[neofit]

Coincidentally I was about to start a thread on this very issue. I am having trouble properly coordinating an attack on a planet (v1.13, Banace Mod 0.96). The dropship does make a beeline towards the planet, drops the shuttle, it reaches the planet, then it (the dropship) gets slaughtered by planetary defenses.

My fleet is composed of the following: 4x missile destroyers, 3x anti-proton DDs, 1x light carrier, 1x dropship, 3x support ships in their own TF with "don't get hurt" orders.

What happens is: if the planet is defended by ships or stations, all my ships besides the support TF charge the enemy and we win. If the planet only has fighters, satellites and planetary defenses, only the carrier and the dropship charge, we still win but with unnecessary losses. The missile ships, gunships, launched fighters just turn around and flee with the support TF and I need to do some manual targetting if I don't want to lose the dropship. I've tried different combinations.

- The missile ships in TF1, all core, max weapons range
- The gunships in TF2, all core, max weapons range
- The carrier in TF3, max weapons range
- The dropship in TF4, capture planet
The missile, APB ships and launched fighters turn around and flee. The carrier alone charges the enemy fighters. The dropship charges the planet, launches the shuttle, then explodes.

- TF1: dropship and carrier as core, missile ships and gunships as escort. Mission: capture planet
According to the manual the escort ships are supposed to protect the core ones. Same behaviour as before, everyone flees, but the dropship and the carrier.

I've tried doing some manual targetting. I order ships to break formation move them to the edge of the planet firing range, making sure that their own targetting circle encompasses the planet, give the order to attack said planet, and they just there, doing nothing.

I don't know what else to do. The description on the Capital Ship Missile and Anti-Proton Beam says that they can target a planet, but they don't.

OK, I'll let the dropship do its job, drop the shuttle, and flee. Problem is that it doesn't flee. It stays there, within range of the planetary defenses I cannot harm, until it goes boom. And I can't select it to manually order it to go away since it is inside the planet itself.

So the only way I have found so far is to manually tell the over-eager Carrier captain to back off, manually redirect the wussy fighters towards the enemy fighters and satellite as soon as they launch, select the dropship and keep it selected until the end. He goes into the planet, and as soon as he drops the landing shuttle I move it out of the planet's shooting range, and he makes it, barely.

One thing that may be a problem is that I have a treaty with another AI that has the 'no planetary bombardement' clause. First I am not bombarding a planet, I am protecting my ship. Second the treaty is with another empire. So either there is a bug there or the treaty window should explain this properly: if you use this clause you won't be able to reduce planetary defenses at all anywhere in the galaxy.


So how do I capture a defended planet? Why do all my ship run away and how do I reduce planetary defenses?