[geoschmo]

Well personally I don't think it's unrealistic at all that weapon platforms are easy to knock out compared to facilities and population. Compare it to modern warfare. A HARM missle with a six inch warhead can knock out a SAM site, but it would take tons of conventional bombs to destroy a factory, or to kill millions of people.

Sure, we can assume weapons platforms would be hardened, but hardening doesn't really protect you from accurate hits, just close misses.

It's not totally realistic that all the cargo gets destroyed before any population or facilities get damaged, but it's not that bad a system. You would expect the attackers to target the weapons first.

If your goal is to make glassing a planet more difficult and this make landing troops a more accepted option, making it harder to knock out the weapons platforms is a bad idea. You will end up with what I thought you were originally saying and have a planet that was an impenetrable fortress. Once a colony was established you would have now way of dislodging the enemy cause your troop transports would be toasted before they could get within range to drop troops.

Maybe that is more realistic, battles usually go to the defender, but it would affect game play IMHO. Games would stagnate. You would almost have to use Argh's "Blow up the sun" strategy to make any headway.

Geoschmo