Transport thoughts.

[superking]

Transports really are far far too good: for one they shouldn't make all of the ships inside have no energy cost (was far too easy to exploit this and build past my energy cap)

[wyvern83]

To cast my vote on this issue, I'd like to say I find most of the proposed nerfs in this thread abhorrent.

Transports need to be good to be worth having at all. My gut reaction is the game will be less fun in a big way for me if transports are nerfed too hard. Strategic Bypass is an intended feature in this game and I'd like to see it stay. I don't want to have to slog through every last system and defense nor should I have too if the game is meant to be fun.

I know none of these ideas will be adopted as is without careful consideration and testing, I just thought I'd share my two cents for what its worth.

Transports really are far far too good: for one they shouldn't make all of the ships inside have no energy cost (was far too easy to exploit this and build past my energy cap)

I'd rather not see this changed in any form.

I never crack Z Reserves as I never have enough energy to spare for them. As things are now you could use transports to raid and store Z Reserves til you had enough energy to support them later. I'd like to try this as Z Reserves fall off my radar otherwise and I feel its a waste since I am interested in paying the trade-off to use them. (capturing Z generators is on my to-do list of things to try in this regard)

If it must be changed at all, why not have transported ships be in low power mode while they are inside?

I don't abuse transports in the way described in the above quote but this change should still allow me to steal a Z Reserve or two for future use without killing my economy permanently. Naturally I could simply leave them unbroken til I was ready but then I never get around to doing it.

Its like saving your nades or powerful items for a rainy day only to beat the game without ever using them kind of thing. If I were to break one I'd be sure to use it since it'd be right in front of me. I could also scrape afew but scraping Z ships from reserves strikes me as wasteful but perhaps its necessary

[Kjara]

If it must be changed at all, why not have transported ships be in low power mode while they are inside?

I don't abuse transports in the way described in the above quote but this change should still allow me to steal a Z Reserve or two for future use without killing my economy permanently. Naturally I could simply leave them unbroken til I was ready but then I never get around to doing it.

Since the quote was originally mine from a different thread, I'll chime in why transports are such a huge exploit compared to low power mode(its not really the difference between free and paying 10%): the fact is that when you unload, they come out in high power mode and don't check if they will cause you to go negative, so you can pop all of your units out, hit -100k energy, kill what you need to kill and pop then back into the transport(s) to reactivate things that need energy.  If they instead did a forced low power mode on going in, and popped out in low power mode if they would cause you to go negative, I would be ok with that, but they currently allow you to pretty much ignore the energy cap to a large extent.

[eRe4s3r]

And lets not forget that transports have no limit, so you can "decoy" as many as you wish, so lower health does not solve the problem. Lower speed and lower health would, but make them worthless as defense skimmers.

[wyvern83]

And lets not forget that transports have no limit, so you can "decoy" as many as you wish, so lower health does not solve the problem. Lower speed and lower health would, but make them worthless as defense skimmers.

Lower speed and health also makes them worthless as raiders too, long range or not.

Transport caps or a single mega transport are unlikely to give you the result you seem to be looking for either as I imagine you could always just use the transports you arrived in to decoy if they are fast enough.

Would allowing the computer to detect if they were loaded or not, and with what, fix your decoy problem instead?

Though I could see even empty transports being a viable target if by killing them you could strand your attackers to their doom.

If they instead did a forced low power mode on going in, and popped out in low power mode if they would cause you to go negative, I would be ok with that, but they currently allow you to pretty much ignore the energy cap to a large extent.

Makes sense, its a matter of conservation of mass and energy that not having the emerging vessels check for available energy is essentially creating energy you don't have to turn those vessels back on. Deactivating everything else, while a logical outcome, would still fail to account for the clear energy piracy of running a large deficient all at once.

Low-power mode on loading is unnecessary if emerging vessels could be made to check for energy to reactivate on exiting. Unless of course you were suggesting that 'low-power mode to board' would be a means of achieving the same effect with existing code and a perhaps a simple forced shift to low-power mode status check. I don't see why either should be all that hard to implement and as you point out the difference between low and no power consumption isn't really the issue.

[RCIX]

Another small thing is that the AI seems to be able to reclaim transports. Given that they don't use them or spawn them, maybe they shouldn't be reclaimable?

[Kjara]

Eh, the only real reason for low power while inside is thematic, the key point as you noted is that they come out in low power if there isn't enough power for them.

Probably not the whole force the player to low power first as that just creates more micro.

[eRe4s3r]

If the AI detects load then decoying would be even easier because predictable, not harder.  

- Breach in the Wall AI response  

If we go 1 large transport route loading and unloading could for instance, only happen delayed - 3 ships per tick and with 10 seconds paralysis on exit. Scrapping would destroy its contents entirely.

The reason i am thinking of limiting transport count is that less transports means more danger to you and more effectiveness of delays, and less deep-raiding (if you ever hit a planet with a black-hole machine you are SOL ,p)

Low Power ships = Never understood why its handled like it is now. ^^

[allmybase]

Actually, whoever said transports need to be good - they don't have to be. I'd rather have them useless than overpowered.

There are plenty of units (starships come to mind) that are pretty much worthless in the final assault of the AI homeworld because of how crappy they are. I'd rather have transports be however crappy they used to be (I wasn't around then) than as good as they are (I fully abuse them to romp the galaxy and deliver childishly easy blows to the AI homeworld)

[wyvern83]

If the AI detects load then decoying would be even easier because predictable, not harder.  

- Breach in the Wall AI response  

Ah, good point. Even letting the AI sense value in addition to load wouldn't be enough as you could just lug around expensive stuff you didn't need to use.


In response to the rest, why do you feel deep-raiding is to be discouraged? Current degrading health and slow unload for jumps out of supply seem adequate to me. Why exactly is there a need for something harsher? Also what's deep-raiding in your opinion, just so we know we are on the same page.

Actually, whoever said transports need to be good - they don't have to be. I'd rather have them useless than overpowered.

That would be me. I happen to like their utility for strategic bypass, say 2-4 jumps for a new beachhead/staging area.

There are plenty of units (starships come to mind) that are pretty much worthless in the final assault of the AI homeworld because of how crappy they are.

Wouldn't that be a case for at least minor starship buff instead? What about the current beta transports limitations isn't enough in your opinion if you'd rather see them nerfed more than they are now?

[allmybase]

The strategic bypass of planets is overpowered because there is no such way for starships to do the same, that is why starships are perfectly worthless in my opinion because they can't get by crusted planets.

[ShadowOTE]

The strategic bypass of planets is overpowered because there is no such way for starships to do the same, that is why starships are perfectly worthless in my opinion because they can't get by crusted planets.

Wait... what?

[Kjara]

Slow unloads can be totally bypassed by scrapping the transport, esp when the transport in question is at 20% or so life from doing a 8 planet or so deep raid on a ai homeworld.

I love deep raiding, and have done it without transports, transports as they are now just makes it trivially easy to do so.

They probably need a knowledge increase as well, to make them a bit less powerful in the early game (more of an opportunity cost to start with them).

Scouts should also probably not go into transports, its way too easy to negate say a counterspy ai type with transports as well.

[allmybase]

They should cost about 20k knowledge for how strong they are, not 1k. I'm not even sure I want to play this game until transports are fixed, as long as they are available they make it too easy for everyone at every skill/difficulty level to win.

[RCIX]

Not really, i ninja raided with about 2k ships (maxed cap MkI-MkIII of fighters/bombers/laser gatlings, plus Z bombards MkI and II capped) on an unaware AI, and i failed while the homeworld had half health left.