Transports raise alarm immediately?

[dimmy]

With no alarm currently being raised, I've noticed that sometimes transports will send its alarm immediately upon coming into visual range with your interceptor (No green bar timer). Why is this and how do I prevent it from happening?

I'm using custom designed interceptors going at 820~900+ km/h (Much faster than the stock Lightnings), yet I only get the green bar timer about half the time. I have tried radars on and off, doesn't seem to help. Is there some other factors at play here?

Appreciate any info you could provide, and thanks in advance.

[GOATorSHEEP]

It's I think intended, and from a perspective: A flying ship can identify an attacking ship easier and faster than a city on the ground, but yeah its debatable.

It would be way too easy if they wouldnt raise alarm imho.

[Kem]

But there should be an gameplay advantage to a flimsy 700 km\h lightnig to a 300 km\h Intrepid.
If both sound an alarm, so one might take extra 1-2 hours to get to a transport ship, but deal with escorts much safer.

[Wahchewie]

Some of the 'intended' features such as this are utterly retarded. Games hard microprose, i get it. But thats just sadistic. Custom options could not come fast enough

[Bowmangr]

Is there a possibility some of them have IRST or something thus lowering your chances of making a sudden strike?

[Pancakus ante Omnia]

Originally posted by Bowmangr:

Is there a possibility some of them have IRST or something thus lowering your chances of making a sudden strike?

No, they dont have IRST, they detect you visually, so try attacking at night (same with garrisons btw)

[Shoelace]

Originally posted by Pancakus ante Omnia:

Originally posted by Bowmangr:

they detect you visually, so try attacking at night (same with garrisons btw)

Good tip, didn't think of that.

[GOATorSHEEP]

Originally posted by Shoelace:

Originally posted by Pancakus ante Omnia:

Good tip, didn't think of that.

I never thought of that, will try out.

[Drunk-Side Jedi]

Oh, so you'd like to know about transports.

Ahem.

So Airborne Transports. You only have 6-10 minutes before they sound the alarm, which makes even lightnings unreliable for intercepting before they alarm. You need close to ideal conditions (at night, coming at them, roll high on alarm timer). So you pretty much have to mod lightnings with more engines to have a shot - like 850km/hr.

And even then there's a select few that will alarm immediately when they have visual regardless. You can tell because if you have them as an active contact (pause after using intel, on tracking radar, or on visual) there will normally be a little yellow alarm above them showing how long before they alarm. If there is no alarm bar, they will instantly alarm.

So in general, a pain in the ass to intercept airborne transports. The solution? You need to hit them when they are landed. Then they will have the much longer alarm timer, pretty close to a garrison alarm. Radio intercepts will generally give you a good idea when the transports are going to arrive at a town. Or use your sensors and math to figure it out instead. Maybe trail them for a bit on IR. When they disappear from IR or Radar, it means they've landed. So be there when they do, and hit them then.

Bonus tip: often when you're repairing or refueling a random transport will show up, and alarm you then. Random IR contacts out of the blue are normally transports (unless they're cruise missiles then you'll know soon enough anyways). So if you get one while you're landed, take off, get everyone scooted out of visual range (100km at noon, 75km at midnight). And then wait for the contact to disappear off your IR scope. That means they've landed. Swoop back in, ambush them on the ground, and collect your prize money.

[dimmy]

Wow that's helpful Drunkside Jedi...btw I'm on the Drunk Side too, even own a bar..har..

[Roumba]

I assume landing in their path and ambushing the transport as it flies over you is not a successful strategy?

[dimmy]

Originally posted by Roumba:

I assume landing in their path and ambushing the transport as it flies over you is not a successful strategy?

Nope, like druken jedi said, targets without a green bar on it will raise alarm immediately when you enter visual range.

[Drunk-Side Jedi]

Originally posted by Roumba:

I assume landing in their path and ambushing the transport as it flies over you is not a successful strategy?

No, because landing only hides you from IR and Radar, it doesn't hide you from visual. Transports only have visual so that's what we're concerned with. There's always going to be a certain element of risk hunting transports in the air, unless you can confirm beforehand the status of thier alarm bar with tracking radar or Intel.

I'd say in the great majority of cases you want to follow them to their destination and then ambush them when they land. However sometimes thier destination is in dangerous territory, there's SGs lurking nearby, and that's when you might want to intercept them in the air, imo.

Landing near thier destination and waiting for them to land (outside of visual range) certainly works however. You should bring some sort of sensor with you, though, so you know when they've landed.

[Prybar Bas aka WildCat]

Originally posted by Drunk-Side Jedi:

I'd say in the great majority of cases you want to follow them to their destination and then ambush them when they land. However sometimes their destination is in dangerous territory, there's SGs lurking nearby, and that's when you might want to intercept them in the air, imo.

I had to learn the hard way that once your within ballistic missile range and the transport does sounds alarm, your likely to expect 2 or 4 of them to be send of in your direction. Sticking around to scavenge resources almost guarantees you will get hit by them.

In your experience, when you do ambush a transport that is heading towards or is threading dangerous close to last known locations of SG's or carriers. What preparations do you take to minimize retaliation, if any?

[Bowmangr]

My way to avoid possible retaliation and all the bad things mentioned above like immediately raising alarm, possible missiles coming your way etc is actually pretty simple.

I use my Interceptors (I don't modify ships at all, as it can be exploited and I don't like this at all) to well... intercept a transport in X spot while my main group is NOWHERE NEAR X spot.

Not only raising alarm is not a problem anymore, but even if they do launch missiles, the worst case scenario is losing 1 cheap interceptor in case you can't leave in time and best case scenario is to draw all of the enemy's attention to a completely irrelevant spot on the map while you move away AND keep your interceptors which simply return back to the main group.

[jerryfanfan]

If you box in the transport fleet with several detachments then attack from multiple directions, they wouldn't be able to maintain distance long enough to raise the alarm.