Transport Design

[WLFobe]

The other day I was having an internal debate on my transport design. I was trying to figure out whether Afterburners (for getting there faster) or Hull Regeneration (to repair battle damage enroute) was better.
I might be over thinking this.

 

[Alblaka]

I might be over thinking this.

This.

First off, if Transporters ever get into serious combat, they die anyways.
Second, everyone knows Shield Capacitor >>>> All.

 

[mackau]

Transports can be surprisingly tanky. When I have my "Army builder planet" setup with cost savings & quick building slave armies if I'm expecting a hard fight I might mix in 100 or so transports (in mid-late game with good shielding) to help soak damage.

Shields + Capacitors obviously.

 

[ColZimin]

if I'm expecting a hard fight I might mix in 100 or so transports (in mid-late game with good shielding) to help soak damage.

... Oh that is dirty! And I love it! Must be much cheaper to build and maintain than Corvettes at that point. I have to try this sometime.

 

[WLFobe]

The only reason I brought it up was that when I sent my armies to a world, the path they picked went past some resource stations I hadn't cleared. So they needed repair.

 

[mackau]

... Oh that is dirty! And I love it! Must be much cheaper to build and maintain than Corvettes at that point. I have to try this
sometime.

It is definitely much much cheaper. A slave army can cost around 16 minerals with a good leader on the planet. A corvette is going to cost around 100 for a basic ship, and up towards 250+ as you get to the end-game.

A transport will have similar stats to a corvette built to evade/meat shield but you don't pay for the transport, just the minerals for the army and maintenance for them.

100 slave armies at 16 minerals will only cost 1600 minerals, and give you transports as useful as a corvette for soaking up enemy fire.

 

[deeks]

I've noticed this can work against you when repelling invasions by the AI as well. It will sometimes send transport fleets right behind it's main strike force and, depending on how tight together they are, your fleet will wind up wasting fire on the transports. I think it's a larger issue if the navigation path of your fleet brings the AI's transport fleet into range first.

There's nothing more frustrating than watching your fleet take casualties while it wastes fire on unarmed transports.

 

[WandererRTF]

I have more than once wondered why we can't arm those (or science ships)... Even just with a single S slot... But then again then transports would likely need to be built separately and that could be a bit of mess.