Stuff dies so fast that you end up calling in new deliveries practically every half minute. I saw a mod which allows you to create a factory in your bunker which periodically would spawn robots. Personally I think that is a much more efficient system, although it could be improved on. The rocket/dropship system is cool, don't get me wrong...I just think that it should be used to obtain more expensive items, sort of like a special delivery system, where as cheaper stuff like basic actors armed with pistols could be produced within the actual bunker, which seems much more fitting of a robotic underground base.

Discuss!

But... How else will you get your units to the battlefield ?

I love the delivery system.

I also love the aforementioned delivery system.

Agree with the 2 above me. Delivery system is great. A factory system would be nice as an alternative, but otherwise the current system is good

If you ask me, we should be able to see teleporters as an expensive alternative to rocket delivery. In the campaign when you have lets say... 10000oz of gold you can buy a teleporter for the level when you 'propose cease fire'. With this your clones have a safe and quick way of getting onto the battlefield.

I do loike the delivery system I am just tired at ow my rockets and dropships gib as soon as my clone leaves the bloody ship, which then kills even more.

I like the concept, but it needs serious reworking. Craft need to not die to small arms fire, and need to be much more resilient to all weapons except those designed to take out said craft (Flak Cannon). Perhaps upgrading the Flak Cannons power to match craft's latest defense.

Rockets also need to move the side thrusters around a bit so they don't take my clone's head off.

Delivery is awesome... With it you can make the Gib Effect, smash guys, make the battle harder and funnier :D
Of course wouldn't be so sucky have a alternative of weapon/actor/itens creation, like a Factory that uses goldy for goods :D

Having a weak delivery craft just means you have to carefully choose NOT to have a delivery in a hot LZ! You'll just have to make do with whatever ground units to clean up a proper LZ. Also, consider not stuffing your craft so full -- it makes the dropships heavier and they won't fly so well, so just use the delivery craft to deliver a single, well-armed android at a time.

Worst comes to worst, you should tell your dropships to abort the delivery -- at least you get a refund for whatever cargo the dropship didn't deliver and only have to pay for repairs to the dropship.

If your units are dying too fast, then consider where you're leaving them! You might want to ship in some guys with heavy diggers and concrete guns to reshape the battlefield to your advantage. A guy out in the open is easy prey for the other team, stray gunfire, and flying chunks from botched deliveries. Dig trenches! Tunnels! If you have problems with the enemy tunnelling into your base, buy a dummy and arm him with a sack of grenades. Then DROP (don't throw) the grenades into the tunnel, scattering them around. They'll act as land-mines. You can also dig pit-traps that lead out the bottom of the screen and dig easy tunnel paths that use your brain as bait, but often the enemy will just fall to his doom without much of a fight.

If you must tunnel into the enemy base, I suggest bringing a heavy digger and an AK-47. Burrowing through debris and reinforced brain-vault walls can only be done with the heavy digger, (which also has a longer digging-spray). The AK can be used to pierce a lot of holes through the especially stubborn brain-vault armor layers, and the heavy digger can quickly clear away the rest.

By forcing the enemy to travel over ground littered with grenades, and pit traps, they should be easy prey for your defensive forces. Digging your way into the enemy base is much slower, but exposes your units to less gunfire, unless the enemy is smart enough to seed the premises with grenades. You won't need to shuttle in more than a handful of troops if you play your cards right.

Another thing about current delivery systems is the lack of horizontal positioning significance to the AI. A dropship told to stay in place, or told to deliver cargo at a specific position, shouldn't fly over the enemy base just due to one bullethole on the engine.

I like the system, obviously, it can be bettered, and yes, it does go horrribly wrong an awful lot, but that's how it happens, as was said, don't drop it into a hot LZ.

In terms of improvemrnt though, I'd hope that eventually dropships will indeed be tougher, buy you can buy AA weapons, ths will; a. encourage you to bring an expensive hand held AA weapon with your squad, whch makes things a little more exiting and b. allow you to keep your base clear of dropships with bigger stationary stuff, as a bg issue with the game is enemies dropping down into your carefully laid out base, that would also give you a safe landng pad for your own men, albeit far from the front line. As long as the AI knew not to drop dropships on top of heavy obvious AA defence, it'd be awesome

I actually kind of *like* how the enemy can try and drop a delivery right into my turf. It totally screws up my base defense because one of my troops wil blow off an engine and cause the thing to roll around and mash a swath of destruction at the cost of the enemy's delivery. It's adds an element of unpredictibility. Those dropships make damn fine bombs, come to think of it...

I think most of the terrible dropship accidents are caused by midair collisions with other dropships or jet-packed troops. I've noticed how sometimes the enemy dropship will deliver a droid, and the droid will immediately take off and ram the dropship that spawned him. Droids need to be a little more wary of dropships -- they should aim for the engine on the FAR side when trying to shoot one down, and maybe they should be a bit quicker to hit the dirt after being delivered. When you see people getting out of a landed helicopter in real life, they keep their heads down, right?

Besides that, I find that enemies will often walk over one another and crush each other, or when stuck, they'll burn through each other with diggers. They need to evaluate whether or not the comrade blocking their way has all his limbs or if he doesn't have adequate means to get through the path. The tunneling AI could use a fair bit of work -- they get there eventually, but it usually takes an hour and by then they clog up the tunnels with their own self-slagged bodies!

Perhaps what would be nice would be something in the BUY menu that lists the WEIGHT of each item and the PAYLOAD that each dummy, robot or soldier is capable of carrying while jetpacked. It would also be nice to see a DELIVERY WEIGHT for the entire purchase along with the PAYLOAD capacity for the dropship/rocket chosen to make the delivery. If you order a dummy and have him carry too many things then he'll probably die on impact.

le-mec:

Your points about the AI, or lack thereof, have been lamented many times before, but, you make good points.

Your idea about the buy menu is interesting, and the only objection I can raise is this: Where would it GO?

There's not much space in the buy menu as it is.

A small stretching here a bit of resizing there and voila, it fitz.
I think that there is quite sufficient space for a pair of numbers in the menu...