How do you blockade a planet?

[Arezz]

Every time I try to it goes to combat. So, if a planet has defenses, do I just defeat them and let the 30 turn combat limit take effect? I don't want to destroy homeworld planets, just force them to surrender.

[Arkcon]

Send a ship in with the tactics don't get hurt. As long as an enemy ship remains in orbit, no resources from the planet enter the empire's resource pool.

[DavidG]

Your problem may be that there is a bug with the Fleet "Don't hurt me" orders. I think this still exists in ver 1.78 The result of this seems to be that the ships break formation and resort to their ship class orders. If the ships class orders are also "Don't hurt me" then the ships run to the corners as expected

[couslee]

I have done that when I want to force a surrender. I use tactical combat, and just hit "e" 30 times without moving the ships. the battel is considered a draw, but it puts them in orbit and establishes a blockade. It would be nice to have an "establish blockade" order instead of having to go through the hassel, but alas that is not there. I will blockade any number of planets when going for surrender. When first establishing the blockade, you need to know if there are any WP there, if so, destroy those, then back off the planet and E through to the 30th round.
If your happiness has a factor applied to "combat-draws" then you might have other things to deal with in establishing a blockade, but those are secondary to the actual purpose of it.