Troop Strategy for Fleets

[TurinTurambar]

So, strategy being so important in constructing fleets, could someone tell me if this seems a valid construct before I get all my ships blown up?

A. Carriers fitted with required fighter bays and the rest of the space with Mine Sweeper II or better in case he's got his planets mined. They sweep it when you show up and then stay out of the way. Their fighters have a strategy to attack any bases with weapons.

B. Well-shielded Attack Ships with a custom strategy (let's call it "Pre-emptive Bombardment) to stay at max weapons range and damage the planet only till the WP's are gone and then just hang out.

C. A troop ship with a customized "Capture Planet" strategy: Primary = Dont Get Hurt, Secondary = Capture Planet. In theory, it hangs out with the Carriers and is protected by their PD's. Then, when the WP's on the planet are gone the secondary strategy kicks in and it calmly tools over to the planet and smacks the pop. into submission.

Thoughts? Criticisms? Additions?

Thx,
Turin [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon42.gif[/img]

[geoschmo]

Should work. I have run into a couple minor problems using carriers in planetary assault fleets though.

First of all, lot's of fighters means more or you ships clustered around the planet. Once the WP's are gone your ships and fighters will sit where they are, unless the enemy has some ships for them to chase to the corners or something. This can cause you troop ship to be unable to get to the planet and drop troops. Will only be a problem the first time though. You'll end up blockading the planet for a turn and capturing it the next. There's no way to prevent this, but the fewer ships in your fleet the less often it happens. Having fighters makes it happen more often jsut because of the greater mass of your ships to get through.

Second problem ony happens if you try to chain attack a couple enemy worlds in one turn. You carriers may end up picking up some of your troops. I give my carriers the same strategy as my troop ships so if they end up with the troops, they will hang out in the corner and then close in when the WP's are gone too. I could see it being a problem if attackign a heavily populated enemy world, if your troops spread out on a couple ships you might end up losing a bunch of little troop battles instead of winning one big one. That's never happened to me, but I could see how it might. If I'm closing in on an enemy homewolrd I will usually not try a chain attack, concentrating on the big planet for one turn. Something to think about.

[douglas]

C will make the whole thing fail. The primary don't-get-hurt strategy will never become impossible to carry out, so the troop transport will just flee to the corner of the map and stay there without ever falling back on the capture planet secondary strategy. For troop transports to work, drop troops MUST be their primary strategy. It seems that what you're trying to accomplish with this custom strategy is what is already built in to the drop troops strategy. Drop troops acts exactly like don't get hurt until the planet has no weapons left or there are no allied ships in combat not executing a don't get hurt or drop troops strategy. Also, you don't need a customized strategy to get your ships to stop bombarding when the weapon platforms are gone. It is hard coded into the game that ships will not shoot at a planet that has no weapons when there is a friendly ship carrying troops and using the drop troops strategy in the battle.

Edit: In summary, all you really need to do to capture planets with a fleet is add a troop transport with troops and a primary drop troops strategy to the fleet. The rest will take care of itself. The only other thing you might want to do is if you have a really large fleet and aren't expecting serious opposition, switch to the diamond formation as that is much less likely to result in walls of ships blocking the troop transport and requiring another battle (and movement point) to finish the job.

[TurinTurambar]

AH! See? These are very good things to know! So, just to recap, all I have to do is have a fleet set to the default Max Weapons Range containing minesweepers and a good sized troop ship?

I love this place.

Turin

Edit: and then YOU editted it and pimped my post! Thanks, guys.

Turin

[geoschmo]

douglas said:
C will make the whole thing fail.

Heh, I'm so used to just doing it that I didn't notice he had these switched around backwards.