naval transports

[Golol]

actually why are there no naval transporters.
that would be awesome. every race gets a t2 naval transport that can maybe carry twice the units a t2 flying transport can. they should have a lot of health and maybe have 2 speeds (loaded with units = slow, empty = fast also t3 transports could be added although im not sure if they would be used.
that would add something really cool to navy/land maps like setons and just be epic.
you build like 3 of those transports, fill them with t2 units and protect them with a fleet. then you drive them to the hostile beach and maybe 2 of them reach it and execute a cool deploy animation what makes all the units stream out.
What do you think about that? Having that in a mod or standard faf would be soo cool...

[Firestarter]

Yes!

[-_V_-]

From time to time we have nice ideas of addition.

That'd be cool . Not sure how viable it would be, but something worth trying!

[Eukanuba]

General consensus is that it's impossible without being able to access the engine itself.

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=48414

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14225

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=40523

[Golol]

so is the animation a problem?
I would have thought if flying transports can carry units naval transports could too.
I wouldnt even care if the naval transport would suddenly turn into a flying transport when it is at the cost to disembark or load units f*** logic and fanciness its about gameplay

[Eukanuba]

It's nothing to do with animation, it's that the engine doesn't support land units being loaded into sea units. Reading those three threads above it sounds like all manner of hacks and workarounds have been tried, but it seems that it is not feasible.

[Zock]

Make a very low flying air unit then, hover transport.

[Golol]

excactly.
but there has to be a way to prevent it from being able to go on land
although an amphibious transport would be cool actually

[Poch]

I didn't read all the linked topics, but what about something based on this picture ?

It is indeed a land unit being carried by a moving ship. The UEF T2 gunship is the interface between them which is i think required. By playing around is'nt it possible to come with something working ? (maybe a unit hacked which is composed of multiple units, like the flying bots in BO or the lamba flying buildings around sera ACU)

Or as Zock said, an hovercraft which would be in fact be a very low altitude airplane ? But targetable by ground/navy and buildable in naval yard ? :p

[Poch]

It looks doable when you think of all the involved steps.

Guess something like this :

1) The ship is built in naval yard. It's a ship with a landing gear.
2) As soon as the sip is out it instabuild/pop some air transport (with custom model)

So for human viewer, it should just look as a sea transport.

3) You can release the transport from the air platform with launch maybe, or just ask troops to embark in the "air unit" by right clicking on it.

4) When you want to embark troop, the airplane transport lift and then can load the units as any air transport. It cannot take other commands, and the unit AI autobehavior make it redock to the boat ASAP (like the UEF drones for ex).

You can make the air unit have VERY limited fuel/speed to prevent problems. The nice part would be to make a platform takeoff/landing animation that would not suggest an airplane but more something mechanized like in Total Annihilation (robotic arm extending or smth). But i'm totally ok with the air platform lifting from the ship to load land units : looks cool, and UEF transports already look like gear slots with reactors.

4) Anyway, the airplane is docked back, you can move your transport ship around.

5) Same process as for step 3 applys for unloading. You select (the ship or the airplane ?) and order him to unload. Because of limited fuel and speed, you dont want to get too far of your homeship. You can limit life of the air unit by a certain amount too (if destroyed, carrier rebuilds it, like for drones).

To me it sounds like things the FA engy can do, and glitches/UI/automatic behaviours we can code in LUA. But i guess i'm wrong somewhere.

EDIT : Actually to lock an airplane to a cruiser, when it is landed on the cruiser, just move the ship.
If the transport docked on the cruiser is empty, you can select a tank and you have the "transport icon" when you over the gunship. But clicking on it has no effect. Wonder if it would be possible at that moment to launch the loading sequence (airplane take off, get load units order, and when full get landing order again, when landed, ship moves a bit to prevent new landing)