Bombing Planets

More about Combat

Playing Stars!

Bombing happens automatically. All you need to do is load your bombers and send them to the enemy planet. If the planet does not have a starbase, the fleet begins to bomb on arrival. (If the planet has a starbase, you'll have to destroy it before you can commence bombing.)

You specify the type of bombs a particular bomber design carries when you design the ship. Your bombers have an infinite number of bombs, allowing your fleet to bomb forever without resupplying. The number of bombs you place in each slot is the number dropped on that planet per year.

Enemy Population Count During Bombing

You may notice that the enemy population reduction doesn't always match your calculations when bombing. For example, the Summary pane reports that the population is 400,000. You receive a report saying your bombs destroyed 65,000 colonists. Now the Summary pane says the population is 410,000. What gives?

The population report of an opponent's world is always an estimate. The number shown is +/- 20% of the actual value. Since you aren't on the surface, you won't be able to take an accurate count -- until the count is zero.

Special Bombs

Claim Adjuster races can gain the Retro bomb, a type of terraforming weapon used to return the planet to its original conditions.

Smart Bombs destroy colonists, but not Mines or Factories. They are twice as effective as other bombs at penetrating planetary. The effect of smart bombs is multiplicitive and there is NO miminum number of colonists guaranteed to be killed. Smart bombs alone will not completely destroy a planet's population.

For information on bomb types and damage, take a peek at the Bombs category of the Technology Browser. To learn about researching bomber and bomb technology, read about how  to perform research or use the Research dialog. To learn how to design and build bombers, read about ship design.