Engineers How much of the Federal Dropship's drift can be engineered away?
- Thread starter Verlaine
- Start date
She'll always drift. With engineering work done, she'll only drift faster. 
I agree with 3m@nnon, here, though. Drifting is fun, plus can be actually useful.
I agree with 3m@nnon, here, though. Drifting is fun, plus can be actually useful.
There are two types of ships in Elite. Those which should be flown by out-turning opponents (Vulture, FAS), and those which should be should be flown FA off and lateral thrust to circle opponents (FDL, Python, Conda). The Dropship is in the latter category. Once you learn this you'll find those ships actually maneuver very well indeed. It's just different.
^^wise words.
If you want to be successful in these ships, you mustn't fight the inertia, but use it to swing the ship around.
I actually prefer this as it is much closer to believable space fighting, rather than WWII airplane style of other ships.
Great replies and advice, everyone.
This is the fourth time I've tried the Dropship. Each time before, I purchased it because I loved the cockpit - especially in VR - and the weapons/loadout capability. But I always sold the ship soon thereafter because the drift bothered me during starport, outpost and planetary landings and the ship was slow as a turtle in 4/0/2 pip configuration during combat.
As far as combat, it sounds like I should think of the Dropship as a strafing ship rather than a turning ship. If so, that actually sounds like fun, so maybe I'll give it another try from a new perspective. Would lightweight mods help it strafe better?
This is the fourth time I've tried the Dropship. Each time before, I purchased it because I loved the cockpit - especially in VR - and the weapons/loadout capability. But I always sold the ship soon thereafter because the drift bothered me during starport, outpost and planetary landings and the ship was slow as a turtle in 4/0/2 pip configuration during combat.
As far as combat, it sounds like I should think of the Dropship as a strafing ship rather than a turning ship. If so, that actually sounds like fun, so maybe I'll give it another try from a new perspective. Would lightweight mods help it strafe better?
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Heheh, no, go for full tank.
And give it time. Ships like FDS need some getting used to. I'd say it's the first ship that behaves and feels like a really large and heavy vessel. Give it a week or two, try different things, starport operations, drifting around asteroids and some light combat. You'll see that after a while you won't want to come back.
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