Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

You mean a negative combat sensor ability?
I thought AIs were the only ones who put minesweepers on warships anyways (since they can't balance fleets)

As far as I know, all of the gnarled veterans simply make:
A stack of N dedicated minesweepers (N = max mine stack / number of mines swept per sweeper) plus a set of M warships (where M approaches infinity)

Dedicated sweepers don't need shields guns or armor, so they are far more efficient. And the warships get to use all their tonnage on guns and shields.
And critically important, you're not wasting any tonnage on superfluous sweepers if you add more ships to the fleet.


Think of my "remove minesweeper ability" suggestion as making minesweepers be "destroyed on use", with the bonus of protecting against direct fire too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

Do you guys know if the skip armor damage ability works vs weapon platforms?

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

Units do not have armor, just a pile of hitpoints.

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

You could have a bunch of cloaked kamikazi mines, and one command mine, so the command mine would intiate the combat, and the others would join in.

Would that work?

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

Yes, but all of the mines in one stack would have the same visibility level.

You could also have a little mini-base with a SY and a drone launcher.
Repeat build dronemines, and launch drones with repeat orders on.
It builds up the field until they die from supplies as fast as they are built, and the uncloaked mini-base triggers the combat.

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

We're talking about drones here, they don't combine into stacks.

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

Right. Mines would, drones wouldn't.

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

What do you guys think about adding standard tech ruin abilities to a majority of the planets in the game? That way you get a small random technology each time you colonize. That could lead to some nice research surprises and better reflect the way invention and inspiration strike people in real life. Of course, colonization would have to be slowed down a bit.

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

Just make that an optional sectortypes.txt file.
Then you can make research disableable in the game setup, and presto, you have a Junkyardwars conversion.

Re: SE4 Advanced brainstorming
 

That's not a bad idea. The mod will need a good ReadMe though so people know they can swap out one sectortypes file for another.