FreeOrion

Bombardment & Ground Combat should happen after space battles in a separate window.
Are there really any advantages in doing this inside the combat mode, rather than after?

I think that this should be done like Orion 2. For hit-and-run tactics you can fire on the planet during battle- and deal indiscriminate damage. If you win the space battle and achieve orbital superiority over a planet, you use the ‘Invasions screen’ to soften up the planet with precision bombing and then land troops.

Are there really any advantages in doing this after combat, rather than during? You haven't listed any.

But yes, the point is to increase the role of maneuver, and choice of strategic goals in combat, not just have a battle of attrition. A player needs to guard his planets, as well as shoot ships, otherwise he may find that he's lost a planet, even though he won the space battle.

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You can still use hit-and-run tactics on planets during battles.
My suggestion has the following advantages:
*Avoids wasting time while the player brings closer his transports, bombards the planet before invasion, lands troops, etc. In my suggestion there is no need to manually preposition transports and since it is done in popup screen after all the spacebattles, the other player s can get on with their turns.
*Gives you more time to think about invading, gives more finesse to control the precision bombardment and troop landing.
*Would better accommodate mods with complex planetary invasions

Also, while reading the SpaceCombatProCon ‘Real Time Combat’:
‘’Variable speed real time: Allow players to speed up and slow combat. Difficult to do properly with more than one player and potentially exploitable. Would address main weakness of RT, a violation of the general Time-wasting criterion.’’
Why not do it like Defcon? Each player sets his prefered game speed with hotkeys, slowest speed is used. So during boring parts, both players would set the game to Fast and get to the fight quicker.

If it's a no-brainer waste of time to put your transports in position around a planet after you've wiped out the defenses (which it sometimes will be), there should be an option to auto-resolve the rest of a combat at any time (which there will be). In fact, in a multi-player scenario, where there is only one player left with usable combat forces, it may be mandatory to auto-resolve the rest of combat, depending on some multi-player parameters set up at the start of the game.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Yeah, to clarify, i see no reason to go to the tactical map, unless there is opposition.

You should be able to invade/bombard as now without going into combat screen if there are no ships to stop you.

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