Heavy Troop Transports

[NightRychune]

They're horribly underused, which is disappointing as they're Exp's supposed end-game solution. This is unfortunate, and IMO each tech path should have a self-sustained means of ending a game without needing to have an entire second adv tech base.

My proposal is to re-introduce Medium Assault Shields for HTTs to make them better at brute forcing. They're expensive enough to render them a justifiable higher tier of tech without being overpowered, from both a cost point of view and a tactical point of view.

As a refresher, numbers for Med assault shields, as of DN 00.04.60:

Med Assault 1: 800 HP, recharge of 20, free to start with. Med 1 is 300 HP, recharge of 5.
Med Assault 2: 1,200 HP, recharge of 25, requires Med shield 2 (2,500, 350 HP, recharge of 7) and Med aslt 2 research (5,000)
Med assault 3: 1,680 HP, recharge of 30, requires Starbase (10,000), Med shield 3 (2,500, 400 HP, recharge of 10) and Med aslt 3 research (5,000)

All three levels have a sig of .8, compared to standard med shield's sig of .75, and they also had a special armor class (AC19 in ICE) that had increased resistance to disruptor, which has a damage modifier of 3 vs. med/large shields and a modifier of 2.4 vs. Med assault. Med aslt also has a mass of 8, compared to a mass of 4 with standard med shields. These numbers can be adjusted as needed, as always. They should probably be made to only be mountable on HTTs and maybe TTs as well to make EMP cannoning down base shields and actually capping a standard base with TTs a viable option, although it'd be very difficult to actually pull off and would take significant amounts of teamwork, which I don't see a problem with. Giving them to all bombers as well would make garr tech rushing a probable, viable tech path which is really probably unnecessary. Rushing gunships + hvy bombers + adv scouts + med aslt 3 + aleph res 3, would probably be very effective at killing @#(!, all things considered, but I doubt anybody actually wants that and I'm not going to do a cost/tactical analysis on that here.

The other very, very big thing about med assault shields is that they are highly resistant to aleph res damage. After the changes that rendered certain shields resistant against it, large shields ended up with a modifier of .9374, while the modifier vs. med assault shields was an incredibly low .42. If these were re-enabled and given to HTTs, provide HTTs with aleph res as well to give them an additional tool to force their way into a sector. Given this situation, an HTT isn't going to be able to res an aleph with res3 and sit 1k away, and then simply walk in as soon as the res goes pop and cap a base. They would still need to wait for their nan train to reform on them, and for ints to move in ahead to clear the aleph and keep it clear.

A properly executed defense of hvy ints that don't die to aleph res, assuming equivalent boosters, will still be able to make it back to the aleph just as enemy ints enter and engage them or attempt to kill the HTT as it enters. Adv tac teams could probably stop them with effective use of EMP mines and hunter3 spam, but what the $#@! is a main tech tac team doing letting a team mine that much anyway? Sup teams would struggle, it would be stoppable with minepacks + dis3 + dumbfire spam, but a team of strong Hvy int pilots will be able to force through and cut a sup team down and actually cap things.

For a standard cost faction with full med assault HTTs, it would cost 22.5k for the HTTs + Emp missile, plus an additional 25k to buy Med assault 3, assuming Med aslt 1 was free, and an additional 5k for Res3 assuming res1 was found for a total of 52.5k for development, plus 3k per unit for each individual HTT (2800 for IC) + 1 res 3.

If we cut the cost of TT + HTT in half (3750 and 5000, respectively), and cut the cost of EMP missile and med aslt shields in half (2500 instead of 5,000), you end up with a total cost for all of the above of 36,250. For the additional "finishing" tech, in terms of "how much do we need to mine?" After the extra 21% profit is calculated from Yield 2, this is identical (close enough, $50 off) to the cost of Sup's endgame option of TP2 figbombers with AB2 and Cruise booster (30k after galvs are bought), not counting the purchase of adv scouts or whatever else, which would drive the cost of either option up an almost equivalent amount. Ultimately, exp will end up with a money advantage considering equivalent mining due to Yield 1 in the mid phases of a game, while sup will end up with a tactical advantage given their capacity to clear the map of small bases.

Tac is kind of an outlier here, and I may propose a change for that (although I'm not convinced if late game tac needs a "let's win the game NOW" purchasing option beyond what they already have) later on.

All in all, this will still leave the option of current deployment of sneaking HTTs around to attempt caps open while vastly improving the potential of using pure force and aggressive plays, which IMO defines Exp far more than any other tech path. I think it would be a very positive change, as it would open the door for a large amount of ingenuity on how teams use the tech and attempt to win games with it.

[uberkill]

I second this motion, as I would like to spam "Base captured" more often.

[Lykourgos]

I agree that exp needs a viable endgame tech, and this mechanic is as good as any other, but leave the cost up above 40k. Exp has the best expansion and the best economy and the best ships; its viable endgame needs to be signficantly more expensive than sup's or tac's, and preferably not quite as good.

[notjarvis]

I like cronos idea of giving them faction unique perks that he came up with a while back personally. but I agree that HTTs need some sort of perk.

[DasSmiter]

If I could ever get spidey to change @#(! HTTs would have changed long ago!

[Broodwich]

well i certainly agree htts have needed a perk ever since sup has been helped so much, i am more of the opinion that exp is about the rush, and killing and winning quickly. My idea was give free tts + emp with adv exp, and have htts research dependent on int research so bios still has to wait. I'm fine with either the idea of making them more powerful or making them far cheaper and faster to get

[pkk]

I don't like the idea of Assault Shields...

How about a special shield, with no recharge rate and a lot of medium? armor class hitpoints (see reactive armor on EoR). It should be more useful than medium shields while trying to "force through".

[SpaceJunk]

A strong slow recharge shield would boost force capping without overpowering stealth capping.

[pkk]

QUOTE (SpaceJunk @ Mar 2 2010, 09:15 PM) A strong slow recharge shield would boost force capping without overpowering stealth capping.

Even if it's slowly recharging, you could hide behind an asteroid for recharging. To avoid this these shields shouldn't recharge.

[One-Man-Bucket]

AP htts are pretty near the ball, but only available to GT. Assault shields seems more interesting than giving every faction AP.

I agree with night.