My ideas for redesign

Basic DS -

1. pilots gets a small turret
2. be able to fit a full squad plus gunners (so max capacity is 8 + pilot)
3. hitpoints should be equivalent to a HAV.
4. an eject button for everyone but the gunners

Assault DS

1. Should be able to fit large turrets in all slots
2. should be able to fit 2 plus gunners (max capacity is 4+ pilot)
3. HP should be just higher than an LAV making it a glass cannon.

I want to be able to use an assault dropship to clear a roof and drop a small strike team, or use a basic to drop a team into a lightly defended area.

I agree with many ideas presented here. I want to make note of one, the idea of having an independent control for assault dropships.

YES, YES, HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE, YES!!! Aiming is ridiculous for assault dropships, the fact that we are forced to fit them is even more annoying. IF it is meant for aerial suppression of ground targets, then it needs to move independently of the dropship in order to have any sort of efficiency. I think having this turret mobility tied to the fire button is a bit finicky though. Considering how hard it is to line up shots now, the first several shots will miss. This doesn't seem like much, but that also builds up heat, which will cut into our DPS when we have to build up some heat to even aim the thing. I believe toggling moving the turret to R3 (clicking in the right stick) is a grand idea. At the first sign of trouble, click it again to regain control of the dropship and get the hell out of dodge.

Also, for this to be viable (and to save a LOT of the headache involved with dropships currently) have a "hold altitude" button that allows the dropship to hover perfectly still, perhaps tied to L3. Or, an I would like this option better, revamp dropship controls. Currently there is a steep learning curve in order to fly a dropship, which we have to learn under battlefield conditions, making other players as much of a danger as our own mistakes (imagine learning to drive if everyone was shooting at you during practice. And that's without leaving the ground!) Having a skill curve is one thing, but its almost impossible to keep the thing still for turret gunners to get off any good shots, and even then, that makes us easy targets, and since we have almost no tank, holding still gets us killed. Unless we get a respectable buff to our survivability, then we need easier controls to give our gunners the ability to effectively defend us.

Another thing unrelated to dropships, but is more a problem with turrets in general, blaster turrets feel ridiculously accurate as they are. I have to keep that dot RIGHT ON my target to get hits. Perhaps add in a spread effect like AR's have, starting out like they are now and decreasing with more shots. This means we can hold down the trigger at relative close ranges and have enough spread to hit moving targets, and it makes gunners use fire discipline at longer ranges.

I had other ideas for this post, but it's 2am and my brain isn't functioning on all cylinders. Hoping a blue will take note of these ideas. Or at least tell us that they're not looking to tweak dropships yet. Negative response would be better than none at all.

Ironwolf, you're the man, but this post shows that you don't understand or appreciate the position that pilots are in right now.

Warpoint accrual IS a dropship problem, because we cannot, I repeat CANNOT make anywhere near enough ISK to fund our vehicles. Nevermind that we have the longest crawl to get any kind of SP gains, so it takes us that much longer and costs us that much more to get into our ships that can even remotely help us out.

Us pilots CONSTANTLY adapt to new controls. Every freaking build. We ***** for a bit, then we adapt, and we do our job as best we can. Having CCP and now CPM show us that they don't understand or care about our positions as a serious role on the battlefield is just a little more than disheartening, and shows a very clear disconnect with this small but none the less important part of the community.

I know HAVs suffer from this to a much lesser extent, but can also have issues funding their cost. However, they have it much easier in terms of being able to survive and still contribute to their team, all the while earning WP. With the new buffs to HAV in the works, this will only become easier.

If you want to see the problem clearly here's the clear cut perfect evidence:

Cheapest possible HAV (using ISK) = 138,040 ISK
-likely ISK earned during a round using that HAV exclusively 200,000+ ISK

Cheapest possible Dropship (using ISK) = 151,840 ISK
-likely ISK earned during a round using that dropship exclusively <80,000 ISK



Last build I was using militia HAVs to earn money to pay for my militia Dropships.

The dropship is supposed to be a team-building vehicle, something to greatly enhance the available tactics and strategy.

I suppose the reason it hasn't seen any love and attention is that CCP hasn't developed any tactical element into the game yet. It's all been about getting the basic shooter experience working.

The dropship is meant for a different game than the one we are playing right now. It's in the game but not part of it. There is no need for it tactically. Every map is build for basic foot traffic.

I've said it before in other posts, but I'll say it again. The real ammunition of a DS is a coordinated infantry squad. Without that payload the DS is relegated to secondary missions. Uprising brings us squads of six so it is possible to experiment with the transport role for the first time, but given the maps we have their impact will still be minimal because it is still nearly as efficient to hoof it from one objective to another.

Others have said it in other threads, there is no strategy or tactics in the current game. It's just mindless zerging mobs and Brownian motion. A tactical vehicle has no place in DUST at this time.

I've come to the conclusion that we should all just put them away in their hangers for a year or two until CCP introduces a true need for them.

Its not a tricky topic we all know that pilots are underpaid, (tankers you have nothing to complain about besides the jacked up skills and how a forge gun is stronger than your cannon, that is all you deserve to ***** about) but what system model or layout that pilots deserve and make it fair for the rest of the player types is a hard one. No one unless you are using militia grade stuff usually cant make up the difference in one match. That is a fundamental fact that we are staring at right now. P/C is told to improve that but who knows. Right now we are all underpaid but the pilots are suffering the most.

If you make the main focus of AV weapons the destruction of vehicles you will never get the balance right. Instead the focus needs to be on suppressing the function of the vehicle and area of denial. In the case of tanks or LAV's this of course means destruction because they currently serve an offensive role.

The dropship however does not serve an offensive role so the destruction of the dropship is of less importance than denying them the ability to deposit additional forces in a certain area. To this end here are some ideas I've had. This is just brainstorming though, I'm not saying whether these are good or bad.

1. Substantial increase to the DS's ability to resistance damage. This could be accomplished by either increasing the base resistance or introducing resistance modules exclusive to aerial vehicles that offer a substantial increase in effectiveness over modules for ground vehicles or possibly a much, much shorter cool down period, etc.... The second option is probably the best since it requires skill and sound judgement on the part of the pilot to be effective instead of simply making them tougher across the board.

2. Remove all turrets from the DS and replace them with some sort of exclusive weapon that is only effective against other vehicles, possibly one similar to a swarm launcher but with a more limited ability to home in on the target and reduced damage or something along those lines. Honestly the DS has no need for anti-infantry weapons. It's too hard to hit anything with rails unless you are hovering over a tank in which case an exclusive AV weapon would also work. Blasters have too limited of a range and there's no way to make missile turrets work without breaking them again.

3. Bring back the old AB.

4. Maybe give DS an exclusive module that projects a shield around the ship that blocks almost all incoming damage but prevents anyone from jumping out giving the ship time to return to safety while preventing it from actually doing anything which as long as the DS has limited offensive capabilities

No need to be nerfing this or that. Dropships are MEDIUM aerial vehicles. My militia Caldari LAV has more HP than a Myron. A slow vehicle like the dropship needs HP to tank FG and railgun hits, which atm their main weakness because of how slow they fly. 1075 HP is ok for a light aerial vehicle like a fighter and like. Take for example the transport helicopter in BF3. Than thing can tank like 4 RPG hits before exploding. Dropships are similar. So what we really need:

-HP buff (ie. 2000 shield HP for a Myron)

-WP for transported troop kills, hacks, revives whatever. What's so difficult to make it happen?

-WP for MCRU spawning. Don't need to be putting caps on WP gain. If I wanna boost/farm WP I can do it with a drop uplink and it's cheaper/easier.

-Countermeasures for AV. ECM Jammer, Flares, whatever you want. Or at least a "being lock on" sound.

Very skilled and experienced pilot here:

In my opinion the biggest problem is that a completely decked out dropship(assualt logistics or standard) with all the modules and skills seems to be balanced ONLY when flown against militia/standard AV. Against AV at this level you will be denied your effectiveness around them yet still have an opportunity to do your job(troop transport, gunship, scout) for a few seconds before having to retreat. However, against proto AV you immediately have to retreat or your ship quickly becomes a burning wreck. Dropships NEED a big buff to shields/armor.

I'd like to see a "gunship" varient. A slow, lumbering tank of the air where there are four (yes four) waist gunners as well as a ball turret on the belly of the beast (like the B17's of old). These air hulks would trundle about, wading through hails of forge and swarm fire to unleash hell with their 6 player focused weapons. The Pilot would have no weapon to aim but would have a targeting laser to point out targets.

Gunships would gain bonuses to racial small turrets
Gallente - blaster turret range and RoF
Caldari - missile blast radius
Amarr - laser turret heat build up reduction
Minmatar - projectile turret RoF and damage bonus.

The balance here would be the speed. To be effective in battle the pilots would have to skillfully manuver low to the ground. Too high/too slow and they are easy AV targets, too low/too fast they crash into terrain killing everyone on board instantly (no bailout time).