Equipment ‣ Piloting Equipment ‣ Helm Tools ‣ Drogue Chute
| Drogue Chute | |
|---|---|
| |
| Сomponent: | Balloon |
| Drag and Force: | |
|
Vertical Drag: +250% | |
| Deactivation delay: | |
|
2 | |
| “ | There is a difference between throwing a fit and 'saying' that you are not going to budge. Deploying this will make it happen. | ” |
—unknown | ||
Drogue Chute is a helm tool used to slow down falls with destroyed balloon. The drawback of using it is that the ship will have severely limited forward mobility. This can also be used as 'air brakes', stopping the ship in place for fast stick and move attacks on faster ships, or in conjunction with Rushing Drift in PvE for more fine control of the wild drift.
Drogue Chute decreases the vertical terminal velocity of the ship, while also reducing the vertical acceleration of the ship and subsequently increasing the time to reach terminal velocity. In addition, due to the lower terminal velocity of the ship when hitting the ground, Drogue Chute results in less Impact damage from collision.
The short deactivation delay of two seconds allows on some ships the player on the helm to help rebuilding the balloon while using this tool in bursts (Junker and Galleon with very short distance from balloon to the helm). But deactivation delay can interfere with climb immediately after repairing the balloon, so it makes sense to turn off the tool before completing the repair.
Like all helm tools it is only useful for the player flying the ship and has no effect if equipped by other crew members.
Common Usage
Drogue Chute is most useful as a counter to ships with balloon destroying weapons, such as Carronades and the Lumberjack Heavy Mortar, in order to avoid a rapid descent toward the ground and keep one's own guns in arc longer.
When fighting against Carronades the player piloting the ship should keep in mind the poor gun arcs of Carronades aiming down and perhaps not instantly use Drogue Chute to give the engineers more time to repair.
Unless the pilot has Impact Bumpers, Drogue Chute is commonly used high in the air and not when already on the ground.
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