Mine Follies

rdouglass · #1 January 10th, 2001, 07:45 PM

To Seawolf:

Another reason you may not be able to directly give the command "Sweep Mines" for your sweeper is if there is another "marked" minefield in the path that your ship travels to the minefield you want to sweep. Any ship (It seems) will not go thru a marked minefield. The only way that I know of to "unmark" the minefield is to send a ship there.

For instance, if a marked minefield is on a warp point, you may have to tell it (the ship) to go to the other side of the warp point, then "warp", THEN proceed onto the sector you want to sweep.

This was also in SE3, and can be a pain if you don't have "ship trails" turned on. It happened to me once: Had a good fleet just finished capturing a nice AI system. I sent a scout ship to the other side of a warp point and found a minefield and another nice AI system. The minefield damaged my scout and it couldn't move. I then gave the command to my fleet to attack one of the better planets in the new system. Unfortunately there was another path to that system thru 3 other systems! It (the fleet) took the long way around 'cause the minefield where the scout ship was was still marked. I did not realize the fleet took that route untill 3-4 turns later. Meanwhile, the AI went and toasted my scout, went thru that WP, and I lost quite a bit of "slave population" 'cause the AI just glassed the planets I had taken only a few turns ago.

HAL · #2 January 10th, 2001, 08:22 PM

Mostly messed around with my machine race Last night, but did put in a few turns on my Halogen game. It is looking very grim.

The AI swept part of my minefield and then punched through a 10 BB, 15 CR, and 5 CL fleet. My pitiful 5 CR and 1 CL minesweeper fled before them. I kept hearing that line from Return of the Jedi, "We can't repel firepower of that magnitude!" I am now down to six systems. I remain hopeful though. The system I just lost was a speed bump system. I have been building up behind it, and may yet be able to turn the tables.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

dmm · #3 January 10th, 2001, 09:28 PM

Hey HAL, do you realize that ANY planet can make mines and deploy them as planetary defense -- you don't need minelayers? That should slow the AI down. Make them pay dearly for every planet.

HAL · #4 January 10th, 2001, 09:30 PM

Yes, I picked that up from some of the other Messages on the board. However, my oponent is now six times large than me and a flood of ships keep coming at me.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

dmm · #5 January 10th, 2001, 10:36 PM

HAL, Put them on emergency production. You can almost always get 10 mines/turn that way. And scatter some satellites or fighters among the mines to take out minesweepers. How many ships does the AI have anyway?!?!?!? If that doesn't work, then you're doomed.

HAL · #6 January 11th, 2001, 08:31 PM

I don't know how many ships the computer has at the moment(I'll check tonight), but the production difference was 6 times greater. I don't feel doomed yet. I'll be playing a couple of more turns tonight, so expect an update.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

HAL · #7 January 13th, 2001, 05:06 PM

Ok, I got tied up working on a Totaler Krieg turn the other night, but I did manage to get in a few turns this morning.

I know that the AI isn't supposed to group minesweepers, but my minefields are consistently being swept by two or three minesweeping dreadnoughts. This latest turn he blew by 128 mines. I must be using mines differently than others. I still hate them as a general rule.

I have managed to reduce the differences between me and my enemy. He now has 4X the resource production, 2X the research and 3X the intelligence. He just wiped out a large part of my defense fleet leaving me with 25 ships to his 125+ ships.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.