Stupid troop transports that don't drop troops...

[trooper]

- They break formation because they don't join the combat with other ships.
- They have "capture planet" individual strategy

Is it possible they don't attack because I'haven't declared war "officialy" to the ennemy empire ?

[Alneyan]

The best I seem able to do is to force them to capture the planet, even if they have weapons (at least, I think it worked this way). Otherwise, the troop transport will just fire at the planet until it either runs out of ammo, or the planet has been fully glassed.

It will not be of much help to you, but... Capturing planets work fine when there is no treaty, and so the problem is likely of having both weapons (a Warship role) and troops on board the ship. You should be able to force the ship to act as a warship, or as a troop transport, but both during the same battle doesn't seem possible (unless I am missing something here).

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Alneyan:
The best I seem able to do is to force them to capture the planet, even if they have weapons (at least, I think it worked this way). Otherwise, the troop transport will just fire at the planet until it either runs out of ammo, or the planet has been fully glassed.

It will not be of much help to you, but... Capturing planets work fine when there is no treaty, and so the problem is likely of having both weapons (a Warship role) and troops on board the ship. You should be able to force the ship to act as a warship, or as a troop transport, but both during the same battle doesn't seem possible (unless I am missing something here).

I never mix mine BUT, if a person wanted to, why wouldn't a strategy with a primary movement of "Drop Troops" and a secondary movement of "Optimal Range" work on a troop ship with weapons? Seems like the game would move to try to drop troops (and if it couldn't due to not being close enough or platforms on the surface, it would revert to its secondary movement orders...Optimal range).

[Slynky]

Originally posted by trooper:
- They break formation because they don't join the combat with other ships.
- They have "capture planet" individual strategy

Is it possible they don't attack because I'haven't declared war "officialy" to the ennemy empire ?

You don't have to officially declare war. If your other ships are attacking...then that means you have no treaty. As to why the troop ships aren't doing their job...I can't guess anything other than what I have already said.

[Alneyan]

The strategy you describe is the one for "Capture Planets" by default, which doesn't seem to work according to Trooper (and I couldn't get it to work either ; but you know you shouldn't ask me to get a working strategy).

I have been tinkering with other strategies (Optimal Range/Drop Troops and Drop Troops/Drop Troops), and failed to have a ship able to fulfill both tasks without changing the strategy.

[Roanon]

Does it work with drop troops / point blank maybe? I guess the optimum range strategy is chosen for this ship if it is not directly adjacent to the planet, and makes sure the ship stays out of range, forcing it to choose optimum again next move - ad infinitum. If dropping troops doesn't even work with drop/drop strategy, then there is something stupid hardcoded (I never tried to mix troop transports with weapons other than PDs, and this worked), and only Aaron could answer it - and, hopefully, do it better in SEV.

If there are weapon platforms on a planet, troop transports will not drop as long as there are warships present, letting these attack the WPs first (and maybe glass the planet). This utterly stupid behaviour is hard-coded, it is just not possible to land troops screened by warships and capture the planet unglassed despite a few functioning WPs. Only if the transport is not stacked with warships, it will try to drop the troops running the gauntlet against the WPs.

[JLS]

It seems like you have every thing set up fine with Fleet and Ship Strategies, unless you altered the se4 defaults Strats (or accedenly enabled do not target planet- other wise {GLASS OR CAPTURE it would} - but you did not indicate this).

Trooper , do you have an agreement with this Race, or is there still Weapons Platforms Unit or a Planet Shield Generator Facility, Massive Planetary Shield Generator or a Facsimile of such if you are playing a MOD. on that target Planet?

Actually, you have attack weapons on the Assault Ship.
SJ-May be correct about the role of a warship
However, it should in that role clear the Planet of at least all units - did it?

Also important to know - are all Ships in that Fleet with the Same design - Weapons and Cargo w/Troops?
If not, do the other ships in that Combat have weapons or are they weaponless?

[ July 09, 2004, 02:32: Message edited by: JLS ]