Aerodyne DropShips For Air Support?

[SCC]

OK asking for opinions/ideas from players with a better understanding of the aerospace rules, but how well would an Aerodyne work in the air support role (For strafing attacks and the like)?  Specifically what I'm thinking of doing is taking the Leopard design and pulling the bays and replacing them with 6 identical 'modules' of weapons, ammo and other equipment (like heat sinks gunnery runs and quarters needed for increased crew), probably including a bomb bay in each module. Which weapons would work best? And how well would a these 'modules' work on larger designs for making assault DropShips?

[pheonixstorm]

Dropships, even loaded with weapons aren't the greatest for air to ground work. They are expensive to start. In C-bills, BV, etc. For strafing attacks I find ASF with high speed and a large number of weapons such as the Samurai works well. Your tohit for strafing automatically adds +4, so having a good gunnery skill helps A LOT and so does having a lot of weapons to choose from. For ASF and Small Craft the lighter weapons are usually better as it means more chances to hit. Strafing is already hard enough with a regular pilot. The more energy weapons you have to point at the ground the better. Luckily the heat is only tracked at the first shot.

As expensive as dropships are it is not something that one would want to use for ground attacks. It is possible, but the cost is better spent on small craft or medium/heavy ASF with LOTS of energy weapons.

[Weirdo]

Remember the first rule of air support: DON'T STRAFE. EVER.

A pilot that tries to strafe needs to be demoted to toilet scrubbing brush. Not the guy doing the scrubbing; the brush itself. A DropShip captain that willingly strafes is actively committing treason, due to the amount of resources he is actively giving to the enemy in terms of salvage.

A DropShip captain that tries to perform strike or bomb attacks may not be completely sane, but at least there's a decent chance he's on your side.

[bluedragon7]

Well if your pilot is good enough and if your bird has lots of (pulse) energy weapons, the damage you dish out in a strafe can be extreme, if your enemy lines up nicely.
If not, go for a strike or bomb mission.

[Jellico]

The return in investment almost never works out.

The problem is that all the straffees get easy shots on the straffer. Any hit means a control roll. Control rolls at straffing height mean a good chance of crashing into the ground.

Put another way. Straffing gives you say 1 chance to shoot 4 people in their rear location table.
Those 4 people then get 1 chance each to shoot you in your punch location table.
So they get shot once each. You get shot 4 times.

Simply straffing exposes your fighter to too many chances of crashing for too little return.

[bluedragon7]

I play with control rolls only required for thresholding shots, otherwise any attempt of air support ends on the ground and is not worth the investment anyway ;-)

[maxcarrion]

Dropships are expensive and lawn dart far too easily to strafe or even strike - a single LRM can bring one down so they are rarely worth it - better to buy conventional aircraft or ASF

Flying dropships die to return fire

IF you really want to use Dropships to attack ground targets while flying
- high altitude bombing greatly increases range and chances to pull out of a control loss
- Arrow IV fired from several maps away may keep you safe
- Sub Caps fired from Orbit

Leave close air support for things you can afford to lose.

Only strafe things that will be ineffectual firing back (and don't have many friends) - like infantry or unarmed trucks

[bluedragon7]

Or only play with piloting rolls after thresholding ;-)

[maxcarrion]

Or only play with piloting rolls after thresholding ;-)

Sure, you can change the game rules but I'd be very hesitant in changing it in a way that makes the traditional anti air weapons - flak, LB-X, LRM's almost totally useless anti air weapons.

It's not entirely dissimilar to someone asking "how do I effectively kill infantry" and getting the response "change the rules so that PPC's and Medium Lasers do full damage to infantry"

[Col Toda]

Just the expense of a drop ship should exclude the idea . Small craft is the largest Aerospace unit I would consider using and only to deal with infantry and Battle Armor . A large Pulse Laser and Light machine guns as well as bomb racks very well eliminate the platoon or squad . Killing area denial units so you can punch through the enemy line where the enemy thinks it is too expensive to assault from there is the only reason to risk even a smallcraft . Drop Ships are so expensive that even if it's use permits    victory

[Weirdo]

Sure, you can change the game rules but I'd be very hesitant in changing it in a way that makes the traditional anti air weapons - flak, LB-X, LRM's almost totally useless anti air weapons.

It's not entirely dissimilar to someone asking "how do I effectively kill infantry" and getting the response "change the rules so that PPC's and Medium Lasers do full damage to infantry"

You. I like you. :)

[bluedragon7]

Sure, you can change the game rules

That is an official, though advanced, rule.
So your comparison is flawed.

[Cryhavok101]

The best ways I know of for dropships to act as air support are:

• Deliver forces where they need to be. Dropping mechs and infantry like they are bombs is fun. That's obviously not what you are looking for though.
• Arial radar coverage. Installing things like recon cameras or satellite imagers for your forces to use and keeping it out of range of enemy guns. The initiative boost can drastically effect a game, and doesn't put your extremely expensive hardware in harms way.
• Installing Bomb Bays and using arrow IV missiles (the various bomb variants of Arrow IV of course) to attack from a long way away.
• Using subcapital weapons like they are artillery.
• Using AA weapons to keep the sky clear of enemy fighters.
• Dropping mines or remote sensors (or remote C3 sensors) as if they were bombs. If I remember right, dropping things on unoccupied hexes makes you slightly less vulnerable than dropping things on enemy forces.

I hope something in that is useful or gives you an idea for the modules on your Leopard.

[David CGB]

Dropships are expensive and lawn dart far too easily to strafe or even strike - a single LRM can bring one down so they are rarely worth it - better to buy conventional aircraft or ASF

Flying dropships die to return fire

IF you really want to use Dropships to attack ground targets while flying
- high altitude bombing greatly increases range and chances to pull out of a control loss
- Arrow IV fired from several maps away may keep you safe
- Sub Caps fired from Orbit

Leave close air support for things you can afford to lose.

Only strafe things that will be ineffectual firing back (and don't have many friends) - like infantry or unarmed trucks

just these two for me thank you very much