Steve- I've just finished fighting out my first ever ground combat, and several weird things popped up.
First off, I got an error message when I ordered my ground units to stop attacking the enemy - "Error in cmdCeaseGroundAttack_Click".
Secondly, I'm not sure ground combat is working right, the battle was between 1 mobile infantry and three garrison units on one side, and three heavy assault divisions, three mobile infantry, two assault divisions, two garrisons and an HQ on the other side. To further unbalance things, the side with the eleven divisions had researched ground unit strength 14, while the weaker side only had the basic level (10, I think). After three combat rounds, the weaker side had lost the mobile infantry division and one garrison, while the stronger side had lost the following:
Heavy Assault: 2
Assault: 1
Mobile Infantry: 2
Garrison: 1
While certainly within the bounds of possibility, it seems that this result is highly unlikely.
Finally, preceding the ground battle, orbiting cruisers initiated a general bombardment, just to teach the rebels a lesson. The results were gratifying, especially given the outdated weaponry used (thermal torpedoes). The results were so good, as a matter of fact, that I stopped the bombardment after just one round. The problem is, every time I run a turn more damage is being done to the planet, even though all of the ships ceased fire a long time ago. In fact, I moved them away from the planet just to eliminate them as a possible cause, and at this point they are far beyond the range of their weapons. Even so, I continue to get the following message in the Event screen:
suffered 1 hits for a total of 4 points of damage. Casualties...
Note the blank at the start. I think that relates the name of the rebels. After the resolution of the battle I deleted them, but for some reason Aurora is continuing to bombard them. The above message is followed by another indicating that the loyalist population on the planet has also been hit for the same amount of damage. The radiation level increases every turn as well.
This is very perplexing. I'd appreciate any insight you might have.
Kurt