Neutron Bomb

[CW]

Since I don't trust my AI admiral with planetary napalms, I'm looking for a way to kill off the militias on a homeworld without resorting to plague bombs (which take time). Does anybody know how to calculate how much of the population a neutron bomb kills? What happens if you kill of the whole population? Is the planet counted as destroyed or as an empty colony?

[Suicide Junkie]

Oops ignore the italics, then. The rest actually applies to the question.
Ahh, planetary napalm.

Napalm will do generic damage, burning buildings, platforms and everything, leaving a cinder of a planet which you will have to recolonize.

Neutron bombs will irratiate the people, and leave buildings intact.
Since the buildings are still there, you can drop a single troop to take control, and then land 1M people to activate the planet's industry.

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[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 10 August 2001).]

[geoschmo]

Laf. Methinks SJ misread your question, no?

Anyway, according to the components.txt file the Neutron Bomb I does 40 damage per shot. According to the settings.txt file it takes 10 damage to kill 1 unit (1 Million) of population, so each bomb kills 4 million per shot. (Neutron bomb is treated as a direct fire weapon)

Assuming 5 combat turns to get in range of the planet, and assuming every shot lands (Since the target is a planet, this will be very close to true) then you'l get 25 turns of actual firing on the planet. Neutron Bomb I has a reload rate of 2 so that's 12 shots per combat round. So each Bomb in your fleet should kill 48 million people per round of combat.

90 Neutron Bombs spread through your fleet, would wipe out a fully loaded medium sized planet in one combat round. That's assuming they have no defenses that would prevent your ships from staying close enough to land a shot every other turn.

That's a lot of neutron Bombs, but they only take 20Kt so you can get several on a ship. Also since they are direct fire weapons, so you can use weapon mounts on larger ships. Can be quite devastating on a larger ship with mounts since damage per shot goes up considerably.

Geo

[geoschmo]

Now that I have wowed you all with my statistical abilities, let me say I have never actually used the Neutron Bomb in combat. The idea of eradicating the planets population leads me to one question.

What happens with the weapon platforms after you destroy the population. I know resource production stops, but will the weapons platforms still attack ships in orbit? And will they defend the planet when you land troops? If so you may need more than just one troop to take the planet once you exterminate the population.

Geo

[Urendi Maleldil]

If you can conquer a planet with troops, you gain control of any units on that planet that weren't destroyed in combat. This includes weapon platforms.

[geoschmo]

Every time I have landed troops on a planet with units (WP's, troops, mines) the defending units are destroyed in the attack. You have seen something different?

Geo

[Taqwus]

I've captured up to ca. 14 million tons of weapons platforms on a single world. There may be some units destroyed (perhaps damage overflowing from your troops' Last salvo -- maybe it spills over to units? Or maybe it's pillaging), but it reliably works for me.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
Every time I have landed troops on a planet with units (WP's, troops, mines) the defending units are destroyed in the attack. You have seen something different?

Geo

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I've noticed that the troops cannot actually TAKE the planet as long as there is any sort of enemy unit still surviving. But, due to recent changes there is no longer actual combat beteeen troops and other units. So, there is a stalemate until the other units are destroyed by some other means. I once dropped troops on a planet containing very little population and some mines -- the troops sat there and "fought" with the mines for the full 10 rounds, neither units taking any damage. I presume this would have gone on 'automatically' at each turn but I fired on the planet before combat ended and destroyed the mines. So, when the next chance for combat came up there was automatic victory for my troops. I never get close enough to drop troops on a WP since WPs in my mod have powerful mounts like bases with extended range. It's is always essential to destroy the WPs before closing in to drop troops.

[CW]

quote:

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I've noticed that the troops cannot actually TAKE the planet as long as there is any sort of enemy unit still surviving.

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Not quite, at least not in my solo games. My standard practice is to bomb the planet with a heavily shield DN with napalms until the place is soften up enough for my troop ships to move in. I AVOID killing all the units because that will leave the buildings intact, and I never ran into a problem with that.

[CW]

Bad news. Just ran a simulation with my neutron bomb ship, if you wiped out the population with it the planet is counted as destroyed, even though the buildings are untouched.