> Assuming I've got all the ideas listed and everyone's position
> correct, you're saying amphibous assaults without barrier
> islands for staging can be accomplished by loading the
> hovercraft from inside the troopship and then moving the
> loaded hovercraft out. Correct?
You got it :-)
> I think that if loading from inside containers is going to be
> supported, then we need to consider the semantics for this a
> bit more.
>
> 1. What happens when the user loads a transport from inside another
> transport?
>
> Consider a troopship-hovercraft-apc-infantry scenario. The user
> clicks on the troopship and sees it contains a hovercraft, an apc,
> and an infantry. The user selects the apc and clicks "load". He
> moves the infantry into the apc. He clicks "done", and he's back in
> the dialog showing the contents of the troopship. The troopship now
> contains an apc and a hovercraft. The user selects the hovercraft,
> clicks "load", and places the apc into the hovercraft. The user is
> back in the troopship contents dialog. The troopship now appears to
> contain only a hovercraft.
What you described won't be possible because every transport have to
be moved after loading. If you picked the apc and load the infantry you
have to move the apc out of the troop ship. If you don't do so, the
infantry would be unloaded again. Remember: Nesting containers shouldn't
be possible, we all aggreed with that.
> Now if the user selects the hovercraft, clicks "load" he should see
> that it contains a hovercraft and an apc. Correct?
No, see above.
> While displaying the contents of the hovercraft that is still within
> the troopship, the user selects the infantry and tries to move him out
> of the hovercraft like how unloading normally works, what happens?
> Does the infantry unload normally as if it was never inside the
> hovercraft, or does the user get an error saying the infantry needs to
> be unloaded from the hovercraft first?
This problem does not ocour without nesting containers.
> 2. What happens if the user loads a container from inside another
> container and then ends his turn? Do inner transports unload
> into outer transports at the end of every turn? This would make
> things simpler, but that conflicts with the behavior of loading
> crystals onto a transport. Right now you can load an apc up with
> crystals and the crystals stay inside the transport from turn to
> turn.
There are no inner and outer transports. To handle everything the same
way, I would also change the loading of crystals. They should be loaded
as every other unit just before move a transportation unit. A Crystal is
simply a unit that can't move and shot.
> These three questions bring up two more questions about transports.
> First, do crystals take up space within the transport or not? I don't
> think they do, but should a transport plane containing the maximum
> load of 100 crystals still be able to carry 5 tanks?
Every transportation must have some properties:
- transport capacity which defines how much units could be loaded
- transport room which defines which units could be loaded (Don't put a
torpedoship into an hovercraft, It won't fit in the locker :-))
To be able to handle all units the same way also crystals need a weight
and a volume. You can't transport crystals without costs.
> Second, do different type units take up the same amount of space
> inside transports? For example, should a transport loaded with only
> infantry carry more units, than the same transport that is loaded
> with only medium tanks. (i.e. do tanks weigh more than infantry?)
I think so. It would be unfair if an infantry platoon needs the same
transport capacity (weight and volume) as a tank platoon. Each
unit need properties matching those from the transportation unit:
- weight
- volume
The transportation unit is full if either the weight or the volume
reaches its limit.
> Third, should there be an icon indicating whether or not a transport
> is loaded. Right now, the user needs to keep track of that in his own
> head. Should a little flag, similar to the "the unit has reached the
> end of its movement" flag be added to distinguish full transports
> from empty transports? And if certain units do weigh more than other
> units, should this flag actually be a vertical bar to side of the
> transport's icon to indicate capacity? I don't want the icons to get
> cluttered with status bars anymore than the next guy. I just think
> this is something that should be considered.
I don't think that we need something like this. Everybody could easily
look into his transports to see what is in it. On the other side it
would be a good brain trainig to keep all transportation units and it's
load in mind ;-)
A point you missed is the weight of an transportation unit with and
without load. I think the answer has already been given but to make it
crystal clear: The weight of an transportation unit is the sum of it's
own weight plus load. So if a fully loaded hovercraft should be loaded
into an troop ship, the troop ship must have enough free capacity to
store the complete weight.
But what about the volume? I think we make a mistake if we simply add
all volumes. You wouldn't store empty boxes into your car. You would put
thinks into it to save space, woudn't you?
This leads to some simply rules for hande transports:
- the volume of a transportation unit can't be smaller than its
transportation space.
- The weight of a unit is the sum of its own weight plus the weight
of its current load.
- The volume capacity of loaded transportation units will extend the
capacity of the loading unit. That means if the loaded box has some
room left, fill it.
Best Regards
Matthias