Dropship ability. transform to ground transport.

How can a mechanized mobile armor suit transform into an aerial fighter with a pilot still inside? Or better yet, how can space ships be built as large as a city and move so fast it defies space-time physics? Or best of all, how can a creature such as a protoss warrior dematerialize itself and recover its form almost instantly without losing any atoms? I got the answer! It is a video game, and whos to say an imagination cannot explain anything perceived physically impossible?

You adapt to the situation by avoiding air fire in ground mode and vice versa. The change is that ground form moves quicker but is limited in not able to overpass obstacles such as terrain, units, and doodads. Contrary to the air form which moves slower but can fly over anything. Armor can be added to the ground form, but I don't see why.

Why does the ground form need more armor? The vehicle can be heavy armored to begin with and the main adjustment to its ground form would be faster movement Since we need explainations for everything now a'days, you could say the vehicles heavy weight makes its engines not able to propel it as fast while airborne when compared to it being on land. If it can carry two good sized tanks then I think it should be pretty heafty.

 

actually, i like the idea that the dropship can transform into a ground barricade, if it moves as well, even more great!! serves a better purpose than just be a transporter. it would be useful if you dropped shipped marines then used dropships to land and barricade at the entrance so zerglings take longer to get to the marines. (assuming that the player/computer is stupid enough to have an army of zerglings...)

 

Obviously the pilots area is small so it isn't changed, nor does it get in the way. Also, who says it isn't possible for one to dematerialize them selfs and recover in correct form in a distant time? I won't even comment on the rest of that paragraph since it leads off topic.

Either way you are going to recieve heavy fire whether it be ground or air, you cannot evade one or the other. Also, what you want basically is the same thing. Whats the point if both modes are basically the same.

Air mode: It flys over anything, and because its allowed to fly anywhere, this is balanced by making it not that tough meaning you have to treat it with morecare.
Ground mode: Tougher armor, this is balanced by making it slow which stops it from being strong and evading fire. And being tougher allows it to work better in situations were an air Dropship would be vulnrable to heavy fire.

Your air mode: Flys over anything meaning it is not limited, which basically means a faster unit that has to tackle objects would generally move at the same speed then.
Your ground mode: A super fast transport which is more vulnrable than a air Dropship since there are more obsticals, but due to its super speed it can afford to risk destruction.

Now in real terms nothing that transports large objects/amounts is super fast and manouverable as it gets added weight from whatever is on-board meaning it is slow. Now what do we do when something is slow and an obvious target?
We give it high armor which suffices for it's slow speed.

You cannot cross out all lore cuz you think the idea is great. It has to be innovative and find that balance between lore and gameplay.

Now to achieve this balance and make both modes count for something else other than transport but on a different plane, you give it different attributes in each mode which doesn't equal the other mode out which is what you're trying to do.

Air mode stays the same with no changes. It is pretty reliable to go around things as it can fly beacause it cannot handle direction fire. And coming into contact with direct fire means you have a high chance of losing valuable units, so you have to treat it with care.
The ground mode allows transportation to be more robust and effectiant to different situations, e.g. Theres a load of Stalkers around and you need to drop in units to flank them, you cannot use a normal air dropship as it would get destroyed, you cannot drop them away from battle as it loses important seconds and still puts the units you need to change the course of the battle to your favour in danger. Meaning you need a stronger method to put them where you need them, this being a armored transportation vehicle. Now this has many parts it can play: drop the units and flank the enemy, decoy enemy fire to give your units more hits, take away units which would otherwise die and be wasted; this also gives it another aspect of being useful once the main objective is complete instead of taking the Dropship elsewhere.

Why give it faster speed on the ground and no armor if you could just use the units them selfs like we have been doing anyway. You need to add in things which offer potential for a multitude of tasks if the unit is going to be versatile.

 

well said zergalicious

i also thought of a mechanic that the dropship can combine with a siege tank to make it a heavy tank transport but it cant attack ofcourse. anyway the visuals would be very hard for blizzard to do. anyway i think combining units is too much of terran mechanics, and im also reserving it for my UED concept in which they specialized in mounting and combining certain types of units.

i really think it should be a permanent transformation since the dropship in ground mode will look really different from the air dropship. very differnt like it gets an addon. the mechanics would be when you change it into a ground transport the dropship lands on the ground and you need scv to change and assemble it to ground mode. the other is like the viking it would change automatically tho its hard to visualize because of the different looks of both modes. OR the dropship itslef (model) could just land and hover on the ground, but that would look and feel the same plus the armor increase etc would not make sense considering it just look like a dropship.

ok i will try to draw the ground mode or just search some pics later.

 

Why not give it faster speed? You say you might as well use the units themselves with a speedy ground transport as opposed to having a more armored but slower transport. Well um, the point of having a transport is to bring units to the battlefield or to a strategic location quicker then they can do alone. In this case you could bring units to the battle field quick while avoiding heavy air to air or ground to air fire, otherwise you might as well just move the units themselves to your desired destination. And of coarse, you could use the air form to surpass obstacles to arrive at a destination that would otherwise take longer to get to in ground form, or you could sneak around a base's primary defense to do some mean siege tank drops or what not. I said it could have more armor, but since you like realism so much how would you explain the lost in armor when switching from ground to air, and then it magically regaining more? Those Terrans are oh-so resourceful, are they not? =P

Zeratul, I am not sure I like the idea of it permanently transforming from air to ground or vice versa. I think it is more dynamic and useful when it can transform back and forth even with some unit cargo.

 

That would greatly slice off an aspect of its functionality IMO. But it may seem there needs to be a limitation in the transformation of some sort but I can't think of one... Uhh how about it takes like 8 seconds to transform?

 

ok not permanent, you can switch back and forth but the limit is you cannot transform it when there are people inside and maybe cost resources each time you transform it for balance.

i got an idea. il try to photoshop the dropship into a ground mode just like the banshee with dual turbo engines. now where can i find a good sc2 big enough dropship image? :-\

 

Why can't the units stay inside during transformation? Lets assume the cargo hold is a square:
While the rest of the dropship modifies into ground mode, that cargo hold box has to remain the same or else the same units can't fit back in. So if the cargo hold doesn't change, why should the troops step outside for a quick smoke while everything except the hold transforms?

If I'm missing a key piece of information, whether it be incorrect physics on my part, or I'm misinterperating the design, please let me know.

 

i think if the dropship can transform with units inside then it will be abusively mass use and be imba specially in pro games. scenario: terran player 1 tries to drop tanks or marines on another terran base but there are enough turrets guarding it, so player 1 will switch to ground mode and unload the units straight to the enemy workers or destroy the turrets, then when enemy brings back up, player 1 loads up units to the ground transport then switch it back to airmode and escape easily. sorry for the very bad sentence construction. and other units like the viking might be redundant since they basically have the same tactical purposes.

if this ability is really going to implemented then i doubt the model of the dropship will stay the same. the dropship looks like a typical plane with a cargo holder below its body. its hard to imagine how it could transform into a ground vehicle (with wheels or hovering). i think a revamped more bulkier version of the dropship is needed to make way for the transformation ability mechanics and visuals.

 

That could be solved by giving the dropship a delay before it can transform, during which they can't move or unload units. If you think about it just making the animation last 3-5 seconds would be enough time to balance it. During that time the dropship would be destroyable. Also instead of having the dropship transform, how about having it release its cargo bays and fly off somewhere? Then the cargo bays would transform into sort of an APC with wheels and visible armor. And if you want it in air mode the Dropship would fly back in and pick up the cargo bay.

 

nice great idea there. the dropship will fly off after it releases the cargo box which turn into a ground apc. nice. but i think the visuals of the dropship flying elsewhere (where extacly? fog of war?) and cant be attack would look and feel different (in a bad way). then it pops out of nowehere to pick up the apc to become an air transport again?

but i like the idea of the dropship releasing the cargo.

 

He already answered that, because of realism, and I totally agree with that. If you can imagine a small bus moving and turning at the speed of a light bike then you have no idea about how physics work. OK, it is a sci-fi RTS but Blizzard does keep realism a major factor.

Oh so you think that planes are as tough as tanks? Here's a little secret: no matter how modern technology you use no matter how far into the future, planes will always be weaker than tanks at comparable sizes. It's called structure. Example: you have 2 very similar looking cars but one can't be crushed, what's the difference? Rollcage. And most of the times you can't see it because it reinforces its structure from the inside. Translated to the transformation of the Dropship, it would mean that some parts of the Dropship that serve to hold it in the air would fold inside of it to reinforce its structure. That is exactly why no units would be allowed inside during the transformation, but even that could be solved if it's designed right.

 

Make it lift off straight up out of the battlefield to go into orbit and have it come back down when you want to transform back. That wouldn't look so awkward and it'll be better than having it pop out of nowhere.

 

so it will go up and comes back down. ok fine. ^^

reminds me of warhammer 40k. xp

 

I was thinking of an idea like this previously with the dropship. The idea with the dropship having the ability to transform is a pretty neat idea, considering the fact that it has nothing special to it, but i'm not sure if blizzard will do that because vikings also transform, and blizzard normally likes variety. In the current SC2, you see that when the dropship unloads it drops down to the ground. I was thinking if during that time period it could be vulnerable to ground attacks.

 

Why would I want a ground transport? Makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Nice spammy post. Explain why it makes no sense and explain why you don't want it.

 

maybe to counter ata gta atacks on your dropship. i dont know. xp