Elmo:
Yes, I have done the exact same modification on Mine Sweepers in my custom techs. This helps some, but the different relative effectiveness against different tech levels of mines cannot be achieved with available game abilities. I hope that we will see some sort of additional flexibility on mines in the future, but many players like the 'certainty' of mines as a defense and it will probably have to be something small and settable so they can keep their infallible mines that can turn a system into a closed fortress.
I've been thinking about how to implement varying levels of mine stealth in the techs. A "cloaking device" for mines would require supplies to be consistent with the ship Version. If you extended "stealth" armor to be more effective and then justify a 'stealth' coating for mines (a "small" armor, bascially) you might unbalance other aspects of the game by making cloaking too easy and pervasive. On the other hand, it seems absurd to allow a more effective stealth armor only for mines and not for ships. Or does it? Maybe you could say that mines don't contain active power sources (engines and such) and so can use a better stealth armor? You could create a 5kt "mine armor" in the mine tech field and have increasing levels of effectiveness. Then the mine "hulls" themselves could be changed to "normal" units without inherent cloaking abilities. The small mine would just have room for one warhead and the cloaking armor. Hmmm... maybe this is doable.
Now... if we can just get a real "to hit" probability for mines instead of this demolition charge effect that we have now.
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 28 November 2000).]