How to NOT glass a planet
 

I have a fleet made up of all beam ships and carriers with fighters. In strategic mode about 50% of the time my fleet glasses the planet and I don't get a chance to drop my troops and capture the planet. I even have the fighters set to not attack the planet.

Why in strategic mode do my beam ships keep firing even when all the weapons are gone on the planet?

Will a beam ship keep firing all its weapons even if the first weapon kills off the Last of the enemy weapons? These beam ships do have multipex tracking equiped.

Also, what do the damage percentages in the Damage part of the Strategies window do? I also tried setting the "Damage targets until all weapons gones" box, but it did not seem to make a difference.

In tactical combat I can attack with the beam ships and stop attacking when all the enemy weapons in the sector are gone. Then I can bring in my transport and capture the planet. But, I would like to be able to automate the procees, and use strategic combat.

Any help would be appreicated, and I know there are other treads on similar topics, but they don't answer my problem.

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

Is the troop transport set to "capture planet" strategy? If so, try setting the fleet to that strategy too.

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

Yes, both the fleet and the transport have the Capture Planet stratrgy set. The problem is not the capturing, the problem is the glassing of the planet right as the Last weapons platform is destroyed.

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If that is the case. Leave that Last weapon platform.(What kind of weapons does it have and what level?) Build a transport that has lots of shields or armor, actually, build 3 or 4 of them; then load them up with troops and push your way through. Take out as many platforms as you can without glassing the planet and hopefully at least 1 or 2 of your transports will survive the punishment of the remaining platforms to drop their troops.

Hope that helps.

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

That would work on tactical, which I have no problem with, but in strategic, the troop transports would not head for the planet until all the weapon platforms are gone.

Right?

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

If the glassing occurs as the Last platform is destroyed, there must not be much population on the planet. The only thing I can think of is using lots of lower damage weapons (so there's less overflow damage when the Last WP is destroyed).

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

I had this happening. All happened in same turn in PBW:

Battle 1: I destroyed all WP:s form the planet and landed troops. My troops lost.

Battle 2: My forces glass the planet. ARRRGGGHHH!!

Strategy was set on Break formation (ie. everything breaks formation). What should I do that in case my troops lose, I would not glass the planet?

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

You can only avoid that by telling ships to not fire on planets in the first place, which doesn't help much. Use more troop transports, and use shield troops (one weopon, the rest shields). They can soak up lots of damage and survive 10 rounds, allowing more troops to be dropped.

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

hey this is my pet problem! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

some suggestions:

if the planet has few populations, then there is a good chance that there is not much defenses. You can have a special troop transport (smartly labelled Assault Transport) with 2-3 point defenses and a lot of shieds. Normally 2 or 3 of these will be enough to land on the planets, even if there is defense firing on them (well you can loose all but one, but that enough). The interest of PD weapons is that they should kill seekers and fighters without harming the planet (in case there is not too much enemy).
For this strategy to works, you should not have attack ships in the fleet, only transports attacking the planet. You must then be sure to have no enemy ships moving in the planet sector during the turn (or phase if you are precise to synchronize).

If the planet has many population, your ships should be able to fire there Last volley without killing all the pop, so you dont have to use the 1st strategy.

Lastly, if you play solo, then you can increase by a tenfold the resistant of population against bombing (in settings.txt iirc). This will help you in not glassing the planet with the Last volley of your ships.

Generally speaking, if you have a ship with troops on capture planet, then you should now be able to take one, with the only problem remaining being the Last volley killing all the pop.

Re: How to NOT glass a planet
 

Another modding option is to change every weapon system in the component.txt harming planets at all. (except diverse planetary bombs) But I dont know if the AI is handling this well.
tschüß
KlausD