Let's Talk Transports

Technical "Limitations" more or less, you should read this thread.

Mike

Yeah, this is a valid concern and comes down to balance once again. Worst case scenario would be the game becoming even more air (and micro) focused.

I'm not so concerned about that as much as the potential depth that's being ignored in that scenario.

Mike

That's what I was envisioning. Could be executed in any number of ways though.

Okay, just checking.. I think most people understand naval transports as naval units that can carry land units. Well, at least I do.. lol.

Heh. Yeah. Should have clarified more I suppose.

Which maybe boats transporting land units would be a nice addition as well maybe? Depends on how air transports end up being balanced. Probably too early to tell. But may be nice to have a cheaper form of transportation that is limited specifically to crossing bodies of water.

Well that kinda changes things. Basically the main reason why they're making just single unit transports is because they can't make multi unit ones yet.(How about a supcom 2 style?)
Modders assemble!

I suspect it is a technical problem that bother Uber as well.

Still, I don't get why it got so complicated. I wrote a bit about here. It seems as simple as destroying an object (the unit) storing its ID and HP, and recreating the object (the unit on the map) where and when the Transport unload its pack.

But obviously they may encounter some other kind of limitation we are not aware of. Those may affect the Unit Cannon as well, unfortunately.

My worry is the opposite; as I mentioned in another thread, I'm quite worried about the Shuttle x Reaver problem that occurred in Starcraft. The Reaver - a highly specialized, high-damage, slow-movement unit - could be paired with the Shuttle and proper micro to effectively form a single tactical asset that was super-mobile and did tremendous damage. Using a transport to get a unit from point A to point B is one thing, but when it can become a permanent movement upgrade it can become a problem.

With single-unit transports, I could easily see a high-density unit like t2 Artillery tanks or the Inferno getting their move speed penalty completely ignored. Multi-unit transports, by virtue of being larger, would likely have bulkier handling to prevent this kind of hopscotch micro and stay oriented towards surgical strikes.

Obviously, overwhelming force should remain the primary solution to problems - but having lots of alternatives like this is what opens the game up strategically, such that your opponent never knows what you're going to do because there are too many options for them to cover all their sides.

I'm with you here; technically, it seems dirt simple. I think the WYSIWYG policy is the barrier; even with something as subtle as proper loading and unloading animations, a "black box" violates WYSIWYG because you can't tell what's inside the transports, if anything, until they arrive. But there are further subtleties to tackle that problem, such as clear visual indicators of full/empty transports.

Still, couldn't that be considered a tactical asset? There's nothing wrong with being able to play your cards close to the vest, so long as the opponent is aware that some card is being played. If you see transports, you can assume your opponent has some kind of sneak attack planned, and that's sufficient for WYSIWYG scouting.

Whenever I see someone say "How is it that hard?"

I say, "Then go apply for a job at Uber."

Uber is really good at what they do. If it were easy, then they would have done it already.

Uber even explained some of the complications in the thread KNight linked to. On it's absolute simplest behavior, turning a group of units into one unit and then back into several units isn't that hard.

Making it look good is hard (to my understanding based on the little Uber has said). Where all of the units move around the terrain properly into the proper position, face all the same direction, and get picked up in the proper way.

It's not that they CAN'T, it's just that it's much more difficult/complex to do so, more so than the Guys at Uber deem efficient in the Pre-Launch circumstances.

Considering Neutrino Disagrees with your assessment, I'd say you should be thinking about re-considering it no? ;p

I think that this is offset rather significantly by proper flight dynamics. Reaver/Shuttle worked in Starcraft because Air units just float there and magikally suck up and drop units, even if you had a unit exactly like a Reaver in SupCom:FA with it's transport flight dynamics you couldn't use it in the same way as you could in Starcraft. Fun Fact is that the Reaver/Shuttle business kinda made a bit of a comeback in Supcom2, but with Missiles launchers instead, you could load up a transport with MMLs, drop them, have them shoot and suck them up right away again and move them to a new location to drop them again, repeat until desired.

Mike

lol I thought naval transport meant boats transporting land units, until about two posts ago :/
I guess boats carried by planes would be pretty EPIC.

Yeah. I didn't clarify that too much.

That was my thought. Move boats from one body of water to another with a giant aircraft.

It's the same issue the Unit Cannon has, isn't it?

Follow up: If these guys built (some) of Supcom, TA, and FA, all of which had multi unit transports, why the heck is it so difficult in PA?? No offense meant to the coding geniuses behind all this. Can't we just reuse some algorithms here?

In any case, if we CAN get multi unit transports, I'd like for them to be T2, simply for the reason that they would be more versatile and valuable. And they should be reserved for late game, so the capacity to move a land army somewhere is just as difficult early game as late game, and DOESNT GET MORE DIFFICULT. This would raise our *options ceiling* and open up more end-game strats.

Did you read the Thread? Neutrino himself talked about the issues they are dealing with.

Mike

They cannot reuse code snippets from other games. That would be theft.

You totally miss the fact that it was difficult in those other games too.

Uber never said they can't do multi unit transports. In fact they said the opposite, they CAN do them. It's just time involved, and thus, very expensive. SupCom had a much larger budget.

In fact, Uber also said that there may be multi unit transports added down the line. Just not at the official release.

Sounds like they're saying supcom style transports are super hard to do. I agree with that. Units line up, transports come down, clamp them on and so on...

with supcom 2 style transports, units go to where the transport is and get teleported up. To go off they just teleport down. No lining up, arranging, clamping, ....
This is surely much much more simple to do.

Actually code can't be copyrighted. A final product yes, but its code not. Same with design. You can't copyright purple, or big. You have to copyright a purple big teddy bear. But if I want to take purple and big, and making a big purple turtle, you can't stop me.

Sure, of course. In fact I said that I'm simply speaking bubbles. I know anything about how PA works in the code, I can only make assumption, for sake of speculation. And I do respect their work, so no complaining about the final decision they will make.

I'll seek for the post where Neutrino explain better the technical issue. Perhaps I'll learn something.

ps. For the record, I started programming 28 years ago. So I know a little about myself (actually 29, damn I'm getting old... hopefully not obsolete, aha).

Don't put it this way, I do respect their work. But why don't you apply, in fact? You seem very catch, and surely it is a great place where to work.

This makes more sense. Even if, I don't buy it entirely, yet. Gotta go reading what Neutrino said. It starts to be intriguing. The mystery of the Multi-unit Transport.

And in fact, if you build a Transport right now in-game you get the game to crash. So interesting!