firing order during combat

[gwichman]

I just had a pretty large combat where i moved my fleet into a space with a planet, 18 satellites, 2 bases, and 12 ships or so.. mym fleet had 19 ships. For some reason the ships flew in pretty much shotting at ships first (that met my ships on their way to the planet) but oncec at the planet, they seemed oblivious to the space stations and remaining 7 ships or so.. They all kept firing and firing at the planet, presumably to destroy the weapons platforms. For a looong time. Like 8 or 10 turns i'm guessing. Not sure why it was taking so long but in looking at the options for optimal firing range (default) it seems like planets are the Last on the list for priority.

Why did my ships spend so much time attacking the planets?

There was one ship in particular on the enemy side with null space projecter 3's that every few turns would nail a couple of my ships. That was really the only damage i took. Seems to me it was the biggest threat and i'm surprised my ships didn't destroy that ship.

Appreciate any help on this topic on how to avoid my ships getting so caught up in attacking the planet.

[tesco samoa]

In the Stategies window under firing there is the Don't Fire on Types And you can select Planets.

Where there any weapons platforms on the planet?

[gwichman]

yes there were.. i don't want to not attack the planet.. i just thought it odd my ships felt it was such a threat and didn't care about the null space weaponed ship nearby or the spacec stations or other ships. Planets is already at the bottom of my list under "type priority" but somehow the ships got it in their minds to take that planet out. Apparently this was the target that was the most applicable to "has weapons, most damaged, strongest, nearest"

I can see it having weapons and being most damaged (once a ship hits it, everyone goes after it to finish it off?). I dunno about strongest though.. i think the null space projecter ship was stronger.

Perhaps if i reorder these? Do any of you change these from the defaults? what do you find works well?

Or perhaps i just need a ship with some planetary weapons?

[Suicide Junkie]

Re: stronger.

Planets can have 10's of thousands of hitpoints due to population. Ships are usually only one or two thousand, including shields.

[TerranC]

Even though this isnt what you are asking for, I suggest a change in tactics.

When I am playing a game I just capture it.

What I do is get a group of about 7 light cruisers and 3 Dreadnoughts and 3 transports filled to the brim with troops and use the fighting ships to destroy any ships or stations first than bombard the planets to destroy any defensive installations and capture it.

This way, you get control of a planet, you get resources from it, and won't waste ships that would usually get destroyed by Platforms or Stations in a strategic combat.

(Of course you can try Puppet Governments but that takes too long so...)

[tesco samoa]

Perhaps Max Range for your strag.

And balance your fleet out more with some planet killers ( it's cheating against the ai to just use missles ( this is due to the fact you can play on auto-pilot then)) loaded up with planetary napalm or something. Have them close on the planet and the rest attack everything else.

[gwichman]

ya i'm thinking the reason my ships became so preoccupied in this case was that i was taking out someone's homeworld that had a lot of population on it. Had it been a lesser world it probably would've rolled over it faster or not been so interested in it.