Semi-fancy tactics in Strategic Combat?

[Hunpecked]

I'm playing my first-ever simultaneous move/strategic combat game (SE IV Gold, v 1.91, TDM ModPack 3.40) against five of the top six AIs in AI Deathmatch 3. Spoiled by the freedom of tactical combat in previous games, I'm now wondering if I can replicate some tactical moves in strategic combat.

Situation: It's turn 38 and I've discovered one of the AI home systems. The ships in my fleet (2 frigates, 7 destroyers, 8 light cruisers, plus minesweepers) are armed entirely with missiles and PDCs. The homeworld is practically defenseless. I don't have enough troops to take it undamaged, but if I can knock it down to about 5-10% (200-400M pop) my transport can take it when it jumps in next turn.

1. Is there a way to tell my fleet to just "semi-glass" the planet? Under "Strategies" I saw a place to set planet damage to less than 100%, but that seems to apply only to targeting priorities; when other targets are gone it looks like the planet will be, too.

As it happened, this particular fleet was unable to completely destroy the planet before time ran out; next turn I captured it with 50 or so small troops. This was just luck, of course, so I'd like a reliable strategy to "almost kill" a planet, if such a thing is possible.

The next turn I tried to capture a nearby colony defended by 69 satellites and 2 weapons platforms. The Sats and WPs were armed only with missiles--no PDCs. I set fleet strategy to "Capture Planet", targeting priorities to Sats before planet/WPs, and checked "Planet" in the "Don't fire at" window. Strategy for each armed ship was "Max Weapons Range". In the replay I watched my fleet fire a humongous missile salvo at the WPs, which glassed the entire planet. Then my ships closed in to PDC range (!) of the satellites, and I lost 3-4 ships before they killed the Sats. I tried a few replays with different strategies, but the planet was always glassed and my ships never fired a single missile at the Sats.

In tactical combat, of course, my ships would stand off from the Sats and obliterate them with missiles; lacking PDCs, the Sats would be sitting ducks. Then the fleet would fire just enough missiles at the planet to eradicate the WPs, or would simply cover the transport with its PDCs.

So in strategic combat,

2. How do I get my missile ships to fire their CSMs at Satellites while staying at max range?

3. Under these circumstances is it possible to just take out the WPs (after the Sats are gone), or alternatively, to spare the WPs entirely and cover the invasion force with PDCs?

[geoschmo]

CSM's cannot target satelites. This is true whether you are playing tactical or simultaneous. To take out the satelites you need direct fire weapons, which means your ships may get close enough to get shot back at.

[Suicide Junkie]

Weapon Target := Ships\Planets

Missiles cannot target sats.

Thusly, the missiles are fired at anything they can target while the ships close to weapons range of the sats.

PDCs can fire at sats, and it sounds like that was the only weapon you had which could. So the ships dutifully closed to firing range.

---

If you have troop ships in the combat with "capture planet" orders, they will wait for the warships to destroy any armed weapon platforms in the way before they attempt to capture.
If is a low population on the planet, it is unlikely that they will survive the volley that finishes off the last platform. Missiles make this even more unlikely, since they all hit a turn or two after they are fired.
If there are troop ships en route, the warships will defer targetting the planet at this point, but if the troops are defeated, they will resume attacking and glass the planet.

[Hunpecked]

Whoops! I looked again, and I was apparently confusing the "Vehicle Types" line with the "Can Target" line. I swear I nailed Sats with CSMs in tactical, but I guess the memories must have been implanted while I was on that mother ship. (Must get more sleep...)

As for glassing the planet, given my current fleet I guess my only hope is to prevent all firing on the planet. I'll see what I can do.

Any ideas about "semi-glassing" a planet? Other than subtracting ships until the fleet lacks the firepower to do it within the time limit?

[Slick]

There are some options in the strategy setup screen that you can tinker with. Specifically there is an option to damage until all weapons are gone; also there is a damage percent that you can adjust. Using this, your targeting priority and your "don't fire on types" you should be able to do what you want.

Some "gotchas"

- Missile ships can easily accidentally glass a planet. They have a high damage per salvo and when they attempt to stop damaging a target per their strategy, there are usually missiles in flight which will continue on to further damage or destroy the target.

- Having too much beam weapon firepower in a fleet can result in a similar problem as above.

- A planet is considered to have weapons when it has undestroyed weapon platforms.

- If you capture a planet with enemy satellites, moons (with weapon platforms) or defense bases in orbit, these will attack your newly captured planet. Try to take these out first. Although targeting a main planet instead of its moon really doesn't work; your fleet will attack all planets in the order they encounter them on the combat map and capture the closest one(s) first and then continue to capture up to the number of troop transports you have in the fleet.

[Hunpecked]

OK, thanks for the advice. I'll keep playing with the settings as the occasion arises.

Strangely enough, I found a partial answer to question #3 above, just when I had given up and decided to play on. Going after the colony with all the Sats, I directed the "Seek After" order AT THE SATS instead of the planet, with "Capture Planet" as fleet strategy. This time the fleet concentrated on the Sats, with individual ships dancing in and out of PDC range. True, they got in each other's way quite a bit, but they gradually nibbled away at the Sats while shooting down missiles by the dozen. Meanwhile one LC silenced the planet's weapons platforms with a single missile salvo. Net result was 69 Sats and two WPs killed for no losses, and one AI planet captured with all 4 facilities intact. I couldn't have done better myself.

I realize this was probably a fluke and isn't necessarily repeatable under different circumstances, but at least it gives me a shot at a favorable outcome in future invasions.

[Suicide Junkie]

Actually, if there are only unarmed weapon platforms, the planet is considered to have no weapons, and troop ships will merrily attack.

In GritEcon, I removed platform weapons, and gave them only powerful armor, to act as civil defense bases and shield against orbital bombardment.

[Blueentity]

I have not found away to knock down a plant to a certain percentage and then leave it alone in strategic combat. Unless I have a ship with troops, the ships happily glass the planet if they can. I have tried this with:

Various weapons (direct fire and missile)
Various combat strategies (Optimal Firing, Capture Planet)
Various % on �Damage Percent Per Planet� (10% to 100%)
Toggling �Damage targets till all weapons gone� (on and off)

Of course I could chose �Don�t Fire On Types�, but there are times, especially in the early game where you are short on troops or trying to inflict some unhappiness, where you want to soften up a planet without destroying it.

Also, is there anyway to have the troops land on the �Biggest� planet instead of a moon? Choosing �Largest� or �Strongest� doesn�t seem to make a difference.