Yet another planet capture problem

[couslee]

(took a nap)
when I went back to the game, I decided to run the test a few more time, only using strategic combat instead of tactical. it took having to do the extra steps of pulling the battle fleet off the world, and moving it back in after the first wave, but anyway.
First test, first combat, same results, only I lost two more troops than in tactical Second combat all the same except no corgo survived.
Second test same as tactical results, except after the second combat 7 mines survived. So, using the thought that strategic combat works the same in either turn-based or simultaneous games, then one should be able to capture mines in a simul game, provided there are enough of them to survive the ground combat part, and any planetary bombardment that may take place prior to troop drop.

Now, I am going to resume PLAYING this one.

Hope this endeavor helps the main bug chasers determine the correct and solid answer.

[Slick]

Ok, I have been able to take over planets in simultaneous and turn based games under test conditions and have cargo survive. This includes satellites and mines. It just seemed strange for a while there that the cargo was always being destroyed. I am still wondering about the no-bombardment cases that I have seen where the cargo was gone.

Slick.

[couslee]

In my "test", I was using minimal troops, mainly because the system I am attacking in the game has all low pop worlds. I don't know if the mines that did survive were because of that small amount. Given the same planet and a 100 troop drop, might have destroyed all the cargo. I don't know, maybe would have captured more (as it would have taken less combat turns). I guess cargo is what is exploding on the mini-world during planet combat and not alien heads. lol

[PvK]

Sounds like probably a change in 1.84 has ground combat randomly damaging non-troop cargo, the report below is correct about some mines being destroyed during a ground combat round.

What would probably be good to test, then, is what if you build weapons platforms with lots of shields or armor, but no weapons. Planetary bombardment will stop short of killing them (I've captured such WP's before in 1.78), but the troops - will they now have most/all of their shots hit these tough WP's instead of the enemy troops?

PvK

[couslee]

same game, came across another "only mine cargo" planet. ran two quick single tests.
first one I dropped 93 troop (way more than enough) and all 20 mines in storage were destroyed. Total troops exceeded planet storage capacity. Second run, I used only a few troops, and kept 16 of the 20 mines. Combat was still only one round, cargo was still exceeded, but only with the combo of the two. (tiny world, domed, 10 troops dropped).

[Slick]

Ok, I can confirm via testing what others have mentioned below. Thanks for all the testing. Looks like it's a wrap and the bottom line is: Cargo is randomly destroyed during ground combat.

It is no longer always advantageous to use overwhelming numbers of troops. The only problem is that it is cumbersome to tweak the number of troops being dropped and, in simultaneous games it's impossible to tweak more than 1 drop per fleet per turn. GRRR!

Slick.

[couslee]

Originally posted by Slick:
It is no longer always advantageous to use overwhelming numbers of troops. The only problem is that it is cumbersome to tweak the number of troops being dropped and, in simultaneous games it's impossible to tweak more than 1 drop per fleet per turn. GRRR!

Slick.

if there are no WP to deal with, couldn't you pace two seperate planet capture ships to hit one after the other to get that effect? of course, that still would be a hassle. but possible, yes?