Annoying UI Bug That Everyone Knows About...

[scJazz]

tyvm

[Will]

Oh, and it gets worse with Carrier Battles... ground combat lasts only 1 (!!!) round. Stock has 10 rounds. So, you really need overwhelming numbers to capture a planet in any reasonably short period of time (which certainly adds to the overall feel of the mod).

As an example, in CB#2 (version 1.0i of the mod, meaning carriers are friggin HUGE) I just had a battle where I captured a planet with about 220M population. In order to do this in one turn, I needed three Heavy Carriers full of troops. At max tech for a Disposable Society (double build rates), it takes two turns to build one of these empty carriers, and to fill them all with 4500kT of troops each (not militia!) took the output of about 6 planetary spaceyards over a period of about 25 turns. If I had only one of these troop transports, it would have taken much longer, possibly 6 or 7 turns of "stalemate" messages -- since in the one turn, it was really three combat turns, with first one transport full of troops, then two, then three, so 1+2+3=6 turns, plus take into account attrition for a possible 7th turn needed.

Anyway, for a decent indicator, make note of the troops on the planet and the population on the invasion turn. Then, run the simulator with a planet having the same population and enemy troops, and fill out a transport with your troops, and a bunch of smaller transports with only one "empty" troop. Run the simulation in tactical, bring your transports in, and drop your main force, and it will show a ground combat. Keep dropping the individual troops, and the number of extra drops needed to win (or lose!) is how many turns stalemates will last with no reinforcements on either side. To simulate your opponent building more troops to repel the invasion, watch the combat reports over the planet, and make note of the enemy units on the planet compared to the previous turn; these are the new troops built in the last turn. If you keep a log of these, you can estimate how much impact they will have by running an extra simulation with the previous estimated troop levels plus these extra, and your estimated remaining invasion force. Unfortunately, the simulator doesn't allow friendly troop drops, so you can't guage things any more precisely than that.

A kind of exploit for these mechanics: if you design a few fast and hardened troop transports (so they don't get shot down before making it to the planet), you can fill them with armored troops, designed only to last for a few rounds of ground combat against your target. Then, have a bunch of small, slower transports drop high-damage troops and some "damage control" troops instead of having one big transport drop those same troops. Each drop will start combat all over again, and if designed correctly, an invasion force will have that first core of damage soaking troops last long enough for the big firepower to deplete enemy numbers and the reinforcement damage control troops to take their place. So, a bunch of smaller invasions adds up to a quicker resolution than a few huge invasions.

Hmmm... I should probably sit down some time and write a course on the art of planetary invasion for SJ...

[AngleWyrm]

Is it only the first squares do battle? If I restock with damage control troops, then won't the heavies--which would be in the second or later squares--never get a chance to fire?

(carrrier battles mod)

[scJazz]

AngleWyrm said:
Is it only the first squares do battle? If I restock with damage control troops, then won't the heavies--which would be in the second or later squares--never get a chance to fire?

(carrrier battles mod)

Range is not a factor for determining the ability to fire a weapon in ground combat. It is apparently a factor in calculating damage i.e. weapons with longer range have an extra effect in doing damage.

http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.p...ops_%28SEIV%29

[scJazz]

Now that was interesting...
In CB 1.6
Apparently 5000 hvy infantry and 800 light infantry can get the job done in around 10 turns taking around 20% losses against a full 4K Homeworld with no infantry protection. My forces have a small ground combat penalty for being Braniacs with a Strength buff of +10.

[Will]

Ok, I just tried things out in the simulator... and it does not work like I have observed in actual game ground combat results. In the simulator, the first troops put on the transport are the first damaged, and successive drops damage the new drops before moving to the old. But I have observed that a few of each type of troop gets destroyed after ground combat, and it seems to be weighted to the number of the troops.

I'll run a test game later, to try to verify a few things... but in my experience, troop order has no impact for the actual ground combat.

[Fyron]

Maybe that bug was not fixed in simulated combat when it was in real ground combat?

[scJazz]

What I've seen is that the troops in slot 1 take the majority of damage 95%-100%. Slot 2 takes some damage 0-5%. Slot 3 takes some damage 0-1%. My guesstimate is that if there is damage left over from killing <integer> troops in slot 1 it is applied to <integer> troops in slots 2 and 3 in a nice even manner. I've seen this repeated in hundreds of CB invasions.

[Fyron]

You would see that if you always load infantry first, as troops with the most hit points are likely to be hit first. CB infantry have massive numbers and massive amounts of hit points.