Transport Helicopters and VTOLs Logistics Questions

[Overlord015]

I asked about this in the steam forums, but only got a partial answer. I just want to know if anyone on here has experimented with them. Specifically if anyone has successfully used them to perform air assaults, sustaining said force, and extending their logistics network.

How reliable and useful are they to supplement your logistics? In this, can you:

1. say, park them at the end of a road and then set up an air bridge to whatever point you're trying to resupply?

2. Can you land them at a port and then set up an airbridge from there to either a neighboring island or a point without a land connection in said island?

3. Or will you still need at least a lvl 1 airfield or a city for them to operate from to set up the airbridge?

4. How flexibly can they supply a large force, or is this only useful to sustain light, isolated forces? Are you stuck only being able to receive supply from the targeted tile even if they're in adjacent tiles?

5. Can you use them to help speed up advances and expansion without needing to wait for your logistic connections and infrastructure to catch up?

[Magirot]

How reliable and useful are they to supplement your logistics? In this, can you:

1. say, park them at the end of a road and then set up an air bridge to whatever point you're trying to resupply?

Yes. Just remember that there's no freeAP at the other end, so you're limited to the operational logistics of the units that you want to supply (ie the same distance that troops can operate from a road connection, which in some terrain types can be just a few hexes).

2. Can you land them at a port and then set up an airbridge from there to either a neighboring island or a point without a land connection in said island?

Yes. You can even use them for connections between overseas zones (meaning all the normal interzonal resource transfers). When I tested it, the only cases where an MTH connection is absolutely required are

• Founding a new zone when there's no land connection (and if there's no zone, you can't build assets)
• Sending colonists (you need at least 1 naval logistical point present, after that air bridge logistical points are 100% usable too)

For all other things, air bridges can be used without problems.

3. Or will you still need at least a lvl 1 airfield or a city for them to operate from to set up the airbridge?

Not required for VTOLs, helicopters and thopters. (I think for the rest you might even need to fulfill the air unit type airbase lvl requirements on both ends.)

4. How flexibly can they supply a large force, or is this only useful to sustain light, isolated forces? Are you stuck only being able to receive supply from the targeted tile even if they're in adjacent tiles?

As said in response to 1, normal operational logistics is available around the air bridge.

How large forces you can support depends on the planet and level of tech, but on an Earth-like planet, transports can give ridiculous amounts LP in mid-to-late game, imo. Only limitation with helis/VTOLs/thopters is the maximum unit size – in the best case they can move medium tanks / assault guns and smaller vehicles.

Edit: This is assuming that VTOLs have the same transport capacity as thopters like I remember. Before 1.21 beta thopters were king, but the hi-tech cost added should balance them well.

5. Can you use them to help speed up advances and expansion without needing to wait for your logistic connections and infrastructure to catch up?

To enormous extent. You can even chain air bridges, in ideal conditions allowing you to snake around the whole planet. If the enemy doesn't have proper defences, you can take all their cities in one turn, or cut their logistics in 30 different places. And you need really heavy air defences to dent them, since attacks against air bridges often just give a damage percentage to moved units instead of preventing a connection altogether - defending with numerous land units too is a requirement. I think they're are way too powerful all around. Mostly with regards to multiplayer, since I'm not sure if the AI uses air bridges.

But they can be a bit of a pain to manage:

• The game has some frustrating problems with strategical move when there are multiple routes with limited LP available, and air bridge routes sometimes "collide" with land routes in annoying ways when both would be valid routes. Sometimes you need to waste the LP of one route so another becomes available.
• The limited range around a single air bridge mentioned above.
• Since your troops will be moving, you'll need to be forming new air bridges to accommodate.
• However, as an important point the air bridge gets established after calculating the turn's supply. So you can't just adjust the same air bridge without causing a break in logistics - if your troops are moving you need to have two "waves" of air bridges. Which multiplies the management needed in some cases.

[Thrake]

VTOLs are better for transporting large models as the maximal weight allowed by the heaviest models is higher than the biggest thopter, so you can fit more transport capacity.

Also while an airbase is not mandatory, for long range bridges you will want to start from an airbase, otherwise the range will be reduced as max readiness and readiness recovery is decreased.

[Magirot]

VTOLs are better for transporting large models as the maximal weight allowed by the heaviest models is higher than the biggest thopter, so you can fit more transport capacity.

For some reason I had the image that VTOL engines weren't available for Heavy and X-Heavy planes, but it was only for X-Heavy (or rather, planes with more than 2 engines, so the 4 engine Heavy Aircraft is also ruled out) that they're not an option for.

Also while an airbase is not mandatory, for long range bridges you will want to start from an airbase, otherwise the range will be reduced as max readiness and readiness recovery is decreased.

I forgot about this important point, and to add to it, an air bridge that is already established seems to not check readiness for max range. So if you don't move the air bridge, the readiness decrease doesn't seem to be an issue, but it becomes an issue when you want to move - often meaning that without an airbase you need to wait some turns to have the unit regain its readiness. Readiness increase is quite slow without an airbase, so drawing it back to an airbase can be valid in that situation too.

What it means that you might need even more "waves" than two in some situations.