Orbital Insertions with Space Elevator

[Yxklyx]

Space Elevator Help says that Aerospace Complexes don't prevent insertions so why do they? Bug?

[Yxklyx]

Also, any way to prevent the 20% damage taken after air drops?

[Darsnan]

Answer to Q1: bug.
Answer to Q2: no. This is simulating the realism of real insertion drops (re: casualties suffered by airborne troop drops for all nations in WW II, etc.). However, you raise a good point. If a unit is Elite (or more/less experienced), shouldn't it suffer less /more casualties than the mandated 20%? I think your onto something here!

[Adalbertus]

Answer to Q2: no.

Half-true only. If you insert into a city, there is no damage. Useful if you just emptied an enemy city or for fast transport if you have to cross the sea or if your magtube system is not yet finished.

[MariOne]

This good observation leads to a question just popped up in my mind:
Would airdrop units suffer no damage as well when landing onto airbases?
I made so scarce use of airbases that I never thought of this.

Airdrop rules are not always that meaningful, leaving alone bugs.

For instance a Treaty prevents the drop in protected basezones of your formers and crawlers, but not of your combat units, which are prevented only at Vendetta. So your Treatied friend can still drop his attack forces in your basezones, and then attack you....

[knowhow2]

Originally posted by Adalbertus


Half-true only. If you insert into a city, there is no damage. Useful if you just emptied an enemy city or for fast transport if you have to cross the sea or if your magtube system is not yet finished.

into all cities or just when trying to capture a enemy city?

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Knowhow2:

into all cities or just when trying to capture a enemy city?

I had no damage certainly inserting into my cities (made a lot of use of it), but I guess also into allied cities. I never build airbases, though.

[aaglo]

If you airdrop, and then don't do anything else with that unit during that turn, the next turn the unit is completely healed. Also when attacking a base, the first unit entering the base will be completely healed (no matter how battered and bruised) which is pretty strange thing (maybe a bug).

[Kassiopeia]

I think that in Civ 2 the unit that took over a city gained suddenly full health, so I do not think it is a bug. Maybe it's there to reflect the unit replenishing itself from the city as it takes it over, raiding supplies and whatever?

[Clear Skies]

I don't seem to get Aerospace Complex defensive benefits from the building of the....ugh....the Aerospace Complex secret project....tip of my tongue...

God my memory sucks.

I know what it's called and I can't think of it...

Cloudbase Academy. That's the one.

[Googlie]

In a current game (see the *random events* thread) I can attest to the following:

With the Space Elevator, units, as is rightly said, can drop anywhere and still have all their movement points but suffer a 50% penalty if attacking that same turn. (They don't take damage from the drop, if made into a base - they do if onto dry land. If Elite, units get their 50% bonus, of course, but that only mitigates the hasty attack penalty from 50% to 75% - but they do retain their full extra movement point.

If they drop into an unaerospaced base (redundant, 'cos they can't drop into one with an aerospace complex) then they get healed, can attack, and if Elite can then vamoose when their attack is complete (my strategy in my game)

Course if bases are linked by maglines, then they are nor using movement points to traverse the land.

The cloudbase academy does confer the no airdropping defenses to the faction posessing it.

Giving the unit blink as well allows it to drop to the tile adjacent to the aerospaced base some of the time - although it worked every time in my scenario test, I was only able to drop about half my Elites (drop & Blink equipped) nest to an airbase

Stranding a drop unit within a base that's obliterated activates it again (is this a bug?) - so in my game I dropped, healed, attacked, retreated to a base, obliterated it and as the unit was blinking again, could hi-tail it back to my continent (where I decommisioned them to help with the Ascent build)

'Course as they were elites, maybe it wasn;t the obliteration of the base that gave them fenewed movement vigour - as I was attacking/retreating along enemy mag lines maybe they did have movement points left

G.

[Yxklyx]

Just a thought but is it possible that air drops are possible against Aerospace Complexes if they are done from the base in which the Space Elevator exists? Has anyone tested this?

[Yxklyx]

Oops sorry, I misread the Space Elevator help. It does NOT say that Aerospace Complex restrictions are lifted for air drops - it says that the restrictions are lifted for Orbital IMPROVEMENTS.

[Googlie]

Right - in fact what it does give you is the ability to build orbitals in bases without aerospace complexes, and, further, doubles the mineral output of any base building an orbital

G.

[aaglo]

...and space elevator increases the economy of that base by 50%

[Googlie]

Originally posted by aaglo
...and space elevator increases the economy of that base by 50%

actually, it doubles the allocation to economy

G.

[VorlonHomeworld]

I need help. I manage to win the Ascent to Transcendence on my first try, (Thought it was the easiest), and I still haven't figured out how to do the orbital insertions to kill everyone else Can anyone give the hotkey or anything so I can use it? Thanks!

[Adalbertus]

and I still haven't figured out how to do the orbital insertions to kill everyone else

You need a unit with the drop pod ability. On its turn, press I. The mouse pointer will change into a parachute. Click on the square you want to insert your unit.
There are a few restrictions:
- The turn must begin in a city
- Your unit must not have moved before you insert (IIRC, movement along a magtube line is possible, as you don't loose movement points).
- Most military units have there movement points left after insertion, but they will attack at half power only. There are some threads around about loosing movement points while inserting non-combat units. In most circumstances, you will loose them.
- you don't automatically "kill everyone else" by inserting

[MariOne]

Every drop unit with Equipment (instead of weapon), will STOP on landing.
As far as I can tell there are no variables or exceptions.

Just telling "non-combat" units could be misleading, because *armored* non-weaponed units lose the non-combat penalty *only when defending*, but under every other aspect they are treated as non-combat (non weaponed) units, including drop behavior.

BTW, I also had attempted to use a Drop Transport to deliver a non-weaponed unit and move it right away, but the transported unit freezes too as if it had dropped itself.. too bad for your probes.


Even without the HotKey, you can always look for the menu item...

You can directly conquer an enemy empty base by dropping in it (with a *weaponed* unit). You can even conquer that way an *air-DEFENDED* Treatied empty base, as while at Treaty air-defenses don't apply to prevent dropping.

Beware, there is the infamous Multi-Drop Bug, not yet fixed in any patch or version.
If you right-click ON THE DESTINATION TILE to trigger the Drop via the pop-up menu command, you can bypass the Drop restrictions.
Of course this is one of the most disruptive bugs on game balance, yet if agreed upon beforehand it could be a curious game variant to try.

Oh, and maybe it's worth to clarify:
Drops are limited to an 8-tile Range
Insertions are Drops with unlimited Range, and you gain the Insertion ability when you build the Space Elevator, or when you discover one of the Graviton techs (can't recall which offhand).
Note that the Space Elevator (SuperTensileSolids = HabDomes too) is on the Transcendence research path, while the Graviton techs are not.

About the Space Elevator:
AeroComplex restrictions waived IIRC means not only that you can build satellites in bases without AC, but also that resources from satellites are no more halved in bases without AC, which could be maybe more relevant...

[mrdynamic]

Originally posted by MariOne

Drops are limited to an 8-tile Range

I believe it is 15 tiles range for a drop, in my experience anyway.

[Clear Skies]

In my experience it's always been 8...

[Yxklyx]

You can directly conquer an enemy empty base by dropping in it (with a *weaponed* unit). You can even conquer that way an *air-DEFENDED* Treatied empty base, as while at Treaty air-defenses don't apply to prevent dropping.

Interesting. Do you get the "break treaty" prompt before entering the city? So, you could launch a pretty nasty surprise attack...

[MariOne]

Yes, that's the shady zone indeed...

If you attempt to bring an attack while Pacted, you get a confirmation prompt (for ending the Pact), and if you agree your unit is sent back *before* the attempted action can be performed.

If you attempt an hostile Drop while at Treaty, you get a confirmation prompt (for declaring Vendetta), and if you agree, your attempted hostile action IS performed applying the current status Drop policies (allowed for Treatied combat units), THEN the status changes to Vendetta, which would activate drop-prevention, but it's too late for that base.

Of course this means that you can only seize one air-defended+empty+treatied base this way, because as soon as Vendetta is triggered you won't drop in other air-defended bases not even if empty (how many do you expect to find anyway!).


As I'm in the mood to give tactics away...
If you want to attack a pactmate using drop units inside his territory and/or his air-defended basezones, you can't drop then endPact, becuse your already dropped units would be sent back from his territory.
You can't attack him elsewhere then drop, because with Vendetta his air-defenses will prevent drop inside basezones.
You have the to first endPact, then drop all the units you'll need to drop where you want, then begin the attack....

[Fitz]

IF you right click on the faction on the comlink and choose end Pact from the menu, don't you drop to a treaty? This allows your Treaty sneak drop attack immediatly following the end of the Pact.

[MariOne]

???
THAT's indeed what I intended with "you have to first end the Pact"...
(it's just that sometimes someone wasn't able to devise such simple sequence of actions)
thanks for making it clearer for me

___
PS: maybe also worth of explicit note, is the "detail" that if you drop directly into someone else's base when Pacted, you simply *enter* it as Pactmate, thus there's no conquest or hostile action to be handled in the first place...
yeah, maybe in the posts above "attack when Pacted" was a misleading statement in this sense, OK, OK...

[VorlonHomeworld]

Thanks for making the Drop hotkey clearer all, I was stumbling on just sending the Planetbusters through the ground. BTW, has anyone just sped right through the Ascendence Cycle and then stayed to just win the game through other scenarios? I believe the one I did was stay and then nuke everyone else with the PB's. Thanks again all!