Ships Even wtihout stat buffs, dropship could use some love on its power plant positioning

[Apos]

I remember reading some Dev comments that the current system is working as intended and they aren't planning any changes. Increasing your bulkhead armour just increases the durability of the actual hull, it doesn't in any way reinforce the sub components, they are all exposed on the wrong side of the armour.
Personally I think if you were to put some more armour on your ship it would be over the more vulnerable parts, rather than on the armoured parts. Its been a while since I bothered with anything but lightweight bulkheads, and I haven used the other armour upgrades at all.

I assume that the thought process behind that is the whole idea that in order for your components to be made available for destruction, you have to take someone's shield down first, which I could follow if the whole shield system tweaked different altogether.

Having the system pips influence the recharge and regeneration rate of the shield instead of its actual strength might be a good start, because the values that some ships reach is just ridiculous and it scales out of hand that way. We already have like 3 proper tiers of ships (4 if you include the starters) and the last tier has over 7-8 times as much shielding.

If the fight was more like:

Get shield down
Plant to ~80%
Get shield down
Pant to 50%
etc.

Or something similar it would make more sense.

Right now it's just: Get shield down -> win, because the recharge time is humongous

 

[kingchub]

i think they should add a coefficient armor rating to modules such as the pp. this coefficient would be based on the ships armor value and therefore modifiable by HRPs.

 

[xkjacob]

I'd just say don't use the dropship.
Just like I say don't use the Clipper.

They are interesting ships with some quirky attributes and some out of the box thinking could make them useful.
Or you can just buy a Vulture and OWN RES sites, own an Asp and own exploration (and beginning trade), then Type 7 and FDL and own high intensity conflict zones and some PvP, eventually buy a type 9 or Python / Conda and make money irrelevant. Then go back and buy the quirky ships.

 

[Arsen Cross]

I fly a very well fitted Python and can confirm some of the things said here about it. It is one of the stronger ships in terms of powerplant vulnerability. The top side of my Python is essentially my shield and I do everything I can to face my topside towards my opponent. Doing so really helps but the powerplant is still priority target number one in every engagement I have. The two times I died in my Python in PVP I was primary target for the opposing wing and once my shields were down, it was over within seconds and my hull never dropped below 90% and I have milspec armor and two 5D armor plates equipped.

I think two things need to be accounted for when damage is applied to critical subsystems:
1. Damage reduction from armor upgrades (Milspec/Mirrored etc)
2. Total ships armor value, including bonuses from hull reinforcement packages.

I feel that an equation needs to be written to utilize the armor penetration value already on weapons and use the ships total hull value to create a percentage of damage reduction. The higher the armor penetration of the weapon, the smaller your damage reduction is. Same caliber of weapon and now you have another 240 points of armor? That doesn't hurt as much.

I would assume that is already in the game, and if it is, that formula needs some tweaking. If done properly you could literally have a fitting preference of "Shield Tank" vs "Armor Tank"

Now I'm going to go post a thread on an idea I just had for changes to powerplant mechanics.

 

[Mephane]

You can decimate its power plant from the top, from the bottom, even from behind when attacking its thrusters, it can penetrate towards it.

That's not a problem particular to the Dropship. Most, if not all, ships' power plants can be hit from almost any angle, other modules, too. I distinctly remember someone reporting here on the forums how a player got the both drives of their Anaconda destroyed while the attacker, another Anaconda, was directly in front of them and shooting at their nose. No one but FD even knows whether it is intentional that the bulk of your ship barely ever occludes your subsystems from enemy fire.