Bombing
by: Various Authors

Question

My question on bombing is ja little different as the one just being discssed.

I want to bomb an enemy as fast as possibile from the planet. I tried it with the neutron bombs (no min. kill) and the cherry bomb, which has a min. kill. It seems to me that in defeating raw population the cheaper cherry bombs are more effective. Especially when coming lower than 100,000 people the cherry bombs make the best job.

Q: Am I right or any other opinions ?

Jens

Answer

Ok, you hit the big difference between smart bombs and normal bombs.. smart bombs hit one at a time, while normal all together. For example:

a- you attack a planet with 10 normal bombs... each bomb kills 2.2% and has a minimum kill of 400. Assuming that there are no defences, the bomb combine their value and will kill:
10*2.2%=22% of the population
and the minumum kill will be: 10*400=4000 colonists, i.e. if there are less than that, goodby!

b- smart bomb do no add and have no min kill, so 10 bombs killing 2.2% would kill:

100*((100-2.2%)/100)^10 percentage of the pop..

smart bombs are only convenient if you want to keep the factories and mines, reduce the pop and than get the planet with colonists.. else use cherry bombs.

Probably mty reply is'nt very clear, but I am sick today...
Giorgio

Another Answer

One of the things I'd like to do is keep existing factories and mines but kill off defenses. Bombs aren't smart enough to do that. So I'm wondering about changing my strategy to hurling mass packets which will kill defenses and pop, then drop my people down. Someone has put together a nice Mass Packet Calc (Allyn?) available on a few of the web pages (Jeff Keene's is one, I believe) which ought to be able to tell me the size of the packet necessary to dust off the pop; then I'll hurl one a bit smaller than that.

I'm rambling here hoping for some of your smart (as in intelligent!) responses

-Drew

A Comment

This is a comment, and also a question: I was using the tactic described above, and I mistakenly wiped the whole pop from a planet. But when I recolonized it, there were factories and mines there, presumabily built by the former occupant. Before, I thought that factories and mines dissapeared when a planet was bombed out or abandoned. But if they stay, I will prefer "overkilling" to trying to guess how many defenses there will be when the packet arrives, to calculate the exact amount of minerals to send to leave 100 colonists; yuo can get pretty nasty surprises that way,

Can someone answer me? Do m & f dissapear, or do they stay?

An Answer

I find that my favorite technique is to build bombers with smart bombs only. That was I dont have to worry about building factories and/or mines because the smart bombs dont hurt them. Once the population gets down to a couple thousand or so I just drop 100 thousand colonists on there and the planet is mine. If you really wanted to you could build a couple bombers with the LBU bombs and use those until the planet registers as having little or no defenses. This should still leave you with some left over mines and factories, although I and not positive. The technique that I like does have some downsides, like taking a little longer and the bombers are expensive, but I like it and I use it. I guess in this game whatever works for you is best.

Brian Weeden

Yet Another Answer

The reason for this is, you guessed it, in the help file! :)

The help file states that the population shown on a planet is +-20%. This is due to the inaccuracies of estimating the exact population from scanners in orbit. After all, we don;t know exactly how many people are on the Earth, and we live here!

Rob

Next....

The most effective mix of bombs that I have found for the B-52 bomber is 4 Lbu-72 bombs (Use these to take out defenses), 4 Cherry bombs (use these to kill colonists), and 8 powerful Smart bombs (use these because in the beginning they kill a tremendous amount of colonists). By mixing these bomb type you get a bomber that has no weak-points in its bombing. Try it.

-Nick

Response...

Hmm... in my experience the limiting factor in taking out a heavily defended planet is penetrating the planetary defences. Once those are gone, the population is destroyed easily even by low-tech bombs. Therefore, my "ultimate" B-52 design has 2 stacks (i.e 8) of LBU bombs to destroy defences and factories outright, one stack (4) of smart bombs to kill off the bulk of the population, and one stack (4) of cherries for mop up. I generally assemble these in fleets of 10 bombers (with heavy BB escorts of course). Even with very good defences, the planet loses all shielding and most factories in one turn (with about a quarter million casualties). On the second turn, the planet is finished off and my fleet moves on. How many turns does it take your bombers to kill off a maxed out planet (in fleets of 10)?

Scott

More Ideas

There is a trick that can be used to allow smart bombs alone to take down a fully defended planet quickly:

Split up your bombers.

If you take a fleet of smart bombers in and bomb with them as a unit, they'll kill a goodly number of colonists, but planetary defenses will keep that number well under half the planets initial population.

If you split the fleet into single-ship pieces then each bomber can take a 20 to 30% whack out of the planet's population. Even in the face of maximum defenses. Do this for 10 or 20 bombers and you can take the target all the way down in one turn.

.8^20 = .01 (1 million colonists taken down to 10,000)
.8^10 = .1 (1 million colonists taken down to 100,000)
John Briggs vaxs09@alpha.vitro.com

Keep Reading

another excellent advantage is when the enemy attacks your fleet, all the bombers go all over the place instead going to the same square on one move. This also reduces amt. of losses and damage.

but I got a even better bomb method. What I do is, equipt a mini bomber with 2 LBU, another one with 2 Smart bombs, and a B17 with cheries. Effective when put together. Never computed there total cost to one B52, but this: