WPs Damaged Last in V1.08??
 

Playing a game of V1.08 I am attacking an enemy Homeworld that has many facilities and one Weapon Platform. As I continually pound this planet with missiles the population declines and all the facilities take damage, most are at least 50% damaged, but the lone WP takes no damage at all. This is pretty much the opposite of how it worked in SEIV where all units were destroyed before any facilities. Is this intentional? This changes later game strategy where I used large WPs with lots of shields to protect my planets. It is also impossible to bring in troops without the transport getting badly shot up.

I think a nice change would be to allow specific targeting of facilities, fighters, troops, WPs, etc. during planetary attacks.

Re: WPs Damaged Last in V1.08??
 

I just checked Components.txt and the valid target types for Missiles are:

Weapon Target Type List := Ship, Base, Planet

Does this preclude Weapon Platforms from being hit?

Re: WPs Damaged Last in V1.08??
 

I had a situation like this in the demo. Fortunately I had just saved the game. I reloaded, and it destroyed stuff in a different order (again killing all the pop). So I reloaded again, and this time it targeted the WP first. I conclude that the program picks a target on the planet randomly and fires all weapons at it until it is gone. The only way I could successfully invade (without risking killing all the pop) was to use tactical, turn off all auto-targetting, and just run my troop transport in under weapons fire from the planet. (Note also that space combat stops immediately once the planet is invaded, so the troop transport only has to get in, not out.)