Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

Greetings,

After I read the exact recipe to drop troops on strategic, and all the posts about it, I can't make it work. It works on tactical, but strategic, I have still a problem. I am sorry, but I think there is something I don't catch. Here is what I do:

1 - Create a fleet with 5 transports full of mean troopers. I know it is enough to capture the planet. I did it just before (I save/load games) and I had more than 70% troops left alive).
2 - Add enough warships to the fleet to kill the satellites, fighters, weapon platforms and ships around and on the planet.
3 - Set the fleet strategy to capture planet and I use the wall formation (I tried with spider, arrow and a few others).

My fleet kills everything that defends the planet, but my troops don't land.

It says in a few places you must set the ship strategy to capture planet for the transports. Where do I do that exactly (Precise click please)? I never found it. It may be why it is not working.

Thank you

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

Go to ship design screen. Click on the ship. Click on strategies button (its there, don't remember its exact name). Then click on the appropriate strategy.

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

Open the ship design window. Click on your troop transport design. Now, look near the bottom-right of the window. You should see a button labelled Stats/Strategy. Click on that and you should be able to change the ships individual strategy.

That should fix it.

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

You do need to set the ship strategy (for the troop transports) to Capture Planet. To do so, go into the Designs screen, and hit the toggle Stats/Strategy. Then select your Transport design, and you will see its stats and the default strategy. Change that strategy to Capture Planet, and you are set.

Theoretically, it is supposed to work if your fleets stay in formation, and if the fleet strategy is "Capture Planet", but I do not think it works. That, and fleets should be set to "Break Formation" whenever possible.

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

Gee, why don't we all answer at once?

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

A common problem that is subtle is that it is better to use beam weapon ships over missile ships. You didn't mention what your ships were armed with so I'd mention this. The reason is that the tactic is to have your fleet stop shooting once the planet is defenseless, but before it is glassed. With missile ships, oftentimes the ship is bombarded into oblivion too easily. Also, even if the missile ships stop firing once the planet is defenseless, they may have another salvo "in the air" which will proceed to the planet and possibly destroy it.

Hope this helps.

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

Greetings,

Thank you very much with all the answers!!!

Question: If I go to ship design and change the strategy there, will it be applied to all my transports or just the ones I build after the change?

Also, I am using the Star Trek mod (Normal mod, I had the same problem) and my ships are equiped with PD canons and photon torpedoes.

Now I need to find where I indicates how to break formation...:) Any hint?

Thank you very much again!

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

ALL ships are effected by a change in strategy, whenever its made.

And break formation is in the strategies screen, IIRC thats under empires.

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

You have to select all the types of ships that break formation. Select them all; it's usually the best way to do strategic combat.

Re: Drop troops on planet in Strategic
 

Watch the battle replay to give you a better idea what is happening. If the transport ships never make the run to the planet, you know more where the fault is. If they make a run to an unguarded planet, capture it, then have the still undestroyed enemies glass your new planet, you could have a different problem. I have also had a few times where a wall formation has prevented the transports from getting through to the planet. If the troop transports have guns, they can head toward the planet firing, glassing it before they get there.

The cargo carrying ships must be made as type "Troop Transport". At least I have not had problems if this is the case. this can not be changed on the fly like strategy can, but must have a ship designed that way (and then maybe have an existing ship retrofitted to that design.