• Combat Preconditions
• Combat Overview
• Ship Vs. Ship Combat
• Planetary Defense
• Ground Combat and Conquering a Planet
• The Battle Report
• Score, Reputation And Rank

In order to conquer a planet you have to destroy the entire planetary-defense of a planet, plus all hostile ships in orbit of that planet.

If the owner of the planet you are attempting to conquer, is allied with another player who has ships present at the planet, then these ships may participate in the combat and will also have to be destroyed to conquer the planet. If you have any sort of treaty with this 3rd party, be it an alliance, peace treaty, or cease fire, then that player will not participate in the combat. Otherwise this 3rd party will participate in the battle and will also have to be destroyed in order for you to conquer the planet.

If you want to prevent your own planet from being easily conquered, position at least one ship in its orbit to guard it, even if it’s unmanned. Even better, of course, install a minimal planetary defense. Either of these will at least prevent an enemy from simply flying to your planet with only a troop-ship, and taking it over without a fight.

After all planetary defense facilities have been destroyed, and all hostile ships in orbit eliminated, ground combat is the next (and last) phase of conquering a planet. Provided the owner of the planet has stationed military on this planet, those will first have to be eliminated, before the planet is successfully conquered.

But even if there are no military stationed, you still need at least 1 trooper to conquer the planet. So you always need to bring troop ships along.

The common way to defeat stationed military on the planet is by deploying troops and make them fight on ground. The vile act of bio-bombing is the only other way. During the ground battle all invading troops fight against the military stationed on the planet. These military might be reinforced by allied troop ships in orbit, whose troops will fight alongside the defending stationed military.

During ground combat the rank of individual military do have an effect on their performance:

• Every extra rank gives a military +10% in health.
• Every extra rank gives a military +20% extra fighting strength.

Also, defending stationed military get to shoot first, so that puts them in a slight advantage. But not only that, you can build Bunkers and Planetary Fortresses that provide extra protection for stationed military during combat.

• A Bunker provides a 100% overall strength bonus for up to 4 stationed military.
• The Planetary Fortress provides a 200% overall strength bonus for up to 8 stationed military.

The highest ranked officers always end up being protected by a Bunker or Planetary Fortress. These buildings also offer extra protection during general bombing and bio-bombing raids: Military protected by a Bunker or Planetary Fortress is less likely to be killed.

All troops in orbit will invade the planet and basically fight against the stationed military on the planet. Its (minimal) crew will stay aboard and make sure the ship can keep flying. Naturally if you have got more troops you are likely to win. If all stationed military got killed, you successfully conquered the planet. Of course an invasion can go wrong too, in case you do not have enough troops to invade. Also the defender has a slight advantage because they start shooting first.

When conquering your troops gain experience. On the other hand, the stationed military that managed to fend off an invasion will gain experience too.

The result of a ground battle can be found in your News Screen, and looks like this:

If the invader won, all troops that took part in the battle will remain on the planet, and defend the planet against other hostile empires. If you do not want that to happen, but instead would like only a certain number of military stationed on the planet, with the rest remaining on the troop ships, use the following Admiral rule:

When conquering transfer 15 Stationed Military to the planet

NB. Once conflict has finished it is necessary to ensure enough troops are deployed on a planet to quell resistance, see: Loyalty and corruption.

Prerequisites:

• Every military starts with a health of 1 and a firepower of 2.
• For every extra rank a military gains +10% health.
• For every extra rank a military gains +20% firepower.
• Per Bunker the 4 highest ranking officers get a extra bonus (for firepower and health) of +100%.
• Per Planetary Fortress the 8 highest ranking officers get a extra bonus (for firepower and health) of +200%.

The actual battle is divided into 5 sub-iterations, at every sub-iteration new targets are picked, and 1/5th of the firepower is shot at the other side. The defending side gets to shoot first. After each sub-iteration the “dead” military are removed, they don’t take part in the next sub-iteration.

At the beginning of a sub-iteration the code randomly picks between 20% to 80% of the possible targets. So all military shoot, but they focus on a fraction of the targets. Every military randomly picks one of the possible (20-80%) targets, it is possible (and likely) that several military all shoot at the same target.

Note that rank is important. Also, there is some randomness involved, so the outcome of identical battles may differ somewhat. Plus the defender gets the first shot, which makes quite a bit of a difference.