Looking for comments on possible mine suggestion.

[geoschmo]

Mines are a sore subject for many people. There is much disagreement over them whether they are too hard or too easy. Everybody has their pet idea for changes to make them better. I have one I haven't heard anyone propose before and wanted to get some opinions on it.

First of all, let me tell you that the next patch will address the mine bug that allows you to get past the 100 mines per sector limit. I am not a big fan of the 100 mines per sector limit, I think it is too arbitrary. But it is there, and since it is there I have been persuaded that it not a good thing for it to be bypassed. Hopefully the fix in the next patch will correct it so that it cannot.

My biggest problem with the 100 mine limit is that it severly marginalizes mines. They are good for a while, but after not to long the other side gets enough minesweepers to handle 100 mines (not really difficult at all), and then they become useless.

So my suggestion is, leave the 100 mine limit per sector in place, but make the minesweeper component be destroyed in the process of detonating the mines. Not the minesweeping ship itself, just the sweeper component.

This would make the mines more useful in that they wouldn't be able to stop a marauding fleet, but they would be able to slow it down. The attacker would be forced to wait a few turns and repair the damage to the sweepers before moving on to the next planet, or keep several repair ships in the fleet, enough to repair all the sweeper comps as they are used up. And no more tearing through an entire system in one turn glasssing all the planets on the fly, unless you have sweepering capacity for several hundred mines in the fleet.

Comments?

Geoschmo

[Deathstalker]

"So my suggestion is, leave the 100 mine limit per sector in place, but make the minesweeper component be destroyed in the process of detonating the mines. Not the minesweeping ship itself, just the sweeper component"

An interesting idea, not sure if I am totally sold on it but it does sound promising. I too believe that mines are massively powerful at first, then (like drones and fighters) become almost useless mid-late game (and med/large mines are just useless in themselves).

I just have one 'part' idea to add to your own. How about the Minesweeper component having a 'damage capacity' that goes up with level. ie, level 1 sweepers can destroy 'X'damage amount of mines and level 2 can 'soak' that plus a little more before they become a 'destroyed component'. I guess this would make the sweeper some sort of 'armor' that only mines hit first and that doesn't count toward ship strength at all. That and leave it moddable of course so we can make 'budget' minesweepers etc (or use Mounts to differ the damage etc.. )

That and it is my firm belief that level 1 minesweepers should be 20kt not 30kt in size. Just like shields level 1 is 30kt and then goes up to 40.

[Baron Munchausen]

While it would be nice to have 'destroyed on use' work in combat so you could have super-powerful weapons that can only fire once and then must be rebuilt, I don't see how wiping out minesweepers solves any of the problems with mines. If anything it would make the situation worse. The 'all or nothing' way that both mines and sweepers work is the problem. We need some genuine variability, a real chance to HIT OR MISS for both. Nothing else can substitute for this.

[Suicide Junkie]

Destroyed on use is a very good idea, although I don't know if it would be sufficient on its own.

If it were combined with the "Chance to Miss", "Not all mines attack", or some of the other suggestions, it would be excellent.

It definitely should be moddable though, so you prefer, you could have non-destructive sweepers, 0% chance to miss, and 100% of the mines attacking every time.

As a stand-alone change, it would probably be quite easy to handle in terms of mods. There is already a destroyed on use ability, so it just has to be implemented as an optional ability for sweepers.

[Growltigga]

I dunno, I like mines but think the SEIVG mines are far too destructive.

First thing I would do is reduce their attack power so that they are more likely to cripple ships than blow them apart..

Secondly, I would remove the 100 mines per sector limit as my view is that if you want to waste the resources, do what you want

Thirdly, I would make mines detectable on a random chance by certain types of scanner

Fourthly I would prefer the active mine sweeping component to be PDC rather than a specific mine sweeper... it makes sense if you think about it, mines seem to be small "thingies" that need to get close to attack ships, PDC are designed to shoot at small "thingies" designed to get close to attack ships.. it would add a considerable amount of tactical flexibility to fleet composition

[Wardad]

Have you considered the High Tech Cost game?
I'm playing one now on PBW. It takes a lot of LCs with minesweeper 2 to clear 100 mines. It takes a lot of research to get to minesweeper 5.

[Suicide Junkie]

All of those are moddable, Except for the sensors/cloaking bit.

However, Cannon Fodder ships work well as a replacement. Launch a small probe (Escort, or a drone or fighter depending on settings.txt), and see if there are mines there.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Wardad:
It takes a lot of LCs with minesweeper 2 to clear 100 mines.

I guess that depends on your definition of a lot. I don't consider 5 LC's to be a lot.

Geo

[Ed Kolis]

>Thirdly, I would make mines detectable on a random chance by certain types of scanner

I doubt you can do a "random chance" thing but "In My Mod" <everybody runs away screaming > the mines do not have built-in cloaking ability - you have to put "Mine Stealth" components on them which do not require normal cloaking tech but instead require mine tech. And there is an added sensor, the Tachyon Sensor IV, which can detect ALL cloaked things, but it is rather expensive to research and build.

[Baron Munchausen]

Have you tested whether cloaking on mines is really activated when they are deployed? I've been meaning to test this because it didn't work when I tried it a long time ago. If it works now that's great.