Technical support > Feature Requests

Allow to manually land the transport on geoscape

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anatoliy:
Dear developers,

First, thanks a lot for the game! It gave me a lot of good time to remember. // This was enough fun for two thankful posts)

Once upon a time a Gunboat destroyed my Heracles with the best troops and gear. That was sad but logical and somewhat inevitable consequence of enemy's air superiority. After that I bought a Firebird, waited for the Gunboat to disappear and sent it on the mission. It was intercepted too but left a "Firebird-crash" mission. The question is: why not allow the player to manually land transports, leading to the same rescue mission? It's logical thing to do, relives the frustration and the relevant mechanic is already implemented.

ShipIt:
Glad to hear you enjoyed the game.

An emergency landing for the dropship in order to give the player the chance to save his troops sounds nice. However, this would also lessen the player´s need to develop and deploy new technologie.

Visitor:

--- Quote from: ShipIt on May 27, 2015, 01:03:59 pm ---However, this would also lessen the player´s need to develop and deploy new technologie.
--- End quote ---
To chip in - I don't think there's any risk of that.

Not developing/deploying new technologies will still be as grave in consequences as ever for average player as most of the gameplay revolves around one shooting down alien ships and sending out troopers to some alien incursion sites - and those will work the same no matter if player will decide to make a dropship-in-transit land or not, still depending on new developments to the same degree.

In fact, in average gameplay of mine a situation when a dropship is both endangered and with no chance of getting back to base before being intercepted happens so rarely, that being able to land before either of above situation would happen would hardly affect balance in general, while being quite a nice last-ditch option for the times when it does happen (with a side bonus of it being useful when the player simply has bad luck and an alien interceptor spawns just the dropship).

ShipIt:

--- Quote from: Visitor on May 27, 2015, 03:26:47 pm ---To chip in - I don't think there's any risk of that.

--- End quote ---

Risk is never non-zero.


--- Quote from: Visitor on May 27, 2015, 03:26:47 pm ---... would hardly affect balance in general ...

--- End quote ---

Thats really the point of suggestions like this one. Lots of hours (yes, it is) gone for little gain.

anatoliy:

--- Quote from: ShipIt on May 28, 2015, 06:48:11 am ---Risk is never non-zero.

--- End quote ---

I concur the ability to safely land transports will lessen the utility of advanced fighters. But is this the right device to promote it? For the sake of the argument let's imagine transports already can land. Will it be the right thing to deny that capability as an artificial way to force the player into research? Wouldn't it be deux ex machina?


--- Quote --- Thats really the point of suggestions like this one. Lots of hours (yes, it is) gone for little gain.
--- End quote ---
In this particular case, gain isn't that little. For the first-time players the game mechanic of transports being intercepted by UFO's isn't obvious. When it happens for the first time, it seems grossly unfair. When

--- Quote ---an alien interceptor spawns just the dropship.
--- End quote ---
it seems grossly unfair. Arbitrary bad luck isn't challenging or thrilling. People might just quick playing after the first incident. And the odds of at least one incident happening through the campaign are not little. I myself saved and quit the game - rationalization that this is the way things should work when enemy controls the skies needed time and some effort.

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