I was thinking while reading the post on interplanetary missiles...

And I thought... what if you could bomb a planet before invasion to make it a little easier? And I thought... why am I sitting here? I better get started on a post about it!  

So I was thinking that you could build ships with special modules that give them the ability to approach an undefended planet and attack it without actually taking the planet.
When you reach the planet something similar to the planetary invasion screen could show up and give you "planetary bombardment" options. Except each ship can only bombard a planet once every turn.

To make things even more interesting...
1)if you have two or more ships, a few new options will show up called team bombardment or something. (this option makes every ship lose its ability to bombard this turn but gives a bombardment bonus)
2)If one of your starbases is in range there could be an option like "starbase bombardment assist" that also gives you a bonus. (must be a military starbase... no, terrorstars don't count)
3)If an asteriod belt is near, you can have an option like "asteriod bombardment" where instead of just using missiles & bombs your ships will bring asteriods with them and drop them on stuff. (NOTE: the nearby asteriod field's miners will lose production)

Last of all, each bombardment technique could do something different like kill people, blow up improvements, or drop planet quality... or even better, what if you could choose what bombardment option to use... and then have the option of telling your ships which target to go after!

so what do you think?
-Shadow