*Anyone who has any idea what they're actually talking about.

As in people with experience both flying a lot and shooting DS with a FG?
I know there's got to be a few of you, I just want to know who...

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.

To do a dropships job such as picking someone up and transporting them requires slowing down and making yourself a target. The frank truth is that a dropships best method of survival is to not do its job.

And gigatron, doesn't matter what dropship you use, they all die easily to forge guns.

I use both fg and DS and i do think the forge gun is easy to lead and shoot a dropship down at a safe range
I fly proto incubus and Prometheus and forge are always annoying when im hovering at node points assisting the team

Threats to dropdhips are
installations , forgeguns , tanks , kamakazi pilots , and mass drivers

Yes mass drivers are effective vs dripships i was providing a pickup and a mass driver messed my dropship up bad before i could bug out

Everything is a threat to pilots but the worst one of all is that pesky Disconnection from server
Im down 6 ships for this ( not my fault )

But all pilots keep it up i have a feeling they will sort us out soon

I use both fg and DS and i do think the forge gun is easy to lead and shoot a dropship down at a safe range
I fly proto incubus and Prometheus and forge are always annoying when im hovering at node points assisting the team

Threats to dropdhips are
installations , forgeguns , tanks , kamakazi pilots , and mass drivers

Yes mass drivers are effective vs dripships i was providing a pickup and a mass driver messed my dropship up bad before i could bug out

Everything is a threat to pilots but the worst one of all is that pesky Disconnection from server
Im down 6 ships for this ( not my fault )

But all pilots keep it up i have a feeling they will sort us out soon

You forgot RDV's

I use both fg and DS and i do think the forge gun is easy to lead and shoot a dropship down at a safe range
I fly proto incubus and Prometheus and forge are always annoying when im hovering at node points assisting the team

Threats to dropdhips are
installations , forgeguns , tanks , kamakazi pilots , and mass drivers

Yes mass drivers are effective vs dripships i was providing a pickup and a mass driver messed my dropship up bad before i could bug out

Everything is a threat to pilots but the worst one of all is that pesky Disconnection from server
Im down 6 ships for this ( not my fault )

But all pilots keep it up i have a feeling they will sort us out soon

You forgot RDV's

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.

Militia dropships are **** and cant dodge forge very easily. That is where the QQ comes from. Sink some SP into it and you'll see the difference.

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.

Is 7 million enough SP, because I didn't see the difference

Forge guns are not weak against armour, if I remember right there a hybrid weapon. And I wouldn't say it has a long charge up time, look at he assault variant.

Forge guns are not weak against armour, if I remember right there a hybrid weapon. And I wouldn't say it has a long charge up time, look at he assault variant.

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.

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.

Are you talking about actual tank tanks?

I'm talking about anything that is using the actual tank type. Tanks and drop ships. Not sure what the gallente drop ship is called, but those will survive more often than the caldari ones against me. But EX-O AV grenades kill all drop ships.

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.

Yeah, I've done plenty of both, and the balance is non-existent.

Forge guns are powerful vs infantry (they OHK everyone AND have splash damage, it's easy to go at least 5:1 KDR with even a STD lvl forge gun) and they can OHK all but the most tanked out DSs. The one's that they CAN'T OHK, like mine, are 1 Mil+ ISK, and they TWO SHOT those. Also remember, the first shot is a freebie, and the second shot can be fired well before even the best DS pilot can generally do anything about the barage.

So, guys just carry their forge guns all the time. They tear through infantry with them and then when you try to fly even vaguely close to the battle: BOOM. There's no strategy to it, no counter measures, nothing. Forge Guns are by far the most powerful weapon in the game, and they make flying dropships basically suck. The only people who will argue this point are the ones who main forge guns, haven't used them, or are just terribad.

That's cute, I heard insulting people is the best way to sway them in favor of your side of the argument. /sarcasm

If the only argument (which seems credible) you have is that they OHK "even the most tanked out DSs" then buff the dropships.

I'm not going to pretend that i've flown dropships for anything other than the militia taxi service, or else i'd question your choice of dropship variant/fitting.

Also, I couldn't quite see where you were getting the whole "OHK vehicles" argument until I remembered that the Breach Forge gun does ridiculous amounts of damage. But what you seem to keep ignoring is the drawback (sticking with the Breach Forge here) of it.

The charge time on the round, plus the immobility factor make it difficult to use the breach without back up.

The charge time on the round, plus the immobility factor make it difficult to use the breach without back up.

*Anyone who has any idea what they're actually talking about.

As in people with experience both flying a lot and shooting DS with a FG?
I know there's got to be a few of you, I just want to know who...

Forge guns are not weak against armour, if I remember right there a hybrid weapon. And I wouldn't say it has a long charge up time, look at he assault variant.

DS are not made to take Railgun/Forgegun fire.

Forgeguns are HEAVY anti vehicle weapons, if a DS is hit its obvious you'll get destroyed by 1 or 2 hits.

Pilots need to learn how to fly DS and move faster...LOL

BALANCE? Forge guns are balanced for that they are , anti tank weapons. But if a pilot is moving slow enough to be shot by a FG , so be it...

Blackhawks get taken down by RPGs. Dropships get taken down by forge guns. Balanced achieved.

herp derp, checkmate pilots.

In reality, a single shot from any gun in the game would drop the guy getting shot. I guess every gun should be OHK.

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.

wow I weep for DS if every ones answer is not immediately no DSs need a buff.

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.

Okay.
You're displaying your ignorance here.

The Forge Gun round travels fast enough that you can nail a DS at full afterburner with less than an inch (screen-wise) of lead on your target, and a Breach Forge can do more than enough damage to take down even a well-fit one in one shot.

AV vs Dropships is the most imbalanced aspect of this game right now.

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.

Im guessing you mean 1 vs 1? There is no one vs one.... Where is your squad and the rest of the team? No one shoots at the slow moving forge gunner? All it takes is for him to see his shield drop and his armor start falling apart before he makes his way for cover only to die because his big slow behind couldn't get out of harm's way fast enough. In this game, there are scanners, a compass, teammates, damage reducing modules, etc... all of which can help you avoid being blown up....if there are lots of people who can keep their ships in the battle for loads of time, then you can too. Otherwise, maybe you arent as good a pilot as you think you are. That's real. I have one of the new Attack DS and cant kill sh**!!!! So it sits in the hangar only to come out for practice at certain times of certain matches .... (im retiring as a pilot lol can't wait to take my option to respec)

forge guns and dropships are not balanced im a pilot and i have been shot down in 1 or 2 hits max and i use the python with shield hardeners but the biggest and most ridiculous reason i dislike forge guns is their range i have been in the red zone on our base and still get shot down they should nerf range and damage or nerf range and increase dropships shield or armor i mean forge guns are stronger than instalations at over 2000 damage a shot and have more if not the same range. sorry first post on a forum

In short, yes, because it ain't easy bein' cheesy... In either sense, flying dropships is difficult and so is wielding the forge gun/ being Heavy.

Only thing the DS need is a Buff to their armour and shields. Maybe change the forge gun and railgun installation--their damage decreases the further the target is but will punish any target near by. Because it is damn near impossible to be effective when you have 1 angry nerd sitting there the whole match shooting your DS from your aide of the map in their red line

He's right instalations are way under powered. Ballance threads for a minute I thought I was going to read about a dropship pilot complaining it's too easy to avoid forge gun's and they need a buff. But nope just another thread about nerfing something so it will be harder to kill you in your play style.

Av grenades are rarely a threat, but if you seriously believe that swarms are anon factor to dropships your an idiot. Swarms will punish any pilot who sits around in the area for too long and are a potent area denial for any pilot who is smart enough to stay out if range. Right nowswarms are quite well balanced, youmess up you die quickly, you fly well they're not a huge issue.

Forge guns on the other hand will kill you very quickly regardless of how well fit or how good a pilot you are.

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

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

You clearly have notread this thread at all, and the simple fact is I can throw your own argument back at you with no effort at all.

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...

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...

[quote=TuFar Gon]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[/q



understand from a pilots point of veiw you cant make a good fitting the CPU and PG are pathetic and a forge gun 1 or 2 hit kills any pilot no matter what i just want range reduced a small gun like that shouldn't be stronger than an instalation

It's hard to tell if all the dropships I've taken out have just been bad or my FG is just OP vs them. Most ships can only take one hit from my Ishukone Assault before dropping. Sometimes it MIGHT take two. I can totally understand why pilots are upset. It takes several shots on an LLAV and they are a lot more agile. It should take at least two shots to take out a basic ship, 3-4 for a good ship.

aren't drop ships virtually immune to swarm launchers/av grenades now due to their speed and height.

now they want to be immune to forge guns as well?

the phrase "in your dreams" seems pretty appropriate

Seems vehicles getting destroyed easily by ANTI-VEHICLE weapons makes the AV weapons OP.
To pilots, you gotta keep in mind in a dropship, you always have to keep moving, like any vehicle or infantry unit, you stand still for too long without good cover, you're going to get shot down fast.

On a side note, I don't really like to jump into the anti-Free LAV bandwagon (I don't really care either way for that), but in a way, they may be somewhat responsible for Dropships/ Tanks being destroyed extremely fast at times, I mean, ever since the LAV spam started, everyone has to have some AV measures all the time if they don't want a bunch of LAVs just driving around, running over everyone constantly.

So the anti-vehicle role went from something some people used, to a must have side-build necessary for everyone.
Most threads for or against free LAVs end up with a lot of people just saying "if you don't want to get run over, you should have some AV measures" or something of the sorts and of course with nothing being announced in regards of the matter for CCP, people are doing so.

So there's a chance its not that AV stuff is OP, but rather, that there's an overabundance of AV units at any given time?
Or maybe they ARE OP, who knows, as a pilot and an AV unit, I find them rather nicely balanced, but that may be just me, depends on one's sense of "balance" I suppose.

On another note, milita forge is **** as well and it aint gonna drop a militia easily .

I disagree, I have a militia with two militia heavy damage mods and I shoot the dropship once and it drops...like a ship.

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.

I think one of the major problems for dropships is they have such a large vulnerable spot.

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.

There is, it's called shield/armour upgrades, and for dropships it's useless.

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

Light modules are useless against forge guns, those things are balanced against the heavy modules,which is half the problem between forge guns and modules.

And moochie, why not just give dropships an inherent resistance buff in that case?

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.

It's hard to tell if all the dropships I've taken out have just been bad or my FG is just OP vs them. Most ships can only take one hit from my Ishukone Assault before dropping. Sometimes it MIGHT take two. I can totally understand why pilots are upset. It takes several shots on an LLAV and they are a lot more agile. It should take at least two shots to take out a basic ship, 3-4 for a good ship.

*Anyone who has any idea what they're actually talking about.

As in people with experience both flying a lot and shooting DS with a FG?
I know there's got to be a few of you, I just want to know who...

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.

Dropships are fine. We currently only have access to standard ones.

*Anyone who has any idea what they're actually talking about.

As in people with experience both flying a lot and shooting DS with a FG?
I know there's got to be a few of you, I just want to know who...

Classic DUST mentality: It'll be fine in a year, don't worry man