Bombing a Planet to death: How to survive?

[Xkill (OP)]

This topic may initially be seen as a means to impede a NPR or a Precursor Mothership from making a barbecue of your people.  However it is not like that, I would like to know if it is possible to control atleast one of you ships after your last planet has been pulverized.

Think of like: I have Earth the Blue Planet, all my colonies have perished to a Killer fleet of a lucky NPR or a robot Precursor, then I assemble a Battle Fleet at Earth, and before that I launched a fleet of colony ships containing all of the remaining humans.  After a hard battle Earth is destroyed by let's say. . .  strength 2100 Nuclear Detonations.  I have no more planets.

The question is: Can I take my Colony Fleet to colonize a new planet even having no more planets left? Or after Earth is conquered, the Game closes and the campaign is deleted, or something like that?

Also how do I bomb an NPR planet? I need Normal Missiles or an specific design for that? And if so how to start droping those said bombs on the enemy?

[Erik L]

There is no "Game Over man!" setting. So if your last planet gets nuked and you have a fleet of colony ships, the game will continue. HOWEVER, if the aliens invade and take over your planet, they will get your astrogation data.

[Steve Walmsley]

I have often thought about creating a game that starts with a Battlestar Galactica style civilian fleet and no populations, running from some suitable bad guys.

Steve

[Xkill (OP)]

Thats good 'cause now I can stop rushing Weapon and Ship Production in all the damm games I play.

But how do I bomb a planet to extinction? I finally got a fight with an NPR he was small, low tech (His fighters where going at 1600km Tops) no shields or even good sensors.  Wrecks and Lifepods all over the place.  The Cruiser took the prize thought (Putting some missiles to the fight was a good idea).

Now all that rests is some Ground Forces, a Shipyard complex and about 1200M population.  I have colonized the entire Sol System and some planets at EZ Aquarii and New York so I really don't need all this pop.

[Steve Walmsley]

Thats good 'cause now I can stop rushing Weapon and Ship Production in all the damm games I play.

But how do I bomb a planet to extinction? I finally got a fight with an NPR he was small, low tech (His fighters where going at 1600km Tops) no shields or even good sensors.  Wrecks and Lifepods all over the place.  The Cruiser took the prize thought (Putting some missiles to the fight was a good idea).

Now all that rests is some Ground Forces, a Shipyard complex and about 1200M population.  I have colonized the entire Sol System and some planets at EZ Aquarii and New York so I really don't need all this pop.

If you can detect the alien population you can target it and launch missiles at it.

Steve

[randal7]

If I can detect ground forces, can I target them with beam weapons (specifically mesons)?

[Hawkeye]

If I can detect ground forces, can I target them with beam weapons (specifically mesons)?

Generally yes.
Beware however, that if the atmosphere is at 1+ atm, you will do no damage.
Mesons are the exception to this, but I am not sure those will work against a population/ground forces. I seem to remember getting a message on the event log telling me mesons are no use against ground targets, but this might also be my memory playing another trick at me.

[ShadoCat]

I have often thought about creating a game that starts with a Battlestar Galactica style civilian fleet and no populations, running from some suitable bad guys.

Steve

You might need some mobile Orbital Habitats for that.   

[Brian Neumann]

You might need some mobile Orbital Habitats for that.   

I did try a Battlestar Galactica sort of a start.  I upped my engine, beam fire control speed and laser size from where it would normally be, then loaded everything into huge ships for cargo, cryo, maintenance, and troop ships.  Had a few really large combat ships and some small escort but that was it.  Made sure I wouldn't want to stay in my home system by making it have a disaster where the sun kept getting warmer, and two hostile nprs in the same system as well.  An interesting game, but I did end up being wiped out by other races.  They were lower tech, but as I only saved about 100 million population they just swarmed me under eventually.

Brian

[Xkill (OP)]

Hello guys, I've got a new question now:

Why in the Industry Tab of the Population window are the option to build Ship Components? What is this going to help me in the future?

Like if I have begun the construction of a Freighter and I already have some components built, is this going to reduce the build time because I already have some components ready to be installed? Or is this exixts just for me to sell my equipment to an NPR (So that he can reproduce it and use it on someone else)?

[Steve Walmsley]

Hello guys, I've got a new question now:

Why in the Industry Tab of the Population window are the option to build Ship Components? What is this going to help me in the future?

Like if I have begun the construction of a Freighter and I already have some components built, is this going to reduce the build time because I already have some components ready to be installed? Or is this exixts just for me to sell my equipment to an NPR (So that he can reproduce it and use it on someone else)?

If you have already built some of the components, the construction time and cost for a ship will be reduced.

Steve

[Xkill (OP)]

Cool! Less build time! Thanks Steve. 

[Brian Neumann]

If you pre build the most expensive components you can significantly reduce the build time of your ships.  I have taken huge warships that would normally need 2 years to build and gotten them built in 4-6 months.  I used my industry to build the engines, electronics and weapons (especially the big laser turrets).  It was a huge help in building a big fleet in a hurry.  I usually needed about 1 month lead time per ship using 1/3 of my planetary industry to get this sort of time savings.  Be warned however that aurora only checks if there are pre made components available when you start building a ship.  Components built after the start will not help you on that particular ship building, just the next one that you build.  Also if you cancell a building order you do not get the pre made components back, they are just gone.

Brian

[DatAlien]

Generally yes.
Beware however, that if the atmosphere is at 1+ atm, you will do no damage.
Mesons are the exception to this, but I am not sure those will work against a population/ground forces. I seem to remember getting a message on the event log telling me mesons are no use against ground targets, but this might also be my memory playing another trick at me.

No, your memory doesnt play a trick at you