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I just had a Sluken empire declare war on me. Looks like I am about to have a D-Day beyond the stars here. Anyway, here is what I hope can take a punishment and bust through their defenses to land troops down on the surface. I vision this sluggish armor stacked hulk getting hammered from every direction and still able to press on slowly towards the colony while several of my frigates keep other enemy ships busy. This is an early game design and I only wonder if the sluggish speed on this thing is really going to be an issue, guess I will find out. Gentlemen, introducing a 2761 Normandy Class Troop Transport...

That is great. Let us know if it works!

I'd like to see the results as well.

I usually go for a 10 shields 10 armour combo with sprint at about 50 - 60. The fast speed usually gets the troops on target even with a large spaceport, 4 defence bases and fleet. Of course thats with their own fleet support keeping the shooters busy.

If you want it to jump in and quickly drop troops before it gets shot down i would advise to add more thrusters. Cruise 5 is damn slow. You could easily throw out 28 armor and double your thrust without sacrifising much beefiness.

I'm guessing your success will depend a lot on whether you warp in behind the planet's path or in front of it. Chasing a planet from behind with that slow speed will significantly increase your exposure time.

ORIGINAL: Sylian

If you want it to jump in and quickly drop troops before it gets shot down i would advise to add more thrusters. Cruise 5 is damn slow. You could easily throw out 28 armor and double your thrust without sacrifising much beefiness.

those are two opposing strategies.

One is, super fast speed light protection, many ships and ECM to confuse the enemy.

The opposite is super slow speed, super heavy protection, many troop compartments.

I guess you could combine the two, but you would not be using maximum design efficiency (though 28 armor from 128 is not so much so you might have a point as well), anyway im all for experiment with different approaches to ship design, hope we see some cool results soon.

When I saw the title of the thread, I wondered whether you were designing a ship based on the Normandy from Mass Effect 2. But I like the D-Day analogy even more.

My guess is, if the enemy has anything in the System, you're going to get creamed.

A Cruise of 5 is a sitting duck, Colony ships are quicker than that and they take forever to get to a planet once they reach a System.

You need better cruise speed

20 armour is enough...128??? Hehe

The troop carriers only invade when the main battle fleet has destroyed the systems defenses

They only need enough shields and armour to withstand a mistake and escape while under fire

Attach 4 destroyers to their fleet and they will be safe in freshly cleansed systems

I also think 128 armour will deplete your resources stock of that material very low, so you may have a resources shortage

I'm guessing he wants to invade without taking out the defense platforms. He has the design set to Invade Immediately.

Agree on the speed thing, my transports have a make speed of about 36.

"In real combat, speed is life. You go slow, you die."

Bonus to whoever can guess where I got that quote from. [;)]

I imagine your design with a pulsing area effect weapon charging in alone wouild cause considerable nuisance to enemy ships and orbitals as it chugs by. But it is lightly shielded for the approach.

My heavy assault design focused on being fast enough and shielded enough (at least 1000) to run in, unload under fire, and then take their chances on a break for safety. No more than 7 compartments though. The rest of the fleet draws fire from assault ships and then backs off. Once the planet falls, the orbitals surrender. That's just fun. And a ready made port to springboard the next planet-hoppng invasion force.