Two Hundred Mines = Dead Fleet. How to Overcome?

Q · #1 February 2nd, 2001, 12:11 PM

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 · #2 February 2nd, 2001, 12:25 PM

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 · #3 February 2nd, 2001, 03:13 PM

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 · #4 February 2nd, 2001, 03:24 PM

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

Spoo · #5 February 2nd, 2001, 06:51 PM

I think that the regeneration abilities of organic armor are cumulative. i.e. if you have one piece of organic armor III it will regenarate 30pts, but if you have 5 pieces of organic armor III it will regenerate 150pts and replace the piece that was destroyed by the mine.

------------------
Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

rdouglass · #6 February 2nd, 2001, 08:12 PM

Yeah, that's cool - but 50 mines!!! C'mon, that seems to be a huge "game balance" issue for organic tech. And when I have O Armor II (or I) the mines do cause damage. I am aware of the regen cababilities of O Armor (thats why I go Organic), but I say again - 50 mines??? all with Warhead III??? IIRC a warhead III does 300 damage and with 2 on each mine that is 600 per mine. Multiply by 50 mines and thats - what - 30,000 damage!!!!

It does sound to me like this totally negates any usefulness of mines toward organic empires. I think organic tech has enough advantages without being immune to mines.

Any other thoughts??? Is this a bug???

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 02 February 2001).]

Tomgs · #7 February 2nd, 2001, 08:21 PM

Mines work one at a time. So if your ship can survive one mine with no damage it will survive 200 mines with no damage. Organic armor regenerates after each attack. Each warhead is calculated as one atack so if your ship can survive one warhead on one mine and not be damaged it will take out the whole group. This may not be realistic (and in large Groups organic armor seems to do a few weird things, like the regeneration effects from destroyed armor works just as well as the surviving armor as long as one piece of armor survives) but untill there are code changes or warheads do 10000 points of damage I don't see a way around it.