Question, Armor and mines

[Q]

I absolutely agree that it is not the ideal solution, but it was the best thing I could find without a change made by MM.
The best as I said would be a moddable percent of minesweeping failure (depending on the mine size/tech level), maybe combined with a moddable percent of hit failure of the mine itself. That would create a degree of uncertainty we both seem to like with mines.
On the other hand, if you can build many ships that cost about 50000 minerals each (that will be the cost of a minesweeper in my mod that can sweep 100 mines) don't you think that you have won the game already?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Q:
On the other hand, if you can build many ships that cost about 50000 minerals each (that will be the cost of a minesweeper in my mod that can sweep 100 mines) don't you think that you have won the game already?

Not if the other guy can too.

[LGM]

If you goal is to make mines a delaying factor, change them to be a special Satellite hull instead with a special weapon (for Satellites only) that is a very long range Engine Killer with Cloaking factor. Zip there engines and you will slow the fleet down. Of course, normal weapons would be able to shoot down the Satelitte/Mines, but Minefield combat would be a nice addition. I suppose the problem would be they could avoid them and refuse to close range (except at warp points they would have to run away).

I have often wondered how you can mine a three diminsional region anyway. In space, your frontage is a plane, not a line. On oceans or land, you can go around (or fly over mines, then you are in a three universe where mines reside in a two diminsional universe). However, if you are on foot, going around will take considerable time. When laying a minefield, you have to consider a few things, how much frontage you want to cover, how dense you want the mines, and how deep the minefield extends. If you maximize frontage, you loose density or depth, thus you reduce the size of the hazard zone or decrease the odds of a hit. It would be really nice if mines had a chance to hit based on density. Something like % of a hit = Mines x 99 / (Mines + 98) for the first ship (1% for one mine, 50% for 100 mines). Divide by two for the second ship (in the same fleet), divide by three for the third, etc. This would allow fleets to have ship ordinal 1 be the lead ship. If we really want to get it right, we have to factor formation into mine field triggering. Column formation is much safer for moving through potential minefields than battleline. However, column is not very good when you encounter enemy ships. My intuition tells me that my formula should probably square the Mine factor in the denominator, which would require a much bigger constant on the top to get the percentages back up to 1% and 50% for the extremes. Linear equations are so much easier to solve though. 1% is probably way to high a probabliltiy for 1 mine though. Think of a 20x20 square plane and you move your fleet single file through one of those squares. You have a 1/400 chance to hit a mine if its range is its own square. If its range is 1, 9 out of 400. If you have 100 mines with range 1, each covers 9 squares, so you need about 33 to cover the whole grid. That means, moving single file, your fleet should detonate at most 3 mines out of 100. The other 97% are still undetected. Minesweaping is methodical and should take lots of time. Lets say that space mines drift around a bit, to fill in the wholes, so you cannot remember the path through. If they drift fast, you ought to be able to detect the buggers.

[geoschmo]

Yeah, but I don't want to think about it that much.

[Baron Munchausen]

Note: You can mod direct-fire weapons for mines. I've done it and seen them work when deployed in combat much like satellites, but I never tried to lay those types of mines and see what happens when you cross into their location in strategic movement. Will the mines fire their weapons? Or will they fire and then ram like 'regular' mines even if they don't have warheads? Or will they just ram without using their direct-fire weapons? Would be really cool if they would fire their weapons but not ram. Effectively a bunch of 'ambush' satellites. Normal sats will just let you pass by when they are cloaked.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by LGM:
If your goal is to make mines a delaying factor, change them to be a special Satellite hull instead with a special weapon (for Satellites only) that is a very long range Engine Killer with Cloaking factor. Zip there engines and you will slow the fleet down. Of course, normal weapons would be able to shoot down the Satelitte/Mines, but Minefield combat would be a nice addition. I suppose the problem would be they could avoid them and refuse to close range (except at warp points they would have to run away).

I have often wondered how you can mine a three diminsional region anyway. In space, your frontage is a plane, not a line. On oceans or land, you can go around (or fly over mines, then you are in a three universe where mines reside in a two diminsional universe). However, if you are on foot, going around will take considerable time. When laying a minefield, you have to consider a few things, how much frontage you want to cover, how dense you want the mines, and how deep the minefield extends. If you maximize frontage, you loose density or depth, thus you reduce the size of the hazard zone or decrease the odds of a hit. It would be really nice if mines had a chance to hit based on density. Something like % of a hit = Mines x 99 / (Mines + 98) for the first ship (1% for one mine, 50% for 100 mines). Divide by two for the second ship (in the same fleet), divide by three for the third, etc. This would allow fleets to have ship ordinal 1 be the lead ship. If we really want to get it right, we have to factor formation into mine field triggering. Column formation is much safer for moving through potential minefields than battleline. However, column is not very good when you encounter enemy ships. My intuition tells me that my formula should probably square the Mine factor in the denominator, which would require a much bigger constant on the top to get the percentages back up to 1% and 50% for the extremes. Linear equations are so much easier to solve though. 1% is probably way to high a probabliltiy for 1 mine though. Think of a 20x20 square plane and you move your fleet single file through one of those squares. You have a 1/400 chance to hit a mine if its range is its own square. If its range is 1, 9 out of 400. If you have 100 mines with range 1, each covers 9 squares, so you need about 33 to cover the whole grid. That means, moving single file, your fleet should detonate at most 3 mines out of 100. The other 97% are still undetected. Minesweaping is methodical and should take lots of time. Lets say that space mines drift around a bit, to fill in the wholes, so you cannot remember the path through. If they drift fast, you ought to be able to detect the buggers.

In the new patch mines will NOT attack if they have a 'special' damage type and the ships do not have any components that would be damaged by them. So, you can make effective 'anti-engine' minefields if you want to.

The coverage problem is why all mines should not be able to attack all ships that enter a sector. We've been proposing various 'probability' schemes for years now. I suggest that you send these ideas to MM directly. The more people he knows are unhappy with the way mines currently work the more likely he is to finally change something.

[ August 15, 2002, 23:20: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Q]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Note: You can mod direct-fire weapons for mines. I've done it and seen them work when deployed in combat much like satellites, but I never tried to lay those types of mines and see what happens when you cross into their location in strategic movement. Will the mines fire their weapons? Or will they fire and then ram like 'regular' mines even if they don't have warheads? Or will they just ram without using their direct-fire weapons? Would be really cool if they would fire their weapons but not ram. Effectively a bunch of 'ambush' satellites. Normal sats will just let you pass by when they are cloaked.

WARNING: ONLY SPECULATIONS, NO TESTED FACTS AHEAD

I think mines do not "ram" ships, because for ramming you have to move which is not possible for mines, but they explode and do the damage. And they always are destroyed by the explosion. The entire minefield damage is managed differently as a combat by SE IV. So I doubt very much that direct fire weapons would work as direct fire weapons in mines.
Another specialty of mines is that they skip shields. So if you put warheads with "engines only" damage, the damage should be done skipping the shields (in contrast to the combat effect now with the new patch) but also skipping armor because the damage is specific to engines only. That might be quite dangerous mines!