A few things concerning bombardment of planets, some of which have been mentioned.

• There is very clearly some sort of permanant human population on each planet that is never completely wiped out.  Vasari do not significantly populate planets with their own people but rather enslave the local populace, which indicates that people are not killed completely but bombed into submission.  Furthermore, from a fluff perspective, how would culture prevent a planet from being colonized if the local population was nearly completely wiped out.  There must be people resisting colonization even after the infrastructure is completely decimated or else you would be able to immediately colonize
• A ground invasion of a planet is simply not feasible.  The largest ship in the game (Jarassul Evacuator) has an on board population of roughly 15,000 iirc, and most of those are civilians.  A maxed out terran planet would have BILLIONS of people.  Even if only a fraction of a fraction of those acted as a ground military it would be far too costly in both lives and resources to invade a planet from orbit.  Ground invasions would probably result in MORE deaths than bombarding the infrastructure until the planet surrenders, and then sending down new government officials and a few marines to instill order.

Here is how I understand the fluff behind the current mechanic.:

Attacking force clears the gravity well of orbital defenses and then procede to launch tactical nukes/kinetic bombs/lazer beamz to wipe out select government, military, and infrastrure installations on the ground.  Eventually all organizations that maintained order on the planet are completely wiped out and ther attackers send new Government officials and a number of marines to create order.  If the local population still supports their former government (ie. under hostile cultural influence) then they will resist being occupied by the new government order.

Certain mechanics, such as the Krosov Heavy Fallout and the Novalith cannon do cause significant civilian casualties as well as irradiating the planet, making it difficult or impossible to rebuild infrastructure for some time.

I completely agree with the above things, and i agree, for realism, that some changes should be made... however... in some cases, we have to stop and remember that this is a game, and that in our persuit of realism we mahy make the game unplayable... or not very fun to play.

yes, things could be changed... however... i dont see the point at the moment... perhaps in the next X pack, which we all believe is going to focus on empire and diplomacy no? maybe then they could change the bombing style, but at the moment, such a big change would be nothing more than cosmetic...

its a slippery slope we find ourselves on with this... all i can say is that for the moment, i think that messing with the planet bombing for nothing other than a cosmetic change (that is, precision missiles instead of nukes) is a waste of ironclad and stardocks time

Any particular reason why you decided to reply to a year-old conversation just to say "lol".

Many of the people who posted in this thread originally aren't even here anymore.

Sorry I didn't know.

Killing people is funny.

Nuking planets is funny too.

Not being able to zoom camera and see city destroyed by nuke is not funny.

Not being able to see REAL bombardment casualties (instead of "symbolic population value") is not funny.

Not being to occupy planet instead of annihilating it (if I don't want) - not funny

HOLY NECROPOSTS BATMAN!!!

SO SAYS THE KING!!!

nuking planets isnt evil bwahahahahahaahha its actually the fastest way of destorying somthing trust me they feel nothing when a 1000 megaton nuke hits them lol

lol my post was overely evil but thats becouse its a game lol lets supernovas the planet muhahahaahhaahhaha  or like on dark reign launch the dessicator .

I have to agree with the OP, SINS would be a better game if there was an alternative to nuking the planet.  Unfortunately just about every game out there uses the nuke or similar mechnaic.  The only execption I can think of right off is Master of Orion 2.  It had a more "realistic" invasion, where troops fought troops and the winner got the colony (along with the orginal population).  If the controlling race was different from the local race the colony would be less productive until the orginal inhabitants were displaced.

The "nuke them from orbit" is the most common method, however realisticaly all that would be left was a radioactive ball that wouldn't be worth colonizing.  This game mechanic is the simplest to program, and the value added for other methods is probably not worth it.

As someone said before about using Culture spread - it's called making a tough decision and sticking to it.

This reminds me of how people whined that in Fable (I've never played that game actually) if you chose the "good" path you ended up scarred and whatever and cried about how being good should have a better reward than being bad...

Guess what? Being good is NOT the easy path. The path of the "dark side" is the easy path of anger and violence.

Being a "Good Guy" means:

Knowing that for every evil you stop there is a hundred more being commited and a hundred more will be born from your acts of "goodness" that others take offense to and become villains because of you.

- "The Crimson Chin" gives Timmy Turner (From Fairly Odd Parents) a lecture on how he as a crime fighter (The Masked Magician) will one day create a villain trying to stop evil. I think there was a speech by Bruce Wayne to Terry in "Batman Beyond" along these lines as well.

Being a "Good Guy" means:

Thinking of others above yourself and above your own life.

It means giving up little pieces of yourself day after day until your hollowed out shell either needs to retire in peace or becomes filled with the evil you have spent your whole life fighting.

To sum up:

We have a mechanic to take a planet bloodlessly -Culture- and it is the tough road to only engage the military units and win by converting the populace but that's what it means to be a "Good Guy".

PS I love the (I believe Advent) Cap ship ability "Hysteria" where you hear the whole planet screaming with skulls popping up here and there as the people rebel and kill each other and pillage and loot in an extinction panic.

your cap ships can repel enemy culture... so fly in, wipe out his culture buildings, and wait for his culture to retreat (assuming your culture extends to the star in your home system)

even if another players culture causes the planet to turn neutral, at least it allows you to colonise it

uh... yeah....

i once controlled the only planet to a star and therefore the other starsystem

had a fair few planets in the first system pumping out culture and by the time i bothered annexing the second system, my culture had spread all through the second system without a beachhead...