Let's Talk Transports

Actually, a tractor beam that collects units into the Transporter would be so bad, graphically.

We already have the green nonolythes and the glowing blue of the Teleporter. On top of that, we have Area Repair for Fabbers.

A Transport that can carry more units, could simply pass over a group of units, and load them using a tractor beam. Same way the Combat bot goes around repairing everything in range while on Area Patrol. What it founds, it repairs. Then it proceed further.

The Transporter could behave similarly.

I understand that the issue is more related to the terrain where the Transporter has to unload the cargo. I don't know, but it wouldn't look that bad if it would drop the units similarly how a T2 bomber drops its payload.

I could also be that if the player order the Transport to unload its cargo on a illicit terrain, the units crash and get destroyed instead of gently touching ground.

That's what I was thinking. Different tiers of transport ships, whether boat or aircraft would be cool. I don't like only being able to transport one unit. How about smaller tier transports have smaller capacities(That still allow for multiple units) and the capacity increases with tiers. Dox could have the smallest size, tanks would then have a little more area to account for, then t2 units would have even more. I imagine them working like starcraft dropships. Units in starcraft had 'cards' that fit into the dropship's cargo. So out of like 8 empty spaces, infantry units would have a card that took up one, a tank would take up 4, etc. I think that system would be good for PA.

If we are talking aesthetics. I prefer black ropes or strings to drop the tanks or bots or whatever on the ground as the transporter hot drops onto the terrain. Sort of like how Huey's in Vietnam dropped soldiers into the battlefield. but instead, drops them off with strings straight to the ground

My issue is a bit different than that. Imagine Tank A and Tank B, they are the same except that Tank B is Amphibious. To balance that you generally either have to make Tank B more expensive(it has all the same stuff as Tank A with the added benefit of being Amphibious) or you keep it the same cost as reduce it's capabilities is some other are to compensate(less armor, slower, shorter ranged ect ect).

In the end, you have a scenario where Tank A is the "better" tank when water features aren't involved. But with transports you run the risk of making it so that it's "better" to use Tank A + Transport instead of Tank B, despite teh fact that Tank B was design with that specific Terrain set in mind.

I worry that it's such a thin line that it'll be very difficult to get it right.

Mike

Ok. It all makes more sense now.

Saying that is an expensive feature it is a legit justification. And personally I'm fine with that answer, for what does it matter.

However (I love this word). Neutrino states also the following.

That's exactly what personally I'm expecting from a multi-unit Transport. I've never thought about units dangling down, shooting and stuffs. Units can very well disappear into the cargo, and re-appear on unload.

So, it can be done. Carrying one unit per time, or two, or more, it's just a matter of how many they will decide to load. The procedure to load several units can be more complex, but not that much.

Unload one unit, or unload several, isn't that different. If the unit being unload can't walk on that particular spot, it can't be dropped. Or it could simply crash and get lost. The script for this kind of event should be pretty straight forward. They have to do it for the single-unit Transport, and for the Unit Cannon anyway.

Again, if it's a matter of budget, peace and love, we'll get Transports as we would like in some future release. That's fine as well.

Ah okay. Well. I don't think Tank B will be useless if its crucial to attack targets on the water, but thats reading to much into the example.

I think the act of using Tank A + Transports is the same as the Heavy Weapons guy in TF2 using a Teleporter the engineer built. Its A two part strategy that takes more people to make happen compared to 1 player being a TF2 Scout class to traverse the terrain.

It takes more talent to pull off a successful drop off of Tank A compared to running tank B from the ocean into the main base of a person's base.

Terrain based units Will still be useful. I think the advanced bot should be slightly more damage then a dox but climb mountains and have less HP but then again, thats a topic for another thread.

I doubt the transport can make a unit redundent. And if it does, then that unit should be re-evaluated when discovered to be useless.

And keep in mind, Uber is of the frame of mind that they have a lot of units they want to implement, they just want to do it right.

(paraphrasing) "I don't want to add just any 'ol mine layer. I want a cool mine layer."

Uber's not gonna half a** anything.

PA is much more versatile than Starcraft was in Broodwar, and than it currently is, by miles. We already have flak cannons that could take out an entire squad of something like that. In my opinion even if that exact type of unit pair were in pa, it would be fair because you have the ability to defend yourself from it. If you don't make flak cannons, then you made yourself vulnerable. Flak still needs balancing of course, but the point is, I think Uber know to make countermeasures for everything.

Yes transports are necesary, i gotta agree that there should be air transports that should transport just 1 unit, sea units that could transport some units would be welcome too. but, i think a big dropship transport is necesary, an orbital one.

what do i mean by ''orbital''? Basically it would be some kind of spacecraft with the ability to load ground units, many of them. these would be built using orbital fabrication bots in the planet's orbit.

these would be big and well armored, but they wouldnt have any weapons. It would act just like the egg, but transporting multiple ground units (The Egg is a capsule used to transport units and resources from planet to planet.) so it could travel between planets and lead orbital assaults to invade a planet. (that would be extremely useful in galactic war). these attacks could create a ''hole'' on the enemy lines, and the invader could be able to build a teleporter, which would make things easier.

however, another type of space ships would be required, for example frigates or cruisers, as transports wouldnt be able to be defended by themselves. This hopefully would lead to ''space battles'', but these would not happen in the open space as the UI doesnt allow that, these would happen on the planet's orbit. This way it could be explained why there are giant gas planets in the game, as they dont have any surface, just orbital space. They would have canons (could be used as artillery too) and other AA weapons. (missiles/flak turrets)

finally, to complete all this, a nuclear spaceship aircraft carrier would be a perfect addition. Basically a spacehsip capable of transporting fighters , bombers and other small aircrafts, and to produce/build them inside. Another good feature would be to be able to build nuclear missiles from it, and launch them against planets (when in orbit of that planet). Just like the assault ship transport, and the spaceship designed for battle, and the egg, it would be able to travel between planets.

so what do you think about this features being implemented into the game? I think this would bring new gameplay and diversity to the game, and make 1 vs 1 planet battles more exciting. in addition it would solve all the transport units problems.

PD: Should i start a new thread all just for this? yo know it's more complex than just transports.

brianpurkiss: I feel one unit transport will cause to much clutter & lag bc to make them effective at all you will need at least ten..why not have a transport that can carry min 5 units? It will be less clutter, less lag and overall makes sense...what military operation in a huge war ever called for one unit transports, let's all admit it's not uber...

"Why not have a transport that can carry 5 units?" For quite a few reasons that Uber mentioned.

Also. Performance is going to be greatly improved. So if Uber delivers on their promises, single unit transports shouldn't be much of a performance issue.

We'll see.

But still. There's quite a few reasons to go with one unit transports and Uber has told us exactly why we're going for one unit transports.

I've been thinking about this a bit....

Supcom style transports would be best. Units line up on the ground, transport swoops in and picks them up and clamps them on. That's complicated to do.

Supcom 2 style transports are much more simple. They just hover and teleport units. The problem is how do you know how much room there is, which unit is where and so on.

How about a transport that would carry units externally (so you could see the unit and how much room there's left) and teleport them like in supcom 2.
Unit comes to the transport -> unit info gets saved, unit gets destroyed, a model of the unit appears on the transport. To unload the model disappears and the unit spawns under the transport and is given the right amount of HP, group info, ....

I'm sure Uber has thought of that. And more.

Uber has stated several time that they don't want to cut corners. They're in this for the long haul and don't want to do anything half a**. (Paraphrased) "I don't want to make just a mine layer. I want to make a cool mine layer."

PA won't be actually complete when it's released. It'll actually never be fully "complete." PA is going to be constantly updated and there's a good likelihood that we'll get multi-units down the line.

I'd just say transport capacity should be defined by size.

A transport can carry 1 commander, 2 T2 tanks, 4 T2 bots or T1 tanks, or 8 T1 bots. The T2 transport would of course be even bigger and able to hold more than that Or maybe the T1 transport would be smaller and unable to carry T2 tanks or commanders. This is a very common game mechanic also visible in starcraft and supcom. I'm fairly sure transports only holding one unit right now is just a placeholder.

As for naval transports. I think hovercraft would be better. Hovercraft can glide over land, water, and lava, but can't cross other forms of terrain obstructions and are slower than air transports. In exchange they have more HP, can Cary slightly more, and are cheaper to build.

Not sure how hovercraft on lava would work. The whole point of lava planets not having naval is to diversify gameplay; having one naval unit there and no others would be quite an oddity. Air transports might have more emphasis there, however, as the inability to bombard shorelines with naval means that intercontinental warfare boils down to purely land and air methods.

Yeah actually now that you point that out, letting hover units go over lava where naval units can't go would be kind of unfair. On planets with water people build navies to keep from being attacked over water, but on lava planets that won't work.

Well, Brian, not exactly.

What Neutrino said in the post you guys linked is that it is very complicated to attach several units under the belly of a Transport, like they're dangling down, and let them shooting down while being transported. Like it is likely going to happen with the single-unit Transport.

What also Neutrino said in the same post is that it is much simpler to have a Transport that carry units inside its cargo, where the units are not longer visible (they just disappear into the cargo, for re-appear when the Transporter unload the troops). That solution is even simpler than having one-unit Transport that functions more like a Jet-Pack.

So, it is very feasible having multi-units Transport, as for the post you guys linked. Here what Neutrino said about it.
Note that we will have ways of transporting units around like teleporters, unit cannon etc. that won't have single unit limitations. This is because we'll use a cargo container type scheme were the units don't have to be shown at all times which is a lot easier to implement. Multi unit transports could be done using that system but you wouldn't get the racks of dudes hanging off of the side shooting type of stuff.

The real answer to "Why multi-unit Transport arean't feasible?" is that the feature is, at the moment, outside the budget.

As a note, we still need a way to move troops for an invasion. Admittedly the Teleporter is not an invasion tool, and the Unit Cannon works only under specific circumstances. I still think that the game would benefit from a Multi-unit Transport, specially if with Orbital capabilities.

Parenthesis.

Having read the answer of Neutrino, I have now even more esteem for the people at Uber. Apparently what they would like to do with the Transport is a much more ambitious feature than I imagined. And of course it poses a big challenge.

Uber-guys, you're cool.

So what you're saying is... we're not having them... for the reasons Uber stated.

I should also iterate something else that Uber has said: they don't want to do mediocre units. They don't want to just put out a unit. They want to make it good.

So again.

"Why not have a transport that can carry 5 units?" For quite a few reasons that Uber mentioned.

And that's exactly why.

They're not making them right now for technical reasons. And they aren't making sub-par transports because they aren't cutting corners and are making a top quality game.

even though I posted this in the other thread i'm gonna post in it here as well as its more specific to transports.

I can totally understand about resource constraints on budget and how they need more people and don't really have the time to include multi-unit transports, the problem I'm having is if this stays as a 1 unit carrier, its seems like a grossly waste of resources considering how PA gameplay is. Its based on big armies, units that explode quickly for fast gameplay, the amount of transports you would need to make it even worth while moving an army across a planet quickly would be ridiculous to say the least, then you have the balance issue which I'm sure is a nightmare because if you can only carry 1 unit at a time, which means you have to make them tank and take a lot of damage well, but then you cant have them too tanky or people will never be able to intercept the transports before they land. Then you have to think about the resources needed to build them, 1 per unit, is just immense and just simply quicker and easier to get an orbital fab to build a teleporter instead.

I just simply do not see anyone really using them which seems like a waste if they cant carry more than one unit. You don't have to code the transports to take all sorts of different unit combinations, just have it so transports can only carry 1 type of unit at any one time, and then a space restriction based on size of unit, bot vs tank, t1 vs t2. Otherwise I just really don't see it being that meaningful of a unit to be honest, not when you have a unit cannon and teleporters as well.

Perhaps some sort of fast All-terrain vehicle APC might be better. I can totally understand Neutrino's reasons absolutely, but if time is the biggest issue, perhaps leave that unit out for something else like the Megabot which I think would be more of a valid unit personally