Astraeus/Transport HP carrying Commanders Vs. Air

I was unaware that the Astraeus could be attacked by Air. Imagine my surprise, then, when the AI killed me as I picked my Commander up.
He had ONE T1 Fighter. I had Air Defences. It was a game set up to be a rush off planet. Why on earth can a T1 Fighter kill a Commander?

The same goes for Transport. These are our Commanders. They're supposed to be tough, particularly early-game. They should fall if their transport is destroyed close to the ground, even sustain fall damage. But not die. Reducing the Commander's HP to that of the carrier means that transporting the Commander off-world early game is impossible, because somebody is going to spam T1 Fighters and prevent it.

Yeah. I would also like to see commanders tumble towards the ground when their transports get destroyed. Luckily I don't have to; implement it, make it work without commanders getting stuck in weird places or make it look good overall.
+1 for giving the devs more work.

So the AI countered your move, good on the AI. Counter this by building a warp gate from orbit and coming in that way.

Transporting your key unit should be a risk and you should have to have a really good reason to take that risk.

Gaining a disadvantage is a risk. Flat out losing the game is several levels beyond risk.

It is stupid that the most important unit with the most powerful omnitool in the game can kill itself by using a transport. If something goes wrong, it has literally every option at its disposal.

Transporting the key unit in the game should be a massive risk, otherwise you can just keep dicking about from place to place without concern.

But why should it be a massive risk?

It's a risk of being stranded in no man's land without support, but it's silly to have a risk of critical existence failure because you are 5 meters off the ground.

Because it provides incredible mobility and ease of escape.

Not if you are shooting it down it isn't.

Hold up I had a brilliant idea.

Simply add the HP of the carried unit(s) to that of the transport and distribute the damage when it is dropped off.

Transport has 50 hp.

Commander has 12500.

Transport takes 6275 damage.

Result; commander on 6250 damage, transport on 25.

No thank you.



I agree with the transported unit takes damage in the crash camp.

It's essentially the same as the "ghetto armored transport" thing from supcom where tanks would block AA fire, but in a way that guarantees the damage is distributed properly without relying on the whims of the physics engine. The difference should be transparent to the player.

The last thing we need is buffed transports making comm drop rushes easier and a less risky strategy.

Or on the converse, making it more trivial to run one away into the sunset when it is at the slightest risk of being damaged.

Transports should be for moving comms through protected airspace only. All units riding on a transport must accept the risk and have adequate fighter cover to be protected.

What could be looked at is the transports current HP, and air combat in general, so it is not so popcorny.

Yes and it is even worse.


I'm flying a SupCom interceptor.

I'm not going to target the tank. I'm not interested in the tank. I'm going to target the engines which are giving the tank the ability to fly. I'm going to get nice and close and make sure that I take out the transport, not the cargo.

Unless I can hit the cargo hooks. In which case I'll take out the cargo hooks.

But either way, I most certainly will not aim at the tank. That's for the boys in green to deal with. My problem is the transport.

It doesn't buff the transport, it simply recognizes that the transported unit has HP as well. Right now that HP is 100% worthless, reducing any unit carried to 0. Which is not a good mechanic and this thread is about the problems that brings. I proposed a fix that works 100%. This way the HP of all units is properly represented at all times.

The only issue is that if you have 100 fighters hit a transport, do you want your Commander to die, or be sent tumbling towards the surface? I considered adding carried units' HP to the transport and decided that Fighter spam would make it impossible to balance.

This seems fine on paper, until someone stacks 20 vanguards in transports and drops them all straight on top of your commander. Like AA is going to shoot down all those transports with their insane HP buff.

It is fine as it is: Your units are being airlifted, and are vulnerable. That's the downside you get for being able to deploy them anywhere you need them exceptionally quickly.

This thread was primarily about Commanders being able to survive the fall anyway. Transports should be a bit stronger in my opinion, but the fact that you can lose your Commander to a few T1 Fighters is silly.

Being in the air brings a different set of risks obviously, 100 fighters having the DPS to down a commander isn't really different from 100 bombers having the DPS to down a commander caught in the open. If the carried unit is strong, then its strength will be represented fairly, if it is weak, then it will also be.

Yes, it's called balance.

How does any flying units becomes more resistant as it increase its cargo?
I could be okay to let the commander fall, but adding cargo hp to the transport would only lead to gameplay problems. Plus it's really counter intuitive.