Make sure that you select ordnance appropriate to the type of action you intend to initiate.
Range
Planetary Range Items cannot be used in short range. Use these items if you intend to pound the target from a distance. It is basically pointless including ground fighters and bombers in a ground party that will dock with the target.
Heavy Ordnance
Tanks are useful for pounding a starbase but are not much use in capturing one. They have few control factors and are not particularly effective against to enemy troops they are however more directed.
Capture or Destroy
Troops are pretty much the be all and end all of capturing positions. The reason for this is that they are armed with the latest technology, they are manoeuvrable, largely independent and we love them! Should you wish to eliminate the defence from within the starbase, send in soldiers. These do brutal amounts of damage and when used in overwhelming odds will simply kill off the opposition’s troops. Where you prefer to capture the position intact and minimise losses to yourself, it is a question of control. In this case look at the spread of the target and use the troop type that has the most control factors at that spread. If for example the starbase is packed, send in the marines. This type of assault will take longer but the troops, presuming there are sufficient control factors, will slowly capture the starbase.
Things to be aware off
If you are not docked with the position you are attacking, you are fair game for all long-range weaponry. This includes space weaponry, even from orbiting ships and platforms. If you want to use artillery and tanks from beyond short range, i.e. sector and above, make sure that you are disperse as space fighter, missiles and basically everything that the starbase can throw at you will be! Worse, any other starbase defending the one you are attacking will have a pop at you.
Basically, when attacking a starbase/outpost the choices are:
Stay in the sector and bomb it all and risk reprisals
-or-
dock with it but loose the use of planetary weaponry and the effectiveness of tanks.
Startroopers are as good as soldiers at killing things. As they are shuttle capable they can move under their own power from orbit, docking with the starbase without the need for shuttles.
If a ground party is in a sector (i.e. not docked), then it will not engage using short-range weapons.
As troops only have short-range weapons (all troops including space troopers have combat range – short) they will participate in fights against other ground parties in the same sector.
This means that if two ground parties are in the same sector and only have troops, they will not actually be able to damage each other even though they will continue to provoke a fight.
If tanks or other longer-range weapons are added to the ground parties, they will engage using the longer-range weapons.
Troops are suited to assaulting fixed assets such as outposts and starbases and also for boarding positions such as ships and platforms.
Why have we coded it this way?
Doing it any other way does not appear to benefit the game and produces in unnecessary problems. We cannot see a reason why two ground parties geared up purely for short-range combat would be running around a planet seeking to fight each other. This sort of event does not normally arise except through some engineering of the events.
The base commander wants to avoid the arrival of the attacker inside the base , because for instance it lacks sufficient short range factors to keep it intact, whereas by keeping it away, missiles, fighters, bombers, ships in orbit might turn the tide towards the defender
| QUOTE |
| I can think of a particularly good reason why GP's would want to engage in battle. |
Confused - what has this to do with two ground parties, both consisting only of short range items, i.e. only troops, no tanks, no artilliary, no ground fighters, no ground bombers, no space weapons such as missiles...
We are not saying that GP's cannot engage in ground combat with each other, just not fire short range weapons (e.g. troops). They can still fire sector, planet and space range weapons.
I've recently come across a very good (although prehaps unusual) reason that you may want to use only short-ranged troops in your GP to attack another GP. Capture.
Example. Someone has been running around one of my planets scouting everything in site. I want to stop them, and preferably take as many prisoners as possible. If I use any long range weapons, won't they just smash the enemy GP to bits at long range?
Okay, so killing means you get to write the history of what happened
, but from a Role-Playing point of view, I'd rather take them alive every time. Using short-ranged troops could allow me to capture enemy GPs, just like capturing any other position. Even outnumbered 274-1, I still couldn't capture a single enemy as I had to include Tanks - which squashed them at long-range (the ships in orbit had a go too
). I think there is deffinately room in the game for some mechanic that allows a GP-GP combat to be instigated with capture & prisoners in mind. Because it may be quite a rare occurance, I wouldn't object to it being an SA to instigate the battle at close range, which would provent any strange problems that Mica is worried about. But at present even this has been unattainable for different reasons.
I'm not sure if he tried to dock and failed or simply didn't realize that it would be far better for him to dock and fight it out in the base.
My questions is: Can a GP dock with a starbase avoiding short range combat if they are attacking via a ground move (they did not have enough shuttles to move the GP). Or does the whole GP have to be "shuttle capable" and come in from orbit?
It might have just been a bad choice the commander made....
Goth
| QUOTE (Goth @ Apr 16 2006, 02:25 PM) |
| I noticed in a recent ground battle that a large GP attacked a base with mostly troops but seemed to slug it out in sector short range combat for 4 rounds. I'm not sure if he tried to dock and failed or simply didn't realize that it would be far better for him to dock and fight it out in the base. My questions is: Can a GP dock with a starbase avoiding short range combat if they are attacking via a ground move (they did not have enough shuttles to move the GP). Or does the whole GP have to be "shuttle capable" and come in from orbit? It might have just been a bad choice the commander made.... Goth |
As long as the GP trying to dock doesnt trigger the base enemy lists, then the GP will dock as long as it can move - it doesnt need to be shuttle capable. After the dock order, it could then initiate the attack on the base and thus avoid sector fire.
Mark
| QUOTE (Sam_Toridan @ Nov 19 2003, 05:06 PM) |
| One thing I did notice was a lack of an order to initiate a long range attack from a GP. The examples I'm thinking of are GP's comprised of planetary range weapons only, like fighters and missiles, wanting to launch an attack on a known colony/outpost from the other side of a planet. How do they do it without Special Actions? |
gps cannot fire naval weapons anymore
the order is assulat starbase (tick do not move, do not dock)
planetary weapons are artillery, sector weapons are tanks etc etc, you cannot fire rail weapons etc from a gp
| QUOTE (Gandolph @ Apr 17 2006, 08:32 AM) |
| you cannot fire rail weapons etc from a gp |
is that even if the GP is attack by naval weapons from outside of the sector/planet?
The reason for this change was that it was shown that the spread of a Space Station/Ground Party combined with no mass limits makes them more effective at space combat than either ships or platforms. So it was either make lots and lots of complicated mechanics that ingeneous players could work around in order to expand a loop hole or simply remove their ability to use naval weapons.
Can they use spaceweapons?
Gordon
I could be wrong though, I was never really clear on the whole thing
| QUOTE (COH_Gord @ Apr 20 2006, 09:17 AM) |
| What about starbases in space? Can they use spaceweapons? Gordon |
The only things in space that can use spaceweapons are ships and platforms.
Mark
| QUOTE (ptb @ Apr 20 2006, 10:02 AM) |
| I think starbases in space are space stations and so can't use them |
Correct.