You are probably too new to have read all the veteran pilot threads where we went over this ad nauseam and concluded by respecing out of flying.

Just put your toys in the hanger for a year or so until they get fixed.

i just spent about 800k sp upgrading my dropships tank and have gone about 8 maps without loosing an incubus, 1400/4000hp, the points spent to me were worth it

You can get done good EHP on the incubus, problem is it tends to cost you too much mobility, dropships seem to end up with 3 choices of tanking, EHP tank, speed tank, and a bit of both. Problem is dropships fail at all 3 for obvious reasons.

yea i'm always up in the air about afterburner or more shield/shield hardener, but i figured trying to afterburn a gallente was kinda polishing a turd

with the 1400/4000 i can tank about 4 good FG hits, and about 2 large rail turret installations, i can sometimes get to juking in time to make it away from the last fatal hit, but yea i enjoy flying lesser HP ships for the speed reason you mentioned.

It works to a certain extent but the PG cost is a little too much for a low slot tanker.

right i have to fit 2 %15 power upgrades and nano fibers to fit AB, which is going against the armor bonus strengths of a gallente

If you actually read the forums instead of just coming to whine and cry you would know CCP has said they are going to review dropships and lower the price, they are also looking for a way to make it so pilots gain wp

CCP says a lot of things.

80% of it is fluff.

Idunno man, they do have far too little EHP but I was playing with a fellow named Blackout last night and he seemed to fly his dropship pretty well and had no issue with anything other than swarms.

Wasn't really a problem for him since he could easily do some fancy barrel roll to evade them.

If you know what your doing you should be fine, I was a gunner in an Assault dropship with Blackout (same squad as THUNDERGROOVE) and whenever we encountered a Forge gun or swarms he would boost away or fly in an unorthodox way to avoid the blasts. Then he would fly back and we would kill the enemy if our turrets couldn't get him I would drop off on top of him and kill him. In 4-5 matches he lost only 1 drops If you are an experienced pilot you can be a very formidable enemy.

I haven't flown dropships, but have done LLAV's. would a DS with EHP of a LLAV make it OP or would that feel about right?

I love the dropships. They aren't supposed to be invincible or really even be aerial support, they are troop transports with guns on them. I lose a few but only when I put my self in silly situations where if the enemy is any good they will shoot me down. Key is to be fast in and out and have good turret skills good gunners and not to stay in one spot to long. Properly fit you can take quite a few hits, and have time to find cover and heal up. The ones purchased with aur are paper thin so don't buy those.

[...]

Oh hell, let's add a gun and have it kill things, because that's the only real mission we have to offer...

Saw some poor guy lose his ADS today it was quite depressing really he called it in took off and suddenly, the guy who was stood next to him and got in the DS with him (who I presumed was waiting for the dropship) well his MLT LAV turned up and the RDV slammed the ADS back down pronto.

If I fly below 200 feet, I get instapopped. One hit = dead. Seems to be railguns but not certain the death screen details are not very specific. Expensive fireball. Perhaps lag. Death screen shows total damage but onscreen is boom dead. No time to react. I try to liftoff into the red on skirmish but same result. After first minute or so AB is needed and some luck just to call in dropship and get into the air. Hugging the red is ineffective.

If I spend too much time at maximum height as to avoid said death, a bug occurs where I am hit for 57k damage and die instantly. Yep.

I have tried many alts flying all of the dropships. There are a few ways to fit it. Logi tank, Afterburner GTFO, or LAVmince AKA Assault. None of them are successful. If you go for tank, you die from maximum height death. If you go for AB, you cannot get out in time against the ubertracking playerturrets. If you go assault. LOL assault. Superfunhappyride all aboard for pointless fit.

All I'm saying is: It's impossible to fly Dropships. Between the ground offence, zero counter measures and glitchtastic gameplay, I just have to give up playing. I really want it to be playable but I've exhaunted all my options and I'm afraid it isn't achievable to fulfil the role whatsoever.

Do a barrel roll!