Secrets of Troop Transports Revealed

If the destination is one of your planets then the transport does not disappear!!!

Each transport that can be filled with troops after the invasion will survive! For example, if you invade a planet using two transports, each holding 3 billion troops (for a total of 6 billion) and 3.5 billion survive then you lose one transport and the other will survive.

you think

I never escort my troop transports, and they rarely move faster than 8-10 pc/wk.

Most of ny troop transports consist of a tiny hull with a single advanced troop mod. The thought behind this is that a tiny hull is cheaper than a cargo hull, so the ship would be cheaper. It ends up not being cheaper, but I do like the tiny hulls more than cargo hulls. They have more than one HP, thus if you choose to add a weapon, and fly them in small packs, then they can escort themselves, atleast against small attacks.

Plus they're only two logistics points, so you can make big fleets of them, which isn't overly useful in combat, but it's much easier to move a single stack of a dozen tiny invaders than it is to move three fleets of large cargo hull invaders.

Thats a good tacktic. Since logistics limit the number of transports that can be used in an invasion... small transports could well increase your chances of taking a planet (If you have an extreme amount of miniturisation).

I'm in a campaign now where I have way too few people. I've started making "light transports" with one module and "heavy transports" with two modules.

I mix both types together at the battle front. I use the smaller transports pretty often to take out smaller planets (or to do the trick where you use a tidal wave but you want to make sure and not win!)

And the heavy transports are nice when you need a bigger punch. In a pinch you could always just double up the smaller ones, but two modules on one transport is more cost effective.

I tried the thing where you use more than one Transport in a fleet attack on a planet, but I really didn't see the benefit to that. I don't think the game favors one big attack over two small ones, and attacking in waves (with the different sized Transports) gives me added flexibility.

I would really love to know for certain if fleets make a difference with invading?

You would think that the extra firepower of increased numbers would be an advantage? well it certainly is in space combat!

You get the same advantage invading a 6 billion pop planet with 1 billion troops as you do if you invade it with 40 billion troops. Only thing is that with the latter you are assured victory.

Ah ok so i can go off and invade people, and there is no reason for me to try to get better logistics first.... hehehe almost a cheat bug??

The disadvantage of larger troop transports is that they need to be able to fill them after the battle or you will lose them. The advantage is that they take less logistics, and they are easier to manage.

Anyone know which transport you would keep if you had 1 1-billion transport and 1 4-billion transport, and you lost 1 billion in the fight?

Umm you would lose both. Even if you win the invasion you will lose the ship. The difference is the amount of population you leave on the planet. More troops = more pop remaining = quicker estabilishment of the tax base.

Umm you would lose both. Even if you win the invasion you will lose the ship.

I've found that I only lose ships I cannot refill. What version are you playing?

I always invade with more than one troop transport, and I DO NOT loose all the transports when I win. If the transports hold 1000 legions, I keep one transport for each 1000 legions left over after the battle....Makes assured winning easy, without destroying the planet.

I had never thought about putting a troops module on anything but a cargo hull...I will have to try it.

Anyone know which transport you would keep if you had 1 1-billion transport and 1 4-billion transport, and you lost 1 billion in the fight?

I think you would lose the 4B transport, but retain the 1B transport.

I usually use 2B transports. If I have 2 in a fleet, and I lose 2B in battle, they will both be lost and I will end up with 2B on the planet.

If I lose 1.99B, I will retain one 2B transport and have .01B on the planet.

So if you lost exactly 1B using a 1B and a 4B, you would retain the 1B transport and have 3B left on the planet.

Thanks. Its such a small point, but I like to know how these games work in and out. Discovering all the tiny intricacies is a huge part of the fun for me.

I think you would lose the 4B transport, but retain the 1B transport. I usually use 2B transports. If I have 2 in a fleet, and I lose 2B in battle, they will both be lost and I will end up with 2B on the planet. If I lose 1.99B, I will retain one 2B transport and have .01B on the planet. So if you lost exactly 1B using a 1B and a 4B, you would retain the 1B transport and have 3B left on the planet.

i'm not following this logic at all.

simple way to test it is load a saved game, try it and see, then go back to the previous save. it's widely regarded as CHEEEESE if you do it to cheat, but i think doing it to discover a basic game mechanic is cool.

i always use 1B transports, but usually by the time i'm invading 1B is enough to take a 6B planet, esp with information warfare.

and the last game i posted, i checked the date... dec 15 OMG I HAVE TWO TURNS TO END IT THIS YEAR.

lucky i had a stack of 7 transports within the cluster of their last 5 planets.

Read the developer log on ship speed and AI. The AI wasn't designed to be able to react to fast ships, so using speeds faster than say, 20, and it's just an exploit that unbalances the game.

I've been making small modifications to the ship stat files. I think my next one will be to slow the max speeds down a bit by making the engine components and sizemods slightly bigger so they take up more space.

Read the developer log on ship speed and AI. The AI wasn't designed to be able to react to fast ships, so using speeds faster than say, 20, and it's just an exploit that unbalances the game.

True, but once you realize that secret it becomes really hard to do anything other than use it.

I've been wondering about why I can invade a planet with 12B pop using a fleet of precursor rangers modded with advanced troop modules (making 7k troops right?) and after the battle it says I have 3k survivors but when I check my fleet I've lost 1 ranger transport and have 6K troops still loaded on my other 6???? Is this a bug?

The only time I ever fleet transports is when I use Mini Soldiers. If you're using Traditional Warfare (or if you have No Mercy Invasion Center), it really doesn't matter whether you fleet or not; might as well attack separately and let the law of averages give you a more predictable result. If you use Info Warfare, you're going to convert the same population whether you fleet or not--you might as well not.

I don't even like fleeting my transports when I use Mass Drivers, cause here's the deal: if you attack with mass drivers and then unsuccessfully invade the planet, the planet takes no PQ loss. You only hurt the planet if you win. So I'll invade with Mass Drivers, knock down the population a fair bit, and then follow up with Traditional Warfare.

You must be at a really high miniaturization tech. You have to be at Enhanced Miniaturization just to fit an Advanced Troop mod on a Tiny hull at all, let alone a weapon on top of it.

Yeah, I generally made a point of always fleeting my transports together simply because that way I only have one group of ships to move around. Most of the time I generally go the route of only 1000 troops for early-mid game and mid-late game I'll generally hold them up to 3000 troops. Else I always use whatever space is left to cram it full of my best engines, not so much as an exploit but that the planets making the transports (the ones with all the massive pops that can spare the troops) are generally on the other side of the galaxy from where I'm fighting and need the troops active as soon as I can.

I like putting Ion Engines on transports and colony ships both, just because population on transports doesn't make you any money. But if I've got planets running into food or morale limits, the priority is to make cheaper transports, to bleed some off the planet and quickly. Those transports just kind of work their way toward the front lines, ferrying population along the way.

But if I'm Super Breeder, bleh, whatever--who cares if a couple billion are on a transport. You'll grow that back in what--4 turns?

Reply #15
Read the developer log on ship speed and AI. The AI wasn't designed to be able to react to fast ships, so using speeds faster than say, 20, and it's just an exploit that unbalances the game.

I've been making small modifications to the ship stat files. I think my next one will be to slow the max speeds down a bit by making the engine components and sizemods slightly bigger so they take up more space.

This may be true, but what does it really mean? Shouldn't military starbases be designed to slow foriegn ships down to speed 3 across the board, instead of just one? Then the AI could be modified to make speed traps whenever it was necessary. I just hope there is no speed cap on DA because I just purchased it and wouldn't have bought it had I known. I play on a gigantic map in DL with a starbase strategy and that requires massive amounts of constructors - meaning my game takes hundreds of turns. A speed cap could literally push that to thousands, meaning no more gigantic map conquest only victory games... a real bummer   

On a different note, I've discovered what I feel is a very significant finding relating to troop transports. Any population kept in transports or colony ships adds directly to your influence as extra population. It doesn't affect nearby planets like an influence starbase does, but it is used in influence calculations and for UP proposals. If you control influence in the UP anyway it wouldn't matter. However, in my current game I'm number 2 (the Iconians are #1 in influence because I only have 28 worlds and they have 61). However, I have nearly closed the gap - with of all things transports. The problem was how to keep maintenance from eating me alive. The solution was cargo hulls modified for planetary garrison and attack. Why, you ask? In my game I was using precursor rangers modified with advanced troop modules, but it was expensive to maintain 54 of them at 22bc each plus maintain tiny hull garrison ships for each planet. Bear in mind that my maintenance budget was up to 30% and rapidly becoming unsustainable. The Iconians had a huge numbers advantage which I have struggled with until I finally figured out a useful ship mod solution. I created planetary garrison ships with a cargo hull, regular troop module, 6 blackhole massdrivers a survey sensor, and 3 hyper-mark3 engines for 15bc maintenance per week. The regular troop module was a cheap way to accommodate population transport, since an advanced actually adds ~2bc each. The engines were added because DL combat has a first strike bug. I built one on each planet, and then created a second design for invasion and influence, where I replaced the regular troop module with 4 advanced troop modules. This design allows me to fleet 11 transports at a logistics of 56 - which I garrison at my military starbases - I have 1 at each resource I own. That means a maximum of 40B population per fleet for UP proposals, and a significantly reduced maintenance burden since each assult transport uses 21bc maintenance. Now I can finally stop the Iconians from ramming their UP proposals down my throat ...   

I purchased DA prior to its release but I have not tried it yet since I'm finishing a very long DL game. So this reply is based on what I have read on the GalCivII forums. In DA:
(1) cost and size of engines have been increased
(2) the Yor have a super ability that limits the speed of alien ships in their region of influence to a speed of 4
(3) there is a mega event that limits ships to a speed of 5

There are three solutions to (2):
(a) don't play games with the Yor
(b) play as the Yor; you can also use this super ability to slow down your alien neighbors during the colonization phase
(c) the speed cap only applies after a non-Yor ship has completed the turn which places it in the Yor's zone of influence. Place your fast troop transports just outside the Yor's zone and on the next turn head straight to the nearby planet(s) extending the zone. This way you should reach the planet(s) before the speed cap applies. After you capture the planet(s) the Yor's zone of influence will sink.

At game startup you can disable mega events or if mega event (3) occurs, reload the game from a recent save.

I checked my results on invasions with my garrison ships (500 troop module with a fleet of 6) and discovered I had no such luck as before. In fact I lost 2 troop transports after winning the battle and the surviving population matched what I had in my ships and the planet. I suspect either I was extremely lucky or there is something different about using modified precursor rangers. Either way I couldn't duplicate my previous results.