Planetary Bombardment Suggestion

[Cumberlow]

The game really needs a planetary bombardment order. It can be very time consuming and tedious having to bombard a planet each turn, once the defences are down, to keep the troop numbers down and the planet suppressed until my troop transports arrive.

A part of the problem is that bombs are very poor bang for your buck because the ammo takes up a lot a space so ships can only carry small numbers. Heavy beams do less damage but can carry on firing every round without need for ammo so in the long run are more effective, but it takes time. Beams can also be used against ships whilst bombs can't so win win. Perhaps if beam damage were partly dissipated by atmosphere then bombs cold be useful.

[Madbiologist]

Indeed, I still think this is better than the old 'oops, we just vitrified the entire system' mode the game used to have, or that ships would disobey command to even leave a system till every man, woman, child, and green little mold on the wall was reduced to ash for an entire system.

However, now, soften up a planet or when you do actually want to go Dalek on a planet, the new system draws it out too much. I thinking of having different orders you can give fleets, or have a stance function in the tactical mode (which also apply when you switch to auto or fast forward a tactical turn); which lets you only destroy the defenses (default to avoid accidentally glassing worlds), soften a world (heavily bombard it but not kill all life on it, good for easy invasions but can risk accidental glassing and would incur a diplomatic penalty), and finally... Obliterate (which would do what the old system used to do, and obviously incur the largest diplomatic penalty).

This way we can choose what we want to do. I still think the most passive one should be default to avoid accidentally over-commitment and to prevent accidental overkills. But have options to commit our forces more and even go all vitrify if we want to without needing to manually do it for each turn (as in the AI will do it for us on auto, if we issued the command for it to do so).

[CellNav]

Perhaps it would be better to have a combined Bombard/Invade order?

It would have two separate phases with a UI like invasion. Basically, our heavy beams and bombs can't be used on the planet during the Sector battle. The bombardment phase follows and performs the damage, then if the defenses are down the invasion follows.

[Madbiologist]

Well planets do have planetary defenses that shoot back and a sort of shield/armour thing. So you being able to attack them during the tactical phase makes sense, to defang them as it were, destroy those 'offensive' defenses.

Taking a page from MoO 2, perhaps only taking us there in the tactical phase, then if your fleet was ordered to, it will remain in orbit for the thing you suggested. Where you can commit your weapons to softening or destroying the colony (output based on how many bombs and planet hurting weapons you had), with the option to land troops when you are ready (if you so choose) which will do the invasion we have already.

Either case, we should have control on the level of planetary bombardment we want without the need to manually override it to get the desired results.

[Fairin]

"Wipe this pathetic planet from the face of the Galaxy" -Darth Malak

^ Option!

ps wheres my stellar converter... i left it around here somewhere...