Cyborg Transport Movement + Disembark Orders
In v2.3 there is a new feature where you can select a Cyborg Transport VTOL (or several of them), and hold down the <Alt> key while clicking on a desired LZ tile. This will result in the transport(s), flying to the LZ and landing, where all cyborgs will instantaneously disembark and occupy tiles adjacent to the LZ tile.
This feature makes a lot more sense than the V2.2.4 cyborg unloading technique which requires several laborious and time consuming mouse-clicks to individually unload all the cyborgs from each transport. The instant unload command makes it much more practical to do special ops tactics behind enemy lines, unloading one or several cyborg transport(s) quickly, even while an LZ is hot (under enemy fire). Once empty, the transports can be quickly sent back to base (or just out of enemy fire range) to avoid further damage, while the unloaded cyborgs get down to kicking some enemy @$$.
No problems here.
Auto-Repair
From my observation, Auto-Repair allows units and structures to repair themselves, but only when they are not performing any of the following actions:
- Attacking another unit
- Attacking a structure
- Building a structure
- Repairing another unit
- Repairing a structure
- Executing movement orders.
No problems here.
Problem with Cyborg Transport Movement + Disembark Orders when Auto-Repair is Researched
Last night, I played a T-3 skirmish game in v2.3 B2, where I had researched Auto-Repair so my units could repair themselves. I was executing a Cyborg Transport special op. I <Alt>+Clicked the desired LZ tile, which I knew was going to be hot, which is okay since the transport is only going to land for second, immediately disembark the cyborg troops, before I immediately issue it movement orders back to HQ for repair. I pressed <Space> after issuing the movement + disembark orders so the camera would follow the transport to the LZ, where it remained selected for my next movement order. As expected, my transport took some damage while in-flight and landing.
However upon landing, the cyborg troops do not disembark from the transport as expected. Instead, the transport began repairing itself. So I immediately retreated the damaged transport out of range from enemy fire and tried issuing issue Movement + Disembark orders again in a much safer location. I got the same result. I tried right-clicking the landed transport to manually disembark the cyborg troops, the transport troop menu would not even appear. It was not until the transport was fully repaired, before I could disembark the cyborg troops.
NOTE: I have not as yet tried to recreate this scenario.
My Thoughts on this
When the transport landed, it should have instantly disembarked the cyborg troops as ordered, which only takes a second with the new orders. After disembarking, the transport can auto-repair. The mission orders should always come first.
There is no rationale in the real world or gaming world for not doing it this way, expect perhaps saying that all the transport hatches are damaged to a point where troops cannot disembark. And this argument would not be very realistic either. I was once in the Marine Corps Infantry, and in a helicopter company. We went through extensive training on: getting into our "sticks" (temporary groupings of infantry units while they are loaded on air transportation vehicles), embarking and disembarking aircraft, securing LZs, and emergency aircraft evacuation procedures. The CH-46 Sea Knights we flew on had so many escape hatches--every window was rigged so it could be expediently removed in case of an emergency (crash) landing. There is just no way that infantry troops would not disembark from a damaged aircraft at landing.
In fact, it should be an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for any airborne infantry force to evacuate troops from a heavily damaged aircraft once that aircraft is landed. Thus, even without Transport Movement + Disembark Orders, all cyborg troops should automatically disembark a heavily damaged (read that as nearly destroyed or destroyed) transport if it is landed. If a loaded transport gets killed in the air, all cyborg troops inside should rightfully perish as well. But if the same loaded transport gets destroyed on the ground, all (or perhaps just some) cyborg troops inside should be automatically disembarked and should not be destroyed along with the aircraft. Or maybe even all or some units should be automatically disembarked but they also take some damage.
I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.
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