Improved Air Transport interface

[Brian-Catcow-B]

Description

With a ground, transportable unit selected, right clicking an air transport will queue the transport to pick up the ground unit. What would be very nice is if I could queue the unload command to the transport with the ground unit selected. One way this could happen is that the transport would take the ground unit to the position of the move command if the next command is indeed a move command. This would make it so the transport doesn't even need to be selected for simple things like bringing a T2 con bot over to build an adv mex.

Another option would be to have a command called "Transport", "Airlift", or something of that nature on transportable units, so that they effectively request a nearby transport to take them to the command's chosen location. This implementation would be very good for things like quickly taking units from a factory near the back, and would have the added bonus of units being able to walk there themselves if all transports are busy or none exist (because they got destroyed or something). It could also be implemented that if the unit is on "Maneuver" or "Roam" it would try to get to the end location itself, but if it's on "Hold Pos" then it would wait for the transport.

Why?

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance has some very good transport commands (like "Ferry"). I understand this game is different and isn't created to be the same as that game, but having quicker and more dynamic ways of controlling units, while keeping things relatively simple, so that complex guides aren't required, can be really good and lead to cool new strategies like backline players very quickly bringing entire armies to the front with as many transports as the Scavs try to take their resources generators back with.

What area of the game does this feature request pertain?

Gameplay, Settings, Controls or Hotkeys

Other (optional)

No response

[Brian-Catcow-B]

Also consider making the "Airlift" command allow for a click+drag area so that if blocked, the transport can try other places nearby to drop the unit off

[sprunk]

would be very nice is if I could queue the unload command to the transport with the ground unit selected

steal from zk https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/blob/master/LuaRules/Gadgets/unit_transport_ai_buttons.lua#L69

Ferry

steal from zk https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/blob/master/LuaUI/Widgets/cmd_ferry_points.lua

[WatchTheFort]

Ground unit lift+move command, and ferry command for transports, are approved by the Game Design Team. At this point, we do not want to add a separate Airlift command for ground units, as we want to reduce command palette clutter, and this command would only be applicable when the player has built air transports.

Note that there is a complete transport mechanics rework planned, so both of these will likely be done as a part of that.