Moving Transports

from Stardock Forums
Currently when a Transport/Combat Transport ship is at a friendly colony, the only way to launch it is to put people in it, 1 is enough. It would be good to be able to launch Transports that are empty ie sending from small/new colony to big colony to get more people, repeat a few times.

This may infact be a bug...as the Load slide does allow a value of Zero but transport does not launch.
266 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Ever thought of trying to send an ocean going cargo ship from port to port without a crew? I think this is what is intended by insisting on at least 1M people being on a transport or colony ship before it can be launched.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
The zero value is the method to cancel launch. It's inherited from the colony ship, which is destroyed if it tries to dock somewhere, regardless of the destination's colonization status.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
True, that is another reason why they demand at least 1M to launch, but that was just something they used to provide a mechanism to facilitate the cancelation of a launch. I used my speculative explanation to provide a rational that supports the current behavior.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Fair enough I suppose, however following the rational given above, a transport must be a bugger to run if it needs a crew of 1M.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
A transport that can hold 5,000,000,000 troops must be huge. That's the current population of Earth in 1 ship. A crew of 1,000,000 to run and maintain the ship is not unreasonable. :)
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Except when in most cases they ae moving < 500K colonists.

That would be 2 crew for each colonist. Talk about 1st class passage. ;0

I would be great if colony ships could be used to ferry population to already existing colonies without being destroyed in the process.

If they start a new colony they need to scrap the ship for its power source, control computers, raw materials etc. But if they just want to drop off a few more colonists at an already existing colony why must they be destroyed ?

Is this a balance issue because it would be a neat feature to add ?

Elrikk
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I remember reading a discussion about moving populations between planets in same system.

I dont like using transports between stars as the population is distributed between all planets. If your transport arrives at one of your systems, it would be nice if you could pick which planet get the people.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
If you recall earlier discussions, the rationalization of the amount of troops/colonists on combat transports and colony ships is that the one ship actually represents a fleet of ships.