ADV or PRO "versions" of the dropship, just more variations for increasing SP and ISK.

There is no need to use a dropship as transport. Grab a couple LAVs and you will arrive quickly, more stealthily, and intact with a few roadkills on the way. Take a dropship and you may not make it. In any event unless you area a heavy you can just walk in the time it takes to call in a dropship.

Once you make it to an objective DUs and objective spawning eliminate 90% of the need for long distance transport even on the larger maps.

The other missions?

- Vehicle scanners: They are radius based so the ground footprint is tiny to non-existant unless you are flying lamp-post height.

- Shield transport: With a range of several meters the dropship may as well be a child's balloon tied to the HAV's top turret. It's as easy to kill and as impossilbe to miss..

Dropships are a solution looking for a problem to solve. They used to fun to fly when they were somewhat responsive, but they are such slow pigs that I've stopped flying them for fun.

Now I'm driving the SLAV or LLAV for fun. The new control scheme with L2/R2 for brake/accellerator is great and racing around is so much more fun. I get the feeling of speed and the challenge of a racing game while turning red dots into red smears on the road. The speed loss when hitting a suit actually improves the fun as it makes it feel like a substantial hit. Now CCP needs to add a crunching sound of the suit being crushed to make it perfect. My personal best is 14-0 and I'm having a blast.

The LAV has the benefit of eHP, abundant cover, and accelleration which makes it 100x more survivable than a dropship. LAVs are where it's at.

Why do dropship pilots even bother to land. Just have the passengers bail from the air. That requires coordination and skill of both dropship pilot and passengers, and is far safer for the ship. Not to mention impressive. Dropsuits have air brakes for a reason - use them.

Also, dropships have to be somewhat light to stay airborne. I say that knowing full well its a brick. There has to be a realistic balance between ship mass and avaliable thrust, and I believe it's met it. So yea, as a forge gunner and DS pilot, I think it's realistic.

The dropships has the entire airspace to play around with. USE IT! Stop bitching for a flying tank, you won't get it. You'll get better controls eventually, but not a flying fortress. If you aren't using the dropships inherent advantages , then the fault lies with you.