Lesson Learned Re: Failed Planetary Assaults

[Noble713 (OP)]

So I dropped 2 brigades of troops onto an alien colony, where I out-massed their ground force tonnage 2:1 and......my troops got their butts kicked. Turns out the alien infantry had armor penetration that cut right through my power armor design. So I loaded my survivors (<50%) back into the transports which bugged out to my nearest Fleet Base and awaited new ground unit and formation designs for a second attempt. Meanwhile, I sent some of my Fleets to other nearby systems, but kept about a dozen vessels in orbit (previously, this system had been the site of a major battle so the bulk of my Navy was hanging around with Orbital Fire Support orders).

Eventually, I guess the aliens decided to attack and destroy my "pop" of 0 people on their world.......when that happened, I "lost" 0 wealth........but my entire fleet in orbit surrendered to the enemy!  I couldn't figure out how to undo that in SpaceMaster mode so I just loaded my previous save, which was fortunately yesterday and without significant changes since. That seemed like a completely ridiculous result to me. Be careful out there, Space Admirals! (I'm on v1.9.4? 5?, so dunno if this was changed in v1.10).

[Droll]

So I dropped 2 brigades of troops onto an alien colony, where I out-massed their ground force tonnage 2:1 and......my troops got their butts kicked. Turns out the alien infantry had armor penetration that cut right through my power armor design. So I loaded my survivors (<50%) back into the transports which bugged out to my nearest Fleet Base and awaited new ground unit and formation designs for a second attempt. Meanwhile, I sent some of my Fleets to other nearby systems, but kept about a dozen vessels in orbit (previously, this system had been the site of a major battle so the bulk of my Navy was hanging around with Orbital Fire Support orders).

Eventually, I guess the aliens decided to attack and destroy my "pop" of 0 people on their world.......when that happened, I "lost" 0 wealth........but my entire fleet in orbit surrendered to the enemy!  I couldn't figure out how to undo that in SpaceMaster mode so I just loaded my previous save, which was fortunately yesterday and without significant changes since. That seemed like a completely ridiculous result to me. Be careful out there, Space Admirals! (I'm on v1.9.4? 5?, so dunno if this was changed in v1.10).

This is almost certainly a bug if you can reproduce it - post it on the report thread ideally with the DB right before it happens. Your fleet should not surrender unless you have no colonies with any population left.

[Garfunkel]

It's not a bug in itself but it IS a bug in execution - it's WAI for ships in orbit (or at least some of them) to surrender when the local colony is conquered. However, the bug here is that this was a meaningless "colony", not Earth or something, so it shouldn't have enough "value" to cause any ship to surrender. So yes, please do post it in the bugs thread and with the DB.

[Pedroig]

Ships in orbit should never surrender due to loss of colony.  Afterall they control the high orbitals, the colony is at their mercy, not the otherway around.  Even if it is the LAST COLONY this should not happen.  How they will survive without refit/resupply/refuel is quite a different matter.  Guess there will be no BSG type campaigns...

[Jorgen_CAB]

From an RP point of view I can see many reasons for why a ship in orbit of a colony would surrender in such an event. The crew might have their families on that planet and rather surrender so their families are spared. There are many examples of ships surrendering when their territory was successfully invaded, even if the ships themselves could potentially have sailed away to an ally. Happened in WW2 for example with the French fleet.

So I would not say such a mechanic would be entirely unreasonable. Obviously a zero population colony should not force any ships to surrender, that has to be a bug.

[Geezer]

FWIW I agree with Pedroig.  Ships in orbit should never surrender just because a colony they are orbiting is lost.  Hopefully we will hear from The Man on whether this is working as intended.

[firsal]

Ships in orbit should never surrender due to loss of colony.  Afterall they control the high orbitals, the colony is at their mercy, not the otherway around.  Even if it is the LAST COLONY this should not happen.  How they will survive without refit/resupply/refuel is quite a different matter.  Guess there will be no BSG type campaigns...

Agreed. Perhaps a surrender of ships in orbit over a colony should only trigger if there are no friendly military-engined ships left in the system (meaning either the enemy has space supremacy, or help is too far away), and only for civilian and commercial ships, as they most probably cannot put up a fight.

Plus, the idea of a lone survey ship returning home after a decade-long survey expedition to find that their species has been subjugated would be quite interesting from a roleplay perspective. 

[consiefe]

This happened to me and I was shocked as well. And like you, I did the same thing, loaded the last save. It doesn't seem logical to me as there is zero importance of that colony anf there was no challange in space to my fleet.

They just can't... If it's earth, I could understand but that was a remote colony which never was ours in the first place.

[papent]

As far as I remember it was the same in the later versions of VB6. Ships in orbit went with the colony.

[Shadow]

From an RP point of view I can see many reasons for why a ship in orbit of a colony would surrender in such an event. The crew might have their families on that planet and rather surrender so their families are spared. There are many examples of ships surrendering when their territory was successfully invaded, even if the ships themselves could potentially have sailed away to an ally. Happened in WW2 for example with the French fleet.

The analogy doesn't really fly in this kind of science fiction context. Specific xenophobia aside, not even World War II was a total war of extermination, because ultimately we're all humans. In the face of an alien threat, however, the game changes considerably, and the threat becomes existential. Even if Earth fell, it would make no sense for remaining naval vessels to surrender to the mercy of inscrutable alien overlords.

All, or at least most species would fight to the bitter end when faced with probable extinction.

[sneer]

I had it some time ago and already reported it
Unfortunately I did not notice if this was picked up

[Omnivore]

Why not just delete the colony after you pull the troops out?   Just only step ahead long enough for the pull out.

For that matter, since there are probably no formations left other than at best a couple broken ones with a handful of units, just delete the colon and RP the Dunkirk.  It's not like you can easily reconstitute the formations anyhow.

[liveware]

From an RP point of view I can see many reasons for why a ship in orbit of a colony would surrender in such an event. The crew might have their families on that planet and rather surrender so their families are spared. There are many examples of ships surrendering when their territory was successfully invaded, even if the ships themselves could potentially have sailed away to an ally. Happened in WW2 for example with the French fleet.

So I would not say such a mechanic would be entirely unreasonable. Obviously a zero population colony should not force any ships to surrender, that has to be a bug.

Maybe it would make sense for the surrender event to trigger somewhat randomly, weighted perhaps by the racial 'determination' and/or 'xenophobia' parameters?

[Rye123]

From an RP point of view I can see many reasons for why a ship in orbit of a colony would surrender in such an event. The crew might have their families on that planet and rather surrender so their families are spared. There are many examples of ships surrendering when their territory was successfully invaded, even if the ships themselves could potentially have sailed away to an ally. Happened in WW2 for example with the French fleet.

So I would not say such a mechanic would be entirely unreasonable. Obviously a zero population colony should not force any ships to surrender, that has to be a bug.

Maybe it would make sense for the surrender event to trigger somewhat randomly, weighted perhaps by the racial 'determination' and/or 'xenophobia' parameters?

Maybe if it's split to calculate the chance for each ship, and takes into account the morale of that. Since there's such an event that activates upon the loss of a colony I think maybe it should be extendable to cause a morale loss for every ship in orbit (that witnesses the defeat) - and a dice roll occurs based on the parameters you mentioned and the morale for every ship in orbit to determine if they surrender or not?

Don't really like the idea of ships in orbit surrendering though.

[Froggiest1982]

From an RP point of view I can see many reasons for why a ship in orbit of a colony would surrender in such an event. The crew might have their families on that planet and rather surrender so their families are spared. There are many examples of ships surrendering when their territory was successfully invaded, even if the ships themselves could potentially have sailed away to an ally. Happened in WW2 for example with the French fleet.

So I would not say such a mechanic would be entirely unreasonable. Obviously a zero population colony should not force any ships to surrender, that has to be a bug.

Probably the way is coded is that once you lost the colony all belongings are passing on the conqueror that is probably including eventual ships/stations orbiting the planet.