Two Hundred Mines = Dead Fleet. How to Overcome?

[Commander G]

It is interesting to note that all of the counters mentioned for 200 mines requires much more advanced technology than it takes to lay the 200 mines.

I'm in a PBEM game where we soon all have minefield technology. At that point, it will become almost impossible for a long time to invade each others space. I tried to persuade the host to turn off minefield technology, but I could not convince him.

I like the model used by Stars for minefields better. You can try to run them and take your chances or you can slowly, methodically clear them without taking damage. This fits the real-life model better.

What I find incredible in SEIV is that you cannot use beam weapons to destroy them, you must invest research into mines to be able to get the technology to clear them. That does not make sense in my opinion.

[rdouglass]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Possibly, sweep with cheap (basically empty) fighters --

---

That makes me think...Does anyone know if you can mod a fighter component? I remember reading in another thread about someone modding Point Defense to clear / kill mines. Could you mod a fighter weapon to PD and sweep mines? Could be a real cheap way - build fighters (cheap and no maintenance) with these mods and let them do the "sweeping". The only downfall - fighters can't use Warp Points.

[lwmweb]

Well I am playing only against the AI (Max difficulty and bonus), but they do leave nasty mines around. I have specialty ships that carry the various system scanners a repair bay, 2 Point Defense weapons and mine sweeps. I always have at least one and normally two of these along with my larger fleets. I have stared using a command ship that caries scanners PD's sweeps and the computer that lets all ships fight at the level of the highest ship in the fleet. Am I have some ships with experience level Legendary.

[Aussie Gamer]

I have found that if you have enough shielding, say over 1800 points worth, then even the largest mine field will be destryoed against it.
What I have seen is that the mines attack one at a time, so if your ship can withstand that attack, it gets all of it's shieding back for the next attacking mine.

[AJC]

I might be mistaken ... But I think mines ignore shields....

I usually have 5-8 sweepers in a 30 ship fleet- packed full of armor, and sweeper components.

[Aussie Gamer]

I don't think that they do ignore shields, not unless the new patch changed that.
I have run a heavily shielded ship into a mine field and it used to survive OK. Maybe this has been changed???

[Q]

I have the impression, that most of you think mines are to powerful. Well I personally would disagree about that. Sure they are quite efficiant in the early game, but when you have researched mine sweeper component V and dreadnoughts you can easily build a mineweeper, that eliminates 100 mines! If you think about the cost of 100 mines they become quite unattractive in this later stage of the game. So I think it is rather balanced the way it is now.

[HreDaak]

I too think that the mines are not a problem in human vs. human player, but in situations where AI is against a human player they are. AI will send only 1 minesweeper at the time to clear minefields, even if it had plenty of them to use. It does not group them into fleets, or accompany them in regular fleets. So agains AI the mines are a formiddable weapon even in the late game...

[rdouglass]

I'm not sure about shields but I do know that with my games, if I have Organic Armor III (I almost always play organic tech) and I run into a minefield, the game log always says:

Encounter minefield in Sector X,Y... It has damaged some ships" or something like that.

When I check the status of the ships, they are fine. Any other ships (or techs) that I play, I usually get some kind of damage in the larger minefields, but not with Organic Armor III. Is it invinceable?? or is it the regeneration properties?? or is it a bug?? IIRC, Organic Armor III has 150 damage resistance but only 30 Regeneration. Shouldn't SOMETHING be damaged after hitting a minefield with 50 mines w/ Warheads III???

I kinda' hope that it IS a bug and can be fixed / adjusted. I wouldn't want to think that Organic races are virtually immune to mines. I mean, its cool if you're organic, but that doesn't seem to fit good in game balance.

[pathfinder]

rdouglas: the organic armor, IIRC, has some regeneration capacity, best if used in multiple sets of it.