problems capturing planets in SE IV Gold

[gravey101]

Has something changed? My transports with troops on board keep running away and the rest of my fleet glasses the planet. I never had to put weapons to troop tranports before. Do I need to do this now with Gold?

[Suicide Junkie]

Give the fleet "Capture planet" orders.

The warships will attack the planet until all of the platforms are dead.
The warships will then back off and left the transports drop troops.

If the transports fail, then the warships will glass the planet.

If the planet has a very low population, and can't survive the splash damage from the destruction of the platforms, send in transports only. You can make a bunch of faster, heavily shielded, decoy transports to draw off fire if you like.

[gravey101]

yep, tried capture planet as the fleet strategy.

I dont seem to remember having any trouble with before Gold.

Looking at the combat replay the troop ships just run straight for the corners.

[Suicide Junkie]

The troopships run to the corners until the warships have finished their job of disabling the platforms.

Then once the defenses are gone the warships will retreat, and the troop ships will charge in.

[dumbluck]

Have you checked out the capture planet thread in the classic threads sticky topic?

[gravey101]

you know, I wonder if my problem is that my main fleet are all missile armed. They launch all their missiles in an attempt to wipe out the WP, but since there are 30-odd ships, they end up glassing the planet. If they were beam armed I assume they would stop firing once the WP was destroyed. I can see in the replay that about 50 missiles are launched against 1 WP.

Comments ?

[Baron Munchausen]

Yep, gauging the force necessary to capture a planet rather than destroy it is often very tricky. Drones are actually useful for recon because you can launch one at your target and then check the planet's contents in the combat replay. That gives you at least something to go on in judging how much force to send in.

If a planet is heavily armed AND low population you have a problem. For these cases something tricky is needed. I guess the idea to build lots of troop transports and send them swarming in is a possible option. If you send a troop transport in alone it will try to capture even an armed planet. None of them can be decoys, though. If the transport doesn't have troops it won't attack the planet. I wonder if the AI is smart enough to have each one of them drop troops? Or would it stop after the first one? If so, you'd need a huge overkill in troop numbers to have enough in any one transport to conquer the planet.

[ June 13, 2002, 00:46: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Gryphin]

gravey101,
If you like using missles, you may cossider giving most of your missle ships types "Do Not Fire on Planets",
Then build a few "Specialty" type missle ships that will fire on planets. As you noted, the ships fire weapons untill all of the threat weapons are destroyed. Since the missles have not reached the target yet, the ships continue to fire them.
The other option would be to build a few "Planetary Invasion Ships" that have direct fire weapons. In either case, it can be a logistics pain.
Enjoy

[Bman]

I have done this. All of the transports head for the planet. The first transport drops its troops. If it is successful in conquering the planet the other troop ships head for the corners (only matters if there are enemy ships/units still present). If the troops are unsuccessful then the remaining transports continue to drop troops.

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
If a planet is heavily armed AND low population you have a problem. For these cases something tricky is needed. I guess the idea to build lots of troop transports and send them swarming in is a possible option. If you send a troop transport in alone it will try to capture even an armed planet. None of them can be decoys, though. If the transport doesn't have troops it won't attack the planet. I wonder if the AI is smart enough to have each one of them drop troops? Or would it stop after the first one? If so, you'd need a huge overkill in troop numbers to have enough in any one transport to conquer the planet.