I find out it can't load the commander. I have no idea it is a bug or it is intended. Or it is just my fault to operate it wrongly? Though I can use Pelican to load fabricator.
This was an intended change as people used to load their coms into it on a fortified planet and fly around constantly. In some cases this made it extremely difficult to break stalemates back before the release of the Titans expansion. Personally now that we have the Helios titan I feel that this feature should be enabled again.
The main reason it was disabled is because pelican was moved to t1. Players were dropping their com at 2 mins mark into their opponents base and com boxing, with no reliable counter...
Ah I thought it was due to players constantly fleeing from sxx drops and nukes then rapidly rebuilding after the drop making the planet impossible to get onto and impossible to target the com.
Thanks for the answer. But I think both problems aren't the real problem. For carrying commander and keeping moving in late game, this can be countered by sending T2 fighter and assassinate him. For commander nuke, this is absolute not a problem. Unlike the SC|FA, the death explosion of commander in PA doesn't kill another commander in most cases.
It was a bit more tricky than that. On maps where the spawn wasn't the optimal staring place (read: there is another place that has a higher metal spot density, or could give you more control over metal spots) you could do a fast migrate. Since the air transporter is build faster than a hummingbird the only feasible counter was to build also an air transporter and migrate your commander too. So those maps would ultimately lead to a comboxing scenario. One example of those maps is the classical 2 teams, lane layout. If the middle of the lane had metal spots, you could cut you opponent away from those metal spots by transporting you commander directly in the middle of the lane. And since a commander can't be killed easily in the early T1 phase it would mean the opponent was effectively on the back foot metal wise - without an actual good counter to it. Personally I would love to have the possibility of an early commander migration, since it would open up more strategies on careful designed maps, but this was definitely to early. Additionally you don't want to increase the metal cost of an air transporter, because you want this unit to be spamable to make strategies like inferno-drops at least possible (personally, I think they are even now far to rarely)
Now I understand, it may really cause some problems. If the map has multiple good location, it is fine. But it forces the players to migrate when there is only one good location with many metal spots, this makes the game less variations and boring. Currently, I only use the air transporter to carry the combat fabricator. And then I can use the combat fabricator to build the teleporter. I have not found out other usage of air transporter, and I feel it is impractical to use them to do the drops. In the Starcraft, the air transporter can carry multiple units and have more HP, while the fighter is expensive. But in the PA, the air transporter can carry only one unit, while its HP is too low and one shoot for cheap fighters.
useful for sending vehicle fabs allover the maps to nab mex points that would take way to long / randomly run into the enemys patrols.
Air units are Less efficient, and die to easy to fighters. Drops are situational, dropping shellers on top of plateaus, drop vanguards for a commander snipe, dropping infernos to kill energy. They are used quite a lot at higher level games when there is an opportunity.
Every air transport can carry only one vehicle fabricator. I don't think it is a more effective way since you need to pay the price of the air transport. About the HP, vehicle fabricator is still very easy to bomber. I feel it makes no difference if the enemy scout spots your fabricator, but using air transport to bring the vehicle fabricator is much more complex than directly using air fabricators. About the dropping, I haven't seen that in 1vs1 ranked game though I am a platinum player. But I don't know the situation about the Uber rank players. The air transport is too fragile to the fighters which are cheap and easy to spam. And I believe it is only useful in early game. If the opponent make air units and patrol them, it is near impossible to do the dropping by air transport.
There is not much of a difference between uber and platinum players to be honest. However air is key in most maps, so you don't patrol your fighter. If patrol an area with 40 fighters and I have 30 fighters, I'd kill all yours and have at least 20 left. Pressed post too early As for the air fabber/ bot fabber, I'd go air fabber all the time, even though I know bot fabber is better against the better players. You don't get away with sneaky air fabbers for too long against the best, unless they are really unlucky with scouting. It's much much easier to defend a bot than an air fabber, you can't dodge fighter shots and it's as easy to pick of a bomber as it is to pick of an air fab.
