Semi-fancy tactics in Strategic Combat?

[Suicide Junkie]

Weapon Target := Ships\Planets

Missiles cannot target sats.

Thusly, the missiles are fired at anything they can target while the ships close to weapons range of the sats.

PDCs can fire at sats, and it sounds like that was the only weapon you had which could. So the ships dutifully closed to firing range.

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If you have troop ships in the combat with "capture planet" orders, they will wait for the warships to destroy any armed weapon platforms in the way before they attempt to capture.
If is a low population on the planet, it is unlikely that they will survive the volley that finishes off the last platform. Missiles make this even more unlikely, since they all hit a turn or two after they are fired.
If there are troop ships en route, the warships will defer targetting the planet at this point, but if the troops are defeated, they will resume attacking and glass the planet.