[Idea] Player Transport Shuttles

[jimmy_1283]

Brought on after reading fff-282 and pondering the possibilities of 'island' map generation.

The basic idea is to have a launchpad (VTOL?) that the player can research and build. In my mind it works similarly to trains in that you need an origin and a destination station, requires fuel, and the shuttle flies automatically when player/s (Maybe seats for 2-4 players?) have entered and a destination is chosen. Ideally the shuttle would be immune to biters but susceptable, weak even, against spitters and worms.

It would need to be fast enough to be worth the effort, but not so fast as to trivialise the danger of flying over spitters and worms. Possibly also have research for speed and resilience (armor).

As a secondary addition which would be nice to have on those island maps, perhaps these launchpads could also deploy a long range, specialised drone/bot to build secondary launchpads in locations the player can't reach, using resources of course, similar to how the Rocket Silo builds rockets possibly; actually why not have the shuttle itself built this way as well. May or may not be worth it as radar range is going to be an issue if other islands are too far away.

Well that's the crux of it. thought's? ideas? additions? changes? feedback?

[BlueTemplar]

Or, to make it even more different from the existing trains/planes :

Drop Pod :
As often suggested :
A way to enter the rocket with specific character(s),
to select a destination (probably only an already explored one ?),
and to land those characters there,
with the other rocket's contents included in a Drop Pod-styled chest.

[jimmy_1283]

Or, to make it even more different from the existing trains/planes :

Drop Pod :
As often suggested :
A way to enter the rocket with specific character(s),
to select a destination (probably only an already explored one ?),
and to land those characters there,
with the other rocket's contents included in a Drop Pod-styled chest.

While that would be pretty cool, that's not really what I was going for, and seems a little expensive just for a quick, presumably one-way trip.
And while I understand that plane mods exist, they don't really do what I had mind, which is semi-automatic transport that can move over water, but is also vulnerable to ranged attacks.

As an addendum to the original idea though, perhaps something like a control unit to call for pick-up when away from base.

[BlueTemplar]

AFAIK planes are still vulnerable to ranged attacks ?
(With various effects on "crash".)

And I know that they have been automated by some people (using AAI), for cargo transport only maybe ?

[jimmy_1283]

AFAIK planes are still vulnerable to ranged attacks ?
(With various effects on "crash".)

And I know that they have been automated by some people (using AAI), for cargo transport only maybe ?

Maybe, I might have to check it out I suppose, but assuming for the sake of the topic that it doesn't quite work the way I'm after...