How to attack planets... at present...?

Don't bombard it - drop troops and take all those resources for yourself.

Anti-Proton Beams work just fine against planets in 1.33.

Another solution would be to edit components.txt and increase the range of weapons. At least for bombs in IRM, it works fine, not sure about "bolt" weapons. It´s up to the player to decide if he should or shouldn´t do it, if it is realistic or not, but it works fine.

I manually set my supporting ships to a point essentially on top of the planet.

I bring my troop ships near the planet, but out of weapon range, then, at an appropriate point, I set the troop ships to land troops.

Satellites will be automatically attacked.

If the planet has weapon platforms, I have to manually get my support ships to fire on the planet. I've never been a big missile user, but I'm using missiles alot since the targeting problem first developed.

It's a balancing act, usually the WP's are firing on the support ships so the troop ships drop their troops (usually) unscathed and before the planet's population is wiped out by the support ships.

The troops deal with any surviving WP's.

I'm afraid we fight with Strategic combat via Play by E-mail.

Would creating specific bombardment ships work? Giving them a strategy 'Close Range' ?
Would not this also work for DUC ships?

~Myrath