Santi -Going Speedo-less?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

OK everyone who has played the spartans for any period of time knows the joy of having elite units by either running the appropriate SE choices (most likely Power) or by having command centers and bioenhancement centers. Likely you also know the pain of poor Industry ratings that are the achilles heel of Sparta.

I continue to play around with infantry transports and have found them a bunch of fun to use by the men and women in black.

Consider the following: a missile speeder costs 5 rows of mins. at the appropriate SE choice or combination of facilities yielding elite status this means a speeder has movement of 3 movement points.

Now consider an infantry no armor transport and a missile - 1- 1 grunt. Both cost a mere 2 rows of mins grand total of 4 rows. Total movement points equal 4 between the two as loaded (granted only 2 attacks but 4 full movement points). it is immune to in the field probe action subversion as it is a stack. It gains 25% bonus on base attack. The story gets better as one considers chaos and better weaponry.

As I've written before the infantry transport has peace time trucking uses in order to allow infantry formers a chance to move into a square by being transported and t-form on the same turn. Trucking colony pods to spots quicker all in order to create turn advantage. Trucking infantry probe teams to their destination. (The theme in all of this is Infantry chassis as much as possible for Sparta in order to make units cheap, allowing of course for exceptions such as 1-2-2 defensive units that are equivalent in cost to 1-2-1 units)

I think I'll take my order of Sparta hold the speeders please.

Comments?

[Sikander]

Damn Ogie, what a misleading title! I was hoping for a graphic file attachment.

I haven't used the infantry transports too much, mainly using them as drop transports later in the game. I had to do a bit of work to get them elite, mainly I built all of my armor prototypes as infantry transports. I like the hovertank transports as well, they are great for delivering infantry right up to the front door regardless of the terrain.

[johndmuller]

OO, perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but how do you get 2 attacks out of that transport + infantry grunt combo? Also, you can only have the 4 movement points if you don't attack, otherwise just 3 + attack (assuming we want a full strength attack) - not that 3 MPs plus attack is all that shabby.

I've used the drop transports too, although IIRC, there are some limitations; I think that for sure probes, maybe all non-combattants and at least possibly all units lose their movement allowance once they have ridden on one of them.

Cargo planes, IIRC, while not having really great range for planes, do allow their passengers (except maybe probes, although I think them too) to move after the flight with their own movement points and they don't have to be at an airport to get off (although IIIRC perhaps the plane must have at least 1 MP left for the passenger to be able to get off, perhaps via the Unload - read Unparatrooper - command).

I am pretty sure that for at least the drop version of the transports, that the rover version only gets 1 MP of land movement, just like the infantry version, but nevertheless costs more, making it a poor choice.

Apparently my memory is not particularly good with these details, I only seem to remember some of the issues and areas of limited performance or economics, not exactly what applies to what.

They are useful in a niche sort of way, but I think that one would want to have them clean, otherwise I don't think they would be earning their upkeep very well.

[MariOne]

Og, there are a couple of drawbacks to your transports.

The first, minor one, is that you need some time to gear up and produce Elite units, even with Sparta. Transports would also lack the option to get the final morale upgrade at a monolith.

Analysing a dit deeper the performances of the two alternatives:
Without being Elite, the transport-passenger combo would move like a Rover, not faster. Mind, this happens only on the FINAL step, when you attack. *During the journey* a Rover will *always* travel at speed 2, while the transported infantry will have to sit in the transport travelling at speed 1...
At least you have the pros that you can *armor* the transport at a far lower cost than you'd armor a rover carrying also the passenger's weapon, and that if attacked that armed passenger would only suffer collateral damage in case the transport dies and will be unscathed if the transport survives - as opposed to getting *direct* damage if the rovers survives as a single unit, or dying altogether.
Also considering all those units Elite, the Rover will move at speed 3 during the whole journey, while the combo will move at speed 2, and benefit of the extra mp only when the passenger wakes up for the attack.
True, in case you continuously have to move AND attack in the same turn, the non-Elite units will behave the same (1 move and one hit), while the Elite combo has an advantage over the Elite Rover - 2 moves and TWO attacks (as long as the passenger never moves away from the transport) against 2 moves and one attack.

Also, the non-Elite Transport will suffer no speed loss if partially damaged.
The Elite transport will keep two moves up to 40% damage but won't be influenced by damage taken on by the passenger in his attacks - the Elite Rover will have a more smooth speed decay, IIRC it already goes down to 2 moves at 30% damage but can sustain up to 60% before going down to 1, but will grind slow even because of his own attacks damage...

In summary, the comparison is not really in favor of the combo: it all depends on the actual specific tactical situation you have to deploy them into.
For a long undistrubed journey and a single blow, the Rover would be preferable, especially (but not only) when all those units are not yet Elite.
In an attrition hit and run combat the combo finds a better effectiveness, even more if not elite and with an armored transport.

___

The second, major drawback:
SUPPORT.
You already are industrially challenged.
On top of that add that a combo costs DOUBLE the support of a single Rover....
You can' adopt the combo as a system, but only as a rare, specialist task-force, unitl you can gear up your faction productivity to afford more of them...


========


jdm, I had analysed the drop-transports / movement issues, but I can't just reaccl offhand.
IIRC, a non-combat unit on a drop transport will just freeze on drop as if it had dropped itself - too bad for probes on drop transports!
I can't recall for combat units on drop-transports, I think they were unaffected.

OTOH AirTransports are NOT supposed to unload their cargo outside of an (air)base: there is a *specific* game pop-up message denying that operation if you attempt to perform it with the mouse. You only succeed to do it if you go with the keyboard shortcut.
An evident "loophole" in firaxis programming - players have to decide game per game whether they want to allow that "feature" or consider it a cheat...

[Adalbertus]

I think there are very good reasons for non-combat units to freeze after any sort of drop. Elite 1-1-1,drop units are already bad enough - if they aren't yours. Just drop a few of them in a free bunker (the AI is perfect in providing them) and upgrade them to a few nasty attackers/defenders. Next turn take out the nearby enemy city and drop hundreds more. Then imagine you could build (or buy) a base the same turn you drop, and you are Yang or have the Command Nexus ...

[MariOne]

Indeed, we agree, we were not questioning the fact that non-combat drops do freeze and that it also makes sense.

The question was whether non-drop units would suffer the same effect when jumping on-board of a drop-transport.
IIRC the drop-transported non-drop passengers suffered the same limitation as if they were drop-units themselves - i.e. the "non-combat non-drop" passengers were freezed as well and the "combat non-drop" passengers could freely move (without the -50% attack penalty IIRC...).
If this is true, it would indeed *consistently* apply the principle you stated in your post, *preventing* to get around the "drop non-combat freeze limitation" with some nifty trick - an amazing occurrence chez FurXs!

But these whole reports from me deserve a thorough verification, as I tested these features long ago and I wasn't presented with the necessity to use them in any of my recent pbems... so that my senile memory already faded....

[RedFred]

In addition to the two drawbacks already mentioned by MariOne, I'd like to add that the thread title brought a picture to my mind... and it wasn't a pleasant picture.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

John D,

4 Movement point occurs from elite infantry transport yielding 2 movements and elite best weapon-1-1 grunt thus allowing two attacks. So envision a infantry transport loaded with best weapon - 1-1 at two squares distant it would allow attack on a base twice with a +25% bonus due to use of infantry verses base.

Mario,

As always your points are valid. The time frame where one can not achieve elite non-combat units ie. pre-power SE choice or pre bioenhancement the travel rate across terrain bogs down in comparison to use of speeders/rovers. One can use the chaining effect of transports to achieve great movement of single combat unit forces but this then means potentially many many infantry transports. (Theoretically if you had enough transports you could have infinite movement for a single transported unit). This of course plays into the whole support issue.

Of course you can try to address the issue with one of a number of different approaches each of which have their downside. You can limit the number of infantry transports you really use ( I've found a sprinkling of 3-5 being plenty.) Keep them helping out formers and or probes teams for infiltration/tech steal before you decide to go to war. Once you decide to go to war shift them to the front with your infantry and then use them to deliver your infantry to the base doorstep and then deliver the attack with fully unmoved infantry. As I indicated it is a very pretty sight to see both an elite transport and elite infantry in tandem (especially considering the damage to the infantry is lessened due to the inherent +25% attack bonuson the base. The infantry seems to last longer in an offensive than does a simple elite best weapon speeder. And as you mentioned the damage has to surpass 40% before you lose that second attack) )

I digress. The another means is of course to up the support via something like Police/green or Police/FM.

Both appraoches have their downsides.

In the games I have tried aside from unity speeders and some early builds to do some meet and greet and pod popping, the force build up appears at least in my testing to be quicker than a speeder appraoch especially if you are looking to over run someone with missile or better weapons. At impact the speeder is 3 rows of mins and the transport & infantry combo is 4 total rows plus an extra unit of support. At missile though the speeder goes to 5 rows and transport& infantry is at 4 rows. If you follow the minimized transport arrangement then each subsequent 6-1-1 grunt is only 2 rows.

So assume that you produce in queue as follows:

infantry transport
6-1-1
6-1-1
6-1-1

vs.

6-1-2
6-1-2
6-1-2

That is 8 rows of mins verses 15 rows of mins. Granted there is an additional supported unit. To my mind that is peanuts though if your intent is churning out effective forces thats main pupose is to walk (at either one or two if elite movement points per turn) to the point of attack and then be transported at the point of attack. I admit its a kind of different way for Santi to operate instead of using high tech/high morale units in small quantities your instead using a lower tech chassis to allow a better mean to swarm over an opponent.


Finally the arguement can be made that in order to allow use of transports you need to learn D:Flexibility. TO my mind that isn't a bad thing. You'll want it ASAP anyway in order to produce probe foil teams as well as a pre-req for D:AP, so it doesn't materially mess up beelines too badly.

Just my thoughts,

Og

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Unca Red and Brother Sik,

I'm glad I was able to at least provide a provoking Thread title. Interesting that Santi both provokes hubba hubba responses as well as revulsion. As for me I always thought of the original 7 Santi was the appealing one.

Og

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Bump for Tonic

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Bump for Santiago discussions.

Some additional notes of interest that have been discussed at civgaming.net

Units that have exhausted their entire movement can be set to "L" and have a transport pick them up.

Here's an example of that at work.

You are working from a base that has a road leading to another base three square distant. In your base of operation you have a two elite 4-1-1's and an arty (4)-1-1. You likewise have two infantry transports and have upgraded to plasma armor.

Thats a grand total of 6 rows of mineral production for the impact infantry and arty, and 6 rows of mineral production for the transports. (120 IIRC in energy for transport upgrade) Grand total of 12 rows of mins.

Taking the initiate arty move out one raod square and begins barrage.

First Infantry get transported 2 road squares and begins attack. If healthy enough delivers second attack. Rehit "L" and infantry retreats one road square to prevent easy counter attack.

Repeat process with 2nd infantry team.

Round 2 - Arty continues barrage. In this way if either of the 2nd attacks were unsuccessful, the wounded enemy unit will not heal in base. Transports move wounded units back to base and since they have not used any of their movement points are able to heal completely at this end of this turn (assuming a command center exists in the base).

The stenght of this is that the infantry unit because of the inherent +25% attack on base bonus does not suffer the same form of combat losses as say a speeder chassis would. The losses of attacking units are significantly less. This means the ability to deliver 2 successful attacks (assuming an elite) is more assured and because the transport pulls back allows for better survivability of the unit.

The second turn usage allows the best weapon grunt unit to heal a trun faster and thereby allows better "uptime" than one would have using a coventional speeder chassis only type of assault.

[Andemagne]

all that I can say is: "interesting". must try this out in my next game.