[Parasite]

At times I use troops, both defensively and offensively. I have read in the SEIV FAQ some things.

7.2.14 Regarding ground combat troops in a transport: first in = first out, and first out = front line.
and
7.2.26 It's a well known strategy, but I'll mention it nevertheless: If you want to achieve maximum efficiency in ground combat, it's worth to design 3 types of troops: Defender, Offender and Leader. Defender's design include small shields (or armor) only. Offenders are armed with you favorite weapon (ground cannons or small shield depleters) and nothing else. Leader is equipped with shields plus small combat sensor and small ECM components. Produce them in 3:6:1 proportions (rough numbers). Now, then filling your troop transport, place Defenders first, then Offenders and Last Leaders. Being dropped to a planet, Defender will play a meat shield role, Offenders will stay behind Defenders unharmed and wipe out militia (or hostile troops) and Leaders will provide attack and defense bonus to the whole stack of troops. (Aiken)

I have adopted this wholeheartedly, and have even expanded it somewhat to production of troops on endangered planets, tending to produce mostly shielded first, then fighters, then a limited number of leaders. I have never really tested it out though. I have not gotten to the point of switching between a player and an AI in games yet.

In a few recent games I have found cause to doubt it is true. Specificly in an old game I had troops stored on a planet I was guarding. An enemy attacked and of the enemy troops, only the shielded troops survived. My opponent was an experienced player and believes he loaded the troops correctly as suggested above.

In an ongoing game, I have invaded several planets. I always load the transport and interspace the leaders in the middle of the troops, being sure to at least put one first and one last. It then would not matter if FIFO or FILO were used on exit. In at least two of these battles, the 3 small leader troops I had were destroyed, while only some of the gun toting ones were killed. The leaders were loaded first, middle, and last, yet were all killed. They were fairly weak leaders as I don't have shields yet to use with them. The opposition was also very strong having troops with increased ground combat skills and high population planets. To me, this tends to prove that the troops are not landed in FIFO (or FILO) mode and that something else is going on.

Could a patch have changed this? I have read of the Weapon Platform tests and the difficulty of proving things one way or the other. Could some type of random damage be happening to troops as well? Would this call into question ECM/ECCM effects on unit stacks?

This would change small troop leader designs to have cockpit, ECM, and two shields; and cockpit plus ECCM with shields for maximum protection and surviveability. Shielded troops would be less usefull, while standard troops would stay the same or have protection given to each trooper.