Planetary invasion

That "one unit per lander" limit is only true for the landers which are launched by rocket. There is always the possibility of actual transports which never land but only drop the units from orbit and then return to the nearest asteroid base for reinforcements. Just like the unit canon, but not limited to the same planet.

Hmm yes that orbital drop-off would actually be a good idea.

One unit per lander assumption was based on Neutrinos post on the transport thread where he said that multiple unit transports are too expensive (in real world currency) to implement, so they will stick with one unit per transport units.

There is a lot of stuff which won't be in the initial release for just that very reason. But that shouldn't stop anyone from theorizing about it.

Absolutely true, I would love to have orbit to orbit "spaceships" that have carry capacity of some sort.

Well, as far as I recall, the devs actually did say we were going to have teleportation in the game, it would just be at a massive energy cost. So in theory, you might be able to move an army from planet to planet instantly. The issue would be how fast we could build a "Galactic Gate" and how quickly we could send units through it. I feel like you would need to land some sort of beach head force, spam down a Gateway, and then the rest of the army could start pouring through, assuming you had a ton of advanced energy generators back at your home world.

Of course, that still doesn't solve the issue of landing the initial force. Also, such a force would almost have to include a mobile anti nuke, or else the defender could just launch a few nukes from the safety of the most fortified part of the planet, and what do you know, no more invasion force!

Like you pretty much said yourself, the teleporter wouldn't be viable until you have dealt with the initial defenses first with a lot of forces and even then it would be a lot more trouble than just raining units down from your orbiting asteroid/moon base.

Well, obviously an asteroid base with a unit cannon and teleporter would equal hell for the defender of such an assault.

But why bother teleporting? Just build factories on the asteroid itself and it's self contained in terms of production.

Mike

I'd imagine that with enough planets and generators, the teleporter would teleport in far more units faster than a same sized asteroid with full factory coverage would be able to produce. Obviously depends on the teleporter itself, how often can it receive teleporters, how much a single teleport costs etc.

Because options! Different delivery methods for different situations. Teleporter for streaming tanks down to reinforce the main hammer wave. Unit cannon to launch bots behind lines once main enemy force has pulled away to intercept your sphere of tanks.

Depending on how big Asteroids are, the amount of things you can build on them may be somewhat limited. You could cover it in production but you may have to cover up all the Metal sites with your Factories. and if you cover it with teleports and unit canons you may not have real-estate to have significant production on the asteroid itself. and this is before you try and find places to build giant engines on it.

At that point the limiting factor is actually the Unit Cannons, you might be able to teleport 100 units a second to the asteroid, but if the Unit Cannon(s) can only shoot 20 units a second what's the point?

Mike

I don't think that having a teleporter and enough unit cannons to keep the forces going planetside is going to use more land space than having the same number of unit cannons and enough factories to have the cannons shooting at the same rate, unless the teleporter structure had some sort of a limit to how many teleports per second it can receive.

Hmmm I assumed unit cannons would build the unit they launch like in supcom2, in that case though i see your point.

Well....idea! Launch an asteroid covered in loaded unit cannons to orbit and enemy planet. (possibly with a teleporter/quantum gateway for resupply later)
Right behind that, set to land afterward, is your main invasion force loaded in landers, as well as a fair amount of builders.
Launch your unit cannon strike force (ideally) onto the most vulnerable location in there base (Preferably at any nuke silos you find) As that distraction is going on your landers drop there cargo in the more vacant part of their planet. Immediately begin constructing a quantum gateway as your main force covers/distracts them further. (Or nuke defense first if nukes are still a concern)
The quantum gateway then can stream in units directly from your home planet which is well prepared with factories to continue the renew the invasion force. Builders then further fortify your foothold on the planet.

There is also cost to consider, Teleporters, especially if used for large army stuffs, will likely be VERY expensive to power, and while if you strictly compared the units fired a second the teleporter might be superior, you also need to consider that you will need a lot more to support that upkeep, so while the teleport might be able to beat UCs and Facs strictly on Units fired per second, other factors like the cost per unit and time to set up and such would be in favor of Factories and Unit Cannons.

Mike

Cant you have like a simple heat shield and a parachute?

So then you just launch the "package" from whatever planet/asteroid you have. And once it enters a atmosphere, the heatshield goes all red and ****. And then it takes maybe it turns into the planet in a circle, until the parachute is released and it lands smoothly on the surface.

Cheap and effective. Although, planets with no atmosphere is another story. What about that thing from C&C Tiberian sun or smt, where they land infantry with those cool pods?

That is basically what is planned, the 'problem' is not with the units arriving on the surface, but the methods getting the units to that stage. Just look at the Pre-Visualization to see how they plan for the Unit Cannon to work.

Mike

Where is the pre visualization for the unit cannon?

Go to KickStarter.com, and search for Planetary Annihilation.

He probably means the trailer (at the 53 second mark)

It's not a trailer, it's a Pre-Visualization.

Mike