Weapons Platforms Usage?

[Baron Munchausen]

I had the impression from some Posts I have seen that weapons platforms DO participate in ground combat if you manage to land troops before they have been destroyed. But I have never seen this happen either as attacker or defender. If it's true, then this is the ultimate ground defense. A weapons platform is many times tougher than any troop.

[Taqwus]

jars_u >>

The [space|battle]station gets placed randomly near the planet, not on it. If you can get a transport to the planet intact, you can still invade, although that seems a) unlikely (because the station probably can destroy/cripple your transports), and b) unwise (the station can probably just bLast the heck out of the planet even if you DO capture the planet, so take out the station first).

Note that the station is NOT on the planet, while a WP stack is. So an attacker can play attack-from-the-other-side games with a station (e.g. if both have range-8 weapons and enough pd to shoot down missiles, then the attacker positions himself range 7-8 from the planet, and 9+ from the station on the other side), but that doesn't hold with a WP stack (here, you have to micro-manage in tactical combat by dancing in and out of range if you're going to shoot without being shot.)

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Noble713]

quote:

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Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
I had the impression from some Posts I have seen that weapons platforms DO participate in ground combat if you manage to land troops before they have been destroyed. But I have never seen this happen either as attacker or defender. If it's true, then this is the ultimate ground defense. A weapons platform is many times tougher than any troop.

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Which makes since. It should take more than a few troops to storm and take the future equivalent of a coastal weapons battery.

From the vehicle sizes file:

"Serve only as a container for weapons which fire from a planet into space (or for ground combat)."

I'd really like to see this happen, but the computer never invades my planets. Can you put platforms in the combat simulator?

[Taqwus]

Noble713>>

Sure. Add a planet to one side, then hit the 'change cargo' (IIRC) option. Then load it up with whatever units you like. The largest planetary cargo space I remember seeing might have been something like 16000kt, which should hold up to 80 small weapons platforms (ouch).

I haven't yet set it up such that friendly ships/stations start near the planet, however. Maybe a fleet is *actually* stationed there, they'll be considered as defending the planet and not start near the edge as an attacker.

If you want to see the AI invade, hrrrrmmmm. Maybe it'll try if you provide it (in the simulator) with several loaded troop transports and a small escort, against a planet with a few wps and some troops?

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[matt2000]

weapon platforms are really useful for one thing:

killing annoying ships trying to blow up your NEWLY COLONIZED planets.

One of the things that the AI tries to do is always target your newest planet. Therefore, i always take a colonizer and a transport: the colonizer has the coloney and 20kt population and the transport has about 1000kt weapons platforms

(weapons platform specs)
1x plat computer core (10k)
3x Capital Ship Missles (150k)
2x Armor (20k)
2x Sensors (20k)

Actually, the armor is in some ways better than the sheilds because you get the armor

10k = 70 pts protection

while sheild

40k = 20 pts protection

so for the same 40k,

40k = 280 pts protection

so for 40k you can ward off two wave motion hits plus a coulpla small weapon bLasts.

[Paladin]

Seems like a good strategy, but what I don't like with armor is having to repair it...
Btw, what happens to damaged, surviving units after combat? I assume they are repaired, but I never checked...

Oh, and one word about shield, I prefer 2 or 3 Crystalline Armor with a shield generator... This way you can handle unlimited small wepons bLasts...
(Oh, but how about planetary napalm on troops & weapon platforms? are they attacked first?

;-)