best ship components against planets / WP's

[Laurus]

Could anyone offer suggestions about attacking planets with alot of weapons platforms?
I am tired of losing fleets to well defended planets!

thanks in advance

[Phoenix-D]

Depends. If you want to capture, make a few heavily shielded BIG transports. Have them run in on suicide runes and try to take it intact, WPs and all.

If you want to glass, either get out of range, bring lots and lots of Planetary Napalm, or put one ship in with Don't Get Hurt orders. Said ship can blockade the world, making it useless..or, if it carries a planet killer, destroy it completely. No muss, no fuss, one less planet.

Phoenix-D

[Loser]

Glass, gas or mass invasions, every planet can fall.

[Laurus]

Planetary Napalm?? Great I will try lots of that! Does that destroy population only? Industry? Weapons?!?

When you say 'have some heavily shielded transports do suicide runs', do you mean send them in without escorts? Set the Troop transport fleet to kamikaze? I am guessing that 'if' the ship can get past the weapons platforms, the only thing to stop the troops would be ground forces right? Population doesn't fight invading ground troops do they?

Thanks a million this should really help

L

[FadingSuns]

I recommend the Transport tactic. Just outfit a large transport with tons of shields and armor so it can draw the WP fire away from your nimble craft that is carring a few planetary napalm bombs. When you get close enough to the planet, release enough bombs to take out the WP. Then invade with troops and gobble up all the goodies. WPs get taken out first before facilities and population, which is helpful if you want to capture a planet with existing industry. And if you loose the decoy transport, what have you really lost?

[oleg]

Originally posted by Laurus:
Planetary Napalm?? Great I will try lots of that! Does that destroy population only? Industry? Weapons?!?

L

Planetary napalm will make Dresden hell look like paradise. No cargo, facility or population can survive few dedicated ships with antiplanetary weapons

If you want _REALlY_ well defended planets, play Proportions !

[capnq]

Population doesn't fight invading ground troops do they?

Yes, they do. In the unmodded game, the planet gets 1 "militia" for every 20M pop.

[Wardad]

I have lost planets because the WPs do not have enough range.
Typically at equal tech levels the ships can move into WP firing range and Ships firing range on the same turn.
You may want to start with a Wall or Inverse Wedge formation and then let the ships break formation. Try to avoid a letting ships run up alone.
WP do not multiplex the targets very well, so it helps to have many targets. The default WP firing strategy can sometimes favor the biggest ships and ignore the smaller ones. So a smaller ship that is quick and hard to hit can slip in through the crowd. Load the ship with a Plague bomb or Planetary Napalm(s).

[Phoenix-D]

Wardad, you need to use mounts; they give a pretty heft to-hit bonus and range increase.

"When you say 'have some heavily shielded transports do suicide runs', do you mean send them in without escorts? Set the Troop transport fleet to kamikaze? I am guessing that 'if' the ship can get past the weapons platforms, the only thing to stop the troops would be ground forces right? Population doesn't fight invading ground troops do they?"

I mean send them in ALONE, no escorts, with the strategy set to drop troops. They'll charge the planet and try to land their troops. If there are warships around, they try to wait until the warships kill off the weapons platforms.

[Laurus]

Here is another question along the same lines;

If I send a fleet to a planet that has an enemy fleet in orbit, I set the fleet to
'do not attack planet' will the planetary WP's participate in the impending battle?

L-