Annoying issue with troop transports

I know that the reason this is in place is due to not sending millions of troop transports out on a rampage, but WHY does the troop transport screen say 2000 troops, when it takes up 2b of your population? You should reduce the population numbers to max on 5k on an non-farming planet instead, or increase the troop transport capicity to more accurately reflect the amount of troops that your transport takes away, ie, 2b for 2b, not 2k for 2b. (Unless you want to explain this away as soldiers being insanely stupid and dying very much in training)

Just change the numbers, its ridiculous. Also, WHY in the world does the troop transport itself dissapear? It's a little fustrating to waste 2-3 ticks on a high production planet getting the troop transport, only to lose it in the planetary invasion? When you see any invasion movie, do you see the ships going boom all the time landing the troops? Nope... You have dropships in mechwarrior, you have trade federation ships in star wars, do they simply dissapear after transporting the troops to a planet? Nope. Fix that please... Or at least make it so that regular ships can carry troops to a limited capicity, ie, if I launch a battleship, I'm pretty sure it has troops on it, to resist boarding attempts...
7,644 views 11 replies
Reply #1 Top
I think they have it the way it is for balance because if your troop ship stayed around even empty after winning all you would need to do is go bcak reload with Men and invaide again. Fine idea till the slimey Bugs start doing it as well an you can't produce 1 defender fast enough to kill the troopship heading for Mars not to meantion earth.

Plus i believe the numbering system is for those who have varying amounts of troops on their ships and maybe not just the max or even a round number.

just my 2 cents
Reply #2 Top
I thought it would be nice to keep reusing transports. If I was making Gal Civ, you would be able to. But I'm not, and that's the way the game is, and it isn't going to change. It's to slow down invasions, to make you think about exactly how many transports you're going to need to defeat your opponent and so on. If you want to rationalise this, the troopship is made up of parts which are used to make parts for tanks and so on when they get to the planet surface (like the colony module of the colony ship being a flat packed colony hub). These are used in the invasion, and then they are kept there for planetary defense.

I do agree with the numbering thing though. Would it really hurt to put an extra letter 'm' on the end of the troop numbers, to more accurately represent the numbers onboard?
Reply #3 Top
the units is in millions. so 2000 units would be 2 billion people.

as for the transports dissappearing, you could explain it as the troops using the ship materials for construction of peacekeeping buildings or something of the like. If you win the invasion.

if you failed the invasion, of course the survivng defenders are going to knock them down.

if its really that much of a bother for you to build them, make cheaper transports
Reply #4 Top
Well the way I see it, A troop transport should be destroyed in 2 cases.

1: Said toop transport fails an invasion. (ie, you attack, fail, nothing to stop the enemy from destroying the landed troop transport)

2: Shoot it in flight.

In the event of a SUCCESSFUL invasion, the troop transport should NOT be destroyed, but instead, parked in orbit. Thats the way I expected it to happen, so seeing it go poof I was like GRR, wtf?! It shouldnt be eliminated, and i honestly have this funny perspective of a troop transport going transformer mode into a battle tank or w/e those square things are lol...

But my point is, instead of destroying the troop transport in a SUCCESSFUL invasion, just park it in orbit... makes more sense. Ie, if you attack an army, in this game, theres no retreat button, so its all or nothing, every time. I have no issues with that, but losing the troop transport even if i win?! GRRR

EDIT: in response to edrick, all i gotta say is... no way i can make them cheaper and still be a powerhouse invader.

(my troop transports consist of 2 adv modules aka, 2k troops, and the rest of space is full of engines, more engines, and more engines)
Reply #5 Top
I sometimes make armed transports so they contribute some to the firepower of the fleet they're in, I wouldn't mind if I could re-use them aster spending so much for them But I don't NEED to.
Reply #6 Top
(Unless you want to explain this away as soldiers being insanely stupid and dying very much in training)


He he he, good idea.



Seriously, well, the thing about the number is that troops are counten in legions. Each legion is a million soldier, so it does make sense. (Even though it's not written ingame, it's meant that way if you read the dev journals.)

And no, the troop transports have to disappear, first, for balance reasons (else it would be way to easy to invade whole enemy empires) secondly it makes perfect sense to me.

The soldiers go make planetfall with their trooptransports, which will be under heavy fire while landing and because of that it has to be very fast. Think more of a controlled crashlanding instead of a soft landing. After that parts of the troop transports are used for weapons, vehicles, low flying weapon platforms, stuff. You know, transformers.
Reply #7 Top
*Imagines a future update where the land battles screen now shows my transport crash landing, then turning into a 50ft robot and squishing the opposition*
Reply #8 Top
The disappearance of troop transports has to do with the most fundamental elements of physics: string theory and quantum mechanics. With any finite object there is a finite probability that it will poof out of existence.
Reply #9 Top
And you just get very, very unlucky each and every time you invade a planet.

Problem solved.
Reply #10 Top
Well, I personally think that build a ship for every new invasion is a good idea but number of troops involved... quite out of proportion. If just to invade a world one needs 1 soldier for every 3 civilians (at equal soldiering), than something is out of proportion. Civilians should be armed as well and handgun is a no-substitute for a cannon. Of course no-rebels worlds with 100k weekly growth somehow balance this issue but not quite. Again, gamewise, I like how it works.
Reply #11 Top
imagine landing the troop transport, and shooting your lasers through the windows.

you did remember to build windows on your spacecraft didnt you?

you lose the transport due to the fact that spaceships cant fly with open windows