25 replies to this topic

[50 50]

At the moment the Dropships are only equipped with Large Lasers.
Not really sure why.
They are listed as having:
2x PPCs
3x LRM 20s
7x Medium Lasers
5x Large Lasers
A varied loadout like this would be more engaging and interesting to see in the game and would be just as threatening.

For Community Warfare, it would be nice to have a slightly different model for the clan Variant, the Broadsword, with it's listed armament of:
2x ER Large Lasers
2x ER PPCs
8x Medium Pulse Lasers
2x Small Pulse Lasers
1x AMS
5x LRM 20s with Artemis
2x Streak SRM 6s
Be nice if it could drop 5 mechs at once as well.

For some added immersion in the matches, what if we could:
Damage the dropships
See that damage
Do enough damage to destroy one
Watch that dropship crash in spectacular fashion (emergency ejection of any mechs being carried)
Chuck in a Dropship destroyed reward and possible achievement.

Oh, and if there is a larger territorial battle for the planets, seeing the Union and/or Overlord droships would be simply amazing.
Hot drops anyone??
Remember this?
http://mwomercs.com/...nesday-hot-drop

Edited by 50 50, 18 June 2015 - 08:02 PM.

[Kalimaster]

How about this. Keep the current firepower they way they are, add 2 ER PPC's, and an LRM 15.

However since the last patch they, that is the drop ships are doing better as defenders.

So I am going to offer this. While it might not be possible to shoot a drop ship down (currently), what about some kind of bonus points for inflicting various amounts of damage to one.

[Helaton]

Allow units to spend cash to develop dropships. (Add PPC's, Missiles, Lasers etc. whatever you want, but the Unit can pick).

The slight problem is that dropships overshadow all the mechs with their effects.

[Danghen Woolf]

I agree with you that having a more varied loadout on the dropships would be better. I would also like to see more lore-based things in the game that bring more BattleTech/Mechwarrior-ness to the game other than 'mechs and planets. Rightnow there is no story, no reason to be a part of any faction other than Clan or Inner Sphere for the chassis they can use. Just my $0.02.

[CyclonerM]

Helaton, on 19 June 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

The slight problem is that dropships overshadow all the mechs with their effects.

On the other hand, i think a Company of 12 'Mechs should be able to destroy a Leopard with not too much effort.. I would need to get their record sheets to be sure though.

Edited by CyclonerM, 19 June 2015 - 11:55 AM.

[Nightshade24]

Helaton, on 19 June 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

Allow units to spend cash to develop dropships. (Add PPC's, Missiles, Lasers etc. whatever you want, but the Unit can pick).

The slight problem is that dropships overshadow all the mechs with their effects.

Instead of add or improve Dropsihps.

Why not change dropships? Earlier I made a way that is lore friendly and fixes problems with faction units, merc units, lone wolfs, and huge groups.

max group you can make is 4 man lance (5 for clan?), If you are a lone wolf playing with others ,this is where your journey ends for how high you can group up.

If you are a faction unit you can deploy a maximum of 6 between 2 Leopard dropships.

If you are in a merc unit you have to spend your C-bills to get to use 2 full leopard dropships of mercs for a total of 8

If you are clan you will use Broadsword dropships instead, hence why you drops in 5's, 6's, and 10's.

Want more? 12 man group requires a Union dropship

Cost quite a bit of C-bills.




In short: Changing dropships instead of upgrading them.

[50 50]

I could see the Union and Overlord dropships introduced in a stage 2 part of the invasions for Community Warfare.
The Leopards are small and agile enough to evade the orbital cannons so they make a good transport for surgical strikes.
But a stage of the invasion where the attacking team needs to establish a beachhead and bring in extensive numbers of mechs would be were those big boys come in.
Send in an initial force to secure the landing zone.
Then down comes the Union and/or Overlord to land.
Mechbay doors on the dropship open to lower our mechs and we get to march our war machines out and into the field.
They would act as a base to bring in subsequent waves from without breaking the immersion.
Be very cool.

Limiting the group sizes is an interesting idea Nightshade24.
Not quite sure how it would be implemented as players will want to try and keep larger groups together so they all join the same matches.
Perhaps if there was a bit more structure to how the groups were put together?
ie. You group together in lances.
If you fill one lance then you can select to drop in via a Leopard.
Fill 2 and there is an option to use a Union droship.
A full company and the Overlord is available.

If units could spend their coffer money on dropships that had some sort of logistical benefit, that would be nice. At the very least the dropship could have a camo scheme and decals for the faction/unit.
Perhaps having a personal dropship is how we could customise our own mechbays and if you are the one who has created the group, it's your dropship that gets seen in the match?

Being able to shoot at them, cause some damage, destroy components and blow them up builds on the interaction in the game and what we can do. Like the mechs, we wouldn't lose the dropship when it's destroyed but for an in game effect it would be pretty exciting to see one careen out of control, disappear over the map edge and explode.
Perhaps it could delay the next drop?
Who knows. By increasing the interaction we can explore different game aspects.
The varied weapon loadouts gives them a bit more 'character' and a wider range of threat than just the large lasers.

As an additional thought.
Be nice to see dropships with decals and camo schemes relevant to their faction or even as a option for units that join a game with 4 members in a lance.
Just not too sure anyone would see it.

[Kalimaster]

If you are doing a solo mission, I'd say go ahead, but since we don't have any yet, lets not mess with drop ships too much. If you introduce a broadsword dropship, the odds per match then stack against the Inner Sphere by 3 Mechs per match in CW.

[OmegaRed53]

Why are there dropships not in the classic orb shape and hot dropping an Atlas ? Not all mech have jump jets and usually thrown off from any high due to weight and damage from the high. Can we vote for a redesign?

Edited by OmegaRed53, 01 August 2015 - 09:34 AM.

[50 50]

There was talk of a defence style of mission where one team was to defend a Union or Overlord class dropship I believe.

More that that though, if CW had a second stage to the invasion for territorial domination, seeing one of these big dropships descend, land and then deploy mechs would be very cool.

[Johnny Z]

I really hope to see this in game. At the very least different dropships for the different factions even if its different decals for Inner Sphere dropship varient and Clan varient. This along with the ability to shoot them down would be amazing. Being able to stop beta lance from dropping at beta drop point etc.

End a match early by shooting down all 3 dropships? Sure if one team is that much stronger, why not?

50 50, on 02 August 2015 - 05:45 PM, said:

There was talk of a defence style of mission where one team was to defend a Union or Overlord class dropship I believe.

More that that though, if CW had a second stage to the invasion for territorial domination, seeing one of these big dropships descend, land and then deploy mechs would be very cool.

+1

OmegaRed53, on 01 August 2015 - 09:14 AM, said:

Why are there dropships not in the classic orb shape and hot dropping an Atlas ? Not all mech have jump jets and usually thrown off from any high due to weight and damage from the high. Can we vote for a redesign?

I think that movie intro of the Atlas dropping from near orbit is showing it with a rocket contraption of some sort afixed to the atlas.

[50 50]

Mechs were initially dropped from low orbit in a cocoon that protected the mech from the heat and also broke up to provide anti-radar effects allowing the mechs to get to the ground.
In addition to this they were equipped with disposable jump packs (as per that video) and parachutes so that the decent could be controlled and the mechs didn't bury themselves.
While an orbital drop would be interesting I think the low altitude drop with the packs alone as seen in that vid would be a great way to introduce the first wave of attacking mechs in a CW match.

Just on the dropship side of things though, it would be really interesting if the type of dropship you did arrive in varied according to the size of your group. So as you said there Nightshade24, if you had a group of 4 you drop in with the Leopard.
But if it was a 12 man, they arrive in a Union.
Perhaps we will see something like this when it gets to a point where we can buy dropships for units with the coffer funds.
Probably want to actually have the big ones land. If he entire 12 man gets wiped out, it could take off again.

Edited by 50 50, 17 August 2015 - 01:23 AM.

[X T R E M E]

Yes, I agree, players who die could defend the base , in a station in weapons drophip : D

Edited by XtremeAlex, 07 September 2015 - 02:57 AM.

[Kalimaster]

I would also like to note that dropships, according to lore, carry 2 fighters. These could also act as defenders, however they could also have a wider attack coverage far beyond a dropships current weapon ranges.

[Vellron2005]

Please, the Dropships are SO OP as it is..

Its ok to fantasize, but you are going a bit too far..

The only thing I would like to see added from the "Atlas hotdrop" video is the fact when it starts up, the in-cockpit monitors all turn on, lights begin to glow and everything really powers up.

The current animation shows the pilot turinig stuff on, but nothing really turns on inside the cockpit.. and don't even get me started on the "Autodetect:no" screens...

[50 50]

The fighters on the drop ships could be a reasonable explanation of where the airstrikes come from given there are no airfields to capture.... yet.

A bit more immersion with the drops would be nice.
We need only look at what has been done for the training tutorial and also look at the Atlas hot drop video to see what could be done.

I would like to see the loadouts varied to at least match what was in the books. The 12 ER Large Lasers is a bit plain.

[poopiepants]

well its not like the CW info is right? my bad i mean objective raids source book. alot of time drop ships, are at planets as a def measure? planets def is not a batt of mechs unless its a major chassis factory. its alot of vechs, some drop ships, maybe 1-2 companies of mechs. but hey in CW we got this really big laser cannon, a jenner can take out lmfao. well they are diff nerfed. then again... if they had the weapons they should. they would prob take out 8-10 mechs before the paint got scratched?

[50 50]

The new scouting mode for faction play could have an indirect effect on the dropships.
For example:
At the point where the orbital battlefield scans are possible, incoming dropships can also be detected.
The side that has the scans gets an automatic missile barrage that shoots down one of the dropships. (aka Arrow 4?)
Any players that were due to deploy are simply delayed until the next drop so they don't lose their mechs, could get a message or watch the crash in third person.
From the ground we would see the dropship on the way, see the missiles streak overhead, kaboom, dropship crashes out of bounds spectacularly.
Delaying the drop should give a slight tactical advantage so it's not just fluff and the missile strike has a reset timer so it doesn't shoot down all the dropships.

[50 50]

Wonder if it's been considered to use a dropship in the revamp of Assault mode for one of the teams and the other has the base.
That would be a nice touch.

The more I've thought about faction play, the more I would like to see it evolve into a continual battle.
If Intel points were a currency we could spend, then it would be a nice touch to have a large unit be able to spend those points to get a big dropship to land as a temporary base.
Wonder if that would be an option to replace the long tom.....

Then we can also start talking about decals on them, faction and unit markings..... though I get the mental image that putting camo schemes on them might make the Overlord and Union look like Easter eggs.....

[Insanity09]

Making the dropships more deadly would have serious repercussions for scouting matches, if this were implemented there would need to be multiple types of dropships.
Something like the Union for general drops/invasion (heavier weaponry and more deadly) to discourage spawn camping in those circumstances, but keep the leopard (gazelle?) for the scout drops (pretty much as they are now).