So I was just checking out command and conquer 3. And I noticed that in that game, you can have any unit call in a transport. The transport comes out of nowhere so that's kind of bad. But I think the idea of having a simple command that says "I want to be transported there" rather than having to micro transports and ferry lines would be much nicer. And the system simply automatically picks the appropriate free transports and assigns them the order. A factory could have the order as well so that transports automatically ferry units from that factory to the waypoint. Instead of putting up a ferry line and having the factory assist it. So your only task is making sure that transport orders dont pass through AA coverage and that you have enough transports to fill all the orders. An army wanting transport would need a lot obviously. Not to replace the ability to manually tell units to go in transports or transports to pick up units, simply to complement it with the ability for units to call any available transport.
Sounds very much like Orders as First Class Entities, with a tiny bit of glue and scotch tape on top to choose transports for you. I like it.
ferries are really easy to manage in supcom. i'm indifferent to something like this being added but i would hope that the existing ferry mechanic isn't too much altered
the problem is that while ferries are useful if you need to do anything else with transports you need to divert them or build more, that's potentially a lot of micro just to transport something. Having a dedicated transport request would instead make it a one click operation.
on second thought, i kinda like it - perhaps have the ability disabled on the command card until you have an idle transport; where does the transport go when it's done?
The fully automated version of this worked really well in the original Dune, where Carryalls would simply float around the battlefield transporting harvesters and damaged units around. The concept is ancient I'd love to see it working really well in this game.
I'm not sure I understand entirely. So you are saying... Click on a unit, hover to where you want it to move. I can click and have it move there on its own. I can [alt] + click to attack move I can [ctl] + click to summon the nearest transport, pick me up, drop me off at my mouse location, then return to its starting position. obviously the modifier button would be open for whatever, merely examples. I could live with this, actually could be pretty cool.
Sounds great to me too. While the ferry system worked reasonably well in SupCom, it still was quite a bit of clicks for just ad-hoc transports.
This is treading into what has become known as "orders as first class entities" territory. But it really was a tremendous flaw with the SupCom ferry system that the death of a transport could delete the ferry order, even if other units were relying on the order. Furthermore, it was also a serious limitation that the transportation was ferry-side, and not passenger-side. I think the ideal system would be for the player to specify points or areas which act as pick-up/dropoff zones. The zones exist independent of transports or passengers, and don't necessary have transport orders. The player then orders a zone to rout units towards a different zone, which might rout them somewhere else. Zones' orders can be changed, updated, whatever. Transports can be ordered to service the entire grid, or specifically allocated to a particular leg. Factories might rally units towards a zone for pickup, at which point transports pick them up and move them according to the grid. They might pick up more units waiting for rides along the way, and units will get off the transport when their stop is reached, like passengers on a bus route.
That seems a bit too opaque of a system. Why waste the time setting up all that. Have the game do simple straight lines automatically with two clicks. If you need more micro control to avoid death then you need more clicks. Convoluted and non-intuitive systems are not really a good idea I don't think.
I don't see how this is different from ferry lines as they are now. The idea is to move transport orders out of the transports and into the units that need it.
Very Nice Idea, i like it... but how should it be treaten if not enough transporter are available? My Idea: -Error Message(displaying how much transporter needed+how much available) -Auto build extra Transport Second should every Transport be able to get called or just idle transports in an fixed radius?
This. I always end with inactive transports in SupCom because the initial ferry was destroyed... Plus why not setting a priority for each ferry point ? This way the transports could lift the most urgent freight first. Plus assign the air fighter production of one or more air factories to the ferry protection, making all the newly built fighters to defend the ferry on the whole grid, dispatching themselves depending of the priority of each ferry, and the "dangerousness" of each route from previously destroyed ferry statistics.
