a kind of troop carrier/ bot cannon

I can understand #2. But #1 is just dumb. APCs exist for human concerns, because meatbags are squishy and tire easily. Anything an APC can do, a few extra inches of k-bot armor can also do.

Yes but its about being cost effective.

If the bots are (in general) more cost effective with those inches of extra armor then sure, but its much more likely that they arent as cost effective with that armor and that its more cost effective to get a transport with extra armor to transport them for those situations when you need it.

Two more extreme versions of the logic in your statement (to point out why its flawed):
1. Why use Air transports? A jetpack on every k-bot can also do it.
2. Why have faster scout units? More speed on the units we have will do it.

In both cases the basic units involved would cost more to make, while having a specialised unit instead (like a scout or a air transport) is more cost effective for a army.

It's still an answer in search of a problem. Moving units around the field is a real concern. Protecting an expendable mook is not. Build more mooks.

Its not a "answer in search of a problem", there is no "problem", there are plenty of other ways to handle the defensive line mentioned in the example.

The suggested troop transport functionality (in my example) isent meant to be the only solution to a specific problem, its one more option a player could choose to use.

Uh. That's exactly what "answer in search of a problem" means. There is no need or reason to stuff grounded units into a grounded box. However, there is a use for vaulting grounded units around with a cheap grounded platform.

Theres no need for air/orbital/naval units either, since you can defeat any situation with land units (unless theres a base built on water or something).

But people still like having options.

The example described would make the assult using a transport more cost effective then just building more troops thus resulting in a reason to use said unit (since being as cost effective as possible is often the best plan of action).

You shouldent discard an idea just because it isn't needed for the game to work, you should consider if it could be a fun addition and if it can be implemented in a good way (otherwise we might as well remove 99.9% of the games planned content).

Ooh, nice slippery slope there. It's good enough to sell tickets.

Some options are just pointless. Clown cars are one of them. There is no reason for one robot to seek safety inside another robot, ever.

If the large robot was some sort of drone carrier, it would be a different matter entirely. The carrier exists because it's providing some logistical benefit to the drones. The drones exist as an extremely light weight and efficient weapon's platform. It's good synergy.

Well technically everything is a drone...

I gave you a perfectly logical example for why a robot would seek safety inside another robot.

The k-bots are weak. You could increase their health but that would also increase their cost, if its more cost effective to use a specialised unit to protect them (in certain circumstances) then there's a valid reason for them to use such a unit instead.

I fail to see the logic in your statement "theres no reason for one robot to seek safety inside another robot, ever.", robots would do what is most logical and cost effective. That includes temporarly hiding inside another unit if the option is available.

Yeah, no. Putting units inside units is never going to be as effective as making one reasonably sized unit. It is also a balance nightmare, a pointless addition of micro, along with creating wonderful targets for free multi kills. It doesn't work.

You could just set load and unload/shoot points.

Have you not played Supreme Commander?

There is one exception, which is when the carrying unit provides not protection, but speed - of course, then it's not an APC, but a transport, and we know the game will have those.

The problem with APCs is that they're micro-heavy units (or they need a little extra work, to automatically deploy carried units in combat), which doesn't fit either the gameplay style or aesthetic of PA. There's no reason for disposable future space robots to need the same kind of battlefield taxi as mostly-not-disposable modern squishy humans.

I think it could be rephrased as "how much more hitpoints is the carrier going to have?".

If you have 10 kbots, they have 10x the health of one kbot. Unless the carrier is going to get close to that number for far less than the cost, you would need specific conditions for it to be worth even building the carrier at all, instead of just building the equivalent number of more kbots. If the carrier has 3 times the health of a kbot, but carries 10 kbots, it's actually making them more vulnerable instead of less; it is easier to kill the carrier than it is to kill the kbots inside it. The fact that the carrier is only providing more of something the kbots already have (e.g. more health or more speed), instead of something they do not have (e.g. aerial transport, amphibious transport, or unit cannon / jumpjet capability) is what would cause a lot of players, myself included, to question the utility of building it at all.

The other side of the argument would be that if the carrier costs e.g. 5 times the cost of a kbot, is it more efficient to build a combat unit of the same cost instead? If there is a main combat tank of similar cost to the carrier, would it be an advantage for me to build one or the other? From a balance perspective, a tank that costs 5 kbots to build should be similar in utility to those 5 kbots (it may have more range, or be slower), so a transport that carries 10 kbots, and has cost 15 kbots total resource to build, should be looked at as a similar proposition to 10 kbots and a tank, or even 3 tanks in a combat situation.

I can see the utility of the transport, but I think it may be too situational to be a better proposition than just building 15 kbots or 3 tanks (all numbers are pulled out of thin air, of course), and using those instead. PA is being built to be moddable, so I reckon stuff like that is going to be available pretty soon even if it's not in the base build anyway.

Personally, if you don't give it a unit cannon I think you should at least look at making it amphibious. Then it brings something extra to the table and increases the utility of the kbots it transports

So it's exactly like an armored unit carrier!

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Doesn't AI War: Fleet Command contain a unit that's a giant transport ship for other ships? It had no weapons but extreme armour. Its intended use was blockade running. It sounds very similar to what's being suggested here, and I can see a role like that being useful. I only ever played the demo though, so I'm curious if actual players can verify this claim for me.

I'd like to see a suicide carrier. Probably a land vehicle since it'd be kinda silly to waste money on air transports just to lose them, but having a truck full of units with a nose full of C4 ram into a wall and explode opening a path for its cargo sounds like something out of Ancient Chinese tactics.

+1