Start - Bombing
(understanding the Start - Navigation guide is a must, also i recommend reading the Start - Construction guide to understand what damage you are doing)
You have watched someone build a planet, it took him/her 3 hours. Hehehe, grab your bomber ship.
There are 2 types of bombs:
Telekinetic/MIRV - Damages everything it hits.
Bio/Neutron bombs- Only damages population and infantry.
Now, what type of bombing do you have in mind?
To capture a planet you bomb the technology structures (Research Lab, Subspace Network, Cortex Nexus) first so that the defenses of the planet will deactivate. Then clear the infantry and drop your own, then call in the Artificial Intelligence ships, or a friend. you can call AI by selecting them in the navigation screen, then right clicking on the desired target. Right click on yourself is most effective. If they don't change their orders (you can see in HUD on bottom right, below the picture of the ship) then their rank is too high for you. You have to outrank an AI to order it around.
If you want to destroy a planet then you start with destroying food structures. Food is easily rebuilt by an enemy so bombing food is only useful when nobody around. If enemies are around, bomb technology.
But how do you bomb? Well it's easy when there are no enemies around the target planet. An enemy ship can kill all your bombs 200 gu near the enemy ship. In other words choose another target if you find too many enemies at a certain planet or call in support.
You can bomb a planet from 2 ranges:
Close range: Fly within 400 gu of a planet and you will see its structures and infantry. Notice that if you go further away, you don't see all the infantry and structures on the planet anymore. If you move away from planet after firing your bombs, the bombs will explode in mid-space if your target is no longer visible. So to bomb, you will need to keep a visual on your target on the planet, for instance a cortex nexus.
Long range: For long range you will need to activate your scanner with your right mouse button or the K key, it's a device on your ship listed on device list bottom left (the row of green and grey icons), just a little above your HUD. Now your bombs will hit whatever they where fired on, if you stay withing 2000 gu of the planet. This gives you more room to maneuver. Bomb range itself is about 750 gu (varies for each faction).
The bombing itself is done by selecting the structure or stack of enemy infantry you want to destroy, then press "B" to release bombs. Sometimes you need multiple shots of bombs to kill an infantry stack or building. After each successful hit not only is your target damaged, but also the population and technology of the planet goes down ( you can see it in the F3 construction screen). Once your bombs run out you will need either a supply ship near you, or go for resupply yourself.
If a stack of infantry just wont die, no matter how many bombs you fired at it, this is what we call "bugged inf". Drop 1 or 2 infantry on the planet to unbug the infantry. You can bomb after the stack has moved to a new diamond.
Also, the ICC faction has something called Planetary Shields. These shields protect the planet from bombing. You may need to do multiple bombing runs (go to the planet, launch all your bombs, and go back for resupply) just to get the shields down, then after you can finally start bombing the planet itself. Meanwhile the shield recharges, so you will need to be fast with your resupply. Some people just don't bomb ICC planets but use transport ships to drop a lot of infantry. Infantry will still bypass shields.
Another problem you may face, is enemy AI (artificial intelligence, ICC Heavy Cruiser MMCCXI for instance). AI respond to distress calls. Once you go near a planet that planet sends distress "enemy detected near [planet name]". After the first bomb hits planet sends another distress "[planet name] is under attack". Enemy AI will respond to this distress call. This is another reason why during bombing, you need to be fast, or get help from an ally.
