Air Transports: How best to load multiple Transporters?

[Vanguard]

Hi all.

I just wondered if there is a better way of loading multiple Air transporters? Currently I either use ferry ( which does delay me a bit until the ferry symbol is placed ) or load each transport individually - also delaying me.

Is there a better way to load a group of units on transports? What is the best way to quickly load a huge amount of land units into mutliple air transports?

Thanks for any hints and help in advance.

[Iszh]

There is not easy way to load lots of transport planes. You can use UI Party ui mod to split you land units into groups saved with numbers. Then simply go to you transport planes and take each group and right click to an idle transport.

[Gorton]

Select all the units and transports, then click the transport button and click where you want to transport them too. keep it all selected etc.
All transports will then transport all the units you had selected to where you told them too, if there's not enough transports then they'll go back and get the remaining units iirc.

[Exotic_Retard]

yes that is likely the best way, other way is to use ferry command, the difference being that if you give a transport order then the tanks which dont fit move there while the transports are transporting. once they drop off, the next batch of tanks stops and waits to be picked up, while the remaining continue moving.

for ferry the tanks always wait at the ferry point.

[angus000]

I usually select all the units I want to trasnport, press shit, and then right click every transport one after another.

[Hawkei]

The method changes depending on what you are trying to do. If you are dropping into a 'hot zone' and the element of surprise is critical. Then you need to pre-load all your transports, and then issue the transport command when they are all loaded. This means everything will drop all at the same time.

If it is more of a logistical transport, and you have a stream of units coming from land factories which will be added to the fight, this is when you should be using the ferry command. Rally the land factories to the ferry marker, and you will have a fully automated logistical system. This means you can focus on controlling the battle. Safe in the knowledge that new reinforcements will be transported to the front lines. It makes it possible to extend the effective range of "spam factories".

A similar method, which achieves the same result is to tell transports to assist a factory. You set the factory waypoint to the front lines. As units roll off the production line they are picked up and transported to where they need to be. Another more advanced method is to incorporate an attack-move command after the move command in the factories rally point. The transport will execute the move command to the first waypoint. The dropped land units will then execute the Attack-Move command to the second waypoint on the ground. This makes it possible to have the transports cover most of the distance, but, drop the land units short, so that they are not exposed to enemy fighters.

Another common method, for a one off tactical jump, is to select all of the land units and transports and give a transport command to the destination. Keyboard shortcut is 'U'. The transports will load and deliver ground units to the destination. Excess ground will continue on the ground, and be picked up on return flights, until all units are at the destination. You might not get all of the transports landing at the exact same time, so this can cause unnecessary losses if they are dropping into a battle.

The disadvantage is that transports will remain on the ground at the drop zone. So be sure to tell them to move home when the job is done. However, if your transports have a weapon, they will stay overhead and shoot. This is sometimes useful if you are playing, for example, UEF and are using The T2 stinger gunship, or the T3 continental transport. A combined force of T2 tanks and Stingers, in equal numbers, when given a transport command can be a very potent "air mobile" strike force. If you string several site-to-site drops, this can create a real headache for your opponent.