Dropship

I haven't seen it discussed in a unified manner, only in threads about other things - the idea of a large Dropship, built in orbit by the orbital fabricator, that can lift a large number of ground/air units (like 20 or so) and travel to other orbits to deploy them.

I personally favor this concept as an avenue for interplanetary attacks. It's a means of establishing a beachhead on enemy planets without using nukes or smashing, but remains limited by its vulnerability to attack while it is on its way to its target.

I also personally favor a dropship that can only lift air units - meaning that to transport land units, you first have to load them into a pelican. But that's just me.

What other dropship ideas do we have? Do we want one? ^^

I also like the idea of a massive space dropship. it could fill a invasion-type role where sneaking a teleporter is no longer an option. (of course, so can the unit cannon, but the dropship doesn't need to start from a body that's in orbit or being orbited by the target drop zone.)

We even got a 11 pages thread on this from back in 2012... https://forums.uberent.com/threads/planetary-assaults-and-interstellar-transportation.36357/

But yes, I agree. I love trasnports. And thus the idea of having dropships. And I prerfer this over the unit cannon and teleporter. Having different sizes of dropships up to real massive ones that can carry 100 or more units would be pretty cool.

orbital multiunit transports and planecarriers that need to get to their respectiv layers to unload their units ...

I don't think that's what he said.

The problem is, it's not vulnerable on its way to the target. Orbital units moving between planets are practically invulnerable, and since they can enter the target planet from any direction, there is almost no risk at all in moving an orbital unit from point A to point B. However, I think some changes could be made to make this work.

Firstly, if interplanetary dropships are going to be added, then I think you would also need some kind of interplanetary anti-orbital defense that can fire at any orbital unit passing near, or incoming to the planet. It shouldn't be so powerful that it outright prevents orbital units from showing up, but it should cause some attrition damage for units passing by and soften up any potential invaders. This would also make a nice light show in space as orbital units approach and weapons-fire flies out from the planet to greet them. The umbrella could probably be modified for this purpose.

Secondly, there should be some kind of early warning system. With deep space radar, you can see orbital units and their paths, but this is not enough. You should also be able to see exactly where on the planet the orbital units are going to enter, which shouldn't be that hard to calculated based on their trajectory. Something simple like a red '!' on the orbital layer would suffice.

Finally, once a dropship does arrive, it should begin deploying units from orbit with some kind of retro-rocket system to slow them down. As they descend (like paratroopers) AA could return fire at the incoming units. The units should deploy one at a time to encourage dropping them in a safe area instead of trying to overwhelm defenses.

Overall, these changes are designed to turn orbital into a D-day style paratrooper invasion with units raining from the sky, early warning systems blaring, and a multitude of weapons-fire ascending from the surface of the planet to greet the attackers, both in orbit and in the air as they descend. I don't really care how this is accomplished, but if this goal is somehow achieved either through unit cannons, dropships, or whatever else, then I'll be a happy camper.

Problem is - True. Part of the problem with interplanetary travel is that things arrive RIGHT over the destination you click on, whether that was on the path of their capture burn or not. This is wrong and dumb and needs fixing. (i.e. the commander-sniping orbital laser problem from the other thread. Another symptom of the same problem.)

Firstly - Iiiiii dunno about interorbital small arms. I think addressing the problem above will help that a LOT - it means you'd have to spend more time arriving in your new SOI and finding the landing zone you want, which is time where you're vulnerable to counterorbital fire. Not to say it's a terrible idea... but I'd rather fix the root problem and see if we still need it.

Secondly - yesyesyesyesyes - SOME kind of alert when you detect things on their way to your SOI is a definite need. On that note, I do think that dropships should have a slower travel speed than astraei. It shouldn't be a terribly difficult attack to see coming as long as you are paying attention.

Finally - if land units can be carried without being picked up by pelicans, I agree. No matter what, units being dropped should be vulnerable to AA fire. I like the idea of there being plenty of ways this kind of attack can go wrong. ^^

Overall - pretty much exactly what I'm thinking as well. It doesn't really invalidate the Unit Cannon concept either - the Unit Cannon assures that units wouldn't have to face counterorbital fire on their way in, and would probably deliver units much more quickly/invisibly. The two concepts could exist in the same game.

Dropships are just awesome.

Just think of what an Unit Cannon could do if it could launch DropShips...

Silly jokes apart, the game needs something like a Dropship. Could it be added via mod, if Uber will not implement it?

Initially Asteroids were Dropship technically. This had some built in benefits like how it utilized parts of the KEW systems and the way it was modular.

Thing is that whether Dropships or asteroid bases makes more sense depends what happens with the unit cannon. If the Unit Cannon is forced to create/fill some niche in the current interplanetary Meta Dropships will likely make more sense, but if the Interplanetary Meta is revamped along the lines of many discussions we've had on it asteroid bases could be the most viable.

It's hard to tell yet which way it'll go.

Mike

thats why i think they should get into the layer the unit they carry is supposed to be

just build more umbrellas or avengers and anchors ... i dont think such a defense is nessesary alos would be totaly op against other orbital units ...

yea lets eliminate options to sneak stuff in entirely ... boring

if you have enough dropships you can do that anyway ... another reason why i am against dropships and for transports

when people think of d-day then they mostly think of the landing on the normandy ... in which case transports had to make contact with the beach first before the soldiers could get on it ...
what you are describing are more starshiptroopers like invasions ...

it's ok, you're not the first

dropships have too much potential on droping units directly on the comm it would be just matter of numbers
and it would be vanguarddrops all over again and far worse ....

TBH I like the idea, but I thing that making astraeus a lot cheaper and then testing it is the first thing we should do. When mass invasions via astraeus are viable we will have 3 equally viable options of dealing with fortress planets: Smashing, Nuking or Invading. Only after that could we look at more options like UNIT CANNON, Factory dropships, Aerospace craft maybe transporters.

Also astraeus needs to lend before unloading. If you want orbital drops, then the unit canon will provide.

Your are making a lot of unfounded assumptions about how Dropships work here. Maybe you should explain your assumptions instead of assimg we all know them telepathically.

Mike

True as orbital arrivals are currently implemented - however that's a symptom of the same problem with laser platform sniping. If orbital arrivals worked correctly, units would need to get in position before dropping, which would buy a lot of time for counterorbital and anti-air defense.

An Unit? I dunno man... =P makes me want to say An Oonit.

...

I will hereby pronounce Unit as 'Oonit' and nobody will stop me

I think we're referencing the orbital arrival issue, where ships arriving from an interplanetary journey will just magically appear over their destination, instead of having to arrive in the new SOI wherever physics would put them and then travel to their destination. IMO, fixing that will solve a lot of the 'orbital snipe' issues we're talking about.

EDIT

Doublepasta, sorry about that.

if by dropships people mean transports that stay in orbit and unload their cargo via droppods
couldn´t they just park above a base or above commander and drop vanguards from there?
in that case just send enough avengers with those to distract the umbrellas on the ground and deal with orbital defenses just get enough dropships with vanguards and throw them at the commanders head ... how may vanguards does it take to kill a comm? 3 maybe 5?
the same would be with the unitcannon i imagine

i'm on board with this.
[loud voice]
I hereby declare the word to be pronouced Oonit.
[crack of gavel]

btw: your username drives me bonkers. i'm an oncology pharmacist and one of our usual drugs is docetaxel. way too similar. i do a double-take every time i see your handle.

I think this and or an Orbital Teleporter would be great. Giant dropships swooping down out of the sky and plopping tanks down while being zapped at by Lasers would be awesome.

There is a lot more at work here than that thought. I mean, Dropships have almost all the same issues with "dropping units exactly where you want them" type stuff as the Unit Cannon does. But they aren't insurmountable at all. For example units could be vulnerably durin the "drop" and be shot down by AA, once landed they might have a short "Rolloff" period before they can fully function, dthe droppods themselves might block shots and movementonce landed making it that much more awkward to line up shots, units could be dropped one at a time makin them a lot easier to deal with and more!

There are plenty of options to make make something work and its important to keep as much as possible in mind when talkin about this kind of stuff.

Mike