Missing the point?

[Cyborg]

I find the whole meme around "transports are overpowered" to be tired.



Name one game that has more difficulty adjustment knobs. If it's too easy for you or the tactics are getting stale, maybe it's time to adjust some of those settings. This game has  guerrilla warfare, on both sides. The AI gets toys that the human player can't use, and we get toys that the AI can't use.


I see transports as a natural response to the way the game used to be played and that was with only starships. You didn't need to build a single triangle. Starships had so much HP (by the way, the AI gets this ability all the time) that they could go in, do a guerrilla strike, and leave for repairs just like transports do now. If you remove transports because you think there should be more human player damage, you're just going to be rebuilding your fleets, and we will have to do another huge balance pass where we just raise the HP on everything.


I don't think it's fun rebuilding for hours. The old Netflix AI war problem.

[Aklyon]

And it we raise the HP, we'll have to lower it again eventually for the same reason it got reduced before.

[Kahuna]

Assault Transports might have a bit too good stats for their cost but still they have never won a game for me. If you play on a difficulty level 8 or below using anything properly will win you the game. 9 difficulty is quite easy too. I'd like to know at what difficulty levels are ATs winning games for you people?

[Toranth]

Assault Transports might have a bit too good stats for their cost but still they have never won a game for me. If you play on a difficulty level 8 or below using anything properly will win you the game. 9 difficulty is quite easy too. I'd like to know at what difficulty levels are ATs winning games for you people?

I think it's just that Assault Transports are a one-click powerhouse.  They don't require much Knowledge to unlock, they're available every game, they don't require specific other units for synergy, and at lower difficulties (6-7) they can basically carry you through the first 2/3 of a game.
Like Raid Starships used to be, before the AI Guardpost rebalance - Unlock a few Marks of Raids, and almost win the game.

So, unfortunately, some people learn to use them as a crutch, because they can win at higher difficulties without the skills they would otherwise need.  It's bad habit forming, more than anything.

[Cyborg]

Assault Transports might have a bit too good stats for their cost but still they have never won a game for me. If you play on a difficulty level 8 or below using anything properly will win you the game. 9 difficulty is quite easy too. I'd like to know at what difficulty levels are ATs winning games for you people?

I think it's just that Assault Transports are a one-click powerhouse.  They don't require much Knowledge to unlock, they're available every game, they don't require specific other units for synergy, and at lower difficulties (6-7) they can basically carry you through the first 2/3 of a game.
Like Raid Starships used to be, before the AI Guardpost rebalance - Unlock a few Marks of Raids, and almost win the game.

So, unfortunately, some people learn to use them as a crutch, because they can win at higher difficulties without the skills they would otherwise need.  It's bad habit forming, more than anything.

So it's a candy tech. It's supposed to be. If anyone feels that there is some upgrade that is mandatory, I'm more interested in that kind of discussion. Anything that removes choice from the game would be a more interesting discussion.

[Robyn]

All I'm saying is I don't need to use anything else. Despite the game being full of units. All I use is transports because they don't have any weakness and they require next to zero management.

Like Toranth said they can be used as a crutch. Iv never been that good at this game but I like dipping in and doing a little better each time. As soon as i found AT all the planning stopped for the most part and I'd just slowly move through each planet to the home world. I deleted the save before the end because it just felt so shallow.

Maybe some people like this game play (I can't see why) or some just don't use it. But for less experienced players it makes such a huge difference in difficulty that it feels like a cheat.

I honestly thought the more experienced players would be in agreement on this. So the question at the start. Am I missing something?
Other than the 4-5 jump limit. What is their disadvantage? Is there ever a time that they are a detrimental to your force?

[Toranth]

I honestly thought the more experienced players would be in agreement on this. So the question at the start. Am I missing something?
Other than the 4-5 jump limit. What is their disadvantage? Is there ever a time that they are a detrimental to your force?

Detrimental?  No.  Just, at higher difficulty levels, they stop being so powerful.  The extra transport capacity, the cloaking, and the instant disembark are more useful than the moderate guns they have.  But even at 10/10, I rarely use them, because there are other things I'd rather spend a few thousand Knowledge on (turrets, usually).

Basically, my playstyle is a longer, slower mob-move of my fleet, clearing out everything in its path to the target.  Assault Transports are a quick way to bypass the intervening AI units and safely delivery your attack force to the target.  End result is the same:  All your units are at the target.  One method takes longer and more resources, but saves K.  The other is quicker and more versatile, but costs K.

Kahuna may disagree on the importance of time - he's a much faster player than I am - but generally, if you are playing 9/9 or lower difficulties, you shouldn't worry to much about it.

[ZaneWolfe]

Hm. I never unlocked even MkII scout starships (neither cloakers). 5,750 K for fully scouted map? I dunno; if I just want to have the whole galaxy scouted, I would play with partial fog of war, right? Or maybe the partial fog of war shows also the ships in every planets? But isn't it the "no fog of war" setting? I never use them, so I can't tell. Anyway, is this worth? Near 6,000 K for full scout? Who use them? Is that really interesting? Tell me, please.

MkIV Scout Starships are perma-cloaked, have one of the largest, if not the largest, non-planet-wide tachyon ranges, are insanely fast, and give everything around them both sniper and missile immunity. Once they scout the galaxy for you they become force multipliers that you likely only ever need to build once. Given their immunities, HP, and perma-cloak, they are VERY hard to kill, and their coverage range for counter missile and counter sniper is VERY generous.

My most recent game I've got Combat Enclaves and Spire Blade Spawners. I've  paired them with the standard Enclaves, Mobile Space Docks, and MKIV Scout Starships. This setup can waltz into damn near any enemy world and stomp the hell out of it. So far the only things that have been serious issues were AI Eyes (obviously) or Orbital Mass Drivers. And of those, the only Eyes that are real threats are Nuke or Plasma.

To make things even fun, I just recently unlocked Nienzul Railpods. Suddenly NOTHING can stop them save Nuke or Plasma eyes. The Railpods go in first and burst down the OMD and anything near the wormhole, the rest of the team goes in and mops up the floor. So far in this game, I have yet to build a single one of the standard triangle fleetships, and focused entirely on the above mentioned units, turrets, and starships.

[carldong]

IMO, it is idiotic to nerfing or removing choices from everyone else just by looking at a few player's style of playing. As of me, AT are actually able to slowly wear away AI worlds one or two hops away, but, not further, not on large fleets, and not on high level worlds. At the same time, my semi-low AIP assassin approach won't even work at all without some ability AT provides (i.e. cloaking, instant unload). Yes, I have not finished a single game yet, but I don't think I can win any game with just AT, but I still like them.

Critical Thinking time:

Players who like one approach is much less likely to complain than players who don't like an approach, and are thus much more visible to the outside world. If all the devs are the complains, and then they nerf the options, then the invisible players who like those approach are hurt much more than the complaining ones.

Maybe fixing bugs about AT, or slightly adjusting their abilities or cost are fine. But, I think nerfing too much will at least make me struggle quite a bit in fleet combats due to the low ship abilities resulted from the low K coming with the low AIP.

[Malkiel]

1) OP never did say what difficulty he is playing on.
2) I think the closest things in the game to "must have unlocks" at probably Assault transport, Area Mines, and military command II (if I'm missing something here do tell.. mil command II probably doesn't even make the list)
3) I was comparing ships to assault transport once. On normal caps, I think laser gatling was the only ship type that actually gained firepower from entering an assault transport. Before you ask, I consider them the worst bonus ship in the game bar none.
4) the real power is the instant unload, not being slowed down by a cloaker starship, and units within being able to fire immediately instead of needing to spend half a reload onlining weapons, although I do have to acknowledge the scout hull against forts.

I'm with pumpkin on this one. I've never used them, but might someday when I take off the kid gloves and actually go try 10/10 with my game face on.

[Bognor]

As far as I know, there are two separate bugs affecting Assault Transports:

• Their DPS is being calculated incorrectly.  According to patch notes, it's supposed to depend only on the number of ships inside.  But playtesting has revealed their DPS is strongly influenced by the strength of ships inside.  See several posts on this page.
• More critically, it's possible for Assault Transports that have unloaded to retain the DPS boost from the ships they used to carry!  So a player might be using empty transports as damage sponges and unknowingly getting tremendous DPS.  See this thread.

It's possible (1) is intentional and (2) is fixed, but I couldn't find anything to indicate either possibility in the patch notes.  I think there's little point in debating Assault Transports' merits until both issues are resolved and everyone's had a chance to playtest them working as intended.