Massive Planetary Shield Bug

[Admiral Grover]

I think I have found a bug in the massive planetary shield. I was playing a TDM Game when I entered combat vs. the Aqualiens. I noticed that their planet happened to have a Planetary Shield located on it. I moved my ships closer, and attempted to drop troops on to the planet while the shield was intact and it worked. The troops landed right through the shield! I can't think of any reason as to why this should happen so I can only conclude that it must be a bug.

Regards,
Admiral Grover

[Puke]

its a feature. otherwise you could never capture a planet in a porportions game.

[geoschmo]

Yep Admiral Grover. There is nothing in the desciption of the the planetary shield that says it stops troops from being dropped on the planet.

Geoschmo

[Admiral Grover]

I understand that it isn't in the description, but my point is that shields should stop ships from dropping troops, just as shields on ships stop boarding parties from coming aboard. As a solution to this, a troop ship could just have shield depletors on board to take down the shield.

I guess I have just been reading too much Star Wars, where a planet cannot be landed on if the planets shields are functional.

Regards,
Admiral Grover

[ September 23, 2002, 22:51: Message edited by: Admiral Grover ]

[Rollo]

Hmm, actually I thought Star Wars would be a good example that if you cannot get through the shields with weapons, you'll have to use troops to take out the generator.

I agree with Puke and Geoschmo that this is not a bug.

Rollo

[ September 24, 2002, 00:30: Message edited by: Rollo ]

[geoschmo]

That's funny. I almost put in my post "Haven't you seen Star Wars?" I actually had it typed and deleted it because I thought it might sound mean and I was just trying to be funny.

Geoschmo

[Baron Munchausen]

This is an intentional feature of planetary shields. It was the same in SE III, btw. This is one of the ways that MM tries to encourage use of troops. Now, if only he'd change the way troops are handled during bombardment so you couldn't destroy them from orbit when there are no shields or the shields are down. If they could be stored in a 'special' way and only damaged gradually like facilities are damaged during population reduction you'd be pretty much forced into heavy troop-to-troop combat if you wanted to capture a planet in relatively good condition.

[Admiral Grover]

I do agree with what you are saying, I guess I just envisioned the Massive Planetary Shield enveloping the entire planet. If this were the case, then troops could not land on the planet, they would just crash into the shield. I guess then that it isn't a bug. Oh well. And here I thought I was on to something.

Regards,
Admiral Grover

[rdouglass]

I totally agree with your logic Admiral. If a shield can stop a DUC (just high speed uranium pellets) or missiles, why wouldn't it stop a ship?

However, I am glad the game works as it does. Without that feature (/bug?), it would definitely lower the value (and occurence) of troops (and troop combat).

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by rdouglass:
I totally agree with your logic Admiral. If a shield can stop a DUC (just high speed uranium pellets) or missiles, why wouldn't it stop a ship?

I suppose, if you feel you needed an explanation, the troops dropped through whatever opening the shield has to let resources generated off the planet.

I often wodered if the game would be more interesting if you could, effectively, blockade your own planets.

That is, if the defences are impenetrable -- if you mined all warp points, bases at warp points, are at war with all neighbors -- then no resources left the planets to enter your empire's economy, no resources entered to support your shipyards, and as a bonus, no intel was possible against the planet.

Meh, that's a different game than SE4, even I probably wouldn't like it

[ September 25, 2002, 19:01: Message edited by: Arkcon ]