Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Change to mines or maybe a scanner to see them???

All mines cloak beyond any scanner available in the game to see them. So either make a new scanner able to see them or change medium mines level 4 and large mines to level 3. As they are easier to see and thus destroy. Or maybe that they should be the other way around, as they have more space to put in more dampening fields.

Or another choice is to remove the cloaking ability from them and add small cloaking devices to the unit field, so you have to cloak them as per ships. Other devices could be added as well, such as scanner jammers.

Just thoughts for your consideration.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

I like them just the way they are now. I don't think you should ever be able to see another player's mines. I think that saying they are cloaked is just a convenient game mechanism to explain why you can't see them. The real reason you can't see them is because they are so small. I think they add quite a bit to the game when you travel through a wormhole and find you just lost your entire fleet. I'm all for the status quo.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Thank you for your reply.

If that's right then why do we have high tech scanners???

The large mines are bigger than a medium fighter. We can see them OK.

Yes I know that they just sit there and do nothing!! That's what makes them invisible....

We have tech now that can sense land mines and smell for parcel bombs. So why can't we see some space mines with higher tech scanners.

U-boats where invisible under water until some bright spark went and designed sonar!!

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Scanners are used to detect cloaked ships (U-boats in space).

If not for the radiation that fighters emit--either firing their weapons, or using their engines or maintaining the life of the pilot, I think even large fighters would be essentially invisible in space as are large mines.

I prefer to think of scanners being able to scan for moving objects not stationary ones. For the purposes of this argument, assume that all ships and all fighters are always moving. Scanners, thus, shouldn't be able to detect mines.

IMHO, your point about terrestrial parcel sniffing and mine detection is well-made. I just think it doesn't apply in space. Or... if it did, it would make the game over-complicated. But that's just my opinion, of course.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Points taken.

Just I think that something a high tech should be able to see them. This of course would not effect the fact of "What's on the other side of that warp point....BOOM!..oh!".
As most sweepers need to be in the same system to be useful.

For every defence there is an offence and visa versa. This is the way of warfare. Eg. AT rounds made for better armour.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

At least, the higher level detectors should be able to see the lower level mine designs, maybe two levels down for example. That way, a level 4 scanner could see level 2 mines etc. But in the end, the highest mine tech would win out.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

I believe that the only way to do this is to have a special device that go onto mines only that can cloak.
As all scanners scan for all cloaking ships as well.
Maybe a small cloaking component that is developed by having small weapons 2 mines 1 you are able to research mine cloaking, which gives you level 1 mine cloak.

It seems to be a bit unfair that level one mines you get effectively level 5 cloaking. The early mines in our history were very crude devices, and as we got better at finding them they got better at hiding them.

Scanners V Cloaking war....

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

being stationed on mine sweepers in the gulf i can tell you that sonar to find boats is completely uneffective to find mines.

Minesweepers use a special type of sonar, (quit similar to the ones used to cheat while fishing).

the minesweeper component performs that function.

the game works fine with mines the way it is, why fix something that isn't broken.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

How do you think mines work? Do they sit there until you run into them or do they seek you?
If they just sit until you run into them then there should be a way to avoid them. If they act like a seeker maybe they should be given a to hit number so that they don't alway hit.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

I did say the it is broken I am saying that you should be able with a high tech component to find them in a system that you are in!

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

There is a high tech device used to find mines! It's generally called MY SHIP, my poor, poor ship...

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Aussie,
If you are unhappy with the way mines work I have modified the vehicletext file. I'll send it to you if you want.
You now can see the regular mines and you can build different mine with each cloaking type but only one type for each mine. That ought to give you a challange http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Thanks for the offer.
I have just been getting an idea of how others feel about them.
I have actually developed a range of components which you put into mines only, such as scanner jammers, cloaking and stealth covering. I have given them a core and increased the size by 1kt to allow the same size. The components become available when you have the relevant tech area and mine 1.

Also dummy mines.
Yep here's one for you dummy mine
1-2kt
50 minerals
nothing in it.
Mine sweepers shoot 1-3 mines per component, so why let them shoot up your good mines. Put 100 or so dummies with a field of say 20 live ones. That's a pain!!! They now shoot up more of the cheap dummy mines than your good expensive ones.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

Hey, I really like that Idea. The only problem is the Sector limit for units.


Some other good ideas for mines that I made for SE3:

Ion/Tachyon/Shield Mines.

Why not leave a nasty little package that just disables the enemy ships instead of destroying them?

You can then capture the ships, or let them sit there eating up the enemy's resources!

New for Se4, put a null-space warhead on 'em so they do extra damage, at extra cost.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

I had already come up with the ionic pulse warhead and have put into the game, but one forum said that the mines will keep going off until the ship is dead and since the ship does not die then you lose all the mines in that sector. So be careful with them.

I think that a more powerful type of explosive warhead such as a null-space warhead should be very expensive and maybe 10kt to reduce the number on a mine. But I like the idea, hope I can convice the other players of the idea in my Multi-player game.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

If you make engine killer mines, you just have to spread them out a bit. Don't put to many in one spot, so they're not all used up on one ship.
I would say it's a bit unfair against an AI player, but would surely piss someone off bigtime. Especially if you just let the ships sit there and use up lots of resources from maintenance costs.

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

That's the way you could do it in a single player game but in a multiplayer game you don't get control of how many mines you dump in a turn except by the number of bays in the ship.
I thought that the armour skipping heads could be in explosive warheads L4-6, have them the same damage level as L1-3 but skip armour, as the shields do with normal then to phased.
Might have to increase the cost of the tech though otherwise oyu could get them way too quickly, or maybe linking them to a high armour tech maybe??
Any other evil mines out there???

Re: Mines Cloaking too high????
 

I wonder if you could use the damage type from Psychic Crew converters http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif
Bwa haha thanks for the baseships!