Postby PrivateHudson » Sat Aug 08, 2020 5:09 am
Space Empires V had an interesting implementation of ground invasions, almost like you describe. There were ships and units. Besides friendly fleet, colony could be defended by: engineless ships (starbases); planetary shield generators, taking up facility slots; units in near space (mines, satellites, drones, fighters) up to a limit; units on the surface (same unit types, launched in space at battle start, + weapon platforms and tanks) up to a planet cargo capacity. Of them most dangerous usually were weapon platforms, whose shields got summed up in addition to planetary shields. In theory, you hadn't to destroy all of this to drop ground invaders (fighters, tanks), just steam the transport close enough to the surface. Any ship with cargo capacity could pass as transport - even colonizer loaded with units could capture undefended colony. But to take heavily defended colony, specialized fleet was necessary: missile-equipped long-range bombardment taskforce, kamikaze bombardment taskforce on drones, fighters, or ramming ships, bomb-equipped close-range bombardment taskforce, drop taskforce on fast armored transports - repurposed warships. Each hit during bombardment that passed planetary shield could with certain probability damage unit on the surface (including yours from previous drops), or facility, or kill amount of population. Multiple space battles and drops could be attempted during single turn by different fleets, maybe belonging to different players. At the end of a turn, invaders tried to overcome defenders in a limited time, tearing between enemy tanks and fighters and high-value, but silent now weapon platforms. The game tracked invader numbers (by faction) on enemy colonies between turns, so if undecided, at the end of next turn ground combat continued. Defenders were assisted by militia, whose numbers were determined by population amount, and that was replenished each turn. Defenders enjoyed limited repair and resupply, invaders could only hope for reinforcements. Space and ground combat was real-time. And most important - you could design all ships and units.