I have been experimenting with air transports and was wondering why they are rarely seen in game - every once in a long while I see someone air drop some t2 vehicles but never in early game. Is there a eco based reason for this or is it just too difficult to micro? Seems like on Pacific if you could get vehicle fabbers on the islands early it'd be great .
they die in one shot. too risky to use as part of core strategy. 10 transports or 5 fighters is basically what you are trading off. 5 fighters less than your enemy = all your transports die
getting one or two for sneaky expansions can be nice though. but i don't know about vehicles on pacific...
Pelican is very useful for long distance expansion in early game. All of the following figures are in 1vs1 ranked games. There are some advantages for Pelican with vehicle fabricator. 1 Pelican is faster than air fabricators, it has double speed 70 rather than 35. For larger planet, this advantage is more obvious. 2 The vehicle fabricator builds faster than the air fabricator, and it also costs less energy. 3 Protecting the vehicle fabricator is easier than protecting the air fabricator. Anti air turret can take down the bomber very quick, but it can't kill the fighters easily. Please note that the pelican can be reused to carry more vehicle fabricators to other locations. You can also use it to build the teleporter to enemy's back. Then you can send the units to enemy base. I have no idea about the aa turret priority for the pelican. I have seen that the AA turret aim the fighters rather than the air fabricator, so I know that the fighter has higher priority than the air fabricator has. The player can use air fabricators to build a turret under enemy fire by absorbing the AA fire with his fighters. But I am not sure that the pelican has higher or lower priority than fighter. If pelican has a lower priority, it is possible to drop units with some fighters which can absorb the enemy fire.
