Didn't know the system had such a rough history, only got to know it at its current stance
As is, it functions very well and is one of the highlights of the game (besides tactial combat and art): the flexibility of both miltiary/civilian ships to transport whatever is needed (pops, tanks or special ground units AND double as trade ships in the pool all works out brilliantly
Arioch wrote:So my question is: how serious a problem is the need to manually load specialty troop types? How many of these troop transports are you loading with Assault Marines or Marauders in a typical game?
There are 3 issues with this:
- AIs do not use these ground units and making them standard on some loadouts would make it more simple to have them utilize such troops
- Micro MGMT (loading and production queue clicks)
- Efficiency (each shuttle comes with obligatory tank that cannot be utilized right away)
Frequency is: occasional when playing Humans (4-5 Assault Cruiser/game) and common when playing as Gremak.
Micro-wise most affected are Gremak: in their cases more then half of my ground troops are marauders due to the nature of slave opression needed for newly conquered planets: these need to be pre-loaded the first time around, the transport I later send out from the pool to get them again (instead of building new ones). Raiding I do not usually use due to other reason I have already metioned elswhere. There is no real loss of overall efficiency though so I dont consdier this to be an important fix for Gremak (there is more micro and more clicking in the queue but that it is)
More problematic in case of Humans is the loss of production time (building the tank with the shutle) as the Marines then need to be built additionally untill the Cruiser is ready to go else a normal boarding module is more efficient. Include the + research requirement and I rarely use the Human Assault Cruiser and go with Boarding module itself. I consider this ship and outfit as a luxus project when the game is practically won and build efficiency is not that important anymore which is strange how thematic and an integral part of this tactic and ship type should be for Human faction
Micro-wise I think this is not a very powerfull action when compared to the issue of
tanks, marauders and marines first being loaded into the civilian transports when embarking instead of military ships. I would prioratize the later higher to reduce micro MGMT
But when it comes to AI and Human efficiency (also AI efficiency when controlling Humans), this would be a powerfull change
Arioch wrote:there's no real advantage to the military transports
The advantage is boarding: this is clearly one of the strongest combat tactics and one the AI knows to use: humans best go with the cheaper and earlier available boarding module
Arioch wrote:Then Humans wouldn't get Hovertanks or Battle Mechs either.
That is the idea yes
: it would gear Human faction more towards space warfare and keep a permanent handicap in ground invasions
They wouldn1t be hopelessly outmatched though with militia upgrade tech and if they get additional value out of it or +1 militia tech then they could mirror 50% or normal combat strenght throughout the game
Ideally I would create a new militia unit for them available per default (Strenght 1.5), and have assault marines be the current tech that upgrades this base unit to Combat value 3
Arioch wrote:You're probably not going to have dozens and dozens of ships loaded with Assault Marines. It may be inconvenient to manually load them, but it doesn't seem like that much of an inconvenience.
The issue is that I dont feel I should be using them due to inefficiency (not really micro though that might add to this in the deeper layers of my psyche
) and the AI does not use them at all while they would be so awesome to have in the game