Fight Dirty?

[jimbob]

Sorry your fleet was destroyed

I'm interested to know exactly what happened. Are you certain that the mine sweepers went in first? Movement of ships occurs by day... that is to say, if you have a sweeper fleet with a movement rate of 10, the fleet will move one sector on day 3, then one more on day 6, 9, etc. If the other fleet (say your battle fleet) has a faster movement rate, lets say of speed 15, then it will move one movement point every second day.

It may not have been apparent to you, but unfortunately this means that the battle fleet will warp through the warp point before the sweeper fleet = mine detonation!

Now, did your battle fleet have a higher movement rate than the sweeper fleet? Or maybe the battle fleet was closer to the warp point than the sweeper fleet? I'm pretty sure that the sweepers would have done their job before combat was enjoined if they had warped through ahead of the battle fleet... this is why I always put the sweepers in with the battle fleet... sorry I didn't tell you this before.

Lastly, regarding his miner having mines on board still. I'm willing to bet money to donuts that he had put out his maximum complement of mines already, and those onboard mines were surplus. Once you went through and swept the mine field, he would be ready to erect and instant minefield again. If he was smart, he was sending "deploy mines" orders every turn, so that if you came through and destroyed a few mines, he wouldn't have to wait a turn before deploying replacements!

[ May 23, 2003, 17:56: Message edited by: jimbob ]