Planetary attack damages only calculated on victory

Oftentimes methods like tidal distruption, mass drivers, core detonation, etc are used from orbit before the attack commences. Those are supposed to have devastating effects on the planet, destroying almost all the improvements, damaging its quality, and reducing the advantage of the defenders by alot.

However those things ONLY take effect if you CONQUER the planet. If you blast the planet with asteroids massive damage is taken if you win, but none if you loose?

A much more reasonable approach would be to seperate the ground attack and orbital strikes. The orbital strikes would just kill people and damage the planet, and the ground attack would be a seperate ordeal that MIGHT Come later.
Even if this is not implemented though, the damage to the planet should occur regardless of victory status.

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I believe that this is to keep the player from exploiting the destruction on the AI. If you attack and fail but all the improvements are still destroyed you make the planet basically usless to to the AI preventing it from reatliating from that planet anymore almost guranteeing that the player can conquer it. With all of the improvements still there the planet can still produce ships and more population for defence. Once the player gets it though with all of the improvements gone it also give the Ai a chance to take it back more easily as it forces the player to develop the planet all over again. I believe that this is done for balncing more than anything else.

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Hah! I never thought it that way. This is the first post I've seen about this phenom, and since you brought it to my attention, it does sound pretty silly. Maybe the population can hold off the effects of your attacks by absorbing the damage they do (which is why they die at a faster rate when you use these ataacks) - until the population is gone. Then the rocks and tidal forces act on the planet itself.

I can just imagine billions of citizens running around throwing themselves under asteroids to prevent the plnaet surface from being destroyed.

Bill

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I already used this in GC1. When you don't have enough transports to invade without a devastating invasion method you can do the following to keep the planet sane.

Invade with one or two of your transports only, to reduce the number of defenders. Take over the planet in a second wave. You need some experience with battles to know how much "softening" you need, though.

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the damage to the planet should occur regardless of victory status.

I agree completely. The rocks don't stop just becuse you didn't win.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

If the defenders won, then by definition they prevented whatever tactic you used from taking effect (though possibly at great cost).

This is not a bug, it is a design decision. The devs think it is less cheesy to do it that way (allowing you to chip down the defenses of a strong planet without damaging it) than it is to allow the damage even if you lose (hello single-trooper planet-nukes).

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Yeah, that's my guess as well. I try to think of it as the defenders finding a way to completely conteract the invasion tactic, THEN dealing with the invaders themselves...

Of course, several things people want might never be in the game because it would be hard to have the AI be able to deal with them (or use them) properly...

As great as the AI is in this game... it could also be considered this game's greatest weakness, no?

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