Maybe I have not gotten that far, but it sounds like it protects your ground troops of space attacks.

But, I do also agree bunker sounds better for what it is.

It basically completely removes your troops as being present, those you've put in, for the duration you specified. At the end of the time, they come back. Though I haven't used them under fire, I have to believe it just treats them as not being present period.

Raukowath described Troop Pods perfectly. With upgrades, you can hide your soldiers longer periods of time (+30 min. with each upgrade). It's just a fuss because you can always send your troops somewhere on the map and then hit X (Cancel) to have them return. But there's a difference because with Troop Pods you will have your troops return instantly, while hitting Cancel on map mobilization will take the entire time going&returning for them to get back. At least in theory; I haven't tested Troop Pods yet. In case you didn't notice there's a Dark Vader born in our galaxy (Unicron) which is coming to consume us all and I am preparing for war.

i understand that you can get it back immediately but why the hell would you want to hide your troops if it means killing more of them to minimize the loot? ok, i get that making more troops would be a pain, then why would you want to cancel a raid anyway?

imagine this: you are under attack and you KNOW you dont have the firepower to defend. What do you do? hide the troops or send it out to raid a mine to replenish what would be looted? if you have your stargate up to level 8 then you can send out 3 wave to 3 different mines to replenish what would be lost. so why would you want to recall those?

the recall taking the maximum time is a bad idea anyway. I mean really, how would you be traveling for 5 seconds and realizes the destination is too far so you get called back and you have to traverse 6 hours to get back to starting point because you were mistaken? it makes no sense whatsoever. and if it's a "stargate" wouldn't the travel be instantaneous in the first place? I understand that it wouldn't be a good thing to have instant travel for raids in a game but the maximum recall time is no good for any reason.

so going back to topic, I would think people would rather protect than hide. I think it should either be converted to a bunker, or use it as something else entirely. Hospital maybe? So within limited amount of time, your KIA troops can still be revived. If not that, then maybe simple gun placements instead of bunker to increase offensive rate to defenders. I think there should be a poll for this to see what the community think about it.

But..I Like Darth Vader!
Yah Unicron!

Well, now I know the troops pods are useless.

Ehhhh I don't think he has a reason for attacking us, if he does we have our shifters up and we can minimalize damage from where he is now (Unless he relocates again)

Darth Vader... we need skywalker.... wait. maybe skyguy would do. pit AoE against unicron next.

yeah, troop pod is useless. why did I even built it to level 1.

Yep, we need to have AoE vs Unicron, then I come and watch LJ fight Uncron, then I come in and beat Uncron!

At the current time, troop pods do seem kinda useless.
If you want to get rid of troops quickly, you can send them on a raid (possibly a nearby one if you need them IMMEDIATELY after for some reason) and get resources out of it.
What's more, you can do that before you leave and actually have them gone for a decent amount of time, AND not have them be there.

Furthermore, you can send troops to other alliance members pretty instantaneously, if you ARE there.

...do any of the developers have a troop pod? If not, might there not be a reason for it?
Since you play the game, maybe you should look at some of the things you don't have. If its something that seems to suit your play style (a troop pod seems to match an offensive play style pretty well) maybe you should think about why you don't?
After all, what's the point of having a worthless building in the game?