Ground attack/defense bug?

[titus1]

Hello,
I've been playing this game for a few days now and it's been a blast(heh).
So after a few restarted games I noticed something. The Shaktur invaded one of my colonies after killing my garrison. I then sent the fleet to take it back - I had a lot of troops and they all assaulted - so far so good. When my troops were almost victorious the colony simply disappeared, my (and the enemy's remaining) troops with it.
What did just happen? The planet is still there.
Thanks.

[Aeson]

My best guess would be that someone used a planet-killer on it. Were you watching it at the time? If so, did you see an explosion similar to that which happened to Alderaan in Star Wars? If there were still warships in the area, were any of them armed with planet killers? Planet killers tend to be relatively inaccurate weapons, so while I'm not certain that you could miss a target ship or station and accidentally blow up a planet, it also wouldn't surprise me too much.

[Osito]

Do you mean that the planet was no longer there, or that the planet was still there, but no longer had a colony?

Edit: Didn't see the bit about planet still there - did you just edit that in, or am I going blind?

Anyway, I guess one possibility is that the Shakturi (or your forces) were bombing it from space.

[titus1]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah I've just edited it to add that bit, your eyes are fine
So
1. The planet killers are gone, I destroyed 3 of them after they took out two of my colonies.
2. At the time only my fleet was on top of the colony, I was watching it the whole time.
3. I don't have any planetary bombardment ships, and my ships were not firing, they were just blockading the planet.

[Osito]

Hmmm, the population of a planet can be reduced during an assault. Like collateral damage, I suppose. It's possible that's why the colony was destroyed, although it would depend upon whether the colony population was low enough to be completely wiped out. You can certainly lose 200-300 million pop in a ground assault, because I just tested it.

Osito

[titus1]

Fair enough. However, my concern was for the troops that I had there I've lost over 1 million soldiers.

[Osito]

Well, I'm speculating now, but I imagine that the troops can't exist on the planet if there's no colony, so if the colony was wiped out, the troops would go with it. If it's not a bug, it must be quite rare, as I've never seen it before. Also, it would mean that there is a risk with invading low population planets that you'll lose the colony and your army. That wasn't a risk I was previously aware of.

I'd be interested in the views of others.

Osito