Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010 Status: offline
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To continue on the above. I have played a lot with AI designs, and they sometimes include troop capacity on destroyers and larger ships. In my opinion, troops does not belong on fighting ships, and unloading them is annoying. One reason I do not want them on fighting ships, is the fact that unloading them is annoying. So I make sure that my military ships are never left on auto, and I make sure they start without automation. So that some confused, newly constructed ship won't start running around to pick up troops. Then I have fleets of troop transport, with a non-transport leader (that can not carry troops). I use the "garrison" feature to "protect" colony garrisons, and then tell troop fleets to "load troops" to scoop up what is available, or run some automated troop transports that will scurry around to find the odd available troop here and there. The AI is good at picking up troops with automated ships, which I use on troop transports, and makes me make sure no other troop carrying ship type is ever left on automated. As Aeson writes, there is a very low number of scenarios where I unload troops. Pirate base busting, and immediate or current colony invasions are about the only situations. If I find myself with a fleet of cruisers accidentally having loaded troops, I hope that I am at war, in which case I can unload by dumping them on some foreign colony, I forget about it, or do the annoying task of unloading the troops one ship at a time.
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