Loading units at a base with two or more transports

[Vidsek]

    What are the AI's rules for which transport receives the cargo?   I've had all go into one, some into one and some into another, and so on. 
   If I want them to go into a specific transport unit for certain, I usually have to move all the others out of the base till they're loaded.  I suspect that will be necessary at times, but having some clue as to which will or will not be selected beforehand might make it all a bit easier.
   Transports can differ by chassis, morale level, total moves, moves remaining, on hold at the base (or not), base ownership, number of units already loaded, and so on.   Which of these are considered?   (Rather hoping here it's not random..).

   Related question: can this be patched to be more user controlled, or is it within the realm of "need to figure out how the AI works first"?

   Less related question: transports appear to be always be slower (with air units <much> slower) than military units on the same chassis.  This might make some real-world sense, but fast transport exists with land, sea, and air in the real world.  I'll take a wild guess that it's encoded somewhere in the .exe , so: could transport speed/moves per turn (relative to other unit types) be made player-adjustable in alphax ?   And how difficult/trivial would that be?

                                       Vidsek, the Disgruntled Longshoreman

[Lord Avalon]

WWII: according to Wikipedia high-speed transports were converted destroyers or destroyer escorts used to support amphibious operations. They only carried a company - 200 troops.


Otherwise, transport ships have a broader beam so they can carry more stuff, right? So they're not built on the same hull as military ships (which also tend to have more powerful engines, I would think).

Game: There's a Heavy attribute for transports which is disabled. It adds 50% cargo capacity for a reduction in speed: -1 for foils; don't know about cruisers. So you're already getting the faster transport unit.

[Mart]

I think transport "package weapon" is what makes -1 move.
There is always possibility to add some pre-defined units to alphax.txt for the game creation time (one particular moment actually). They are then embedded into save file. They can have adjusted some parameters, but speed is different. However, they can have more than 2 abilities, even those disabled for particular unit type. So transports can have added antigrav struts and when "hardcoded" cargo capacity without transport package, they will be faster even.

[Dio]

I think transport "package weapon" is what makes -1 move.
There is always possibility to add some pre-defined units to alphax.txt for the game creation time (one particular moment actually). They are then embedded into save file. They can have adjusted some parameters, but speed is different. However, they can have more than 2 abilities, even those disabled for particular unit type. So transports can have added antigrav struts and when "hardcoded" cargo capacity without transport package, they will be faster even.

Indeed you are correct about the -1 Move originating from the transport equipment package. I can quickly grab where the -1 move penalty orginates from.

[Dio]

I think transport "package weapon" is what makes -1 move.
There is always possibility to add some pre-defined units to alphax.txt for the game creation time (one particular moment actually). They are then embedded into save file. They can have adjusted some parameters, but speed is different. However, they can have more than 2 abilities, even those disabled for particular unit type. So transports can have added antigrav struts and when "hardcoded" cargo capacity without transport package, they will be faster even.

Indeed you are correct about the -1 Move originating from the transport equipment package. I can quickly grab where the -1 move penalty orginates from.

The procedure this penalty comes from starts at address 005C13B0. Essentially the game checks the unit's weapon mode/equipment package and decreases the unit's movement rate by if it has a transport module. The movement rate never decreases below 1.

[Yitzi]

    What are the AI's rules for which transport receives the cargo?   I've had all go into one, some into one and some into another, and so on. 
   If I want them to go into a specific transport unit for certain, I usually have to move all the others out of the base till they're loaded.  I suspect that will be necessary at times, but having some clue as to which will or will not be selected beforehand might make it all a bit easier.
   Transports can differ by chassis, morale level, total moves, moves remaining, on hold at the base (or not), base ownership, number of units already loaded, and so on.   Which of these are considered?   (Rather hoping here it's not random..).

   Related question: can this be patched to be more user controlled, or is it within the realm of "need to figure out how the AI works first"?

I'd need to figure out how it works before it can be user-controlled; I also doubt that something that can be handled just by moving the units out of the base will be a particularly high priority.

Less related question: transports appear to be always be slower (with air units <much> slower) than military units on the same chassis.  This might make some real-world sense, but fast transport exists with land, sea, and air in the real world.  I'll take a wild guess that it's encoded somewhere in the .exe , so: could transport speed/moves per turn (relative to other unit types) be made player-adjustable in alphax ?   And how difficult/trivial would that be?

Probably medium-low difficulty.

[Lord Avalon]

I think transport "package weapon" is what makes -1 move. ...

I meant compared to a regular transport, not a basic foil. Heavy foil tranport has a move of 2, iirc.

[Vidsek]

   Thank you all for the comments and info.

  The subject of transport speed has been interesting, but mostly, for me, just a symptom of my unmedicated curiosity disorder .   I can adjust my perception so that transport speed is "normal", and other units (even seaformers, I think?) are hyped-up from that.

  The matter of transport loading order is what I'm really interested in, but I'm not asking anyone to spend time and effort on researching it.  I was just hoping that there was some existing info I could be directed to.
  Although I have next to no coding education (and regret neglecting it....), I can, at least, keep records, do some experiments, and look for patterns.
  I'll post whatever I find out here.

                                       Vidsek

PS: which special ability grants a unit a larger library to keep the crew from getting bored and plotting mutiny?
 

[Geo]

PS: which special ability grants a unit a larger library to keep the crew from getting bored and plotting mutiny?
 

Marine Detachment. No-brainer there.