Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I haven't much experience using minefields in previous games and have been using them more in my current game. I thought the current Version (and from some time ago) had reduced the limit to minefields to 100. I have discovered that this is not a hard limit. If the minefield had say, 97 mines in it, the game allowed my single minelayer to lay its maximum allowance of 32 mines (has 16 minelayer III's) to bring the total in the minefield to 129 mines. Any further attempts while the minefield was above 100 would result in the error message about the limit of 100 mines to a sector. So it appears the game only engages the limit on laying mines once the threshold has been reached and does not prevent you from laying mines in excess if done all at once while under the limit. As I only have the one minelayer I haven't been able to test having a fleet of minelayers attempt to add to a field to see how high above 100 one can get.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

You should report that bug to Malafador ! 100 mines is enough without making it unpredictable to boot...

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

It must be checking the count before it deploys sats or mines instead of during It does the same thing with sats.

Personally, that fix would be quite low on MY priority....unless of course PBEM's (and such) abuse happens. I know I have a sat layer that says (in the spec's) it will launch 60 per turn and I have put 105 on Warp Points routinely (15 at a time in Repeat mode 'till full). If someone built a baseship loaded with Sat or mine layers, could they potentially lay say 250 or so mines??

You quoted a 32 mine max - was that a limit of your ship / tech config or a game limit??

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I too think this is not a relevant bug. If you don't like over 100 mines in a sector you may reduce this number in the settings text file. For me personally this is not important, I prefer this uncertainty: even if your fleet has the ability to sweep 100 mines, your not 100% sure that all mines are gone!

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I agree with Q, the more uncertainty the better.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I don't see why there should be any limit to the number of units in a sector, so I always set the unit limits to 10,000.
You can always sweep out a minefield if you build wave after wave of sweeper ships, and sats & fighters can be rammed quite effectively when you emerge from a wormhole.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I have not used fighters since the first week I got the game because they die too easily. Something just occurred to me though which would make them very usefull ! Launch them on the strategic map one at a time into different squares and have THEM sweep the minefield one at a time ! Put just a cockpit and engines on, making them really cheap. So if you are not able to sweep free with a minesweeper, you might be able to clear it with fighters....

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

The DevNullMod (I've installed but haven't played), I think, allows Point Defense to shoot down mines. This certainly gives even regular combat ships some chance of taking down a few mines. Although IMHO, if ships can shoot down mines, more than 100 mines per sector should be set.

In a related question, how many thousands of units/ships do y'all set before it actually -slows down- your computer/turn processing? I've kept my units at 4000 and 2000 ships per empire, but haven't played a game to that point yet.

zen

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I have not used fighters since the first week I got the game because they die too easily.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fighters die entirely too easy if you launch them from carriers in a strategic battle. But they are immensely powerful if you launch the fighters in one large group *before* entering combat and then fight the battle.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

Especially with the bug in the to hit/to miss modifier! The only drawback to large Groups of fighters is IF you get hit by a high damage weapon you have more potential losses and they still die like flies to dedicated PD ships.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by zenbudo:
In a related question, how many thousands of units/ships do y'all set before it actually -slows down- your computer/turn processing?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I haven't got that far with 1.35 yet but during my Last game with the previous patch (255 systems, 20 races, 2000 units in space limit) turns took forever and combat was painfully slow. I was running on a P3 750 and strategic combats involving large fleets with carriers would take 30 mins to resolve. Shortly after this I abandoned the game due to a "fatal exception" error.

My race had already hit the 2000 units in space limit some time before this. I suspect there is/was a bug whereby the game would check the number of units in space before launching/moving each fighter in combat.

Another possibilty is that because I tend to use stacks of special purpose fleets, the game was having trouble reconciling the formation requirements of the fleets with those of fighter units?

The AIs' turns took a very long time too - implying that the problem was more to do with the first possibility than the second.

I've left the units in space limit at the default for my current game and am avoiding carriers.


[This message has been edited by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (edited 30 May 2001).]

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I suspect there is/was a bug whereby the game would check the number of units in space before launching/moving each fighter in combat.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's not supposed to do this. My understanding is that the unit in space limit does not apply to units launched and recovered during combat.

But that's the thing about bugs. You never know.

Geo

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

Ditto. I vote we chalk this up as a "feature" rather than a bug.

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Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

This "variation" on the mines per sector limit may add a little uncertainty to the game, but it's a poor substitute for uncertainty of how many mines will actually HIT. Until mines are given a real chance to hit or miss I will just play without them.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

rdouglas: The 32 mine limit was the ship's design as it had 16 minelayer III's which can launch two a turn. I don't know how far over the limit one could get it. The baseship someone mentioned could quite possibly get it quite far over, but not unreasonably so. BTW, I too, look at this as a feature more than a bug. Once you set the minefield at whatever number over 100 it is, it is set til such time as it drops under 100.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

A baseship dedicating 1300Kt to mine layers could launch 86 mines in one strat turn.
This means that with careful management, you could pump a minefiled up to 185 mines per sector.

Has anyone tested to see if a fleet of minelayers can lay more?

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I can assure everyone that a large group of fighters will die quickly when opposed by a fleet equipped with the religious talisman. Damage streams onto every fighter in the group.
I am currently in a PBEM game using v 1.35, and my opponent is so equipped. I have sent more than 1500 fighters into battle, and lost half. So even with the stacking bug, there is a counter.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I've found that fighters are very powerful vs the un-modded computer AI. In one instant, I played until I became the MegaEvil Empire and everyone delcared war on me. I then switched to the Last place AI player (who had about 1/8 of my old empire's score).

I was so far behind in tech that I had LCs when I was seeing DNs coming at me. Despire the huge tech difference, when I build a fleet of carriers (7 light carriers with 60 small fighers each) there was nothing that could stop me. I'd blow through stacks of 10-15 DNs. The loss of fighters were never so prohibitive. I might lose 1/3 in a huge battle, but even that was rare.

As a note, I don't like limits on minefield size, makes them too useless in the later games.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

Jimbo55: I ran a test using a fleet of 10 baseships each with the ability to launch 80 mines a turn. The game processes fleet orders like this one ship at a time even though given as a fleet order and not individually, so the first ship was able to add his 80 mines to the 99 sized minefield in place to boost it to 179, but the second and all ships after received the error message about the 100 mine limit. Thus the minefield limit would appear to be 99 + (maximum launch capability of a single ship). In numbers this means the largest field which could be encountered (without modded ship sizes) is 265 (the original minefield of 99 + 166 mines launched from 83 minelayers, the max that can fit on a battlestation). Planets though create a different situation altogether. Planets can basically create minefields of big enough to bump against the game's unit in space limit. A Huge world with 16K in cargo completely full of mines could launch 5000 mines (the max unit limit in space)if done all at one time. Better bring ALOT of minesweepers against a minefield anywhere near that size.

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>A Huge world with 16K in cargo completely full of mines could launch 5000 mines (the max unit limit in space)if done all at one time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, it's bad, but not that bad. A planet has a limit of 1000 units launched per turn. So your limit there would be 1099 in a planetary minefield.

Geo

Re: Minefield Limit Loophole
 

I forgot the planet launch limit. Regardless of the number, with the overall limit placed on the units in space, you couldn't have very many even at only 1099 to a minefield. The limit with ship only launched mines is a reasonable enough compromise given the number of areas one generally wants to protect even if its not the hard 100 mine limit.