Question/problem re: bombardment

[Mozo]

Hi all,

Loving this game - but I has a question/problem with bombardment. A fleet of 30 guardians show up into one of my two big systems. I have 3 def. bases, a large starport, and about the same number of ships (more cruisers then they have so my fleet is stronger). They ignore my ships as soon as the arrive and immediately bombard the planet. They start losing ships fast but my pop and quality start going down (the quality from 98% to 92% very quickly). Then within what seemed like a minute (at normal speed) I lose both my governor AND one of my ground troop leaders (the only 2 leaders on the planet). Within another minute or so my fleet pretty much wipes out their fleet.

Questions: Is it just bad randomness or do leaders die quickly from bombardment? Shouldn't they be in the last few groups to go?

More importantly - I defended this planet pretty well - shouldn't there be some penalty or reduction in damage if they ignore these bases/ships and just bombard the planet while getting hammered by my fleet/bases? I'm thinking there should be some requirement - like you have to first destroy the bases at least. It seems just too easy to suicide you fleet and reduce quality/leaders so quickly.

I don't mind losing a system/losing quality if I was not careful and lightly defended something - but this seemed a little too much.

Thanks for ideas/opinions,

Mozo

[ASHBERY76]

I agree the factor involving leaders getting hit should be lower.

[Mozo]

My other problem is the fact that they can do so much damage with all those defenses in place - and the fact that they would focus on the planet and not the defenses.

[Keston]

A player focuses on taking out defenses to enable an invasion and conquest (though one can invade directly and take losses on the way in).

Why would strategic bombardment forces focus on the defenses? Tactical strikes may be used to occupy or disable defenses to make a strategic strike easier, but the strategic attack is "countervalue" - the mission is to destroy enemy productive capacity on the planet. The defenses will weaken the bombardment, but short of a planetary shield hitting ground targets from space is fairly simple physics.

Leadership would normally be the highest priority target, though one hopes the best protected or hidden as well.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Mozo,

Planetary shields are what you want to protect the planet from bombardment, but I agree that characters should be a bit less vulnerable to bombardments. We'll add a tweak for this to the list.

Regards,

- Erik

[Mozo]

Thanks Erik. It was the only time I got bombarded so I can't say it is scientific - but I did lose both leaders very quickly. Does anyone know what the tech needed for Planetary shields? Just curious.

Thanks again,

Mozo