Planetary Bombardment - why bother?

from Sins Forums

In every game I've played (I only play solo/AI), I've found that nearly always, building the planetary bombardment ships (for whichever faction), turns out always to be nothing but a waste of time money and resources.  when part of my fleet, these ships are always the first to be targetted and destroyed, and never last long enough in battle (much too lightly armoured) to be worth almost any effort in building them.  Thus, I've never destroyed a planet until after all other defenses and other ships around a planet have been destroyed, and since the bombers are all dead, it's always the capital ships that do the final cleanup of destroying the planet.

So, am I doing something fundamentally wrong in using them?  Or are they just wasted effort?

I'd love to see updates/upgrades specific to these ships to give them more armor and staying power, or even the addition of a later-game "big bomber" with more punch and staying power.

26,520 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Basicly, planetary bombardment ships should not be in the initial battle, and should be only sent in when resistance is minimal or non-existant.  They are very good at the cleanup, so basicly you got things reversed.  Send in the capital ships first, and once the gravity well is cleared, then send in the bombard ships for glassing.

But, unless you are blitzing, in which case you definately dont want to leave your capital ships behind bombarding planets, you uasually can get away with not building seige frigs... and just invest in a seige cap instead.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, siege frigates are basically a way to clean up a planet that is blasted clean while your main assaulting fleet in the area moves on to the next target.  Maybe let a flak frigate and long range frigate rest near the siege frigate as security. You can also destroy newly acquired colonies with a small task force that brings along a siege frigate or two.  This mostly works best against the AI, since they'll pull everything they have to face your main fleet.  If you have pirates on you might be able to get away with it if you win a raid and launch your own two-pronged attack, forcing the opponent to defend three different places simultaneously.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I keep my siege and torpedo ships behind the main fleet with a colony ship set to follow the siegers. Up ahead I keep my carrier fleet in the outside of the grave well already turned and ready to jump back to protect the cleanup crew if i am flanked or overwhelmed by reinforcements.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Siege Frigates should be sent in for clean-up duty after the battle is over.  If you want to bombard during a raging battle, always go with capital ships.  The Vulkoras and Marza fulfill this role very well.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

So then the final question I have on this topic is that if nobody uses their seige ships until after all of the major battles have taken place and have been won (leaving only the planet behind, I assume), what would be the use of such starbase upgrades such as "Auxiliary Government"?  I would assume that nobody would use this, knowing that people tend not to go for the planet before the starbase (and other defenses as well) is destroyed?

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ckotchey, reply 5
So then the final question I have on this topic is that if nobody uses their seige ships until after all of the major battles have taken place and have been won (leaving only the planet behind, I assume), what would be the use of such starbase upgrades such as "Auxiliary Government"?  I would assume that nobody would use this, knowing that people tend not to go for the planet before the starbase (and other defenses as well) is destroyed?
End of ckotchey's quote

Well if its only a starbase in the gravity well, than you can obviously just send in the siege frigates without a fleet and still attack the planet by going around the starbase. The point of siege frigates are they save your fleet time if there is no threat to them, so keep them separate from your fleets.

Also auxiliary government works well against Novaliths, though the recent trade buff will still cost you a lot in revenue.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Your planet might have an artifact for example.  Also, if you're playing as the TEC or Advent, people will normally ignore your starbase if they can, or outrange it with an Akkan boosting some Ogrovs.  If the planet is a home planet, you also get the 4 creds/.4 metal/.4 crystal per second income from it at all times even if the population dies.  You might want to protect your allegiance too, since losing your homeworld will begin to drop everything down to 25/35%.  Speaking of which, if the game has proceeded on for a long time, the Advent might plop Induced Reverence down on their home planet, upping it to 140%(150 with Allure of the Unity, though that is rare) allegiance. 

 

In short, there are certain situations where you might consider it.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

what would be the use of such starbase upgrades such as "Auxiliary Government"?
End of quote

People don't use siege frigates to bombard in combat scenarios.  Using capital ships to bombard in combat is actually quite common.

Often times you'll get situations with starbases where the enemy fleet is huddled around the base for safety.  Using siege frigates to bombard the planet in these circumstances can work (it'll at very least draw them out of their hiding place), but usually people will use more durable capital ships, since sufficient numbers of fighters can usually knock out SF with a kamikaze run.

 

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the information!  I've never played multiplayer, so I'm sure I miss out on all the optimal strategies for doing things that people learn online.

I still would vote for adding a bit more armor to the siege frigates - even if only available as a researchable tech (ablative armor or such?).  I think it'd be nice too to add some sort of siege cruiser - with extra armor, bomb capacity & power, and maybe some minor defensive capability similar to flak/replusion/etc found on guardians and such.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Try turning Auto-Attack off on these ships and keep them in the back of the fleet. After the enemy fleet has been destroyed, highlight and send your squads to attack the turrets. Then send your bombers to attack the planet.