A light bulb came on

Think Atlas but with better UI so we can move armies around more easily. In practice I hope they will be easier to deal with that multi-unit transports.

I don't know how RTS transports work exactly, but it sounds like a huge pain in the anus. In TA it was only somewhat recently that efficient multi-unit air transports became possible. In SupCom I remember it was a modding gripe that naval transports weren't really do-able for a bunch of reasons.

So in PA, are SupCom style air transports and some kind of naval landers at least theoretically possible this time around? I don't care much if they're missing or not really possible at launch, but those SupCom air tranports were one of my favorite parts of that game. I'd hope to see these eventually.

Well, I think if it's a limitation of money, then that's fair. You can't implement what you can't pay for.

It really begs the question of where the line will be drawn for cost of transport vs cost of unit. IE transporting a small bunch of little bots won't do too much good, but again, transporting the same amount of T2 bots or levelers would be better. I think it's because of the swarm factor that single unit transports tend to be less useful than multi. You need lots of T1 to dent T2.

Maybe we'll get unit cannons that aren't just from Planet to planet, but similar to SupCom 2's unit cannon that actually shot units from A to B on the map. Or maybe.. the unit cannons CAN shoot units from A to B.

My main concern is simply.. if you have a large group of T1 bots and need them across this small chasm, but only a couple transports, it would take quite a while for them to move. I trust that you guys have solutions for these situations that have made multi-unit transports shine in SupCom, so I'll await your judgement.

Cant agreed moore.
The use of transport to to send to a particular point on the map, either to reclaim or attck some units or make moore mexes , or take by surprise enemy in spots that do not reach so fast in our base.
I now we will have other way doing that ,but on early games transporters are important.
Never thought the simplicity of transport was so hard to make ?
How you guys make on Supreeme commander?

Single unit transports definitely get very expensive, very fast. Considering the value of the average unit in PA, the transport would have to cost 50-100 to be viable with decent T1 numbers. One would suspect that a cost of 125-250 would be suitable for moving the larger scale T2 units, but interceptors seriously hurt transport power by that stage.

Interestingly enough, such a low cost would make transport+constructor combos more efficient than air constructors, leading one to wonder why they would ever build an air fabber in the first place. But making it too expensive would ruin the ability to haul grunt units around. Balance is hard!

(That's why cargo size is used in other games, to adjust which units are easier or more difficult to move!)

Single unit transports will likely have to be balanced in some obscure way. They can't be so expensive that they are overshadowed by the Unit Cannon, and they can't be so cheap that they must be built to move armies around, and if you don't your enemy will always outmaneuver you.

To this end, I would like to reference a really bad game that did transports really well; Halo Wars. Transports were simple, you just selected an area which transports would be dispatched to, the transports would pick up your units, and move them to the destination. Now, obviously this implementation wouldn't work in PA; there is no way you could possibly make an excuse for "global abilities" or "call-downs" which just come from the sky and do your bidding, as Commanders go in without support and have to build everything they use.

But the concept of a "transport hub" which manages the nitty gritty logistics of army transportation is still valid. It could be a T1 or T2 structure depending on how heavily transports affect the movement of armies. The structure would maintain a fleet of cheap transport aircraft, which could be called to move an army with a "call for transport" order on ground units. The fleet size would scale with your army, so long as your income is positive.

I know most people aren't really happy to have units with fluctuating resource usage, or any sort of automation past regular orders on steroids, but significant automation will be necessary in large games. Transports are one of those things that will have to be automated and light on micro.

Yeah... whats your point? Faster paced gameplay is not a bad thing. Crippled mechanics are for cripples.

A player who invests in transports is already paying a flat tax on every single thing he builds. The tax means fewer units,(50% tax => 1/3 less units => 1/2 combat strength) and fewer units must work harder to pay off. Unless the game is completely autonomous, the onus is on the player to make it worthwhile.

Sounds like how they did it in Spring.

1. You select your transports
2. You choose an area to transport from
3. You choose an area to transport to.

The transports will then shift every unit in the area to the destination. They also picked up units that had move orders to the pickup point. You could make it so that units from the factories got picked up as they rolled off the ramp. And when the transports were idle they stayed at the pickup point.

This system was great. I am not sure if there is a way to improve it.

Would a transport style structure or 'hub' end up like a 'train station' type idea? Not that it would be a bad thing at all. Imagine the interesting complexity it would add to current game play.

My point is that if transports are a requirement (as in, if you don't build them, you will loose 100% of the time to an equally skilled player), then you might as well just make it so that each unit is built with its own personal transport. You might as well also make everything an air unit.

Transports should be a choice, just like everything in a strategy game. They need to have some disadvantage to offset the fact that they can move entire armies over impassable terrain.

Transports are the direct link that creates interplay between air and ground. The most blatant example can be seen by using transport cargo as a meat shield. A 20HP transport with a 200HP tank just had its health increased by a factor of 10 due to this stupid oversight. Basically, the current 1/10th HP system for air is blatantly awful from even the most cursory glance and needs a major overhaul.

After fixing air health, it is a good idea place tank cargo in the direct line of fire from ground based AA. The cargo acts as an HP buffer, which means a SAM that normally takes 3 shots might need 10 shots for the same kill. Three times the units get to succeed on the drop, what a huge gain! Since interceptors shoot transports from the horizontal or above, they score full damage on the transport.

TL;DR let the tanks shield the underside of the transport. it is a 100% awesome way of creating a powerful "damage type" pivot, without using real damage types.

Look at this. Look at how stupid you sound. If one guy lost due to making a bad choice, then he is certifiably worse than the other player.

The simple fact is that if something is viable, players will use them to improve their play. If transports are not viable, then they won't be used. Considering the amount of effort it takes Uber to make the code for transit, it is in their best interests to have players use them.

Transports do not have weapons and can not defend themselves. Their value is based entirely on the cargo they carry. If you have a problem with them, shoot them. They are hard countered by literally everything that can fight.

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Supcom transports were borderline worthless because of their low speed, difficulty of use, and the ridiculously high power of interceptors. There were a few gimmicky rushes and the occasional suicide drop. That scores a 2 out of 10 for balance.

All this will do is make land AA useless and fighters even more powerful/needed.

I also think that transports should be a bit of a risky move. Either have them transport safely around your area of the map, or use them to sneak in tanks via an undefended spot. I don't think they should fly over defences into the enemy base and drop off there units without massive losses.

Bobucles, my point is that transports have to have some disadvantage to balance the fact that they are essentially a speed boost and terrain negator for land units. Cost is the most obvious disadvantage, but then you again run across the problem of balancing transports against Unit Cannons and against micro barriers. Yes, there are "bad" choices and there are "good" choices, but the validity of a choice should be entirely dependent on the situation they are used in. Obviously I am suggesting that every choice would have "perfect" balance, in that they are as frequently used as every unit in the game, but that would imply a "perfect" game, which as we have gone over before, is fundamentally impossible.

So what I'm trying to do is think of a way to strip down as many layers of possible imbalance in transports. I'm putting them within several layers of "balance insulation", as to make them as easy to balance as possible. This means that I am suggesting that the manual logistics required to manipulate them be replaced with a simple set of smart orders, and that their cost doesn't scale directly with army size. Personally, I think the cost to transport an army should be exponential, to encourage the use of transports to move strike forces instead of entire armies.

The major reason transports were useless in SupCom was because A; they were so micro-intensive, and most of your APM was soaked up by Eco management, and B; air superiority was far too easy to take and hold in SupCom.

Unless I'm mistaken, when a transport unit was told to "assist" another unit in FA, they only did it if it would reduce the ETA?

yes then again I'm not absolutely sure. but they wouldn't split groups of units already heading to a transport.

so you'd have: one transport loaded with 6, another loaded with 1.

At first, I was unsure how this would be good but then I realised... Dune II...

Dune II had the 'Carryall' which was a single-unit transport. It was fantastic!

• It picked up your harvesters once they were full, took them to the refinery.
• It picked up your empty harvesters and returned them to their previous harvesting location.
• It picked up damaged units, dropped them at the repair pad.
• It returned repaired units to the battle.

With an awesome UI implementation, there is no reason that (a flock of) single-unit transports couldn't be an amazing sight to behold and fun to use. It also means faster transporting, since 6 single transports are much better than a single 6-slot transport. They can go directly to each unit, pick them up, drop them off.

I'd love to see a building for this. I know it sounds silly but a kind of 'Dock' that you waypoint units to and it takes the unit to the Dock's rally point. It uses existing systems and makes it one-way.

The Dock could potentially produce the transports itself, or they could be assigned to it. If you targeted the Dock as a rally-point for a factory then all the produced units would be ferried to the Dock's rally point.

Edit: In retrospect, it wouldn't have to be an actual building but could be more like a beacon such as the rally-beacon in SupCom.

Yep.
It always comes back to UI implementation....



Imagine that.
Except with 100 transports...

Having a single transport unit sounds too micro intensive inefficient and a pain in the buttocks. Like many have said the micro required to use 30 transports to move 30 bots would be insane and your better off just building factories..It's much like invading a planet it's very time consuming and honestly a pain in the *** bc the current planet transport only Carries one unit..we don't need anything magically like ta or sup com transport where we can see the unit being carried. Just make them disappear and when you click on the transport it will show you the amount of units inside. There could be a basic transport for basic units and adv for adv units.

Like why would I sift through various threads to find my answer? I mean like it super easy to make a new thread hoping someone would give me the exact answer I am looking for. Search function? Ehh I don't have time for that.

This really depends how good or bad the UI is.
TA takes a lot of clicks/unit.
StarCraft 2 takes less clicks, but still not great.
SupCom takes even less.

It all boils down to how smart the UI will be.
Smart + powerful + unintrusive = less clicks and mouse movement.


Since this is one of the more detailed explanations Neutrino has given us.
I'm not that worried, it can be done.