Do you feel Transports are too weak?

[hullu]

I remember back in version 4.something I could usualyl planet hop through 2-3 planets without much problems with transports.

Nowadays it feels I'm lucky to get through one.

I can't really pinpoint what all has changed since back then (and I might be playing on slightly higher diff), but I've found that I can't really shatter my empire if I still want to be able to travel unless I make sure to neuter all planets on my back and forth route and keep their ship counts down.



Heh, this issue came to mind crystal clear yesterday when I started a new game and next to my home world was a mark IV world of Spireling diff 8 AI... A single transport could not even get my bombers to the command station although there were less than 100 mark IV ships around.

Overall that brief exposure to the Spireling AI felt like it should be made a 'hard' AI, it has over-ship-cap of many spire ships even on a world that has less than 100 ships. 10% of all it's ships being blade spawners... ugh, can you say ouch? With gravity drains all around you can't even get to them=)



Oh, two issues in one post, well, for the discussion feel free to ignore the latter, and focus on comments no transports=)

[Ozymandiaz]

I had some real problems with gravity rippers and transports, but thats part of the fun I guess ^^

But 1 transport seldom holds up, so I send multiple, and i expect some to die, so I make the one with my units be in teh middle.  All in all not too useful as they are right now, but can sometimes be handy if you need to avoid 1 or 2 jumps.

[hullu]

Yea they still have their uses but they're almost obsolete compared to what they were in 4.023 or whatever the earlier release build was. Or, I might be mistaken, but that's how they feel for me!

[TechSY730]

IMO, the problem is not that tranports are underpowered now, but rather they were overpowered before. I think how they are now is closer to their intended level of usefulness.

EDIT: And from the other thing you brought up, it seems like the seeding of ships with a per planet and/or per guard post reinforcment caps needs double checking.

[zoutzakje]

I barely use transports atm. I play a game of dif 7/5 atm, both easy AI types... and transports just won't get very far unless I use them in huge numbers. It's easier to neuter the planet instead of trying to avoid it.
I have a question about transports though.... I haven't used them often enough to find this out, but..... when using transports on an enemy planet with an AI eye.... does the AI eye only count the few transports or does the AI eye also count my ships inside the transports?. If they only count the transports, then I see a clear use again for transports. otherwise I'm still not sure what to do with them lol.

[Rustayne]

They do seem quite weak to me.  They don't seem to be able to handle any type of heat on them, 20-30 ships can easily kill it sadly.  I don't expect them to be an armored tank so to speak, but I think they should have a bit more toughness.  Right now, they are just useless to me.

[TechSY730]

They do seem quite weak to me.  They don't seem to be able to handle any type of heat on them, 20-30 ships can easily kill it sadly.  I don't expect them to be an armored tank so to speak, but I think they should have a bit more toughness.  Right now, they are just useless to me.

Yea, they could use some buffing. But the ability for even his one of them to make it across 2 mk. III non-nuetered enemy planets consistently was just way too durable. I think getting it to the point where one can make it across 1 Mk. III non-nueteured planet with lowish health once it reaches the other side of the far wormhole consistently is a good compromise.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm wondering if any of y'all would like to humor me by posting a save where I can give a transport a move order you think it should survive (3 systems out or whatever), and where it will utterly fail to do so.  Diagnosis and treatment of problem can commence from there

[BobTheJanitor]

Don't have a save to offer, as I'm at work now. But I will say that the balance is a little odd. If you can get further by building a few decoy transports to protect the real transports, that feels less like a clever tactic and more like a workaround. If everyone uses this tactic to get across worlds (I know I do) then why not increase the cost of the average transport and give it the survivability equivalent to a transport that has another empty transport in front of it drawing fire? Then there will be less need to make a bunch of decoys to hide the real ones.

[keith.lamothe]

Transports used to be uber-buff.  We didn't intend to change that.  I'm just trying to figure out what changed.

[Ozymandiaz]

Transports used to be uber-buff.  We didn't intend to change that.  I'm just trying to figure out what changed.

Generally I think its the loss of health per jump. Its ok for 1 or 2 jumps away, but any more and the loss of health makes them go pop very quickly

[keith.lamothe]

Transports used to be uber-buff.  We didn't intend to change that.  I'm just trying to figure out what changed.

Generally I think its the loss of health per jump. Its ok for 1 or 2 jumps away, but any more and the loss of health makes them go pop very quickly

Well, that's what I figured, and that's pretty much ok, but what I'm hearing lately is that people can't even get 1 hop out.

[Red Spot]

Just 1 transport tends to die before it can leave the gate-area of an alerted planet. At least in my games.
Send 4-6 and they all take a bit of damage and can easilly make it 2-3 jumps. Which actually works in my favour on the target planet as 6*10/second ships unloading nukes foes faster than 1*10/second

[BobTheJanitor]

Transports used to be uber-buff.  We didn't intend to change that.  I'm just trying to figure out what changed.

That makes sense, and I wouldn't want them to be impenetrable super-blocks any way. There needs to be some risk to sending them. Plus if they were buffed, and you could still build decoys, they would be even more impossible to beat. Although was the self-attrition per wormhole added at the same time that they were nerfed to be more easily destroyable? May it have been overkill in that case? Probably one or the other is all you need. If they're going to blow up after a couple jumps anyway, then giving them some heavier armor wouldn't go amiss. Or maybe not, I'm just guessing.

[Rustayne]

Here is a save for you keith of the current game going.   Both ends of the bottleneck got around 600-800 ships.  I took 12 transports up north to the p4 and they pretty much got insta popped once they got there.  (FYI they had supply at the time, I had to revert the save due to me sending emps at the same time...that didn't work out so well... )  Hope it helps you track what your looking for.

I don't have the transports built at this moment.  I only have 1 in the bottleneck.  But you can take it on a cruise next door where 600 ships + a carrier are, and see how far you can get.