Shared Dropship / Gunship Points Pool - Ongoing Problems
I want to raise an issue that comes up fairly often with pilots, especially when you have both a Dropship Pilot and a Gunship Pilot active in the same round.
Right now, both pilots share:
- One fabricator with a pool of points for upgrades and equipment
Those points regenerate slowly, and there’s no real backup way to get more beyond converting intel, which most people avoid doing because CAS spending is usually worse value than OBs.
On paper that’s fine, but in practice it causes a lot of friction, unclear expectations and avoidable conflict between pilots.
What is the problem?
Pilots share a fabricator for the dropships.
This is an issue because, by design, both parties rely on a slowly regenerating resource, with no defined allocation or split. Over time, an informal expectation has emerged that the majority of points belong to the Gunship Pilot, despite the pool being shared.
This creates a social and mechanical pressure that disproportionately affects Dropship Pilots, especially newer or late-joining ones.
Problems caused by the current system
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Late Joining pilots often wake up to an empty or near empty pool, with no ability to outfit their craft because all points were already spent
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Pilots feel pressure to spend points as soon as possible “before the other pilot does”, which turns a shared resource into a race instead of cooperation.
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Dropship Pilots, especially newer ones, get pushback for spending anything beyond the free dropship upgrades and maybe a turret or two - often at the cost of their own enjoyment or utility (for example, extra fulton capacity, med-evac, GAU, etc). This is akin pressuring Bravo marines more than a magazine or two because Alpha wants them for every single other magazine incase they need them later, despite them both having access and them being ample supply.
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Can increase staff workload, some individuals see both dropships using a fair or equal number of points as grief to the other pilot, despite precedent stating otherwise, resulting in ahelps.
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Encourages meta chasing - Any perceived “reduction in effectiveness” of the gunship due to the dropship spending more points can lead to IC and LOOC arguments. This has also contributed to stagnation in experimentation, many pilots still don’t realise, for example, that matching dropship upgrades like fuel enhancements stack, because deviating from the expected “meta” is discouraged.
Different potential Solutions:
1: Separate Pools / Fabricators With Limited Transfer
Give DPs and GPs separate point pools (and potentially separate fabricators), with the option for manual point transfer between terminals if balance allows. If not, no transfer at all.
This solution would:
Fully remove point ownership ambiguity
Follow existing CM design patterns (personal vendors, role-scoped resources)
Reduce staff workload
Encourage actual cooperation and communication, while reducing friction/conflict
Reduce pressure on both new and old pilots
Discourage meta-chasing, increases creativity/experimental loadouts, making rounds more unique.
- Reserve Protection / Minimum Guarantees
Introduce protected point reserves so that:
A minimum number of points are always available per dropship,
The rest of the points are “no-mans land” as currently is
This would:
Allow flexibility without both pilot’s present
Protect late joining pilots
Keep the system similar yet add some QoL
And finally, all parachutes, including cargos supply, should be available in the hangar from roundstart, with an increase in the amount you also start with (and the option to buy more like normal from cargo.
The number of times I’ve seen command staff, including whitelisted COs, get frustrated because an operation, they’ve painstakingly planned falls apart/be delayed because Cargo is extremely busy at roundstart, is extremely high. The marines usually get frustrated with these situations as well, and this usually can leave a sour taste in everyone involved mouth. (inb4 just grab the chutes yourself)