[dmm]

I was fooling around with the demo and found a bug that might explain Shadowstar's problem capturing that homeworld.

Here it is: I "attacked" a sector containing a 2B pop homeworld planet (and no defenses) with only a transport, landed troops, and got the usual message. Then I "attacked" that sector again the same turn with a well-armed LC (to defend the transport from any ships the planet might make), but I forced the LC to NOT attack the planet. I ended the turn, and got NO ground combat for that sector. (I did have ground combat in another sector, though, which was expected.) So I looked at the planet in question, and it had my troops in its cargo! A few turns later, I dropped more troops from another transport, which I had quickly brought up using some cheatcodes. (Hey, if the computer's going to cheat....) After ending that turn, I got normal ground combat, and all of my troops participated (fighting for me). They killed a few militia, and the planet was mine (finally).

So, the bug is either
1) you can only have one ground combat per turn (unlikely); or,
2) if you attack a sector after dropping troops, the ground combat at the end of that turn gets called off. Your troops remain loyal to you but you have to drop troops again to re-initiate the ground combat.

edit: this was all turn-based and tactical combat.