Planetary Assault: What gets damaged first?

[ajohn505]

Hi all. Long time reader, first post in awhile.

I just picked up SE4 again after a long hiatus.

Here's the scenario: Lets say I have a planet with 10 Large Weapons Platforms. No fighters or satelites, just the platforms.

If Enemy ships attack this planet, will the Weapons Platforms take damage before the other facilities on the planet? Also: on the SphereWorld thread there was mention of planetary shielding. I know that there's gravitational shielding, but can you also build something to protect your planets from conventional damage?

[PvK]

Originally posted by ajohn505:
...
If Enemy ships attack this planet, will the Weapons Platforms take damage before the other facilities on the planet?

Yes, all WP's must be destroyed before any facilities will be hit. The WP's with the lowest total damage resistance (from components, shields, and armor) will be hit before WP's with higher total damage resistance.

Also: on the SphereWorld thread there was mention of planetary shielding. I know that there's gravitational shielding, but can you also build something to protect your planets from conventional damage?

Yes, if you're playing a mod that adds them (e.g. Proportions mod) or if you're playing the unmodded game, and you happen to find the ancient racial tech that includes them. However, the unmodded Version is so ineffective that it's almost useless.

PvK

[Fyron]

Units take damage before facilities and population. Weapon Platforms get destroyed before other units. Units are destroyed randomly, though in favor of fewest hit points being destroyed first (but not always). Facilities and population take damage at the same time.

[ajohn505]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I've forgotten how fun this game is. I'm still playing the original Version of SE:IV. How much better is Gold anyway?

For the first time in my SE:IV career, I'm learning to use the various "list screens" (building queue, planet list, etc) to effectively manage my empire... rather than clicking around the map and hoping I don't forget any planets.

[Fyron]

The ability to add stuff to multiple build queues greatly reduces some needless micromanagement.

Plus, there are a lot of mods available only for gold (because they are only possible under gold). Gold is well worth it.

[ajohn505]

Ah... adding to multiple build queues. That has to frickin' rock.

Actually, that simple fact alone makes me want to shell out for SE:IV Gold.

[PvK]

I think Gold is better in a large number of ways, which combine to make it a much better game overall.

PvK

[ajohn505]

Care to list some of the reasons? I haven't been able to find a review or feature list that compares the two.

I hate to hijack my own thread this way, but....

[PvK]

Well one of the best ways to see what's changed is to read the change history since 1.49 (the Last pre-Gold Version).

Some of the changes that make the most difference for me include:

* Player move sequence in combat is no longer determined unfairly by player number on the player list.

* Various modding improvements that make mods like Proportions possible, changing the size of population units, allowing mounts to do interesting things such as affecting specific component families and not just weapons, slowing the population reproduction rate to less than "insanely fast", and additional weapon damage types (1/4 damage to shields, etc.). And of course, the various mods and mod improvements this has inspired.

* Added entries in settings.txt that affect the way some game mechanics work.

* Improved sound effects.

* Having shields protect against engine-destroying weapons.

* Increased ship and unit limits from 5000 to 20000 per empire.

* Having planetary bombardment not shoot off the troops during Strategic combat, so troops can serve more of a purpose than before.

* Drones.

* Tons of bug fixes.

* AI improvements.

* Improvements to game mechanics such as fixing the silly ways that special armor types worked (or didn't work); improving the supply system (more effects, etc), huge formations of ships, improved retrofit limits, crew conVersion, etc.

PvK

[Fyron]

Gold has everything that classic has, plus the listed features for Gold, and everything in the history files. A list of the new features would be about as long as the history files are.