Planet Capture Woes |
SEV 1.44, BM 1.09 w/BM AI
I've been experimenting with capturing planets and I'm finding odd behaviour in the combat simulator. It appears repeatable but unexplainable. I've found an enemy next to my starting system and so on about turn 10 I'm preparing to capture his home planet. So I designed a freighter as a troop transport. It has no weapoons, just armor, engines, and required components. I then designed a small troop consisting of engines, armor, 1 DUC and required components. Total I can fit 75 of these in each troop transport. I gave the troop ships "Capture Planet" as their offensive orders, and "Don't Get Hurt" as their defensive orders.
Next I fired up the simulator and stuck 3 troop transports filled with 75 troops each against my home world. Then I let it run. I get the following results: 2 ships close on the planet and drop troops, 1 ship flees for the edge of the map immediately. This happens every time. I'd expect either all 3 ships attack, or all 3 retreat, not a mix of the two. I can manually order the fleeing ship to attack the planet and he will happily do so, but I'd prefer if it were totally automatic.
I tried fleeting the transports and giving the fleet "Capture Planet"/"Capture Planet" orders and the same results happen. Any suggestions or tips?
Re: Planet Capture Woes
currious what would happen if you tried to drop more troops/fighters than the planet could hold in cargo?
SEV, more than a feeling.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
SEV, more than a feeling.
Marking the calendar as I'm actually providing an answer for the first time. Nothing special or bad happens if you drop 150 tanks onto a tiny planet. The conquered planet will hold them, but of course you can't add more.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
Nothing that arbitrarily takes control away from the player is a good feature. If I don't want to land 200 fighters on a planet, I won't send in that many transports. If I do want to, so I don't take as many losses, the game had better let me.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
Thats a good call, check the planets cargo capacity, if your trying to land more troops than can fit on the planet.... it does make sense they won't land.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
The game will let you drop them though. But only for a ground invasion.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
I agree in principle. But this assumes good intel.
If an invasion fleet arrives at a planet and finds it is defended by only a couple of troops and some militia, I don't have too much problem with the admiral exercising initiative. There's no need to land hundreds of units if 40 will do the job just as well.
Without knowing the formula, I do have a hard time trusting that the admiral's judgement will always be good.
I've seen this happen several times. It's repeatable, and if it's unintentional it is a bug. From the pattern I've seen it seems to be intentional.
The ultimate solution would be to implement a toggle so the player could disable this feature.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
You could also increase the # of troops on the planet until all 3 full transports drop their troops. Then check the ratio of dropped to defending. That should tell you what the AI is comparing.
It is also possible that the AI, is comparing the relative strength of that attackers vs defenders.
Re: Planet Capture Woes
Just a general question:
Who captures planets?
I just glass them and start over....
do you get perks from capturing? besides having a stocked planet... most of which you bulldoze anyways 
Re: Planet Capture Woes
It seems to be a "good" feature, actually. Troop ships don't attempt to over-do their job. It may be a bug, but so far it hasn't hurt any of my invasions.
I don't know when this was impelmented, but I don't recall seeing it before 1.44.
I don't know the formula for "enough" troops, but extra transports carrying more than the game "thinks" are needed to take the planet will retreat.
It's annoying to have one's fleet break up, but it saves time reloading the transports. It should help the AI, as they may not be so hot at reloading transports efficiently.
It could become an issue when planets are too well-defended and troop transports have a hard time getting through. Or if the estimates are off and more troops are actually needed to do the job. So far I haven't seen this.