Hey guys, long time lurker, just registered.
I love the game, but I have a bit of an issue with assault transports:
Firstly, they're just really powerful when full of ships, to the point where they can take down any unshielded guard post in seconds, with pretty much zero risk. So of course they're always my first unlock.
However, the real issue is this: Once you've loaded up an assault transport once, they keep all their shots until you quit the game. So I can take 200 ships, put them into one assault transport, unload, then do the same thing again until all 10 have had 200 ships in them. Now I have 10 assault transports with full firepower until I quit the game. Next time I load up, I just have to repeat this and they're superpowered again.
Even if you're not blatantly exploiting it like that, it happens accidentally if you use them at all. For example, I take my fleetblob into a system, unload on the edges, and now I've got my whole fleet's firepower, plus the assault transports still have their full firepower! So I can park my fleet on the edge of the well, sniping targets and what not, then take my assault transports and go pop the guard posts.
I won my first 7/7 game almost exclusively on the merits of assault transports. Ion cannons? Assault transports. Nuclear eye? Bust up the guard posts with assault transports. Wrath lance? Ok, assault transports didn't do the whole job there, but still, they made it a lot easier.
Now I"m playing a 9/9 game, and I'm trying not to lean on them as much, but I feel like my 10 assault transports have as much firepower than the rest of my fleet combined. It just seems like a bit much for something I can unlock and build the moment the game starts.
If it weren't for the attrition outside of supply, they'd be outright game breaking. I think another part of the reason they're so good though, is that they regenerate, for free, at super high speed, whenever they're in a friendly system. So I can just tank with them, send each one home if it gets below 50%, and as long as I'm paying attention, I can keep rotating them like this indefinitely.
They're not quite so great against large AI fleets, which is good, but even there they're great at soaking up damage and popping lots of ships.
I think if the full firepower when empty bug was fixed, and the wormhole attrition damage was somehow separated from combat damage, so they only regen the attrition damage rapidly, they'd feel a bit less unbalanced.
