Hey, waitaminute...

Taqwus · #1 June 30th, 2001, 04:11 AM

Mmm. My 'ambassadors' land on Achrady VI, a domed huge gas giant nominally belonging to rebels who broke off from the Segretti.

158 units (each a 20kt Large Infantry [ Cockpit, ECM, Combat Sensors, 2x Shields, 3x Ground Cannon]) -- that's 3,160kt.

One huge domed planet -- that's 1000kt of storage. And when the one round of "negotiations" was over, all 158 were still intact, and in the planet's cargo hold.

How did they land? And how many could I have fit?

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Atrocities · #2 June 30th, 2001, 04:19 AM

I honestly don't know. I would have just GLASSED the world for being erogant enought to think that they could rule themselves better than I.

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"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard
New Age Ship Yards

Sinapus · #3 June 30th, 2001, 04:27 AM

Maybe the cargo limit is like the minefield/satellite limit. You can go over, but only in one big grouping. I get a few minefields w/about 204-207 mines from time to time. Of course, they get worn down eventually.

Yes, I raised it to 200. Actually, I'm thinking of giving all the races that don't have their own construction_facilities and construction_vehicles files the ones the Pyrochette race uses since they build TONS of mines and the minelayers to deploy them too.

Baron Munchausen · #4 June 30th, 2001, 05:13 AM

The minefield "over-run" is a known bug. If you have less then the limit in a given sector, then the next 'deployment' will be accepted no matter how many are dropped. Maybe this will be addressed in a future patch.

The troops over-capacity during an assault is frankly an unavoidable 'feature'. Think about it. If you enforced the cargo limits during combat, all you'd have to do to prevent ground assault is fill your planet up with units. How would you take even a tiny planet by ground assault if its cargo was filled with defending troops? Yeah, cargo can be destroyed by bombardment during combat, but still it's not remotely fair to the attacker to restrict the number of attacking troops to available cargo space on the planet. I noticed this a long time ago, and mentioned it in the beta forums, but didn't see any other solution then and still don't see any other solution now.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 30 June 2001).]

Taqwus · #5 June 30th, 2001, 06:38 PM

*shrug*

Surviving assault infantry (or maybe just the 'excess') could auto-return to their transports after the combat ends, perhaps. That would avoid most exploits (although I'm not sure that there ARE any, given that overflowing troops are still highly vulnerable to attack ships...).

I don't know what would have happened if I'd left them there for a turn (popped 'em back on the transport manually immediately afterwards), but probably nada.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

geoschmo · #6 June 30th, 2001, 09:07 PM

SEIII was the same way. The normal cargo limits don't apply during assauult. However in SEIII if you left more troops on the planet than it could normally hold, the population immediatly went to rioting. I miss that.

Geoschmo

Markavian · #7 June 30th, 2001, 10:15 PM

Yeha, I remember that! Pitty they removed it for SE4,#

I still remove excess troops from captured colonies, keeping some down just as a defence.

You often don't need the full amount to still be sucessful/without casulties.

raynor · #8 July 1st, 2001, 08:44 AM

Sometimes I wish there was a toggle that determined whether or not your troops are left on the planet after the battle. It's kinda frustrating when you move your fleet to another planet and begin the ground assault only to find you have no troops on your transport ship!

Does anyone know if this other bug has been fixed yet?

One time, I put a cargo component or two on all my ships and loaded each one with troops. Then, I attacked a planet with 10 battlecruisers carrying some odd number of troops. Here is how the battle went:

Ship 1's troops land on the planet. The odds are 10 troops to 20 militia. They beat down the militia to 10 but all die in the battle.

Ship 2's troops land on the planet. The odds are 10 troops to 20 militia. They beat down the militia to 10 but all die in the battle.

Ship 3's troops....

Well, you get the idea. For some reason, the game treated each ground assault independently and reset the defender count.

Nowadays, it's just so much easier to glass the planet. So, I haven't gone back and tested that.

Taqwus · #9 July 1st, 2001, 10:18 PM

Oh, a tidbit that may interest folks: your ground troops *do* capture weapons platforms that were intact at the time of the assault, and said WPs probably don't defend during the assault, since they're not even shown in the ground combat anymore. Handy.

This raid, incidentally, was against my former allies the Ukra-Tal; I got annoyed when they were stockpiling DN-size warships (fleet of 15, plus 10 on the way) on one of my worlds while Murderous, while at war with another of my allies (the Phong), and when they were repeatedly lying through their teeth saying that orders had been given to withdraw them (yes, I *do* see your cloaked fleets... and my scanners say they're NOT non-combat vessels... and there's nobody in that area to attack BUT me).

Said fleets were removed from the universe with liberal application of APB XII, PPB V, and NSP V. An additional 14 warships were destroyed on another front, an Ukra-Tal world invaded... and they broke down and asked for a trade treaty (granted); they also made peace with the my ally Phong (*again*, hopefully it Lasts). Might have something to do with the fact that I revealed the presence of a high-tech armada that's got more (and far-better trained) ships than they have, total, and can reach any system from any system in one turn...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Baron Munchausen · #10 July 1st, 2001, 11:47 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
Oh, a tidbit that may interest folks: your ground troops *do* capture weapons platforms that were intact at the time of the assault, and said WPs probably don't defend during the assault, since they're not even shown in the ground combat anymore. Handy.

This raid, incidentally, was against my former allies the Ukra-Tal; I got annoyed when they were stockpiling DN-size warships (fleet of 15, plus 10 on the way) on one of my worlds while Murderous, while at war with another of my allies (the Phong), and when they were repeatedly lying through their teeth saying that orders had been given to withdraw them (yes, I *do* see your cloaked fleets... and my scanners say they're NOT non-combat vessels... and there's nobody in that area to attack BUT me).

Said fleets were removed from the universe with liberal application of APB XII, PPB V, and NSP V. An additional 14 warships were destroyed on another front, an Ukra-Tal world invaded... and they broke down and asked for a trade treaty (granted); they also made peace with the my ally Phong (*again*, hopefully it Lasts). Might have something to do with the fact that I revealed the presence of a high-tech armada that's got more (and far-better trained) ships than they have, total, and can reach any system from any system in one turn...

Question: If shields are dropped by boarding attack, are shields dropped by troop landings? Did your troop transports have shields at all? If you get the chance, please put some shields on one of these and see if they get dropped when the troops go down. I'm really curious if this happens as it does for boarding. If it does not, I wonder if it ought to.

Now, as for "revealing" the presence of a fleet -- I don't think this makes any difference. It OUGHT to but I'm fairly certain the AI uses your score (even if scores are not formally made available to other player on the score window) to assess your strength relative to itself. Hiding fleets doesn't make any difference. This is too bad, because it erodes an important element of realism that you get with human opponents. Your PERCEIVED strength vs. your actual strength is an important factor in diplomatic relations. You may want to hide your strength, or you may want to create a false impression of strength. I think both of these are impossible against the AI.