Unloading Cargo onto planet: Who to vary drop quantities

[Bowden Russell]

List,
In a game I am playing, I have just captured a planet that has a cargo capacity of 600Kt. Okay, on my transport ship I have 160 troops and Weapons platforms.

The problem is that I don't know how to tell the transport to put down 30 troops (mass: 300 kts) and one or two weapons platforms. If I ask it to put troops down it puts 60 down, no less, and therefore I can't add any weapons platforms!

How do I vary the amount of cargo to be unloaded?

Thanks,

Bowden

[Coal]

On the right side of the cargo screen is a list of options that says 'Drop one, drop five, drop ten, drop all.' or something to that effect. Just click on the option to drop, and then unload the amount of cargo you want untill youve droped what you wanted to drop.

Whats probably happening is the game is automatically picking drop all. You should also note that you can simpley click on the droped cargo to pick it up.

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Rules? What rules?

[This message has been edited by Maverick (edited 09 May 2001).]

[Krakenup]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bowden Russell:
The problem is that I don't know how to tell the transport to put down 30 troops (mass: 300 kts) and one or two weapons platforms. If I ask it to put troops down it puts 60 down, no less, and therefore I can't add any weapons platforms!

How do I vary the amount of cargo to be unloaded?

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You are probably using the wrong command. There are three (IIRC): An up arrow for loading all, a down arrow for dropping all, and one with both for transferring - that's the one you want. You can move as many as you want in any direction with the transfer between any ships, moons, and the planet in that sector.

[rdouglass]

Of course, the previous info is used when you're actually orbiting the planet. If your giving it long-term orders using the tool bar, I believe it is all-or-nothing. IOW, if you use the 'Drop Cargo' or 'Load Cargo' orders, its all-or-nothing. If you use the 'Transfer Cargo' order, you can transfer them 1,5,10, or All at a time. And of course, the 'Transfer Cargo' order is only available when orbiting a planet (or in the same sector as other ships with Cargo space).

EDIT: OOPS. Didn't mean to duplicate your post K-up, just didn't read it carefully enough...

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 10 May 2001).]

[dogscoff]

If you're really careful / clever / obsessive, you can use different sized ships to manipulate cargo using queued orders: For exampl, you wanted to drop off 300KT of a 600kt cargo:

Build a small ship (frigate of something) with exactly 300KT of cargo space. Move it to a sector near the planet you want to drop cargo on.

Now give your cargo- carrying transport the following orders:
Move to ship, drop cargo onto ship, move to planet, drop cargo onto planet, move back to ship, load cargo from ship.

The transport will (should) drop just 300KT onto the ship (because that's all it can hold). Then it will drop the remaining 300KT onto the planet, and finally retrieve the ship's cargo - Voila! 300KT on-planet and 300KT on your transport.

I've never tried this, BTW, but I think it should work. Obviously it's a long-winded and expensive way of doing things but it could be useful in simultanous mode. You could also experiment with cargo carrying satellites instead of a ship.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals, kids wouldn't buy them.
"

[Phoenix-D]

Why would you do that? It's not needed. If you want to transfer 300kt population (or anything) just select "transfer one" or 5/10 etc instead of transfer all!

Phoenix-D