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If a planet has 602k troops, how do I know how many time i need to click recruit to overcome them?
How do I know how many troop compartments to have on my troopships?

I keep missing my estimation and wasting troops.

Yesterday I noticed that normal troops appeared to be 100 size, and armor 200 size. The troop compartment should tell its capacity. My not too advanced AI-default troop ships had 650 capacity, and could carry 6 troops or 3 armor, with 50 to spare. Or a mix, of course.

Troop strength is gained by combat experience, and different races have different start strength, so there is no simple rule, really. For a fleet, the combined strength of troops is shown in the fleet info.

During battle the strength of each side is influenced by among other things fortification, generals, armor presence, and space control. This is shown in the battle details.

Some observations. An infantry unit has size 100 and an armor unit has size 200. Armor units get twice the attack of infantry and on top of that they're getting a 25% bonus for being armored. Therefore I prefer to use armor in invasion forces.

Now, if you're using armor then you have to think in terms of multiples of 200. 199 can't fit an armor. 201 can. The standard troop compartment has a capacity of 100 while the upgraded standard has a capacity of 130. Massive troop compartments have a capacity of 160 and upgrade massives have a capacity of 200. From this we can construct a table.

From the above table, we can fairly easily see that 8 standard troop compartments can fit 4 units of armor before the upgrade and five after, which is nice. There's a wasted capacity of 40 after the upgrade, which is actually the least wasted capacity you're going to get with standard components. Once you reach late game and decide to jump to massive components, the best deal is 5 massive troop components for 800 capacity at first and 1000 with the ultimate tech. This way there's no wasted capacity. Obviously this also extends to 10 massives for 1600 / 2000 capacity.

Regarding the number of troops you're going to need to beat a colony with 600k worth of defense, the answer is a whole lot. I'm guessing you're thinking about attacking a homeworld but they tend to have high populations and thus recruit infantry quite fast, which they'll be doing while the invasion is going on. Even with 50% bonus from armored and space control, I'd probably want at least 900k worth of troop strength. The bonus takes that to 1350k, meaning just over 200% of the defending force. 300% is a lot safer but raising 1200 worth of troops is a long and expensive proces, particularly if you're playing as the not very militant Ugnari.

Anyway, if you want a general rule of thumb then twice the defenders after bonuses for regular colonies and three times the defenders on homeworld'ish colonies is what I'd consider safe margins. Go with less and there's always the risk of losing.

And do make very sure your troop ships are invading at the same time. I once lost 12 units of armor because one of my ship captains was way too eager and got to the target zone before the others. His load of armor then fought 4 vs homeworld and were murdered down to barely one by the time the last 8 units of armor dropped in. At that point it was 8 and change against homeworld, which also wasn't a very good match. Needless to say, that captain was transfered to a science project concerning the effects of acid on unprotected skin. Or he would've been, if the game supported it.

I invade home worlds with 20x the attack strength of the selection panel figure for planet troop strength. That is usually 15-20 million, about 256 troops of medium clone strength. Put your troop ships in a fleet and select the fleet to see how much strength they have. It helps to have at least 4k shield strength, speed 70 or so, and carry at least 32 troops per troop ship. Generally by the time I have enough troops to invade a home world I have colossal construction, so my troop ships are size 1500 and carry 64 troops each...

Don't blow up the spaceport and defenses! Put 10+ ion cannons on troop escort cruisers and give them one troop module each. They are bait for the defenses to draw fire away from the real troop transports...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Invading with 20x force might be considered marginal overkill, Jeeves. And having size 1500 ships with 4k shield and speed 70 is perhaps a tiny bit beyond the early to mid game. But it sure sounds like fun. [:D]

That said, I'm typically making due with size ~300 ships that have 8 standard troop modules, a snail's pace in relative terms, a mere 500 shield or so, and they generally don't go in until the space port and other defenses are very, very dead. Taking over existing defenses is well and good but I want the 25% space control bonus, I don't want my troop ships to die, and rebuilding the port is probably going to cost less overall anyway.

LOL. Have it your way. Play styles may differ...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

2-1 with armour should usually work.

ORIGINAL: Spidey

Invading with 20x force might be considered marginal overkill, Jeeves. And having size 1500 ships with 4k shield and speed 70 is perhaps a tiny bit beyond the early to mid game. But it sure sounds like fun. [:D]

That said, I'm typically making due with size ~300 ships that have 8 standard troop modules, a snail's pace in relative terms, a mere 500 shield or so, and they generally don't go in until the space port and other defenses are very, very dead. Taking over existing defenses is well and good but I want the 25% space control bonus, I don't want my troop ships to die, and rebuilding the port is probably going to cost less overall anyway.

I am the same.

I usually have automated designs with some possible exceptions, and troop transports should not see a major battle. They move in after a battle fleet has cleared the area of any major threats. Of course, they move in not way after the spaceport going down, and there are always some late arrivals of the colony owners that the fighting ships take care of at this moment.

The beauty of the game is its flexibility. It is possible to use various house rules and play styles.

bring along some planetary defence for the +25 defence grid bonus

For those who doubt ground assaults in DW can be challenging enough. In-game house rules prohibit the "nuke the planet from orbit-it's the only way to be sure" paradigm. SPOILER ALERT: this is NOT the enemy capital; about a quarter of my ground assaults are parties on this kind of scale. This game kicks A$$!





P.S. The Klingons are Exterminating all conquerees. Notice the Fed pop IS actually at zero. This is a Shadows game though. [;)]

The problem is the very quick times reputation get better makes it very tempting to soften the colonies up with bombs.