Mine effectiveness

[Krakenup]

I don't like the way mines work. They are pretty much all or nothing. If you have sufficient sweeping capacity, it's like the minefield never existed. If you don't, it's like your fleet never existed. Sometimes your fleet is just damaged, but not often.

I don't think that mines or minesweepers should be 100 percent effective. A small ship with an experienced crew and good electronics should have a chance to sneak through a small minefield, and sometimes a mine should go off while being swept, damaging the sweeper.

I would suggest:

1. Each mine has a chance of damaging each ship in the fleet with a percent chance of say (100 - ship defensive bonus)/10 with a minimum of 1 percent. Once a mine hits a ship, of course, the mine disappears.

2. When a minesweeper enters a minefield, it attempts to sweep mines up to its capacity. It would have a 95 to 99 percent chance (depending on tech level) to sweep each mine. If unsuccessful, the mine would do warheads/5 damage to the sweeper. After sweeping all the mines it can, the minesweeper would be subject to being hit by the unswept mines.

3. If a ship with a minesweeper component is hit by a mine, there would be a 10% chance per sweeping capacity to automatically sweep the mine.

4. If the entire minefield has not been swept, the minesweeper can sweep more the next turn or move out of the sector.

For example, a minesweeper with a 10 mine capacity enters a 60 mine minefield. It sweeps 10 mines but screws up on one taking 200/5 = 40 points of damage. Out of the other 50 mines, one hits but is successfully swept. He stays in the minefield and sweeps 10 more mines the next turn leaving only 39 mines. The following turn, the light cruiser guarding the minefield finally shows up and blows him away.

Or, a fleet with some sweeping capacity enters a minefield. Some mines are swept; others hit ships. Some miss everybody. Results: most of the large ships are damaged, the small ships either make it through or are destroyed, but there are still some mines left to surprise stragglers.

What do you think?