Proportions shell armor and ... minesweeping armor?

[JLS]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Well in Proportions, doesn't most armor block some amount of damage per shot? So imagine using an armored ship as sort of a "brute force" minesweeper - just detonate them harmlessly against the armor.

Of course, given that mines do damage in the hundreds and armor blocks around 1-5 per shot, not counting emissive armor, I don't really see how that would make much sense anyway... unless you consider mine explosions to do their damage in the form of a huge number of tiny shrapnel projectiles, which isn't all that unreasonable...

Exactly, the premise is that the larger the displacement of the vessel the greater the (scale mount) in Armor Plate that could be Installed.

If it was possible to put the (Minesweeping Ability) on the scale mount, then as the ship displacement increases then so to the amount of mines required to do damage….

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Yeah... in Proportions, it'd need to be a reverse of the Scale Mount series... However I'm still waiting to be told what the original conceptual connection between scale-mounted shell/plate armor and minesweeping was.

PvK

PVK, in regards to Mine Sweeping Abilities this is just the title for the actual se4 action and not meant literally in my presentation.

The intention is that, the amount of mines required and/or actually expended would be increased as the scale of Armor Plating is increased by the Ships Displacement.

I humbly ask, can this be done with Plate Armor, and is there any advise to actually make this happen with the CompEnhancement mounts ?

[ September 07, 2003, 15:28: Message edited by: JLS ]

[PvK]

Ok, I see. I would not try to model it indirectly by using the actual minesweeping ability. I'd just reduce mine damage as I mentioned below, to the point that the desired effect will occur naturally, also perhaps increasing the mines per sector limit and/or reducing the abilities of actual minesweepers. Try reducing mine warhead strength by a factor of ten or twenty for starters.

So as in P&N, ships will tend to get hit by mines, but fleets won't be directly annihilated by them. They may, however, tend to take a bunch of small damage hits, sometimes knocking out some important systems. Armor of all types will be a useful countermeasure, and large ships may have a natural advantage (except that if they do suffer a bridge hit or something, a more powerful unit is affected). Also, since partial damage is rounded down and ignored, you'll actually see some variety in whether any components are actually destroyed; random mine results have been requested for years, and this would actually tend to deliver it, I think. Testing required of course - I'll be curious to learn if EA works as expected against mines or not.

PvK

[JLS]

Thanks Pete, good advise

[JLS]

Try reducing mine warhead strength by a factor of ten or twenty for starters.

So as in P&N, ships will tend to get hit by mines, but fleets won't be directly annihilated by them.

SJ, any advise. So that I may start off with my best foot forward?

[ September 07, 2003, 15:50: Message edited by: JLS ]

[Suicide Junkie]

The idea I like best is to eliminate sweepers entirely.

Then you can reduce warhead damage, and play with the mines-per-sector limit.

Say, 10 mines required to kill a ship, plus mounts to double damage at 3x the cost, or 5x damage and 10x cost, say.

With a limit of 100 mines per sector, you'll force the defenders to spread out their fields across the whole system, and the attackers will normally lose at most 10 ships. (Home-system defenses will likely involve the more powerful mounted warheads, and do much more damage)

Scouts and small Groups of ships will be slaughtered, but large fleets will merely be slowed down in their advance while they wait for repairs after every movement. If you're lucky, you may even take out the repair ship and force them to turn back.
You could also counter-attack while thier defenses are weakened.

The main point is to have no sweepers, and weaker (probably cheaper too) mines spread out across the system. That way all the mines don't go up at once, and all the ships don't have to die.

[ September 07, 2003, 19:35: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Grand Lord Vito]

Now this system make sense

SJ, you still keep the sector limit to 100 or is it reduced to 10?

[ September 07, 2003, 23:53: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]

[Suicide Junkie]

You need the limit to be at least 50.
The mines will be fairly small and should be able to take chunks out of most of the ships in a fleet. When each mine hits a random ship, you should end up with a gaussian distribution, so most ships will have some damage, a few will be untouched, and a few will be severely hit or destroyed.

1) There should be more mines than ships unless the defender was surprised, or isn't relying much on mines.
2) The damage of a single mine should be small enough that a typical warship can shrug it off. 10 or 20 kt worth of armor with stock settings for everything else, perhaps. Adjust up or down depending on overall weapons damage / defenses strength in specific mod.