SEV discussion: Mines

[Q]

IMO mines are not that bad in SE IV after all and I would prefer not too complicated mines for SE V.
They should be cheap and deadly to an unprotected ship. But at highest tech level sweeping should be a reliable method to removed them.
What I would like to see are different "sweeping resistence" for mines: I SE IV every mine counts as 1 for sweeping. For SE V you could build advanced mines that count as 2 or more for sweeping. This makes sweeping more difficult. And if you have higher unit in space limits in SE V you can drop this 100 mines per sector limit, which is not good IMO.

[Paul1980au]

I think all very good ideas - perhaps expanding upon that mines to start with could only damage unshielded ships - shielded ships would be protected - but with mines blocking a warp point perhaps with ships coming through depending on the tech and the number start off with a 1% chance of hitting and then work up ?

Make cloak ships less likley to be hit by a mine ?

Perhaps some sort of new weapon (drones etc) that can be sent through warp points to scout around or sats that can be "pushed" through warp points to scout for mines first.

Id like to see mines still included but some targetted changes made to the mine system.

[se5a]

how about diferent mines for fighters and ships?
fighters should be able (with corect guns) to sweep antiship mines with a fair degree of sucsess, however they should have some trouble with the anti fighter mines.

I still thinking Captain Kwok's first idea is the best so far...
what if you had the mines moveing in a random pattern instead of the ships, with the ships moveing straight through?

[primitive]

Don't forget the game has to be playable, you micromanagement maniacs

My advise to MM: Keep the stock game simple (SEIV model is just fine), but keep as many options as possible open to the modders.

[Suicide Junkie]

Yes, mines should definitely do the damage type listed, and not have automatic shield-skipping.

[Aiken]

Originally posted by Arkcon:
My idea here is to return the mine field to a “do not touch” status, instead of “stealth death”.

Later research can give mine cloaking devices, and sensors that allow friendly ships past (gotta add an intel project to allow one of your ships to steal the codes and allow it's safe passage -- wouldn't that be a surprise, Bwa-ha-ha).

Actually in the real world mines are intended to be a "stealth death". Nobody will mine the ground and then establish a sign "Caution! Mines here!", unless you want to flood enemy with incorrect information.

Originally posted by Q:
What I would like to see are different "sweeping resistence" for mines: I SE IV every mine counts as 1 for sweeping. For SE V you could build advanced mines that count as 2 or more for sweeping. This makes sweeping more difficult. And if you have higher unit in space limits in SE V you can drop this 100 mines per sector limit, which is not good IMO.

Imo, the easiest way to fix minesweeping for se5 is to use ability Can sweep N kt of mines per use., instead of current Can sweep N mine per use.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by aiken:
Actually in the real world mines are intended to be a "stealth death". Nobody will mine the ground and then establish a sign "Caution! Mines here!", unless you want to flood enemy with incorrect information.

Hmmm...I didn't want to say this, it could turn this SE5 discussion into an OT flamewar, but consider the DMZ between North and South Korea:

It is mined.

Everyone on the planet Earth knows this.

The opponents do not know exactly where each mine is, but know not to go there.

If North and South Korea want to have a war (does that statement make sense outside of SE4? oh well), they must go around the mine fields.

Allies, and neutral parties can't enter the minefield and feel safe. Wildlife there is booming from the lack of human incursion.

Heck, even if the minefield is mapped out, and you have the map in hand, it's still a hazardous place, the map could be wrong, landmarks could shift, etc.

The US takes a lot of flack because the existance of this (arguably) useful minefield, undermines worldwide efforts to ban all minefields.

I'm suggesting that the addition of some of these challanges to SE5 minefields would make the game more interesting.