Orbital Insertions with Space Elevator

[Googlie]

Originally posted by aaglo
...and space elevator increases the economy of that base by 50%

actually, it doubles the allocation to economy

G.

[VorlonHomeworld]

I need help. I manage to win the Ascent to Transcendence on my first try, (Thought it was the easiest), and I still haven't figured out how to do the orbital insertions to kill everyone else Can anyone give the hotkey or anything so I can use it? Thanks!

[Adalbertus]

and I still haven't figured out how to do the orbital insertions to kill everyone else

You need a unit with the drop pod ability. On its turn, press I. The mouse pointer will change into a parachute. Click on the square you want to insert your unit.
There are a few restrictions:
- The turn must begin in a city
- Your unit must not have moved before you insert (IIRC, movement along a magtube line is possible, as you don't loose movement points).
- Most military units have there movement points left after insertion, but they will attack at half power only. There are some threads around about loosing movement points while inserting non-combat units. In most circumstances, you will loose them.
- you don't automatically "kill everyone else" by inserting

[MariOne]

Every drop unit with Equipment (instead of weapon), will STOP on landing.
As far as I can tell there are no variables or exceptions.

Just telling "non-combat" units could be misleading, because *armored* non-weaponed units lose the non-combat penalty *only when defending*, but under every other aspect they are treated as non-combat (non weaponed) units, including drop behavior.

BTW, I also had attempted to use a Drop Transport to deliver a non-weaponed unit and move it right away, but the transported unit freezes too as if it had dropped itself.. too bad for your probes.


Even without the HotKey, you can always look for the menu item...

You can directly conquer an enemy empty base by dropping in it (with a *weaponed* unit). You can even conquer that way an *air-DEFENDED* Treatied empty base, as while at Treaty air-defenses don't apply to prevent dropping.

Beware, there is the infamous Multi-Drop Bug, not yet fixed in any patch or version.
If you right-click ON THE DESTINATION TILE to trigger the Drop via the pop-up menu command, you can bypass the Drop restrictions.
Of course this is one of the most disruptive bugs on game balance, yet if agreed upon beforehand it could be a curious game variant to try.

Oh, and maybe it's worth to clarify:
Drops are limited to an 8-tile Range
Insertions are Drops with unlimited Range, and you gain the Insertion ability when you build the Space Elevator, or when you discover one of the Graviton techs (can't recall which offhand).
Note that the Space Elevator (SuperTensileSolids = HabDomes too) is on the Transcendence research path, while the Graviton techs are not.

About the Space Elevator:
AeroComplex restrictions waived IIRC means not only that you can build satellites in bases without AC, but also that resources from satellites are no more halved in bases without AC, which could be maybe more relevant...

[mrdynamic]

Originally posted by MariOne

Drops are limited to an 8-tile Range

I believe it is 15 tiles range for a drop, in my experience anyway.

[Clear Skies]

In my experience it's always been 8...

[Yxklyx]

You can directly conquer an enemy empty base by dropping in it (with a *weaponed* unit). You can even conquer that way an *air-DEFENDED* Treatied empty base, as while at Treaty air-defenses don't apply to prevent dropping.

Interesting. Do you get the "break treaty" prompt before entering the city? So, you could launch a pretty nasty surprise attack...

[MariOne]

Yes, that's the shady zone indeed...

If you attempt to bring an attack while Pacted, you get a confirmation prompt (for ending the Pact), and if you agree your unit is sent back *before* the attempted action can be performed.

If you attempt an hostile Drop while at Treaty, you get a confirmation prompt (for declaring Vendetta), and if you agree, your attempted hostile action IS performed applying the current status Drop policies (allowed for Treatied combat units), THEN the status changes to Vendetta, which would activate drop-prevention, but it's too late for that base.

Of course this means that you can only seize one air-defended+empty+treatied base this way, because as soon as Vendetta is triggered you won't drop in other air-defended bases not even if empty (how many do you expect to find anyway!).


As I'm in the mood to give tactics away...
If you want to attack a pactmate using drop units inside his territory and/or his air-defended basezones, you can't drop then endPact, becuse your already dropped units would be sent back from his territory.
You can't attack him elsewhere then drop, because with Vendetta his air-defenses will prevent drop inside basezones.
You have the to first endPact, then drop all the units you'll need to drop where you want, then begin the attack....

[Fitz]

IF you right click on the faction on the comlink and choose end Pact from the menu, don't you drop to a treaty? This allows your Treaty sneak drop attack immediatly following the end of the Pact.

[MariOne]

???
THAT's indeed what I intended with "you have to first end the Pact"...
(it's just that sometimes someone wasn't able to devise such simple sequence of actions)
thanks for making it clearer for me

___
PS: maybe also worth of explicit note, is the "detail" that if you drop directly into someone else's base when Pacted, you simply *enter* it as Pactmate, thus there's no conquest or hostile action to be handled in the first place...
yeah, maybe in the posts above "attack when Pacted" was a misleading statement in this sense, OK, OK...

[VorlonHomeworld]

Thanks for making the Drop hotkey clearer all, I was stumbling on just sending the Planetbusters through the ground. BTW, has anyone just sped right through the Ascendence Cycle and then stayed to just win the game through other scenarios? I believe the one I did was stay and then nuke everyone else with the PB's. Thanks again all!