Let's Talk Transports

Uber recently (kinda) previewed/announced transports. Though Uber has mentioned this several times, it's now confirmed that our first transport will be a single unit transport. Some people don't seem to like the idea of only having a single unit transport. So let's talk about it.

What do we, as a community, want from transports? I know it's Uber's game, but let's still talk about it.

I know we mainly want the ability to quickly ferry groups of units from one area to the next, even over difficult terrain. That doesn't require multi unit transports.

So probably the most important part of transports won't be the units at all, but will be the commands to use the transports. We know Uber has pioneered some amazing Area Commands and will have some equally awesome commands for using the transports as well. They've even talked a little about these commands in the past. So I'm not worried about that at all.

Another thing we need to consider, which is the current balance of air units in PA. PA Air is not like SupCom. SupCom air units could take a beating. Air units in PA are pretty paper thin. So we don't really want all of our eggs in one basked, in my train of thought at least.

Other things to consider. Mainly, why limit ourselves? It'd be pretty stinkin awesome to have naval transports (aircraft that move ships from one body of water to another) so we can pond hop. These would likely be pretty slow and bulky. But they could be a very fun addition.

(Edit: worth mentioning that the transport that was debuted cost 90 metal and could be built from a basic air factory)

Thoughts?

Do you like single unit transports? Why, or why not?

Edit: Check out this post on why Uber isn't building multi-unit transports (yet)

Edit2: If you think making transports is easy, then apply for a job at Uber. They're very good at what they do and have thought of anything you may suggest on how to do their job. They also aren't going to cut corners to make a sub-par transport.

I don't have a problem with single transports, especially with, as you mentioned, proper area commands. The only annoyance is trying to load 200 tanks onto 200 separate transporters, but this is negated by having an easy "load everything in this area" command.
Having a big blob of single transporters makes it less likely that you will suffer huge losses, because the flak cannon shot down one transporter with 20 units in it, rather than trying to target 20 individual air targets.
EDIT: fine, another annoyance is having to build 200 transporters and put them somewhere safe. But still, not too many negatives.
I'm probably missing some cons here, but I'm seeing mostly pros with single unit transporters.

Single unit transports are fine, they kind of make sense. From a functional point of view I don't really see any difference.. you're going to use area commands anyway.

Exactly... the Area Commands are going to be so amazing.

I love the idea of transports in RTS games. Their potential is amazing for raiding and flanking and surprise attacks and stuff. But I haven't played an RTS games where transports were easy to use. And since they weren't easy to use, they generally weren't worth it.

As for naval transports, I think the best idea would be to add the transport functionality to one of the existing ships, if at all.. I guess nobody is going to build dedicated naval transports if you have air transports available.

I don't know, it depends if they are fast enough, or a lot tougher than air transports. That way, perhaps they could sneak up on a lesser defended side of a base, who may have a ton of flak cannons but very little in the way of artillery or laser turrets.
Not saying that they are necessary or not, but I could certainly see a place for them. Also depends if there will be planets with water but no atmosphere for planes to fly in.

I don't think the addition of air transports negates naval transports.

The idea of naval transports would be to stage surprise (but risky) invasions of enemy occupied ponds.

Would be a very unique and awesome addition to PA.

Well another con is a hit to the perfomance of the game. If you have x number of units that can fit into a transporter, I believe that'll be less demanding on your hardware.

Yeh, but that's not a problem with the transporter per se, but rather for optimisation.
But true, it may affect lower spec comps, and is a consideration.

I really loved that in many strategy games, to transport units. It was a serious problem to get units over water and mountains, specifically the water! I don't really would like to see air transport, In my opinion is this a bit unessassary, I would like to see more water transport! It would be great to load up to 10 units in one big "loader ship" to carry units over a see or to another island or something like that.
This would not unbalance the game and in my opinion this is better as air transport - but only one unit with air is realistic, 10 for a "Loader ship" too, because its on water and Must not fly.

Such a transport ship is a nifty idea.

Wonder if it'd be needed once hover tanks are added.

I'd love to see huge squadrons of transports moving across a planet into a battlezone, but 1 T1 unit per transport is.... flawed. Big armies are great, but that's just extra lag for no reason.

Surely it can't be just as easy to lift a Leveler as a Dox, or a Battleship and a destroyer. That's why I think an air transport should be able to lift 1 of the biggest units that will be transportable. The smaller the units, the more it can carry. Just like SCFA.

Naval transports would be cool, but why use them if you have air transports?

As above: It depends if they are fast enough, or a lot tougher than air transports. That way, perhaps they could sneak up on a lesser defended side of a base (that bordered a lake), who may have a ton of flak cannons but very little in the way of artillery or laser turrets.

And I like the idea of fitting more units into a transporter if they are small. Never played SCFA so wouldn't know how it played.

transports would be so strong. I mean I'm guessing you wouldn't be able to just GET them right off the bat but being able to expand anywhere at a moments notice by air

And i can see where we would need a naval transports, but naval is soooooooooooooooooooooo slow haha X) and if the water is to shallow or narrow then its a little hard to navigate :/ but I'd expect so

And what would be the point of a naval transport if you can just use an air one haha?

Can the transport carry small boats? If anything, the piss slow navy will need it even more than land.

Naval transports are a definite "Why.avi". Fighting across the water can be done with walking boats, hovercraft, skimmers, air transports, teles and unit cannons.

What if we had two transports? A basic and advanced?

The basic can only move one unit and is very fast. And the other transport is an Advanced unit and can move multiple units but is slower.

Who knows. Maybe that's Uber's plan all along.

Advanced does not work that way! Unit cannons and teles provide all the high yield transport a player should really need. Drop pods provide the aggressive transport required of a planetary assault. There is no point or sense in dragging a handful of units across lethal air space in the late stages of the game.

If they add advanced transports they should be just as fast as the small ones, but carry more.

I think Teleporters will be changed to be less effective for attacking and more for logistics. This will create a gap for transports to fill.
Unit cannons are for planetary invasions, not moving units from 1 place to another on a planet.

How about Ghetto Gunships?

No, advanced should fill a different role from T1 not just be a superior version of the same thing.

I'm personally hoping we will be able to use the unit cannon to fire units from one part of a planet to another, in a sense this will fill the role of a multi unit transport.

Ghetto gunships are awesome +1

I'm of the opinion that bigger transports are necessary. PA is a game where the value of a single unit is very low; having single unit transports is silly in that respect.

Naval speeds are still being tweaked, as are air HP values. A slightly faster D-Day ship, or an air lifter that has a bit more than "glass" as a health value wouldn't be amiss. there's a lot of ideas to try. particular, what if we combine the Drop Pod and the multi-air transport?