How do I blockade?.

[Parasite]

I didn't do too good a job, but I was enphasizing the fact that you should use a ship with no weapons (or only PD and Shield Depleters and Boarding parties) Setting it to DNGH will keep it out of range of most planetary weapons. Setting a ship with weapons to DNGH can still cause the planet to be glassed. The ships could start in range of the planet. It will still fire if it can even while running.

[Thermodyne]

Why would you want to? Just drop some troops and take the planet.

[Blueentity]

True, but there are the occasions when the attack ships arrive without troops and you don't want to glass the planet.

Sometimes in the very early game, especially if "Empires allowed to start in the same sector" is on, one may want to blockade a nearby enemy planet before you have researched troops. Having a pool of slav..., volunteers that breathe another atmosphere is a great bonus to your burgeoning empire and may be worth tying down a ship for a few turns while waiting for the Imperial Guard to arrive.

[PvK]

You can also set the ships to not target planets. Probably want to tell them to not target any seekers too. They may still do so though if something else results in them being in range.

But that can let you blockade with warships that can still engage ships normally.

BTW this can be really useful in Proportions mod. Often it may be very hard to defeat an alien homeworld, but blockading it and getting it to riot can be much easier.

PvK

[Grandpa Kim]

Funny, I was just thinking about this today.

• single, unarmed ships can always blockade. In fact you could build a batch of stripped down escorts just for blockades. They are, of course, vulnerable to enemy ships and fighters.
• "Do not fire on planets" has never worked for me.
• Fleet strategy of "Don't get hurt" doesn't help either. Armed ships will attack the planet anyway, unless...

Create a strategy called "Blockade"

• Set movement to "Don't get hurt" and "Don't get hurt".
• Set formations so all ships stay in formation!
• All other setting are up to you.

Create a fleet

• Add at least one completely unarmed ship. Even PD can cause a problem if it finds targets.
• Set the unarmed ship as the leader!
• Apply the blockade strategy to the fleet
• Note: Outlying ships in large fleets may well be in range of the planet. Keep your fleet small.

When your unarmed leader sees that nasty ol' planet it turns tail and runs, dragging the rest of the fleet with it. If the fleet is attacked, the armed ships will still defend.

Again the key items:

• Dont get hurt time 2
• All ships stay in formation
• Unarmed leader

[PvK]

Hmm, last time I tried, setting planets and seekers to "don't fire" did work. I also thought formations on unarmed ships or with "don't get hurt" did not work, because I thought both would cause formations to break.

PvK