Easily managing transports

[Ducky]

Hi

I am looking for guidance on how to simplify the task of summoning a transport, loading it with units and sending it off to drop them somewhere.

I appreciate this sounds simple but it's something that requires a lot of attention from me in-game (loads of clicks and operations), and I feel the community might have some guidance on hotkeys, mods, or maybe even simple steps that you follow.

Suppose I want to transport 6 engineers (that are on-screen) from my base into the water. The steps are as follows - and I have deliberately listed all UI actions to invite comment and feedback:

Regular method:
- Zoom out
- Find transport
- Zoom back in to engineers
- Select engineers
- Zoom out and navigate to transport
- Right click transport
- Left click transport
- With shift held, give transport a queued order to transport the units somewhere, after it has picked them up
- Optional - With shift held, give transport queued order to return to base

I have read* that you can give a combined selection of unit(s) and transport(s) a transport command, and that should mean the units are picked up, then transported.

If that were true, the steps would be:
- Select engineers
- Zoom out
- Find transport + add to selection
- Give transport command

(I have actually also created a hotkey to replace steps 2 and 3 in the above so simplify it even further. Note this is different to the transport hotkey v1 I am about tom come on to...)

As you can see, this is much simpler...

The problem is, it doesn't work: I have done multiple tests and I get odd behaviour. Sometimes the transport picks up, then waits a seemingly random time before going off to transport them. Sometimes the transport picks up 4 of the engineers and the other 2 make their own way to the destination on foot.

After some more research**, I installed the "transport hotkey v1" mod, which gives you a hotkey that (a) adds the nearest idle transport to your selection and (b) moves the screen to that transport.

With this mod, the steps are:
- Select engineers
- Press hotkey
- Right click transport
- With shift held, give transport a queued order to transport the units somewhere

This seems to work most of the time, although it fails with odd behaviour maybe 1 in 5 times, so that's no good either.

Iszh mentions a bug in **, but I don't know if that's the same bug as the odd behaviour I am seeing above...

Anyway, how do you all manage your transports? Do you have any slick procedures that do not require loads of operations?

Thanks


* viewtopic.php?f=41&t=11843&hilit=transport+hotkey
** /viewtopic. ... 8&start=10

[ZLO_RD]

The problem is, it doesn't work: I have done multiple tests and I get odd behaviour. Sometimes the transport picks up, then waits a seemingly random time before going off to transport them. Sometimes the transport picks up 4 of the engineers and the other 2 make their own way to the destination on foot.

As for now, that is how it works, and when that was discovered that was considered to be an advantage over regular ferry: Units don't wait near the ferry point, they move by themself while transport is flying around so next transport trip is shorter.

I think you are the 1rst one who adresses issue that if you have exactly enought engies for a full transport it might not wait to get full and fly with part of engies.

tbh i never tested any of that stuff, i just saw Haven's video once and tryed that once myself.

maybe it is possible to change behaviour so that transports wait to get full untill they go off, but nobody can promise that.

also i think "PROs" do regular method goes like this:
*be zoomed out*
•select engies
•right click on transport
•select transport right in that moment
•holding shift make queue for transport (fly around aa/ radar, order drop, loop back around)

[keyser]

would be nice though to have a way to load an army in several transport without doing this ferry thing (if you just want to load the whole army)

[PsychoBoB]

would be nice though to have a way to load an army in several transport without doing this ferry thing (if you just want to load the whole army)

Does the following what you want?
Select the whole army -> shift right click on all transports you have one after another -> select all transports when full an unload them wherever you want

[keyser]

hmm i didn't know shift would achieve that actually, never tested.
that would already be a good start yeah

[ZLO_RD]

would be nice though to have a way to load an army in several transport without doing this ferry thing (if you just want to load the whole army)

Does the following what you want?
Select the whole army -> shift right click on all transports you have one after another -> select all transports when full an unload them wherever you want

i checked this like 5 years ago, and it was so bad, that i never tryed it again.
i might be wrong, but from what i remember, units will load in one transport, then load to next transport, then load to next transport, then load to next transport, so i takes a hell of lot more time compared to other methods. (and units may get stuck around every transpor or something, i just remember everything getting stuck badly)

my personal method is to create long ferry around back of your base, and tell units to go into that ferry. Ferry has to be long enought so that unts spend enought time in the air to let every unit load in. That is achived by basicly spamming lots of zig-zags and loops for a ferry route. and when you click units to load, they will all load simultaneosly.
so: 1) create long ferry in safe spot
2) click load in
3) cancel ferry so units don't unload

[Ducky]

Thanks for the advice, all. That’s useful.