Ground Combat - anyone use it?

[KiloOhm]

I've owned the game since december and out of all that time, I've never used ground combat. I've never even seen the AI use it for that matter.

We should start a list here on suggestions to make ground combat better. I'll start it off.

1) I think only planetary weapons and certain normal weapons should affect the population. Killing millions of people with DUC's and ship missles is just well....silly. That way, you would be forced to either bring bombers to planets.

My guess is that we would need another attack type for weapons - population. I think they would have to split it this way so you can attack weapons platforms by using the "planet" attack type weapons.

So bombs would be attack type Planet / Population. While DUC's maybe would not be able to attack either, but maybe missles would only attack Planet but not population.

You see where I'm going anyway.



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Regards,
KiloOhm

[Suicide Junkie]

CSM's are nuclear, so the damage they do is OK against population, same with any other seeker (antimatter, crystal shard frag)

Most beam weapons, though should not be able to penetrate an atmosphere (eg. anti-protons going through air? Yeah right. Nice aurora effect, maybe makes the population happier from free entertainment )
DUC? unless the DU shells are 100m across, they'll only make shooting stars.

What happens when you attack a moon though? No protective atmosphere, but still, the DUC, is going to kill maybe one person (the poor sap that it hits in the head. Or if you're lucky take down a building with 1000 people in it.

Perhaps a change so that Beam weapons can only attack domed colonies on No-atmosphere worlds. That's not even really worth it. Just make beams not hurt planets.


This would greatly boost the effectiveness of Weapon platforms, since they'd have to be nuked from a distance or napalmed, but they could carry PDCs and Beam weapons.

[Ekaj]

The way I play, is that I will only attack planets with ground troops. I like what you are thinking, as it is so easy to take out planets with ships(the AI) needs all the help they can get. How would you change the weapon targets and would the AI be smart enough to change tactics

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, we see where you are going because we've been there already. Like almost every 'new idea' that comes up here, it's been suggested before. I requested a special damage type to cancel the "population killed per point of damage" ratio months ago. Hopefully MM is willing to do this and is just too busy with bug fixing to get to it yet.

The AI does know how to use troops, btw. It just needs to be told to research them. And then has to be told to build them in sufficient numbers to be useful. The default config hasn't got to troops yet. Some of the mods might, though.

[KiloOhm]

quote:

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Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
The AI does know how to use troops, btw. It just needs to be told to research them. And then has to be told to build them in sufficient numbers to be useful. The default config hasn't got to troops yet. Some of the mods might, though.

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Actually, it's a good thing the AI doesn't use them at this point. It would just bog down his ship / sattelite / mine production and make him even easier to defeat. As it stands now, I see no reason for anyone to build ground units.

Actually, I knew this topic had been discussed before, but if people don't keep harping on what needs to be changed (and in my mind, this is one of the few MAJOR flaws in this game) it will get left in the dust. I wanted to see if anything had changed since it had been Last discussed.

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Regards,
KiloOhm

[This message has been edited by KiloOhm (edited 10 March 2001).]

[Ubik]

How about giving a huge diplomatic penalty with all other races if a player starts killing civilians instead of conquering them?

That would surely encourage peolple in making planetary assaults...