Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A new player is often confused that they actually have to design mines, there is after all only one component -- the warhead.

MM seems to have left it open to be modded, for example cloaking devices, sensors etc would be needed to get them to work. And people have already done this.

I don't think we have to toss them out of the game entirely just because they don't make sense.
That is a common complaint for role-playing type games, and it really isn't a good arguement.

Some hard code changes to make them more random in effect are worthwhile and worth waiting for.

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

For my tuppence worth, mines are imbalancing and against the AI, are something I personally do not use.

I consider that the balance needed has to be (a) a reduction in the damage they cause and (b) a reduction in the automatic hit percentage.

Mines should do damage and yes, a field of a hundred of the buggers should be a problem but as currently specced, a field of 20 mines will blow all shankey out of a fleet of say 10-12 light cruisers.

I think mines primarily should have a percentage chace to hit, which can be improved by mounting combat scanners as per fighters, and can be decreased by say ECM on the incoming ships. THe compromise you have then is a less destructive mine but with increased hit potential as against just an inert mass of super-TNT...

Turning back to ships, I hate the mine sweeper component, I would prefer that PDC's should be able to knock mines down.

In an ideal tigga-friendly world, I would view minefields as an irritant, something to soften enemy fleets up with rather the sword of damocles the damn things are now....

I think keep them cheap, but make them far far less effective

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'd say they are nothing more than an irritant right now, except without the ability to soften up fleets.

All you need is a handful of minesweepers, and you can walk unopposed through minefields.

I just had an idea:
What if mines were made extremely large? Each "Mine" you design would be a sector's worth of mines in some pattern.
Now, each mine would take a significant amount of time to build. Say two turns or more.
Each mine would also hold 4-8 warheads.
Remove minesweepers from the game for now.

So with even one array of mines (One mine vehicle), you can lightly damage 4-8 ships, or thrash one smallish ship.

And best, you can spread your mines thinly across a starsystem, and still have a great effect, since they won't be swept.

EG: a modest enemy fleet enters the WP. Hits one mine array. Half the ships take armor damage, one takes light internal damage and has to either return home for repairs, or hold up fleet's repair ships.
If they press on, next turn they hit another minefield on the path to your homeworld. 1/2 the ships have armor damage, and 1/4 have light internal damage and one or two take heavy internal damage (because they were already damaged).
The fleets can also use dedicated armor ships to suicide in your fields, but that can get expensive.

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think they are more than an irritant, they are a complete pain up the derriere

I would like the idea of them having a chance to hit like any other weapon, you would then have a bit more uncertainty on the effects and it would be a bit more random than the clinical 'just build a minesweeping wing able to blow 100 mines and you are sorted" approach..

it would mean a 100 ship fleet may take 1 or 2 light hits from a small 10 piece minefield irrespective of the point defence capacity it has, yet a single ship could try and ran a 100 mine field with a slim chance of actually getting through, without the blammo you are automatically stuffed which happens at the moment

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

Yes, mines are sadly deficient compared to other aspects of SE IV. These complaints are the same sort of arguments we have been throwing at MM since before the game was released. I suggest that all of you send email directly to MM explaining the problems with mines. It seems to take a very large 'popular' uprising to get him to change any significant feature of the game anymore.

BTW, since mines are supposed to be like 'seekers' I think they will always 'always hit'. He'd have to rewrite the combat system to change that. What can be changed is the number of mines that get a chance to hit a given ship. There's no need or logic for ALL mines to be omnipresent in the sector. The formula could be based on the size of the ship and the number of mines in the sector. Something like X percent of available mines + some modifier for ship size. Larger ships would logically attract more mines, being larger targets.

Technologies that let you create custom settings for your mines or minefields would be even better. Hmm, do MINES obey strategies? Oh, they cannot. But with these changes maybe they could. Then you could have different models of mines with different strategies to attack larger ships first, unarmed ships, or whatever. Combined with special damage types this could be great fun.

Also, the effectiveness of mine sweepers could be changed. Even PDC has at least some chance to miss. Mine sweepers are always 100 percent effective, which is every bit as ridiculous as mines being 100 percent effective. A simple calculation of 'to hit' percentages based on your ship's sensors and any defenses the mine might have would be nice.

So, if MM would just add another set of options to the settings.txt file:

Mines Always Present := TRUE/FALSE
Percent of Mines Per Target := 5
Spaces Per Additional Mine := 100

First setting:
TRUE = The old mine rules are in effect.
FALSE = The new mine rules (using the additional settings) are in effect.

Second setting: default percent of mines chosen to 'attack' any given ship.

third setting: number of kt ship size that attracts an 'extra' mine, just like 'spaces per one' in the AI design file.

Mines could operate much more realistically with these settings. Among the nice side-effects of realistic mine attack would be that some mines would be left over even after successfully passing through a sector, so you would be uncertain of the mine content of that sector for a long time, especially if mine sweepers were not 100 percent effective. And a large number of small ships could actually 'distract' mines and make it easier to get some ships through.

[ August 08, 2002, 17:13: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

I dunno what everyone else thinks, but I like to launch 2-5 small mines over each planet when I play vs the AI.

Just to keep it honest -- when they decide to declare war, I want them to be at least a little inconvienced and lose a couple of engines on a light cruiser or two. While I get to keep my one mineral miner moon a little longer until a ship can defend it.

Since the A.I. can see weapon platforms (probably) There's really no point in building them any more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Edit:

Actually, I do know what everyone else thinks, mines around planets are unfair vs. the AI. And hundereds of mines at choke points seems to set up a pretty dull game vs humans. But hey, no one's going to win with mines. Well maybe, but anyone can see it's kinda a hollow victory.

[ August 08, 2002, 17:11: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You dis-agreed with me earlier Arkcon, but this is my main point (maybe not clear, but it was my main point). It's not important that mines in SEIV are ludicrous if you try to justify them in terms of believable technology. What is important is that they're dull dull dull! In the early game, when it's very expensive (compared to total income) to research decent sweepeers, and just as expensive to build and maintain enough minesweeper ships (15 destroyers at Mines 1 to sweep 100 (well, 105) mines), dealing with mines is just too much like Russian Roulette. You can't afford the risk. So all sides mine their choke points, and sit back and build up large economies before anything interesting happens. And the game is poorer for it.

IMO.

Mark

[ August 08, 2002, 20:06: Message edited by: Mark the Merciful ]

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You know, maybe that is out to be the header of a email sent to MM. It's worth it to add some randomness to mines and sweepers in code so the games stay interesting.

In the next patch, IIRC, it will be possible for a mine to target only engines or another component. Maybe when it comes out we can mod a weak minesweeper only warhead, that might cause the same affect as a minesweeper sometimes missing. And better minesweeper components will have more resistance vs better mines ...

Of course, it's our decision how we want to use mines. Once, someone came up with the idea of playing as a pirate. Before Suicide Junkie wrote the excellent mod, I tried to do it without a mod, just research pirate-like technologies and not colonize any planets. To gain the privacy I needed to even get started, I tried to keep all warp points mined ... and I couldn't succeed. The AI kept sending ships then minesweepers untill they succeded in breaking through.

If people are really walling themselves in, maintaining the buildup should put them at some sort of deficit vs a determined opponent.

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

GT: Yes, it's in there somewhere. (As Geo pointed out)

Re: Mine balance suggestion
 

Mines are gross and disgusting, and the only way to balance them is to remove them from the game.

&lt;/rant off&gt;

Seriously, how can such a cheap technology

- Infallibly tell friend from foe

- Defeat the most advanced sensors and scanners in the universe.

- Somehow be able to move faster then any warships (static mines couldn't possibly cover the amount of space in one sector).

- Attack all ships simultaneously so that none of them have the chance to, say, notice the explosions and change course.

Obviously, in a game with fantasy technology, you can build in whatever technical assumptions you like. But it seems a shame that most of the other parts of the tech-tree involve time and effort to get high-powered resullts, while mines have all this built in at the first level. But what I really don't like is their effect on the early game, where they essentially paralyse all attempts at warfare, and allow for evil tricks like laying mines in allies territoty. I'm pretty sure people would notice that sort of thing.

Personally, I'd like mines to be completely re-done. There should be a probability of being hit depending on minefiled density. Sweeping should take time (that's the only way to do it safely), and again should be based on probability. Mines should be detectable. Then better mines could be harder to detect, harder to sweep, etc. Given that's a big programming job for a peripheral technology, let's go back to my original proposal - get rid of them.

Mark