Yet another planet capture problem

[Atraikius]

You CAN still capture cargo (at least mines)when taking a planet with troops, I captured about 50 mines in planetary assaults Last night. Haven't checked with weapon platforms or sats yet.

[geoschmo]

Atrakus. Using 1.84? I was not able to capture mines in my tests. Are you playing sim turn or turn based?

Geoschmo

[couslee]

That would be shame if cargo related combat results were different with turn based and simultaneous modes.

[couslee]

just had the chance to give it a try. Using 1.84, turn based tactical. The attack took two waves. Only thing in planet cargo were mines (no WP or Sats). Which were 22 Sm mines, with level 1 warheads.
First wave dropped:
26 troops VS 27 militia. After combat, 22 troops left, 10 militia left, and 11 mines left.
ended combat round, brought second ship to the planet.
Second wave dropped:
6 troops =
28 troops VS 10 militia. After combat 28 troops remained, zero milita, 8 mines. Planet captured.
The first wave obviously took 10 combat turns, the second wave was completed on the 4 turn. Not sure if the damage resistance of the mines had any effect, but with the exception of the one extra lost during the first battle, the planet lost one mine per combat turn from storage.
As for the troops: Sm troop, 1 shield3, 1 ABP3 (20/15/10).
Three duplicate tests showed the exact same results.

So in turn based, you can capture mines. But not all of them. I would assume the same would apply to sats or a combo of both, but have not had the oppty to check that (yet, mwahaha).

When I tried to test it using only one wave, the 32 troops VS 27 militia did not capture the planet. remaining were 29 troops, 4 militia, and 12 mines. (one mine lost per combat turn. hmmm)

[PsychoTechFreak]

Ahem, now that I take a closer look to it. I have got a running game: turn based, proportions, not yet patched, so it is 1.78.

One or two turns ago my people have captured the abbidon home planet. Now I have seen 4 weapon platforms in planet cargo which are definetely not my design (I do not have PPB4 yet *sigh*), so we are also able to capture wp, at least with the configuration above.

EDIT: It was turn based tactical to be accurate.

[ February 12, 2003, 22:12: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]

[couslee]

(took a nap)
when I went back to the game, I decided to run the test a few more time, only using strategic combat instead of tactical. it took having to do the extra steps of pulling the battle fleet off the world, and moving it back in after the first wave, but anyway.
First test, first combat, same results, only I lost two more troops than in tactical Second combat all the same except no corgo survived.
Second test same as tactical results, except after the second combat 7 mines survived. So, using the thought that strategic combat works the same in either turn-based or simultaneous games, then one should be able to capture mines in a simul game, provided there are enough of them to survive the ground combat part, and any planetary bombardment that may take place prior to troop drop.

Now, I am going to resume PLAYING this one.

Hope this endeavor helps the main bug chasers determine the correct and solid answer.

[dogscoff]

The problem is that it doesn't seem to be possible to capture wps, sats and mines in cargo any more. They seem to be destroyed by the ground combat.

[Slick]

Ok, I have been able to take over planets in simultaneous and turn based games under test conditions and have cargo survive. This includes satellites and mines. It just seemed strange for a while there that the cargo was always being destroyed. I am still wondering about the no-bombardment cases that I have seen where the cargo was gone.

Slick.

[couslee]

In my "test", I was using minimal troops, mainly because the system I am attacking in the game has all low pop worlds. I don't know if the mines that did survive were because of that small amount. Given the same planet and a 100 troop drop, might have destroyed all the cargo. I don't know, maybe would have captured more (as it would have taken less combat turns). I guess cargo is what is exploding on the mini-world during planet combat and not alien heads. lol

[PvK]

Sounds like probably a change in 1.84 has ground combat randomly damaging non-troop cargo, the report below is correct about some mines being destroyed during a ground combat round.

What would probably be good to test, then, is what if you build weapons platforms with lots of shields or armor, but no weapons. Planetary bombardment will stop short of killing them (I've captured such WP's before in 1.78), but the troops - will they now have most/all of their shots hit these tough WP's instead of the enemy troops?

PvK