The Logistics of Planetary Invasions: A Mechanistic Analysis

[Gyrfalcon]

Well for those, you can always just stand off and lob missiles at them until they're softened up and glowing gently.

[IanD]

Well for those, you can always just stand off and lob missiles at them until they're softened up and glowing gently.

But only after you have removed the STOs of which there are usually many thousands of tons and occasionally more!

[Demetrious]

I am getting tired of the asteroid and cometary forts the NPRs build, usually protecting nothing with up to 200,000 tons of ground forces plus several thousand tons of STOs visible.

Perhaps these defenses are emplaced for auto-mine colonies but then not shifted once the deposits play out?

[db48x]

For me the problem isn't actually the number of troops required, it is the amount of collateral damage that a balanced RP army will do.

Try adding any form of medium bombardment and above and you are going to realize that even when avoiding orbital bombardment, you will have very little left to conquer.

That seems fairly realistic to me; Europe was shot up pretty badly in WWII. Japan was not doing so well either. War never changes.

[Andrew]

Europe did not plunge to -60 degree's celsius and suffer the death of the entire planatery population over the next few years, although there was a couple of bad winters

[Foxxonius Augustus]

For me the problem isn't actually the number of troops required, it is the amount of collateral damage that a balanced RP army will do.

Try adding any form of medium bombardment and above and you are going to realize that even when avoiding orbital bombardment, you will have very little left to conquer.

That seems fairly realistic to me; Europe was shot up pretty badly in WWII. Japan was not doing so well either. War never changes.

War changes a lot over time. Medieval armies sacked towns and villages sure but they didn't demolish stone bridges or buildings "by accident". In contrast Europe and Japan were in rough shape post war because strategic aerial bombing was in its infancy and we hadn't worked out how to min/max it yet. Also, at the time of ww2 "targeting computer" was a job description, not a piece of equipment. With the advent of digital computing and smart munitions, the rate of collateral damage has plummeted and that isn't even taking TN tech into account.

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

It is worth noting that collateral damage is reduced by ~80% in 1.14, if I recall correctly. Not sure if this will solve the problem neatly since collateral damage is difficult to model, but it should hopefully help make conquest a more viable means of acquiring loot.

[db48x]

Europe did not plunge to -60 degree's celsius and suffer the death of the entire planatery population over the next few years, although there was a couple of bad winters

That’s merely a matter of degree. With TN tech we could have done the job much more thoroughly

War changes a lot over time. Medieval armies sacked towns and villages sure but they didn't demolish stone bridges or buildings "by accident". In contrast Europe and Japan were in rough shape post war because strategic aerial bombing was in its infancy and we hadn't worked out how to min/max it yet. Also, at the time of ww2 "targeting computer" was a job description, not a piece of equipment. With the advent of digital computing and smart munitions, the rate of collateral damage has plummeted and that isn't even taking TN tech into account.

True, but that was an attempted joke. It’s from the intro sequences of various Fallout games, which depict the consequences of a devastating war.

[Andrew]

having just experimented with invading an NPR Homeworld of lower tech than me, but a smaller margin than I thought. A big expense you have to factor in is troop transport as I was invading without a bombardment to wipe out STO's because I want the population my transports have shields and armour which make them somewhat expensive.
I had prestaged my assault troops to the nearest planet to the homeworld, there being no suitable moon. Each assault wave was 660000 tons of troops with 3 waves available. I lost as each wave got wiped out before the next wave could arrive several days later, it looked like the enemy forces were a mess and a 4th wave would have won.
I then tried again SM'ing all 8 Legions and their command groups onto the world, they won. So for maximum efficiency you either need a forward base a few hours from the planet (even then troop loading time will be a problem) or enough transports to drop you army in one wave. 

[nuclearslurpee (OP)]

I believe many players use forward bases for exactly this reason.

[Droll]

Yeah if you don't have enough transports to drop everything within 8 hours don't bother with invasions.

[Andrew]

In this case the closest planet for a forward base was about 8 hours away and it took a day and bit to load each of the 3 transport fleets , during that time the first wave was wiped out. So really I needed over a million tons of troop lift not the just over half a million I had. Against a better defended world with more hostile terrain or tech parity I suspect I would have needed 2 million tons of troop lift. I underestimated how long

[Garfunkel]

Might need more cargo shuttles in your transports too.

There's definitely a case for having two different types of troop transports - one for moving garrisons and one for invasions. Because the latter will probably be a lot more expensive to build and maintain than the former.