please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

im creating my mod and stumpled upon mines.
I like the idea of mining warp points or planets, but there is one big problem for me.
Why does small, medium and large mines count just as one mine when being swept ?! I think it would be by far better if a medium mine would count as 2 mines when being swepted and large mines counting as 3.
Obviously this it not possible, so i modded "my" mines like this, take a look:
To use less space i cut the dectection prevention ability of each mine, mines are invisible.


Name := Mine Ring
Short Name := Small Mine
Description := A small ring of basic mines seeded in random fashion.
Code := MS
Primary Bitmap Name := minegroup
Alternate Bitmap Name := minegroup
Vehicle Type := Mine
Tonnage := 10
Cost Minerals := 150
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Engines Per Move := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Mines
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Requirement Must Have Bridge := False
Requirement Can Have Aux Con := False
Requirement Min Life Support := 0
Requirement Min Crew Quarters := 0
Requirement Uses Engines := False
Requirement Max Engines := 0
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0

Name := Mine Net
Short Name := Mine Net
Description := A quite large number of enhanced mines organized in net formation.
Code := MN
Primary Bitmap Name := minegroup
Alternate Bitmap Name := minegroup
Vehicle Type := Mine
Tonnage := 16
Cost Minerals := 125
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Engines Per Move := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Mines
Tech Level Req 1 := 2
Requirement Must Have Bridge := False
Requirement Can Have Aux Con := False
Requirement Min Life Support := 0
Requirement Min Crew Quarters := 0
Requirement Uses Engines := False
Requirement Max Engines := 0
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0

Name := Mine Belt
Short Name := Mine Net
Description := A huge amount of superior mines placed like a belt for maximum coverage and effect.
Code := MN
Primary Bitmap Name := minegroup
Alternate Bitmap Name := minegroup
Vehicle Type := Mine
Tonnage := 36
Cost Minerals := 100
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 0
Engines Per Move := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Mines
Tech Level Req 1 := 3
Requirement Must Have Bridge := False
Requirement Can Have Aux Con := False
Requirement Min Life Support := 0
Requirement Min Crew Quarters := 0
Requirement Uses Engines := False
Requirement Max Engines := 0
Requirement Pct Fighter Bays := 0
Requirement Pct Colony Mods := 0
Requirement Pct Cargo := 0


Name := Mine Sweeper I
Description := Large array fitted with devices able to detect minefields before contact. Will create shortrange microwaves which will explode mines as if being triggered at distance.
Pic Num := 1338
Tonnage Space Taken := 150
Tonnage Structure := 150
Cost Minerals := 800
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 650
Vehicle Type := Ship
Supply Amount Used := 40
Restrictions := None
General Group := Miscellaneous
Family := 7040
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Mines
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Mine Sweeping
Ability 1 Descr := Array can destroy 1 minefield at distance before they are triggered
Ability 1 Val 1 := 1
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None

Name := Mine Sweeper II
Description := Large array fitted with devices able to detect minefields before contact. Will create shortrange microwaves which will explode mines as if being triggered at distance.
Pic Num := 1338
Tonnage Space Taken := 150
Tonnage Structure := 150
Cost Minerals := 700
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 550
Vehicle Type := Ship
Supply Amount Used := 40
Restrictions := None
General Group := Miscellaneous
Family := 7040
Roman Numeral := 2
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Mines
Tech Level Req 1 := 2
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Mine Sweeping
Ability 1 Descr := Array can destroy 2 minefields at distance before they are triggered
Ability 1 Val 1 := 2
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None

Name := Mine Sweeper III
Description := Large array fitted with devices able to detect minefields before contact. Will create shortrange microwaves which will explode mines as if being triggered at distance.
Pic Num := 1338
Tonnage Space Taken := 150
Tonnage Structure := 150
Cost Minerals := 600
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 450
Vehicle Type := Ship
Supply Amount Used := 40
Restrictions := None
General Group := Miscellaneous
Family := 7040
Roman Numeral := 3
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Mines
Tech Level Req 1 := 3
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Mine Sweeping
Ability 1 Descr := Array can destroy 3 minefields at distance before they are triggered
Ability 1 Val 1 := 3
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None


As you may have noticed here is my idea for improving mines.
Instead of builing single mines, you build mine Groups, lvl 1 = small group, 10kT, medium group = 16 kT and large group 36 kT.

Each group should be considered as a full mine ring, able to do good damage for its cost.
There are only 3 warheads, each warhead costs 2 kT and very little ressources, this was made to ensure mine rings can still be build in good time, "old" mines or rather the warheads costed to much radioactives to build enough amounts which could not be swept immediatly.
Im not sure, but maybe the cost for each werhead needs to be upped by 20-40%.

To sum it up, a small mine group will have 5 warheads, while medium will have 8 warheads and large Groups will have 16 Warheads. This made to ensure that mines look and feel both good. Each warheads does less damage, but a full mine(field) will do slightly more damage now (imho)
In generel, sweping mines was made more difficult.

In order to increase the difficulty of sweeping mines, or rather mine fields in my mod, i added a component which needs 150KT and can, depending on level swep 1, 2 or 3 mine fields.

I felt mine fields where largely underused and could be swept far to easily.
I also modified the minelayer component, so you can only lay 1/2 mine fields per turn per module (big sized, too)


What do you think of my changed, do you feel mines are more useful (and more important) feel more okay now ? I think they were fainly underused.

Im thinking about adding a mine mount which will decrease the warhead size by 50%, so each minefield could have 200% the current amount of warheads, given the right (high) techlevel. Then again this wouldnt help with big minefelds being swept as fast as small ones.


thanks for your help and opinions. !!

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">For vanilla SE4, mines fall into the Category of absolutely essential in the early game, and not-so-important in the late game. I think your changes are cool, and give mines a different flavor - but I don't think they will change how they impact the game so much. If I was playing in this mod, I'd still build up a fleet with enough sweepers to sweep the maximum amount of mines before going on the offensive with a large fleet.

Other approaches to mines I know of are the DevNull mod and Fantasy Empires mod. DevNull raises the maximum number of mines allowed in a sector to 500, and mines are swept by Point Defense. I'm playing my first DevNull game right now, so I'm not sure what impact this has (I assume I'm just going to have fleets with at least 100 PD V's...). Fantasy Empire also raises the max # to 500, but reduces the amount of damage a mine (summon insect spell) does (to about 50). My thinking there is that if mines do less damage, you might be more inclined to just try to "soak" it up. Not sure how that will pan out...)

Another idea you might try is to eliminate MineSweepers altogether, and limit the number of mines to like 20 per sector. Increase the cost to build a mine so you can only build around 1 per turn, and have their damage set low enough that it takes around 5 mines to kill a late-game ship, low-armor ship. Or maybe instead of eliminating Minesweepers altogther, attach the Minesweeping ability to a specific hull-type, and make that ship fairly expensive to build...

Good luck with your mod!

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

I'm a solid supporter of the "eliminate sweepers" theory.

I also like the idea of having a divergent cost/effect ratio.
Cheap mines would be easy to build in bulk, but do relatively little damage each.
Expensive mines would take much longer to build and do much more damage.

The expensive mines would have a better damage/mine ratio, but a much worse damage/cost ratio.

The cheap mines would be cheap enough that you could fill 5 or 6 sectors for the price of one sector worth of expensive mines, so that multiple-sector fields may actually get built.

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can do that now by not filling your mines with warheads all the way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

I like the "nerf mine damage and minesweepers" theory. I also like the "minesweepers are not the same tech area as mines themselves" concept. AIC mod is a good example of this.

PvK

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can do that now by not filling your mines with warheads all the way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's not enough though.
Your expensive mines end up costing almost the same per damage point, and your cheap mines aren't cheap enough that you can pile them multiple sectors deep.

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

thanks for opinions, yesterday evening i playtested my mines extensive, made a small game with many AIs.

Well to sum it up, the mine Groups cost to few ressources and can be launched in to large numbers to easily, while sweping has been made TOO hard, due to the size of sweper modules. I think i will stick to the mine Groups in generell, but the cost for the "Hull" will be increased while each warhead will also cost more radioactives.
In addition im thinking about adding low-cost warheads which will do engines-only damage and later weapons only damage. Maybe even supply-damage.
Anyway thanks for all your opions, but i think mines should be essential and just be used like they are now, in big amounts.


About the Devnull mod, my mod is slightly inspired by this mode, but giving PD guns the mineswep abilty is crap, because mines could be swept FAR too easily. In the vanilla devnull, each level of the PD gun increased the swep abilty, to later on ONE 20kT module was able to 3, 4 or even 5 mines, this made sweping far to easily and mines not as effective.

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

set the max units per space to 1000 or 5000

that will increase the power of the mine

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

Alneyan,
thanks for extensive post, i like the idea, just one problem:

Since im using the devnull mod as the base for my own mod, the leaky armor system is not implented.

I need to know, do WARHEADS with damage types engine only and weapons only IGNORE components with the armor ability or does armor ability components get destroyed first even when hit by mines ?!?

I guess i will have to add leaky armor system though

Re: please help me balancing mines and making them more useful
 

"Only X" damage types all skip armor.
Unless the armor has ability X, of course.

A big question is whether it will get hit first of those components with ability X.

There is also a problem with adding boarding party ability to lots of components, in that they'll all be destroyed during offensive OR defensive capture attempts.

[ April 08, 2004, 14:37: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]