12. 2. Planets

Now, to discuss one of SMR's most famous aspects: The Planet Bust

Put simply, a planet bust (or PB), is most often carried out by a relatively large group of ships from a single alliance. This helps spread out the damage that the planet deals, in addition to doing more damage to the planet. In order for a planet bust to be successful, the attacking team must destroy all shields and drones on the planet, allowing one of the members to land and claim the planet for their alliance.

Most alliances will agree that it is best to nominate one player as the 'trigger', that is, the one person who is allowed to actually hit the attack button for the planet. Once the trigger presses the attack button, ALL ships that are in sector and in the alliance will fire on the planet, and the planet will attack back at all ships, although some of the ships may not take damage. The following is the initial attack screen you see for a planet when you hit 'examine':

EXAMINE PLANET
Planet Name:Don't Shoot!
Level:41.00
Owner:Lazy Trader
Alliance:The Good Guys

Planet Results

The planet fires a turret at N and misses
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 250 shields
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 250 shields
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 250 shields
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 75 shields
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 250 armor
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 250 armor
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 250 armor
The planet fires a turret at N and destroys 75 armor
N has been DESTROYED by planetary forces
The planet fires a turret at N and misses
Planetary drones launch at N
This planet does a total of 1650 damage in this round of combat.

Attacker Results

N fires a Holy Hand Grenade and misses.
N fires a Salvene EM Flux Cannon and misses.
N fires a Salvene EM Flux Cannon and misses.
N fires a Salvene EM Flux Cannon destroying 20 planetary shields.
N fires a Big Momma Torpedo Launcher destroying 2 planetary drones.
N fires a Big Momma Torpedo Launcher and misses.
N does a total of 26 damage.

This team does a total of 26 damage in this round of combat.

As you can see from this attack result screen, the solo attacker was quickly podded by the planetary defenses. If there had been more people attacking, each of their attacks would have shown up on this attack result page, as well as the damage they each dealt and received. The more people an alliance has participating in a planet bust, the less likely the chances are that a ship will be podded outright on one attack. Although there have been occurances where a planet has unluckily targeted all turrets on one of the attackers, resulting in a pod.