Tale of A Ship Idea That Failed

#1 June 4th, 2001, 10:25 PM

You can go bankrupt in radioactives early in the game with double warhead small mines. I am building single warhead small - see TDM-Modpack politics in really big game. Later when I have a higher yard rate and excess rads I will build double warhead small. I think larger mines make no sense until minesweepers do different rates based on size. If you expect the entire field to be swept, park a fleet of fighters on the minefield. If you can afford it, put bases on the field - lower maintenance than ships. If you are throwing away surplus, put a fleet of dreadnoughts on every minefield. Then when the field is swept, skip replacing it.

P.S. When you are near the limit on units in space it makes more sense to use large satellites to defend warp points. They get that first shot before ships can move out of range. Be sure to put the best shield on them or they will die like flies.

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 04 June 2001).]

Suicide Junkie · #2 June 4th, 2001, 11:37 PM

quote:
P.S. When you are near the limit on units in space it makes more sense to use large satellites to defend warp points. They get that first shot before ships can move out of range. Be sure to put the best shield on them or they will die like flies.

Large Nullspace or PPBs work very well in this situation.

Cripple the enemy before they can react with the nullspace, and then cut the remains to pieces with PPBs.

Marty Ward · #3 June 5th, 2001, 01:48 AM

Early in the game you are much better off building the most powerful mine you can. The chances are higher that the mine will hit as most races will not have a large minesweeper ship(s) and you will take out more ships with less mines.
No matter what limit you set, once you can build enough minesweepers capable of removing all mines from any location there isn't much point in using mines at all.

Suicide Junkie · #4 June 5th, 2001, 02:58 AM

quote:
No matter what limit you set, once you can build enough minesweepers capable of removing all mines from any location there isn't much point in using mines at all.

Thats why I set the limit to 100,000

Marty Ward · #5 June 5th, 2001, 03:18 AM

Just means you have to build more minesweepers

..ok a LOT more

#6 June 5th, 2001, 05:08 AM

I thought somebody said in another thread that there is a hardcoded limit of the limit itself to a max of 5000 per player (total 100k + 100k) to keep the savegame file size down ? If 100k x 20 is ok, then go for mines. The problem is that if 5000 is the max then at 250 systems you only have an average of 20 per system, typically 7-10 per warp point. That does not count what you use up in planetary orbit....

Will · #7 June 5th, 2001, 05:25 AM

Hey, SJ, you're a General now!

As for mines... You don't need an obscene number of them everywhere, just at strategic locations. IE, for the problem of the 250 system empire, that means there are a max of 5 systems for enemies to be in (hardcode limit of 255 systems because of char array). That means that you will only really have to have mines a few systems in from those five, and over important planets. Not to mention that if you have all your enemies down to five systems, you could easily send in a "small" fleet for your empire to swat them out of existance

For the mine size... if you have mines early and enemy ships are around LC size, then small mines are ok. If you can't fill up a sector with large mines, but can with small, use small. If your enemies have enough minesweepers to clear a full sector, screw the mines, build fighters for warp defense (depending on weapon strength, Groups of 10-25 put into a fleet work nicely). Satellites can work too, but they'd be in one big group, and can only fire at one ship at a time, and can't move (which sucks if you end up at the opposite end of the warp and can't get some point-blank shots in).