I haven't tried any DD's, but I have heard, anecdotally, that they increase drift significantly, and that clean drives help with more precision maneuvering.
Any combat pilots who have tried both in the same ship care to weigh in?
In my experience DDs make the Viper Mk.IV's already strong lateral thrusters even stronger, I can literally boost through the mailslot and land with pinpoint precision. I think what people are noticing is that because DDs give a higher multiplier, their effect on weak maneuvering thrusters is more pronounced and so they make drifty ships even driftier.
So dirties are effective upgrades as long as you know what kind of powerboost you're gonna receive compared to baseline, and can mitigate accordingly, correct?
Pretty much, yes - dirties don't make your ship fly better, they increase the thrust multiplier. That means the thrusters are more powerful *and* accentuates the differences between primary and maneuvering thrusters (on some ships it means they are even more controllable and on others it means they're even driftier, a DD5 VIV boosts like a dragster and brakes on a dime). That means that sometimes a DD3 is better than a DD5 because the difference in speed isn't that much but the DD5 drifts a lot more (which is imho a good reason to consider clean tuning if you don't need/want more than what DD3's give you - CD5 has the same multiplier as DD3 but the ship runs a lot cooler).
In my experience DDs make the Viper Mk.IV's already strong lateral thrusters even stronger, I can literally boost through the mailslot and land with pinpoint precision. I think what people are noticing is that because DDs give a higher multiplier, their effect on weak maneuvering thrusters is more pronounced and so they make drifty ships even driftier.
WT... is a VIV?
Z...
WT... is a VIV?
Z...
Pretty sure he means a Viper Mk. IV.