Possible ground combat bug

[Q]

When I invaded a planet with my troops (large troops with ground canons) I got in a situation where my troops seems to cause no damage. Although about 100 troops were facing about 10 militia they could not win the battle. I lost some of my troops and got a stalemate. Next turn the groung combat resumed with the same result. I then had a look at the planet cargo and there were still some mines and fighters on it. In tactical combat I then "carefully" bombarded the planet till all units were gone. After that my remaining troops captured the planet in the next turn without any problem.
So it seems that units on a planet cause the attacking troops to be ineffective. Anyone seen anything like this???
I would post the savegame file, but it is a game with a modified racial trait (assimilation) so you would not be able to open it unless you installed the entire modification.

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, I've seen the same thing. I think it was the mines. People with just WPs on the planets report that thay can capture them whole.

[Taqwus]

That's odd. 1.41, right? I've captured planets intact, with mines, in that Version... never fighters, because fighters launch ASAP, but mines haven't seemed to be a problem.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Q]

It seems the fighter are the problem. I ran a test game and there was no problem with mines, weapon platforms, sats or troops on the planet. But if fighters remained on the planet and were not launched, the attacking troops were ineffective.
I do not understand however why the computer im my original game did not launch the fighters automatically. Any ideas??
I mailed the savegame of the unmodified test game to MM.

[Q]

The reason why the fighters were not launched is very simple: The AI empire had reached the maximum number of units in space (5000 in this game). This is something quite old and should be changed IMO, because it really cripples an empire if you can't launch your units during combat. And the AI will not destroy or revover mines or sats as far as I have seen.

[Taqwus]

Ah. That makes sense.

Maybe if fighters weren't in space all the time (IOW, returned to carrier / planet always)...

But right now, in-colony fighters have a nasty 1-turn reaction penalty, since they can't move after being launched, so to make them stil useful for in-system defense (instead of only one world) it might be better to also allow them to move in a turn *if* they are in storage (and they don't return to storage until end of turn).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night