The Nefarious Dropship in Rift Apart is an NX-Class dropship capable of deploying Nefarious forces behind enemy lines, as well as unleashing devastation with it's turbolux cannon.
Entirely automated, the ship is piloted by hardwired drone pilot algorithms. This technically makes the Dropship not a Nefarious Trooper itself as it is not usually piloted by one, but it is still a very valuable asset to the Nefarious Army and its troops. Although it is fully automated, Troopers inside it can also use manual controls to fly it themselves for making landings and parking. They are the Army's primary aerial attack forces.
On Viceron, two of these dropships appear as a boss duo named the royal guard escorts.
History[]
Rift Apart[]
The Dropships appear on planet Savali, deploying Troopers to intercept Ratchet's arrival. One is fought at the Primeval Forest Temple by Ratchet after it drops off several Troopers. One is parked and another elsewhere is seen crashed after a Trooper piloting it made a poor landing, with another Trooper insisting they make the landing next time. When Ratchet and Kit reach the Archives, several Troopers are already present, with three Dropships circling it. These three Dropships do not attack Ratchet, but they can still be destroyed by him. After acquiring the blueprints to the Dimensionator from the Archives, Ratchet and Kit are halted by several Dropships bombing the Archives, Kit then reluctantly transforms into her aggressive warbot form and destroys all of them to defend it.
In the ruins of Blizar Prime, several Dropships can be seen flying through the planet's debris field along with several Troopers to intercept Rivet and Clank's arrival.
When the Emperor invades Sargasso to destroy it with his armies, many Dropships can be seen swarming the skies in various formations of five, with some lying wrecked on the planet, presumably caused by the Morts' repaired Seekerpede before it became stuck inside a dimensional anomaly. Several stay hovering in the skies to defend the Nefarious Battle Cruisers trying to destroy the planet from Rivet riding on Trudi's back and can be destroyed with Trudi's fireball attack.
Dropships can be seen on Viceron, patrolling the outer perimeter of Zordoom Prison. While Rivet is trying to free Ratchet and Kit from their VIP cell being transported away from the prison, two Dropships known as the "Royal Guard Escorts" are sent to attack her.
When Emperor Nefarious makes a broadcast and declares his intentions to conquer Ratchet and Clank's dimension, Dropships are seen amongst his war fleet preparing for the invasion of Megalopolis. Many Dropships are seen swarming the skies of the city and attacking indiscriminately with some shot down by the defending allies of Ratchet and Rivet.
Combat[]
Dropship in flight.
Dropship parked.
It has a large enough pool of health and armor to almost count as a miniboss meaning you will need to bring out your most powerful weapons like the Warmonger, Negatron Collider and Blackhole Storm in order to deal with them. Since the Dropship is a flying enemy, shorter-range weapons like The Enforcer or Shatterbomb are not very good options. That said, Buzz Blades and the Ricochet are good weapons to fall back on when the rest are out of ammo. If you are good with quickly stopping and aiming, the Headhunter is also a good choice when your heavy weapons are out of shots.
The Dropship's main attack is it's turbolux cannon, which fires a powerful ball of energy. It has a slow rate of fire but can be quite damaging. They will lock on to Ratchet or Rivet and track them wherever they move to, the best method for avoiding it during combat is to wait for the Dropship to shoot it's cannon then quickly jump/Phantom Dash out of the line of fire or attempt to hide using cover if it is available.