User Guide

COLONIZING PLANET
CHAPTER 4
91
An advanced special ability—the Cloaking Device—makes a unit effectively
invisible to the enemy, thereby allowing it to ignore zones of control.
DROP PODS
Drop Pods are a special ability component that allows units to make airdrops
or orbital insertions. Discovery of Mind/Machine Interface allows construction
of Drop Pods. Any unit with Drop Pods may make airdrops. Once you discov-
er Graviton Theory or build the Space Elevator Secret Project, any unit with
Drop Pods may make an orbital insertion.
To perform an airdrop or orbital insertion, the Drop Pod unit must begin in a
friendly base or airbase, and may not have moved already this turn. At the drop
command, I, a parachute icon appears and you can L the destination square.
The destination square may be up to 8 squares away and can not contain
enemy units or bases. The Drop Pod unit moves instantly from the start square
to the destination square. Units take damage from airdrops—20% damage, or
26% if the unit has a singularity reactor.
If a unit tries to drop and then attack on the same turn, it receives a 50%
penalty to attack strength.
Orbital insertions are executed identically, but the drop can be made anywhere
on Planet.
An interceptor unit (see Air Combat, p. 101) stationed in a base within two
squares of the drop point prevents an air drop to that location.