Hot Drops

[Jalinth]

No complaints, just some random musings here.

What I've found a touch jarring is the fact the drop ships come in vertically, all big fat dumb and happy, not to mention slowly.

When I think of dropships in this kind of environment I think of burning for the ground as fast as your engines, control systems, and heat shields will let you. Then blast along NOE, just missing the trees as you go around (not over) hills. Finally you get to the requested dropzone and the pilot (be it human or electronic) hits the retros hard, slowing just long enough to let out the tank or troops. Then he bugs out in the same manner as he came in, but following a different path.

Or if you are dropping into an area with no clear lines of flight, you just go straight down like a bat heading back into hell, hitting the retros at the last possible moment. You dump the cargo then climb for the black like a homesick meteor.

Of course it might be a bit hard to do, do very "interesting" things to balence, not to mention that what we have now works rather well, but sure is a cool mental image no?

[ July 14, 2006, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: Jalinth ]

[Toby Haynes]

Originally posted by Jalinth:

No complaints, just some random musings here.

What I've found a touch jarring is the fact the drop ships come in vertically, all big fat dumb and happy, not to mention slowly.

When I think of dropships in this kind of environment I think of burning for the ground as fast as your engines, control systems, and heat shields will let you.

With my physicist hat on, I'd say that given the drop ships appear to have rear exhausts and jets mounted underneath, they probably aren't that maneouverable.

That said, I like your ideas. These dropships are supposed to be injected into the atmosphere at high speeds and plummet groundward. It would be extremely cool if they left a vapour trail or even smoked when first appearing on the scene. They would then decelerate during descent, briefly touching down and then slamming the jets back on full to leave. It would mean that the Dropships would be slightly less vulnerable when first arriving because they would be moving more quickly and would force the 120mm folks to wait till it was about to land to get a decent chance at a kill.

It would also be cool if there was a sonic boom to announce their arrival on the scene. A Dropship decelerating in the atmosphere should make a terrific noise.

Interesting musings...

[Jalinth]

Another thought - Don't bother with dropships for Infantry. Send them in Drop Pods "Starship Trooper's" Novel Style. With the confusion that the drop pods create, and some form of engineer teams that can take over buildings, well I can see the perfect way to take out hard targets.

Here's a few quotes -

One of the things that helps a capsule trooper to live long enough to draw a pension is that the skins peeling off his capsule not only slow him down, they also fill the sky over the target area with so much junk that radar picks up reflections from dozens of targets for each man in the drop, any one of which could be a man, or a bomb, or anything. It’s enough to give a ballistic computer nervous breakdowns—and does.

To add to the fun your ship lays a series of dummy eggs in theseconds immediately following your drop, dummies that will fall faster because they don’t slough. They get under you, explode, throw out "window," even operate as transponders, rocket sideways, and do other things to add to the confusion of your reception committee on the ground.

The first charge cut all the straps; the second charge exploded the plastic egg away from me in eight separate pieces — and I was out doors, sitting on air, and could see! Better still, the eight discarded pieces were metal-coated (except for the small bit I had taken proximity reading through) and would give back the same reflection as an armored man. Any radar viewer, alive or cybernetic, would now have a sad time sorting me out from the junk nearest me, not to mention the thousands of other bits and pieces for miles on each side, above, and below me. Part of a mobile infantryman’s training is to let him see, from the ground and both by eye and by radar, just how confusing a drop is to the forces on the ground— because you feel awful naked up there. It is easy to panic and either open a chute too soon and become a sitting duck (do ducks really sit? — if so, why?) or fail to open it and break your ankles, likewise backbone and skull.

[Jalinth]

Originally posted by Toby Haynes:

With my physicist hat on, I'd say that given the drop ships appear to have rear exhausts and jets mounted underneath, they probably aren't that maneouverable.

That is a good point. Still, a later generation of the drop ship could be redesigned to make this feasable.

Originally posted b y Toby Haynes:

That said, I like your ideas. [sNIP]

It would also be cool if there was a sonic boom to announce their arrival on the scene. A Dropship decelerating in the atmosphere should make a terrific noise.

I'm glad you like them. Your ideas are also quite interesting. Sonic Booms are fun!

Quite frankly there is nothing I quite like so much as a screaming orbital drop.

"Plunging down from Orbit on Wings of FIRE"

[yurch]

Originally posted by Toby Haynes:

These dropships are supposed to be injected into the atmosphere at high speeds and plummet groundward.

To be fair, the ships aren't visible/attackable whatsoever until they suddenly 'appear' at a set distance over the ground. This distance is far shorter than the maximum ceiling of the maps - extracting dropships fly much higher before dissapearing.

It's concievable that whatever fluffy physics the dropships are undergoing is getting them that close before they can be detected in thier deacceleration-landing run.

Otherwise, I want more warning!

[ClaytoniousRex]

It's glorious imagery. When DropTeam was still in alpha, dropships used to appear a few kilometers out from the edge of the map and fly into the drop zone, nap of earth. They would kick up boiling clouds of dust as they skimmed over the hilltops, doing a pretty decent job of staying just a few meters above the ground (there was the occasional catastrophic collision with a tree that we never bothered to fix). It was usually much harder to see the enemy coming or to know exactly where he was going to drop...

... but it took about 2 minutes to drop from the time your dropship first arrived. I basically couldn't get anyone to play with me. "Uh - I hit that drop thingy but I still don't see my guy. I'm going to get a coffee..."

Sonic booms with massive contrails and vapor emissions, however, is undeniably a wonderful (and best of all, *doable*) idea.

In addition to improved effects, I've been thinking for some time that drops need to take longer than they currently do. It shouldn't be as bad as the 2+ minutes that I described above, but it should be less accurate as Yurch has requested in other threads, and dropships should take longer to enter the scenario than they currently do. It is simply too easy to drop with rapid, pinpoint accuracy right now.

[bjarmson]

I think the dropships come floating down a little to slowly . They need a little more speed and evasion to them. I find it unrealistic when a dropship gets killed by a 120mm round from a thousand meters away. What are the odds of this really happening. ATMs, automated guns, etc are different and should be allowed to kill them. In some of the scenarios with relatively flat surfaces (Craters, Low Dunes), it seems like about half the dropships are killed before landing, and a lot of them are killed by 120mms.

[yurch]

As for realism...

The dropships themselves don't have any disengagement process, which is pretty 'unrealistic' considering they have a fragile heat shield (that needs to stay capable of withstanding orbital entry) in the way. A ship that size and with orbital requirements can't realistically crap out a MBT at that speed.

Most maps, 2000m and under, anything can kill a dropship. 20mm, 76mm, you name it. On some maps, it's even further. 120mm is just the most common because that's what the bots like to drop with.

At 1000m meters, not only is it possible, it's actually rather easy. Even if you manage to land, you'll most likely get clocked with a few rounds before you get your bearings.

You should be dropping at least an AA turret circle and a half away and in range of a jammer if you can help it. More and more players are going to figure out how to down these ships soon.

This guessing game can be a bit rough for the new guys. Not only do you have to avoid enemy vehicles, but you have to find out about jammed turrets basically through trial and error. This is why I think long term counter battery computer information should be maintained for players selecting drops.

[Dark_au]

THis is part of what I thought is flawed about the whole tactic as used in game. 1000's of years into the future and they have forgotten the basics of war fighting. First thing you should get is Intel and recon. For this purpose sensor drones and artillery drones could be used ( think of an arty shell with camera's and sensors instead of a warhead). When the drop actually occours there should also be some way of mass confusion, especially if you limit dropship numbers. In which case there is probably some call for a Decoy drone, a drone which to sensors would appear to be a dropship and thus add extra targets to overload AA cover.