Troops/capturing intact planets
 

Ok, I seem to be having some difficulty capturing enemy planets without glassing them in the process.

First I tried sending a fleet armed only with DUC5's and PDC's to eliminate the defenses of the colony. Somehow it also wiped out everything. I thought only missiles did this?

Second, I sent troops transports with the combat ships. Still wiped out the planets.

Soooo... How exactly do you do about this? How can you take down the defenses without eliminating the transports...

On a side note it seems my main foe at the moment has finally decided minesweepers would be a good idea after losing over 50 ships to my mined warp points....

Suddenly, I feel a bit naked as mines are the only thing defending my planets and warp points. All of my ships are in agressive combat attacks...

UhOh...

Ken

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

problem with missiles: they fire at weapons platforms. them more missiles fire at the WPs. then the first volley hits, and destroys the WPs. the WPs are dead, so no more are fired. Now the second volley, fired before the first volley impacted, hits the planet and destroys the colony.

direct fire weapons will still shoot at weapons platforms, and in so doing will damage the colony. if its only a small colony, it may be destroyed in the process of eliminating the WPs.

heres the deal on planet capturing fleets: transports will charge in, against fire, if they are alone. if with ships, they will wait for the other ships to finish firing at WPs before charging in. other ships will be 'finished' when they (the ships) are all destroyed or dissabled, or when they (the WPs) are all destroyed.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">When you send a fleet with transports, assign all fleet AND ship strategies to "capture planets". Otherwise some rogue will break formation and kill civilians.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

I think it helps to set the planet damage in the capture planet stragety to 80% or so. Also I use the movement button after I have changed the fleet stragety. The attack button seems to destroy a planet. whereas the movement button captures it every time. Except when you don't have enough trrops.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

We need to pester MM for a new strategy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif An explicit 'Banzai' charge to drop troops even if other warships are present. Sure, most of the time you want to let the armed ships reduce the planet before attempting to invade, but surely we can have the choice to just charge in along with the warships and drop those troops? Call it 'Immediate Planet Capture' or something like that to distinguish it from normal 'Capture Planet'

[ September 05, 2002, 17:01: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is an excellent idea.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't think we need a different strategy, we just need it to stop overiding troop transport strategies with the default 'DON'T GET HURT' until either the rest of the fleet is destroyed or the platforms are gone. Just make it follow the 'Capture Planet' strategy so that if transports are set to NOT break formation, they will stay in formation and follow the Targeting priorities.

In the meantime, try building a fleet of warships with 5 - 8 cargo bays full of troops on each, and only direct fire weapons. Since all of the ships are troop transports, the whole fleet should close at once, using the direct fire weapons to soften up the target, then dropping thier troops.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

no, we need the strategy to work differently. drop/drop instead of drop/D.G.H. does not do anything different. aside from putting guns on the troop transports and having them join in the shooting, there is no way to make them charge up with the rest of the fleet.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

Some people will prefer the current way that it works, though. And frankly, there are many situations where you might choose to use one or the other. So it's better to have the choice of which you want to use. Two distinct strategies are best.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

Then against humans:
If humans put weapons on transports it would behove their oponents to create one class of Weapons Platform that targets transports befor it targets other ships. It may even be a good idea to do this at warp points.
Is this even possible?

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If WP stacks behave like SAT stacks... then it is not possible to have different stratagies. SAT stack uses the strategy of the first to fire. The first is the first laid, so for WP it would be the oldest one built on the planet.

Making vulnerable ships a targeting priority is a great way to mess up the enemies plan.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

Puke - O.K., I misunderstood the comment a bit. My point on the D.G.H. overiding the capture planet strategy was that a troop transport with weapons will still run off to hide until after either the fleets destroyed or the defenses are gone. I've seen the Krill, Orks, and Vikings all have their troop transports wait off in a corner, and then charge in, when they were all using armed transports.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

Things I have learned over the course of many many succesful invasions in PBW games.

Weapons on troop transports don't help in inavasions. If the ship strategy is capture planet it will act like a weaponless troop transport, i.e. wait in the corner till the fighting stops and then rush in. If the strategy is something other than capture planet, it will close in and shoot with the other ships, but it will never drop it's troops.

A fleet of only troop transports with weapons with orders to capture planet will rush the planet immedietly and drop troops, but they will not fire their wepons, except for PDC against missles and fighters.

You don't have to make the ship strategy of all your warships capture planet. They will stop firing once the planets defenses are gone if there is a ship with troops in the fleet with orders to capture planet. The planets dying is one of four things:
1. The Last shot after the Last weapons platform had enough spalsh over to kill all the pop (more common with missles, but can happen with powerfull enough direct fire weapons)
2. Your troop ship didn't have orders to capture planet.
3. Your troop ships didn't have troops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
4. Your fleet didn't have capture planet orders.

Interesting thing to note is a troop ship with ship orders to capture planet WILL NOT override fleet orders and drop troops. If the fleet orders are optimal or anything but "Capture Planet" the troop ship will run for the corner.

however

A troop ship with "don't get hurt" orders (As in a pop ship that you are trying to use as a troop ship and forgot to change the ship strategy for) WILL override the fleet orders of "capture planet" and run for the corner. In that case the fleet will not register they have a tropp ship and continue to pound the planet to dust.

Giving the fleet "move to" or "attack" orders are irrelevant. It does that same thing. At least in 1.78. It may have been different in an earlier Version. I used to always use "move to", but I don't know why. But I can tell you for sure in the latest Version "attack" works fine, and actually better because it allows you to "attack", "load","attack","load" and capture several enemy planets in teh same turn.

Geoschmo

[ September 05, 2002, 18:48: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I can confirm that Geo's description works just dandy in 1.49! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Kim

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

And with GrandpaKim being my 'Planet Capture' mentor in a PBW game perhaps I'll get it to work soon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Thanks Kim.

Re: Troops/capturing intact planets
 

geoschmo,
Thank you. Maybe my hair will grow back now and I will live up to my ideas of not glassing planets.
Thank you.
< note to self: Add 5 more dollars to play by web fund >
< Second note to self, Don't tell Palladan of Earth >