Can you bomb the planets?

There is no way to bombard systems as you do with planets with MOO2 but when you invade a system there are picks which kind of have the same effect.

And remember that they (mass drivers, core detonation, etc) only have an effect if your invasion is succesfull: I mean that if your ground attack is repealled, then the planet will not suffer from the attack (no PQ loss or destruction) except for the troops (population) that your own soldiers killed.

But this does not make sense... if you really have a core detonation *something* should happen to the planet in any case!

I mean, at least some of the attacks should bear side effects, no matter what the outcome of the invasion is. Btw, I did not realize it before nastavnik pointed it out.

Once again -- the more I watch these forums (and the more I play) the more I learn!

~SDC~

Glad that my quite archaic knowledge is still usefull (I've been away for a while, and I'm not up to date with the latest versions)

Anyway, Markos2, this was discussed a long time ago, and, if I recall correctly, the main reason is to avoid some cheese tactics that would be to send a transport just with only 1b of troops, then mass drive or core detonate the hell out of the planet, leaving it useless to the AI (and to anyone else), and not losing any troops. But the AI would be crippled, if it is its homewotrld or a very important one.

But I agree that at first sight it makes no sense. On the other hand, if it was not this way, it would be a completelly different game, since protecting the planets from *any* attack would have to be essential, thus making you keep the main portion of your fleet within attacking (or rather defending) distance. By the way, quite as it should be...

~SDC~

Yes. Great comment again. It would change completely our playing attitude, becoming way more defensive than what we are today.

In fact, I always wonder why I keep protecting my systems with a couple of defenders battleaxes. It is absolutely unnecessary (albeit logical).
It should be some imprinting I had with my first wargames (boardgames), where if you were not protecting your systems (cities) you had carriers/missiles wounding you to death...

An easy way to solve this could be to have the cost of the "tactics" exponentially linked to the amount of troops you have in the transport.
Another suggestion for GC2 I guess.

~SDC~

thks



Actually that's worth doing, because your old and antiquated ships are useless in battle anyway, while in orbit, they have to be destried prior to the invasion, and that consummes movement points from the attacking ships. So you can have your powerfull ships in strategic positions, protecting several planets at once, and still have one turn to get to the planet under attack.

Shame u cannot destory the planets / or bomb until no living thing is left alive without having to invade.

Thanks for the replies

Regards

Zenduce

There is the terror star which takes care of that in one fell swoop.

Yes, I forgot to tell about them. But usually you can see them coming a long away, except when built right next to your planet...

~SDC~

Interesting discussion (being a MOO2 player still). I still think when invading with, say, 60000 billion and using one of the picks which damage the stuctures or planet quality, then losing the battle, then equivently damage still should have taken place according to the degree of attack and numbers of troops brought to bear against a given planetary population. If I read the posts above correctly, this is not the case (only enemy troops are reduced when losing a particular invasion attempt while using, say, core detonation).

As far as actually "bombing" as in MOO2? I agree it should have been allowable seperate to troop invasions. I would have thought it would have been possible to do a mod for that? No?

And I do think it can be done without drasticly changing the game: simply require that using bombs (aka "Weaopons Of Mass Destruction") result negatively in galatic politics among the other AIs and/or make it so that damage is not very extreme on a per-case use (depending on planet defense technologies and innnate ABM emplacements, etc), and... permit planet "clean-up" technologies as well for bio weopons situations. And having the rest of the AIs deciding to end all trade with you if you resort to using weapons of mass destruction plus other other similar diplomacic consequences (like, say, a 50 percent reduction in diplomatic ability) would be fairly realistic... and it would deter some players from using planetary bombing too often. And depending on one's own alignment and government, situations could be created where one's own people vote out the current govenment causing the player to lose any benefits he or she may have otherwise recieved.... etc... lots of possiblities here in this game to curb the use of bombs but still permit them, as I see it.

Another reason to keep at least an old ship at each system is that it prevents the AI from invading with transports alone which have no combat value to attack your ship first.

Yes, I have had to do that from time to time, or build cheap scouts to prevent a transports from invading me while my war ships were off doing others things... or when I was too broke to buy decent ships; especially during an early massive invasion by an enemy before I was ready. I dislike the method as it feels unrealistic. In MOO2, at least, the Star Base needed to be defeated plus planet defenses (missle base, etc) before transports could land (as it should be).

Great to see Moo players still around!! Its funny I was wondering the same thing when I first played. LOL

GC lacks in the combat department a little bit I suppose. Terror Stars I find are a waste of time to build. Though you must do it one time just to see how the construction goes along. I was disappointed when I destroyed my first planet without a big explosion. GC2 will take care of this I am sure.

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