Ambigious Strategy settings are ruining the game for me...

Are you using a strategy that doesn't target the population and facilities but just the WPs and troops? Sometimes, if the planet has a lot of WPs and troops, he'll run out of population and facilites before running out of troops and WPs. Attacking a well defended homeworkd is a delicate balance of firepower and restraint.

You must make sure that population and facilities are not targeted items. Even still, there will be collateral damage.

Use PDWs to defend against missiles and take out mines and satelites. Use direct fire weapons to target the WPs and troops.

If you are doing PBW, you are kinda screwed because the AI used is almost impossible to control.

I know this sounds really obvious, but before doing delicate attacks like this, it is really important to test these strategies in the simulator to make sure they work and to avoid things like this happening.

Setting up the simulator can be a real pain...it would be nice if you could copy sectors and their forces and stick them directly in the sim...but this idea belongs in another thread.

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I usually run lots of tests before I do anything. Some times I mean to do tests but I don't have the time when I get around to doing my turn. We're in the same game by the way (I checked to see if you were one of my enemies, or to be exact actively at war, nope) and I've noticed plenty of messed up combats. Last turn I was attacked and my enemy's fighters just flew past a ship of mine that had a movement of .1 (no engines). There've been plenty of occasions where things went weird but I don't let it bother me much. What can you do ? (although the recent battle where I caught up to and boarded an enemy ship at 2:59:00 was hilarious). I know you can only spend a certain amount of time but fortune does favour the prepared. Lots of times I tested a design or tactic and discovered a flaw, sometimes I don't.

One of the benefits of fighting in my home system is I can test my honeworlds defences and already have all its cargo and facilities set up

The strategies apparently only do what they are programmed to do, which can be a bit of a problem when one thing conflicts with another, they trip over each other, etc.

I am curious about something.
For the strategy you use for the genocidal task force, what Engage Distance/Damage Amount settings do you have for the following target types?
Planet With Colony
Weapon Platform
Facility
Building

Does the game actually 'count' population as far as how much damage a planet has taken, or are they just casualties that occur when the planet is damaged? I never really paid much attention to it myself.

I can't really say much else, since my knowledge of BM is very limited at best, so I have to fill the role of Watson instead of Sherlock Holmes.

problem...

with planets, those figures don't work.

Here is an example from combat that I have experienced...

Planet with 20kt/20kt facilities, 50kt/50kt pop...

You kill 10kt pop, game thinks like this... Planet with 20kt/20kt facilities, 40kt/40kt pop
It should think like this... Planet with 20kt/20kt facilities, 40kt/50kt pop

see the problem?? It will think planet is at 100% structure because it's like the pop was never there!

same with facilites!

I think the 'Troops' part of the strategy only works for ground combat, since that is the only place they actually 'appear', the rest of the time, it is probably not used, like how stuff like 'attack ship' would be a pointless target type for troops.

Militia, AFAIK, don't 'exist' until ground combat occurs, and that the number of militia that appear is based on the population number.

I am unsure if surviving militia 'stay' after combat is over, or if they 'disband' once the battle is over.

I have little experience with ground combat myself, the few times I did do it, I had sent in several transports packed full of troops and also some fighters (in stock, although).
The rest of the time... the planet usually got glassed, usually by accident... I haven't played SE V much lately, and my latest game hasn't yet seen the need for planet capture, so I have got only a little work done on updating custom strategies, and have yet to fully make a test a 'attack the planet but don't blow it to bits' strategy. Didn't help that I somehow missed the option to sace custom strategies until recently...

@ evilhamburger
Since population are basically like 'cargo' on a planet, I can see why the game thinks 50kt/50kt - 10kt would be 40kt/40kt, because it is not a 'fixed' value like facilities or even the structure capacity of weapon platforms.

Back on topic.
Perhaps set Planet with Colony to Do Not Engage and set Facility/Building damage to some limited amount and hope the few pot shots take out some population in the process?
Or would it just cause ships to ignore the planet in general?
Perhaps Planet with Colony (and even Weapon Platforms?) should simply be set to All Weapons Gone?